Vaughan

1970. Not much more than a year either side, to my memory.

You are absolutely right my friend! Perhaps I should tell a few true stories about Jenners, but maybe tomorrow, on a different thread?

They were only up there for about 6 years! I was saying on another thread, that Jenners was an adventurous project, but it expanded too quickly and ran out of cash flow in the bank. I have to say this brings a bit of a tear to my eye at this present time, as what you see represents the remains of yet another drastic recession in the hire boat business. It took around around 6 or 7 years for the Broads to recover from that one.

Incidentally, you can also see what the Crown Point meadows used to look like behind, before exploitation turned them into the Whitlingham gravel pits.

That is a very historic photo. I have never seen a photo of Jenners wet sheds before, although I used to work there, when the yard was running. It must have been taken shortly after the Jenners hire fleet closed down and I can see there are still several old hire boats moored in there. I think I can see a couple of old Dawncraft boats but most of them seem to be original Jenners. The sheds were pulled down as soon as the yard closed but the supporting pillars can still be seen in the basin today. What a shame this photo never surfaced, during all those court cases about the right to moor in Jenners basin. It might have caused a different outcome! The Town House quay was part of Jenners boatyard in those days, as the Millbank family owned the hotel, as well as the Jenner Group operation. You can't even moor there any more - the whole of the quay heading has fallen in and is now signed "unsafe".

Ah, his garden shed. If I sold my house here in France, I could probably afford that . . . .

I think I would like to be out at sea, on the open ocean, on a voyage which started before the virus took hold. I have spent months at sea before now, and I love it. BUT NOT ON A CRUISE SHIP!

It is 11 o'clock in France and the church bells have started pealing in the tower, over an empty church beneath. And my Missis has already been at too many of the Easter eggs!

"Wiv a ladder and some glasses, you could see to 'ackney marshes - if it wasn't for the 'ouses in between". An old music hall song, I think it was Flanagan and Allen.

And a fine panoramic view of the Whitlingham sewage works!

Waking up in the dawn, on Rockland Broad.

I have a "thought for the day". We have essential services, and those who must continue to work outside in vital jobs, but one thing we certainly do not need is all these roving TV presenters. I am already sick and tired of watching some "Gina Hard-faced Bitch" either poking someone in the eye outside a supermarket with a plastic bagged microphone on the end of a 7 foot pole, or standing in the middle of a road or park, where they have no right whatever to be, and saying "Oh look, it's empty!" Why don't the police do something useful by rounding them up and sending them back to their own homes, where they can continue to bore me to tears by SKYPE?

Yes they are bee-eaters (actually they eat wasps!) and I know exactly where you took the photo! They need a source of their food and a suitable bank of sandy soil to nest in, but are not necessarily river birds, like a kingfisher. In this case, they are in the alluvial sandy soil of the Rhone Delta, which also grows the famous Listel rosé wine. Sadly, the nesting site in your photo has now mostly been lost owing to the erosion caused by the squat effect of the much bigger 1200 ton barges which now use the canal. I see quite a few of them flying around here, so there must be a suitable sandy bank somewhere near! They also eat the Asian hornets, which is a good thing!

If you look them up on Youtube, you can hear their distinctive call.

Actually, I remember they were fairly common in the Yare valley when I was a boy. You would see their distinctive wing colours, flying across the river from field to field. They are ground dwellers, apparently. You would see them about as often as we nowadays see a Jay flying. My father always recognised them, from his time in North Africa. Please excuse the slight "thread bomb" but it's nice, to talk about the spring.

Around here we have dry, stony ground in upland vineyards. Not the right habitat for a cuckoo. By the way, this is also why we have no mosquitos!

I heard a Hoopoe for the first time this morning. I suppose that they are the Minervois version of cuckoos.

That was Cindy Buxton whose father Lord Buxton, of Kimberley Hall, was the owner of Anglia Television. She and her friend were in South Georgia when the Argentinians captured it and they went and hid up in the mountains, where they survived for several weeks until the Task Force got there and took the island back. They had no idea what was going on, but she told the story of how they looked out to sea one morning and there, to the south, was a ship with a red hull, a long way away, coming towards them. They knew very well that there was only one ship in the South Atlantic with a red hull and that was the Royal Navy's ice patrol ship, HMS Endurance. So if she was coming back, in broad daylight, they knew they must now be safe. One of the many touching stories of the Falklands War.

Folks, you may think Peter and I are just telling old sea stories. We are "punching the breeze", if you like. But we are actually trying to show how vital that relationship has always been, between the authority, and the commercial companies, be they boatyards, or riverside businesses. It is that which MUST NOT be destroyed, just because of this (hopefully) temporary crisis.

I wonder if some realise how vital this is, not just for boat owners but especially the boatyards. Wherever I have been the manager of a yard, the river inspector has always called in for his morning coffee (and use of the toilets!) while on his beat. I well remember one time on the Thames at Staines, when the inspector had called in on a Saturday for his coffee break on the yard with the staff and I "snuck off" on to the quay while he was not looking. When he set off up river towards Windsor, he got through three locks before someone pointed out to him that he was wearing a stick-on Blakes emblem on either side of the bow of his launch! I had learned that trick from my father, who once had Jack Hunt go down the Yare from Coldham Hall with a Hearts Cruisers pennant flying on the bows of his launch. He got all the way to Reedham before he noticed! Since it's Easter I might as well tell this story and I promise it is true : Our base at St Gilles in France is on the Canal du Rhone à Séte, which is a commercial canal. They don't have rangers' launches as the canal has a towpath, so they can patrol in road vehicles. One September there were violent storms, which flooded the canal and the area around it. I had to go round in a hired minibus, find my boats, recover the customers and get them back to their cars, or back to the nearest airport. After this, I was concerned that my boats were left empty in certain places, open to vandalism, and so I went to collect them. I ended up taking seven boats home, tied together in three pairs, with one in front between them. I had the two engines at the back running, with a gangplank between them so that I could work the controls. I was on my own on board and the full length of the tow was about 50 metres. My skipper's ticket covered me for 15 metres. The canal had been closed by the authorities and was still closed. A couple of hours up the canal, I met a Gendarmerie patrol launch coming the other way. in it were two Gendarmes in uniform and a lady I knew well, who was the regional manager for the canal authority, in Séte. I was wearing a pair of shorts and a floppy hat and stood up from the wheel to salute them as they passed. The gendarme at the wheel scowled and at once started to turn round but I heard the lady say "Non - ca, c'est bon. Ca, c'est Monsieur Ashby!"

Reeds meaning Reeds Almanac. And for ocean navigation, Burton's Nautical Tables. I have still got my copy!

And you for yours, my old friend.

I am a bit wistful this morning, on Good Friday, as Susie and I would normally have been making the final preparations to the boats before they went out for the first time today, and we welcomed the first customers of the season. Last weekend would have been my last weekend off until the end of the season in seven months' time. You don't get bank holidays, in the tourist business. At Hearts, my mother always made hot cross buns for the staff tea break on Good Friday and all the boats went out with a jar of daffodils on the saloon table; all grown in long beds in the woods on the island. I carried on this tradition by ordering in the buns specially, for the team on our base in St Gilles. They don't do them, in France! I also made sure there were daffodils in the reception office, to welcome the customers. I can't help thinking of all my friends on the yards right now, both in Norfolk and in France, as they must be feeling the same as I do. If it doesn't sound silly, I wish you all a happy Easter, wherever you may be.

You still haven't answered my question about the walkers . . .

You sure it's not a badger, digging up the lawn? Are you after the furry thing, or the walkers?