Lisa : It’s the 14th of December 2018 and this is an interview with David and Andy Butler in Ventnor. Andy, could we start with you please? Could you tell me your full name?
Andy : Andrew John Lesley Butler.
Lisa : And what’s your date of birth?
Andy : 1942.
Lisa : And where were you born?
Andy : I was born in an emergency hospital in Shawford Manor, which is just near Winchester. One of the very few people that took in – ‘cos my father was in the Army and was away and my mum went from the Island for me to be born there ‘cos she was on her own and it took in service personnel only and I’ve never been back (laughs). I keep meaning to. It’s not an open place but they have sort of an Open Day once a year I think. It would be nice to go back though.
Lisa : Can you tell me the names of your parents and where they were born?
Andy : Mother, her maiden name was Marian Pauleen Armstrong and she was born in the little white cottage at the back of the lake at Carisbrooke Water Works and her grandfather who was John Way was the Engineer in charge of the Water Works and he had five daughters, one of whom was my gran who was my mum’s mum and that’s where my mum was born. My father came to work at Niton Radio before the War and he stayed in my gran’s house which was called ‘Springvale’ which is just slightly up the road from the Buddle on the seaward side and she took in visitors but also long term whatever, and he married his landlady’s daughter who was my mum, obviously. So that’s them and his name was Arthur Cecil Butler and he was born – I know very little about him because he was invalided back from North Africa and died in 1945 unfortunately. We lived in Ventnor then. I think he came from Somerset, somewhere like that but I know very little about him.
Lisa : Can you tell me a bit about where you grew up, your family home?
Andy : Moved about a bit. People who have no knowledge of what the life would have been like for a war widow such as my mother was would find it hard to understand, but they had no help. They were given a war pension, but because it was unearned income, it was taxed at the highest rate, so it was in those days supertax was 50% and so of course they didn’t have enough to live on, and they all had to go out to work. They weren’t looked after, there was no benefit system, no welfare, you know it was jolly hard, so she had to find work and she had me and I had an elder brother who was 10 years older than me. I don’t know much about him, but she couldn’t find any work in Ventnor ‘cos we lived in Belgrave Road and she was offered a job in a place in Portsmouth called Derry and Toms, I think. It was like a big store, so we went to live in Southsea for a very short time and then she got offered a job here in Sharp’s, which was a big sort of clothing store in Ventnor, so we came back here and then in the meantime she got into – she was way ahead of her time really – alternative living and she sent me off to boarding school when I was six, in Surrey which was called Chinthurst which is still there but run on different lines and that was what was called a ‘Free Expression School’ nowadays where you sort of did more or less what you liked and I was there until I was 10 and then I came back to go to school at Newport Grammar School which is where a lot of my ancestors went and because of that I got a free place there and I stayed there until I left school, so that’s my schooling.
Lisa : And did you have an idea of when you were at school of what you’d like to do in terms of a career?
Andy : No. Never did , ever. I was one of those people that just drifted through life, you know, no idea. Never did.
5 minutes
Lisa : What was you first job on leaving school?
Andy : Um, because my mum knew the lady that owned it, it was a Tyre Factors in Newport in Orchard Street called Headly Simpsons and I didn’t know what I was going to do and so I went there and drove a van for them when I’d passed my test, so I got into the motor trade, sort of drifted into that and I took up crash repair work, panel beating and spraying which was better paid than anything else in the motor trade and I did that for years at various places, ending up back here in Ventnor working for [inaudible] Ash. That’s what I did really, just sort of merrily drifted along and then if you want to know how I started fishing, I had a little dingy and I took it … I was married then of course, got married in ’62. We took it down to Wheelers Bay and it had just sort of opened up for people to put their boats and the only other person down there was Dave Wheeler and we had … I got friendly with … we had four sites between us and I think we were the only ones there weren’t we and Dave was driving buses and doing a bit of fishing and he said, “You ought to do a bit of fishing” so that’s how it started. And then he and I built a boat in his shed ‘cos he lived at Wheelers Bay then and it sort of carried on from there really. And then I got bored with always working for Lesford Ash was great, he was very good to me and he paid me very well, but it was boring and the opportunity sort of came up that I would pack in and go fishing and I said to my wife, “Do you fancy going fishing full time?” She said, “Yeah, lets do it” and that’s what we did. And the two friends of mine who were full time commercial fishermen operated from a small Bay at St Lawrence called Battery Bay, and they had just decided to move from there to go to fish out of Bembridge. They were known as ‘The Ventnor Pirates’ so if you talk to Bembridge people of the right age and they remember them. So, my wife and I took over the Bay and we stayed there and fished out of there for nearly 20 years, but we didn’t do anything else. We just fished, that was all we did. That was our only income. And then on the morning of December 1989, the Bay got destroyed so we lost everything in four hours (laughs). The cliff came down, everything, we lost the ramp, everything. I remember standing at the top and looking at this devastation. We saved the boat ‘cos I’d nipped along to Steephill and got Dave Wheelan and Jim Blake and Jim Wheeler, saved the boat, managed to get it up onto the public footpath and I said to my wife, “That’s it, I think that’s finished us. We’re never going to come back from this”, and she burst into tears. I remember it as clear as a bell ‘cos she loved it. It was tough but it did us a favour ‘cos we were struggling. I applied for a job ‘cos I’ve always been interested in natural history and I applied for a job with the Countryside Section of the Council which I got. Can’t remember how old I was then, 48,49? And I quickly found out that I wasn’t really Council material. It was OK but I wasn’t really suited to working for the Council mentality, and I was then tipped of by somebody who worked for the National Trust. There was a job coming up in the South Wight and I was told that they would like me to apply for it so I did, that’s what I did. So, I started with them and I stayed there until 2003 when due to the … my spine sort of crumbling, I had to leave and that was that then. So, more or less as I say I drift along. Events happen and you just sort of go with the flow, but the fishing was the best thing we ever did, it was great.
