As I remember it . . .

by Nev Smith

 

Nev hasn't been able to sail with us for some time but to those who began sailing in the Fifties, Nev always seemed to be there, and it would be interesting to know just how many Wyverns actually sailed with him. Nev was Club secretary and boat owner during those years, when the fleet could muster a dozen yachts and the Club cruised for nine weeks per year. It all took some organising. Nev will be best remembered, however, for the darts matches and the games of football . . . twenty a side and more . . . on Beccles Green. He was a master at getting everyone involved, from the oldest skipper to the youngest cabin boy.

 

I first sailed with the Green Wyvern in the second Easter week of 1948. Bert was my skipper on Amorita, and we sailed from Norwich Yacht Station. Only the two Leicester schools were involved, of course, linked by the brothers Howard, and the club was selective . . . Bert and Cecil personally invited boys to sail. I was taught by Bert, and I had already met Cecil on the cricket field when he umpired games between the two schools. For a brief period I was also taught by Lieut. Winterton, who filled in during the absence of our geography teacher, and I remember how impressed we were by his beautiful girl friend.
   

A natural order of seniority already existed . . . teachers, prefects, sixth, filth, fourth and third formers . . . so the creation of ranks and the establishment of necessary crew disciplines presented few problems. Boys who started sailing as third or fourth formers were probationers for their first two weeks’ sailing with the rank of cabin boy (no attempt at euphemism here). After that they were either elected to membership at skippers’ meetings or quietly dropped. As the club expanded, so the established practice, modified to fit new circumstances, was accepted without question. Flexibility, casualness and easy relationships ensured that rules were no source of tension or grievance.
   

Counting cabin boys, there were about 130 Green Wyvern sailors by 1950. Many abandoned the river after they left school, never to reappear, but it is interesting to note that when 13 boats set out for the anniversary cruise of 1972, sixteen of those aboard appear in the 1950 list. Inevitably there were a number of very young skippers. George Matthews, Arthur Smith, John Lawson and Jim Parker were all sixteen or seventeen years old when they first took charge of a Moon or a Moth. Of course there were fewer pleasure boats around then, there was more room to moor, and damage to a hired craft was the concern of the boatyard, but the big commercial boats still operated along the Yare, wherries and barges lurked in narrow stretches, and the tides still ran. These youngsters had to be good all-round sailors.
   

Before coaches were hired to take crews to the Broads, we travelled from Leicester to Norwich by train, starting about 6.30 a.m.and arriving about mid-day. We changed at Market Harborough, Kettering and Peterborough. We learnt to avoid the lavatories at Market Harborough because they were often crowded with sheep (who were also changing trains). At Peterborough we left one station, walked into town for a cup of tea, always in the same cafe, then continued our journey from Peterborough East.
If the yachts were not moored at Norwich we completed our journey by coach or by local train. In those days, then, even the journey was an experience.
   

Social activities on the river were limited by opening times (10 a.m.till 2.00 p.m.and 6.00 p.m.till 10 p.m.) and by the fact that pub food was a thing of the future. Crisps, pickled eggs and ship’s biscuits provided a restricted choice. Consequently we always ate cooked dinners on board, and gatherings took place on the big boats . . . Danube, Belvoir, Belvedere and the Hornets .. . As for the songs, Gordon was the main source, introducing us to the tunes of the thirties . . . 'Stormy Weather', 'Miss Otis', 'Frankie and Johnnie', 'Cocaine Bill and Morphine Sue', and the 'Whippenpoof Song', which he rewrote. George Matthews, with 'The Three-Cornered Hat', was a great favourite among the cabin boys. There was never any booze at these gatherings.
   

When we hit towns . . . Norwich, Oulton. Beccles, and Yarmouth . . . there were traditional outings and activities. In Yarmouth, for instance, if we arrived on an early tide, it became customary to buy bloaters for breakfast. Lunch in Yarmouth usually consisted of a trawl round the market stalls . . . cockles, whelks, jellied eels and tripe were on the menu. Occasionally we wandered down the side-street to window - gaze at the horse butchers in gruesome fascination. When leaving Yarmouth to go North, Gordon would often insist that we stop at the samphire beds. Searching for, and picking, the samphire gave almost as much enjoyment as cooking and eating it.
   

