Len was a founder member of the Club having been invited to join, in 1947, with the rank of Mate. Len became a successful barrister and, later, a judge, but his professional success kept him away from the river for some years. He was the first Wyvern to take to the seas with his ocean-going yacht Laura but returned to the Broads and sailed Ariel, the yacht he owned, with his family, until his untimely death. We remember Len as a humorous, quiet, gentle man who was much respected by us all.
My memory banks are submerged in inconsequential and unconnected
memories, as if snapped by that earnest but point . . . and . . . hope
photographer Bert on his box brownie; some memories are hazily recollected,
as if from the late evening.
I began to go weekend camping with Cecil and Bert in the mid 1940's, then
camping and canoeing with them on the Ouse and Cam, (Cecil with his beard
afire from a primus which lit too well), and then on the River, beginning
I think in 1947.
I have a copy of what may be the first written constitution of 'Green
Wyvern Club', which appears from internal evidence to have been produced
in 1949. Cecil was Commodore, Jack Plumb Vice-Commodore and Bert Chairman
of Committee. Nine skippers were invited to join including Wallas Eaton,
George Matthews and E.G. Winterton (who? you may ask). The skipper's subscription
was to be one guinea per annum 'payable on the autumn equinox'. Thirteen
chaps were invited to join as First Mates (including Eddie Nixon and David
Valentine) and twenty eight as Mates (including Keith Roper, Chris Ragg,
myself and my brother Geoff). The constitution set out what have remained
key features of the Club, what each rank should be able to do in the way
of knots, boat and sail handling etc. It also added as sailing rules the
permitting of overtaking to windward when running, and the first arrival
to be first through swing bridges if closed on arrival.
In 1961 an exploration up the Ant on Favourite, a Club yacht, saw us make
contact with a 12,000 volt electric power line (unmarked) above Tonnage
Bridge. We were being quanted at the time, and I was in the bow holding
the forestay and looking down for underwater obstructions. The forestay
burned through just in time, a large area of Norfolk lost its power, and
the damages went towards Anne's and my honeymoon a year later!
Favourite, as ripe as a peach and heavy on the helm, later excelled herself
by running hard at a quay at about Fisher's Dyke and virtually disintegrating.
I sold her to Robin Fisher for a stamp (2d I think), in order to ensure
that title past, since it is not easy to give away a yacht in kit form
from a distance, and I was petrified at our continuing to own rotten wood
lest it infected something (or even someone) and we were held responsible.
Gordon mentions the Hope. I was not fond of her, although I once (never
again) tacked The Cut in her. I really remember her as causing the two
finest sailors in the Club, Cecil and George Matthews, to disagree in
the well. I was shaving below, someone shouted to me to hang-on, and roaring
up the bank we went.
I feel that over the passing of the years some of our skills may be falling
into disuse. A skill which was more used when more boats were engine-less
than now was taking backwards on the ebb, with a delicately adjusted mud-weight
over the bow. Again, that most useful tool the quant deposits less mud
on deck than it used to, or spends less time sticking on its own out of
the mud, or pulling cabin-boys in. Some things, of course, do not change;
after lunch the occasional jib still goes up upside - down . . . and do
not skippers still slip on the ice on the deck when returning from the
pub at night on an Easter cruise, and fall in?
Of course, all was not always sweetness and light among our members. I
remember a vigorous disagreement in the 1950's between Jack Plumb and
Gordon in a restaurant on Prince of Wales Road in Norwich, over some point
of principle about, I think, curry. Again on the quay at Yarmouth, Cecil
and Gordon on one side and I on the other had an argument (perhaps about
politics, about which we did not always see eye to eye) which caused us
all to cry truce for years afterwards. Then Bert, in an argument about
remembering which way the tide flows in The Cut, got cross because we
were all so stupid, roaring, 'It empties with the Yare and fills with
the Waveney', an explanation I still find difficult, although I have another
way which works.
The Club probably has one of the most sophisticated repertoires of songs
one could find. Gordon could always remember 'Anything Goes', and I am
looking now at a sheet for which I think he was responsible which starts
with 'I Get a Kick Out of You', followed by 'You're the Tops', and then
'Dirty Dick's Lament '(September in the Rain). He also recounted the history
of the unfortunate Miss Otis with real passion, and Cecil leading the
movement to complain of the moving of his immediate paternal ancestor's
last resting place (at full voice and with jutting beard) was indeed enough
to change any political persuasion leftwards.
Looking back, the Club has to my mind a fascinating combination of relaxed
and flexible attitudes, coupled with unexpressed but nevertheless quite
strict ground rules. It works and adapts, thanks to the efforts of so
many people at all levels, but it does not make a lot of noise about it.
Just one final point: on occasions members of the Club have a problem
. . . 'Whose lift is it then?' This question I remember being firmly articulated
by our north-country member who gave his name to a distinguished actor.
LJB