10 minutes 4 seconds
Lisa : Can you tell me a bit about the types of fish that were prevalent then?
Andy : When I say fishing we were potting. We were after crab and lobster and our catch … it was always difficult on the Island ‘cos there was nobody bought stuff on the Island. You could always sell it sort of locally in a small way but you couldn’t do it commercially so we used to drive it up to London or we would … and then I eventually dealt with a dealer, well two or three actually, Portsmouth or Poole, so you had to shift it off the mainland. And then there was a time when a dealer opened a place up at Fishbourne which made it very easy to sell but of course then everybody else could do the same so then people, fishermen all over the place ‘cos it was easy to sell. In the winter we used to go … my wife didn’t go but I used to go oyster fishing with a friend of mine which was OK, but it was not a particularly pleasant thing to do but it was very well paid. You know, we used to earn a lot of money and before that, before I went oystering in the winter, my wife and I used to go winkle picking which sounds weird but that again was very well paid, and we used to do quite well at that and we went with the two friends that fished from St Lawrence. That very broadly and very briefly is our fishing career.
Lisa : Where were the winkles?
Andy : Mostly Bembridge, Fishbourne, Thorness, Saltmead, mostly in the sort of East and Nor East and North of the Island. Oh, and Yarmouth Harbour was good later in the winter. You only worked spring tides so you would only work one week in two which was the Springs and you could only work for a few hours as the tide dropped back so then you would pick winkles and then you had to bag them up and hide them and wait ‘till you’d got enough and then they would all go up to a chap we dealt with in London. Can’t remember his name now. And then they went to Billingsgate where our other stuff used to go but we didn’t actually have to go to Billingsgate. We could go to this chap who had a depot in Pudding Lane. We had our own key, so we’d drive up at night, dump it off and then come home which if you had to go to Billingsgate you weren’t allowed to touch anything. It all had to be unloaded by the Porters otherwise they’d all go on strike and it was very tightly controlled, and you’d be there for hours which was no good if you wanted to get back to the Island. You’d come back to the Island and go float again you know, and then eventually get some sleep. So, it was much easier when we stopped doing that, going to Lymington. You know, it made life a lot easier.
Lisa : And you mentioned about the oysters in the winter. Where about were the oysters?
Andy : Well that’s the Solent Oyster Fishery. That’s a whole saga in its own to be honest and there is actually plans at the moment trying to revive it. It was like the Klondike, it was a massive business. Two old boys … there used to be a Fishery in Victorian times and apparently a couple of old boys decided they thought “I wonder if there’s any there now?” This was back in the ‘60’s and they got a little boat, a little hand dredge I suppose, and they discovered it was full of oysters. They’d been wiped out by over fishing and a thing called a tingle whelk which drills into the oyster shell and kills it, and anyway it sort of escalated didn’t it? God, it was incredible. The money was brilliant. I mean we used to earn at the start of the season, I mean this was 1976 I think I started, you know like £1000 per week, that was my share. It was good money and then it tailed off, but it was still very good. And then of course where the money was so big, there was always hoards and hoards of people gearing up to go oystering. Then afterwards they didn’t have much to do so they all went potting so it sort of affected our potting business because there were lots of people trying to do it, and round where we were which is one of the best places you had a bit of a problem with mainland boats and what have you coming round and shooting gear trying to get onto the ground you were working so you had to take steps to see them off really. I suppose it’s the best idea.
