THE ASHES
It’s almost 50 years since my wife Roz and I moved aboard our first serious cruising boat. While paying off our overdraft, we lived in a mud berth on a rickety pier attached to what was then Moody’s yard at the top of the Hamble River. It was universally known as ‘Debtors’ Jetty’. Walking off the pier, the first notable feature was a row of diminutive crook-backed buildings a story-and-a-half high called Victory Cottages. Beyond them, still only thirty yards from the foreshore, stood the Ship Inn. The buildings are still there today. The inmates, inevitably, have changed.
The pub being handy for the boat, we used to take refreshment in the snug bar with a pal of ours called Norman. Norman had been around longer than us, a vet and one of life’s enthusiasts. and, like me, was grappling with the fundamentals of astro navigation in evening classes at the Warsash Nautical College. Here, we were initiated into the imponderable world of haversines anspherical trigonometry, none of which I subsequently found were needed at all. A far more accessible method had been developed by the RAF, but that was too easy for what was then the Yachtmaster’s Certificate. After a couple of hours of this torment, we were ready for a drink, so we’d slide into the Ship where Mavis, a bartender whose mature charms no sailor could reasonably be expected to ignore, served a beautifully kept pint. With luck, one or two of the Victory Cottage incumbents would be with us at the bar, and here we discovered a living history now long gone. One chap of immense antiquity used to turn out in full professional yachting ‘Number Ones’. White-topped cap, ducks and, lest anyone should imagine he was masquerading as an owner or a gent, brass buttons to his blazer. I don’t recall his name, but I’ll never forget his yarns of the pre-World War I yachting scene in which, as a young fisherman/paid hand, he had taken a full-blooded part. Tales of sprees when a generous owner shared his prize money with the hands after a successful regatta were always a scream, but the best for me was when he and his shipmates crossed tack for tack with the Kaiser sailing the schooner , then sat on his wind all the way to the finish.