As some Green Wvvern members became school-teachers and moved out of Leicester, so the club expanded. First Gordon brought boys from Fakenham, and then Tony Tomkins became the key figure in creating a club that was truly national. He did not sign up pupils from Norwich School ,where he began his teaching career, but subsequently he brought pupils from Newcastle, Croydon and Liverpool. Whilst he was at these schools he introduced members of staff to the club, such as John Elders (who taught at Alderman Newtons before moving to Newcastle) and Mike Lee. These continued to recruit new members after Tony moved on. We can even give Tony some credit for getting Trevor Stent to teach at Liverpool, though Trevor first sailed with the club through Craig Barlow, when Craig was teaching at Portsmouth.
   

Others who joined the club in Leicester, and brought pupils to sail, were Jim Parker when he taught at Bedford School, and Jack Page when he taught at Watford Grammar School. One of Jim’s pupils, Nick Lloyd, returned to the river a few times, and two of Jack’s pupils are still part of the Norwich scene at the time of writing.
   

As the membership of the club expanded, so the fleet grew larger and we sailed for more weeks of the year. At one stage we were cruising for three weeks at Easter and six weeks in the summer. Inevitably, once Cecil was settled as a resident in Norwich, he decided that yacht ownership was desirable. He formed a consortiurn: Howard, Bromley, Tomkins and Smith to buy Vanessa. Vanessa had been sailed infrequently (her previous owner was a Secretary of State for Scotland) and had been well looked after by a boatyard, so movement into ownership was relatively painless. Soon, however, Cecil found Sparklet, belonging to an elderly clergyman, gently deteriorating in a dyke. Sparklet cost us £150 and a further £250 to refurbish, but every so often, as her present owners no doubt discover, her age shows through, so we cut our teeth on boat maintenance with her. Favourite had been a hire craft, and we never quite managed to rid her of wet rot (I can still picture the black tracery in her lockers). Had she survived the accident at Buckenham Ferry she would soon have died of natural causes. Meanwhile, Cecil had bought Nyanza and Tony had bought Stella Genesta. Then Cecil informed me that he had bought White Violet on my behalf, so by the end of the 50’s we had six boats as a permanent nucleus for the fleet.
   

Winter and Summer moorings, and boat maintenance, had to be sorted out, and in consequence another aspect of Green Wyvern activity developed. At different times we were based at Fisher’s Dyke, Brundall; Acle Dyke; a boat-yard near Thorpe; and finally at Somerleyton. Out of season there were de-rigging and rigging sessions which lasted two or three days each, and over the Christmas holidays a fair sized group would spend a week or so working on the boats. The Yare Hotel at Brundall and the George Borrow at Oulton, put us up at different times. These occasions were good hard-working sessions, though it has to be reported that the landlord of the George Borrow proudly showed us a letter of congratulation from the brewery because his January takings had shown a spectacular rise. Over the years we became more or less proficient in carrying out minor repairs and refurbishment, but everyone present learnt a new technique when Hornet sank in the Chet. Jack Hunt, the River Inspector, towed her to Cantley and put her in the little dyke there. The topping lift was used to lay the boat over, exposing the hole, then Jack set about the repair. Engine grease, tacks and hammer were brought from the river launch, and, from Hornet’s lockers, he took a can of beans, a tin-opener, a saucepan and a tea towel. The saucepan was for putting the beans in. Jack took both ends off the bean tin, split it at the seam, and hammered it flat. He covered the folded tea-towel with grease, pressed it over the hole, and tacked the bean tin in place on top. Hornet sailed another four days with this temporary repair.
   

One of the last times I sailed was in 1977, when Lord Somerleyton celebrated the Queen’s Silver Jubilee. Green Wyvern boats raced down to St Olave’s and back, after which there was a barbecue at Somerleyton Hall. His Lordship, still in his butcher’s apron, presented a trophy to Dave Snutch, who won the race on Sparklet.

 

NJS

 

Nev Smith