David : It was a territorial trade.
Andy : Yeah, that’s the best way of … very territorial.
David : Very territorial, even with the locals it was territorial.
Andy : And you kept your bit to yourself and you kept other people off so you fell out with people you know, there’s no two way’s about it and there were a few battles and what have you. People have this idea of fishing is a sort of romantic, rosy, you know, back to nature type thing. It’s not like that at all, it’s cutthroat. It’s really tough and you know, survival of the fittest. We survived, but the sea wiped us out. You know, as I say it took four hours and our Bay was gone and that was it really, it finished us. Yeah, it was a tough business.
Lisa : Tell me a bit more about the crab and lobster fishing. You mentioned about an area. Did you only fish a particular area?
Andy : Yes, like David said, it’s territorial so we took over the area that our friends Bill and Eric worked ‘cos they left, and we took over their area so we worked from Battery Bay down as far as Blackgang Chine and we originally started with a 17 feet coble, a little open boat. Then we had an 18 feet dory built by Horn Brothers at Fishbourne and then after that we had a Coastworker which was back to a 17 feet boat. I think I was the first person to ever put a power hauler into a small open boat. The Coastworker was the boat that we saved but that was the last boat. We fished … because crab is such … you don’t get much money for crab. I mean I keep in touch with Geoffrey down the front end, Justin, one or two others that do a bit of fishing. The prices for crab aren’t very much different than they were when we were fishing in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s and lobsters, that’s crept up a bit but it’s still not brilliant, but they are high value, easy to handle. Crab, you know you’d have half a tonne of crab to move off your beach and there’s no road, you’d have to get everything along to … we used to come down to Orchard Bay so it was tough work, you know, and then when the harbour was built or the Haven or whatever it’s called down here, one or two moved into that but that was long after we’d packed in. So, you had to … the mistake people made, a lot started and didn’t succeed was because they didn’t look at it as a business. You know, you have to look at it in a business way so what’s … where are you going to get your maximum price for, what can you catch, where can you sell it and what’s the easiest way managing it all and you know, it’s just another business. But a basic business where you … it’s tough, you know, survival of the fittest. David worked with me for three years?
David : Umm.
Andy : When you left school didn’t you, much to his mother’s disgust when he decided not to go fishing anymore she cheered up a bit and came back on board.
Lisa : Where did your lobster and crab pots come from?
Andy : Umm, we made a lot and I used to make a lot of stuff myself but we used to buy the frames in from the West country and get them shipped up to here and then we finished them off ourselves which meant covering them in netting and roping them up and what have you, but the specialist ones, ‘cos I can weld, I was a welder, I used to make my own. But then once you’d started to get bigger, you’d never have the time to do that but the very first ones just everything we made ourselves.
20 minutes 17 seconds
Lisa : And how many pots would you have out at any one time?
Andy : I suppose the maximum that we ever had out I think was about 120.
David : I was going to say about 110, something like that.
Andy : 120, but then we pulled that back to about 70 but nowadays you know some of these bigger boats they work 1000 pots but you can only manage them in one tide you see because your floats, on the smaller pots they’re called ‘Beckhams’ but on the balls that mark where your strings of pots are … we used to have strings of 10 or 14, which is a long line with 14 pots on, when the tide is running hard it pushes them under so you don’t know where they are. We used to work up to about two miles off?
David : Umm.
Andy : About two miles out, 140 -150 foot of water and the tides off here are pretty strong and of course you would have to wait until you could see the ‘buff’ as we called them, this ball coming up. And I used to say to my wife, “Can you see it, can you see it?” “Yes” she said, “Can’t reach it yet” and the tide would be running like mad and I’d say, “Get the thing” and we’d hook it up and put it in the hauler, put the thing all in gear so you were pushing against the tide with the boat and haul them up and that was the beauty of a power hauler in a small boat ‘cos you could manage to do that. Yeah, the fishing was good. I don’t know what it’s like now. I wouldn’t have thought so good. And we didn’t mess around much with fish. We used to do a bit of netting but again that was time consuming. You didn’t really want to waste time on anything else other than doing your pots. That’s where your money came from, so that’s what we did.
Lisa : What sort of fish did you net in those times that you did a little bit of that?
