Ian Lallow on Boatbuilding
Tracy: So, were there any characters that you particularly remember?
Characters? Well, where do you stop (laughs). You know the likes of Uffa Fox and George Barton who was the Harbour Master, and Harry Spencer was the Rigger.
Cowes was full of characters.
Sadly, they’re not there today but they were up until … I mean I finished in 1996 and there was still one or two then.
Not very many, but up until then I mean it was full of characters.
I mean wherever you went, whether you go to Ackley’s to buy something or there was always somebody there you could have a laugh with and people from J S Whites, people that worked for J S Whites and you’d have to go down there for whatever reason. People that worked at Ratsey’s, lots of characters.
One chap springs to mind who’s still alive and kicking there today is a fellow called John Blow, who used to work at Ratsey’s and eventually when Ratsey’s fell upon hard times, a three day week, he came to me and said, “How about a job here?” and I said, “Yeah, I’ll give you a job” and he was with me for the rest of my life, and he still does jobs for me today.
Those sorts of characters were, you know, yeah, plenty of them.