vaughans posts of memories of thorpe and the broads.

[marshman]

Bells used to have a boat shaped shallow dyke into which boats were dragged straight away - launchings I guess were always done at high water and as they sat on the bottom almost immediately, water was not too much of a problem although they did have have a few smaller pumps around to cope with differing conditions

The mud was pretty soft and boats being lighter in those days enabled you to drag them in pretty sharpish and use the smaller pumps than those Vaughan talks about. Launching was always quick - they used to have an old adapted bomb trolley to move stuff around and an old farm tractor to push and shove as required. Used greased wooden ways and someone had to slap the the stuff on......!!!!

[Vaughan]

Launching the Ace of Hearts, in about 1953. I think the Blakes emblems on the bows came in around 1955.

She is sitting on one of the "greasy ways" that Marshman talks about and the rope tackle pinned through the "snore hole" in the stem is to stop her charging off down the slip before they are ready!  This is the critical moment before she tips back onto the slipway.  Just in front of Ted Dean, on the right, you can see the winch wire running down the floor and out to a "dead man" pulley in the water beyond the slip.  This runs back to the aft snore hole, at the end of the keel skeg.  The wire ran up the shed to the winch and could be guided in any direction by snatch blocks, so that boats could be positioned exactly where we wanted them.  Changing direction was done by placing a strong block under the middle of the way, hauling the boat over it, waiting until she balances and then one man could simply push on the stem and push her round.  So all the "angles" had to be thought out beforehand.  One of those un-written arts that is now passing into history.  The Ace was kept up at the top of the shed by the railway line and to get her down the shed and into the water would take four men most of a day.

 

And here she comes!

Another photo by Fred Low for a similar EDP article about the coming of spring on the Broads.  The photo is heavily posed for the camera, as we never launched boats on a low tide!

To the left is the King of Hearts, built in 1952.

 

I am posting this, from about 1948, as behind the houseboat it shows the bungalow that generations of the Hart family lived in, for around a hundred years.

The houseboat Misty Morn is where my parents (and I) lived for about 18 months while the gunboat was being converted into a houseboat.  The netting around the cabin top was to stop me, at less than a year old, from taking an early bath!  Misty Morn was later moored further up the quay, opposite the church, with her own private garden, where she gave happy holidays to a lot of people for many years.

The launch moored alongside was built by Wrights of Ipswich and was powered by the starter motor off a Morris Navigator, coupled to 4 Nife cell batteries.  These were enough to get back and forth over the river for about a month, before they were changed and re-charged in the engineers' shop.

Interestingly, Roger Wood still crosses the river with an electric launch and lives on the same site that the Hart Family occupied for a hundred years before him.  So Thorpe Council, with all their access issues, can stick that in their "Funk and Wagnell"!

 

[floydraser]

Thank you Fred Low for the excellent record photos! That top one in the shed must have taken some skill to get the light right on both sides of the boat.

[Vaughan]

38 minutes ago, floydraser said:

Thank you Fred Low for the excellent record photos! That top one in the shed must have taken some skill to get the light right on both sides of the boat.

Fred was the photographer for A.E.Coe and sons, who had a premises on Castle Meadow, which I think is now part of Boots shop, which goes through to London St. on two floors. That is if Boots, like so many other well known outlets, have not deserted Norwich and left it to the cyclists and the coffee shops.

He was very well known in Norfolk in the 50s, not only for his work in the EDP but as the photographer for all the "society" weddings in the county.

Here is another of his photos :

 

 

 

I believe this one was his as well.

Taken from the scaffolding on the old tall spire of Thorpe church, when it was being demolished in (I think) 1954.

[CambridgeCabby]

I adore the lines of the Hearts cruisers , especially those with the step down sides , stunning boats 

[BuffaloBill]

Looking at those photo's, I can only think how much better the Island was back then.

 

[marshman]

Vaughan - thanks for the launching pictures!  Reawakened some hidden memories!!!! That bit of the brain not used for 50 years or so!!!!

[Vaughan]

29 minutes ago, marshman said:

Reawakened some hidden memories!!!! That bit of the brain not used for 50 years or so!!!!

It is a bit of a "dark art", isn't it?