Andy : Bass, sole and sea trout. We used to like fishing for sea trout. We used to get them in June and July, in close. If you put a freshwater net across somewhere where a fresh water outlet went out, there were chances that you’d get a sea trout. The only trouble was we liked then ourselves, so as a commercial enterprise it was a waste of time because we used to keep them ourselves. And I did at one time have a big commercial smoker and we used to do smoked fish but again it was taking time away from potting and we used to smoke the sea trout to make smoked trout and that was much too nice to sell so we used to freeze it up and keep it and eat it ourselves. It’s nice (laughs). Sea trout, we had some quite big ones, you know. I think the biggest one we had was about eight pounds, something like that?
David : I can’t remember, we did have some decent sized ones.
Lisa : Apart from the ones you kept to eat yourself, did you sell any of the other netted fish locally or did it get sent away?
Andy : No, well … we had an unfortunate incident once when we sent a load of stuff up which included some really nice bass, up to Billingsgate and mysteriously when we got our returns, there was a lot of the bass were missing and that’s what Billingsgate was like, so we thought we’re not doing that again. And so, we sold to … there was one or two fish shops that had opened up and they were very keen to take whatever we could catch and so we used to do that. So, we didn’t really push the fish side to be honest, but yeah, it was always a problem to get rid of the stuff, fish, not the shellfish. We did take the boat round to Littlestairs one winter and fished out of there, just netting in the autumn and winter and one of the local fish shops took everything. Prices weren’t particularly good to be honest. And we did go round to Ryde if you remember once, one winter we fished out from Fishbourne and netted up through the Solent, but it wasn’t really worth doing. We nearly got drowned as well, we lost the boat nearly. It was just not worth it. Yeah, so we sort of didn’t push that side of it. Winters you just got through however you could, you know?
25 minutes 30 seconds
Lisa : Can you tell me about any of the regulations during the ‘60’s, ‘70’s, 80’s and how that may have changed over time?
Andy : Ah yes, well there were no licenses. The licensing system came in just after we packed up so each boat, you had to have a license and it was specific to whatever you wanted to do so you would have a shellfish licence or a fish license what have you, but we didn’t have anything like that. There was basically no restriction. You could fish for whatever you liked, however you liked. There were restrictions on net size, you know, mesh size. There was no restriction on pots. You just did whatever you wanted to do. We used to belong to … there used to be a Isle of Wight Commercial Fisherman’s Association which we belonged to and you had to have … go along to courses for safety at sea and fire at sea and you were supposed to have all this stuff in a boat, but when your boat’s only 18 foot long, you know there’s not much room for it. So not much … there was a Fisheries Officer, very rarely seen. There was a size limit on crab and lobster obviously and so you had to stick to the size limit, so everything had to be measured and some people didn’t do that. There was a size limit on oysters as well but other than that, that was it. There was not very much regulation at all.
David : It was dire really wasn’t it, to be honest.
Andy : Oh yeah.
David : You just went and got a boat, got some pots and got on with it. We never even wore life jackets which is not good really.
Andy : I’ve never worn a life jacket in my life and nor did my wife (laughs).
Lisa : Did you have any accidents where you went in?
Andy : Well, no.
David : The worst one was when we off Ryde wasn’t it?
Andy : We got swamped in the winter.
David : When we pulled the net in it was full of weed and the boat got swamped. That was the worst incident that I think we probably encountered.
Andy : Yeah, but the boat stayed afloat …
David : The boat stayed afloat.
Andy : … and we beached it under Seaview somewhere didn’t we ‘cos we couldn’t man … you know, yes, it was a bit dodgy to say the least. We shouldn’t have been there really, but we took a long time to empty it out and sort it out didn’t it? Yeah, that was the worst incident. I mean we had some dodgy times, you get out off here, off the south of the Island in bad weather but you sort of get used to it and you don’t realise sometimes just how bad it is and of course the thing about working off an open beach which not many people do, you’ve got to get the boat back on the beach. You don’t have a harbour to slide into, you actually have to somehow get it back on the beach, but we always managed.
Lisa : Did you always keep your boat at Wheelers Bay?
Andy : No, it was at Battery Bay. That’s where we fished from, yeah. Originally I started off with a boat at Wheelers Bay and then we moved out to Battery Bay when friends decided to go to fish from Bembridge. And then when it all fell apart, we put a little dingy out there and fished a little bit. Somebody stole the engine immediately and I said, “Oh right, that’s it, I’ve had enough of this” and we ended up, we bought a boat put it back down Wheelers Bay and we just fished for pleasure, which is what we did.
Lisa : Can you tell me about your involvement with the Coast Guard Service and how it began?
Andy : Right, as far as I can remember, I joined in 1972 and where we were fishing and we all knew each other in Ventnor and along the shore and what have you, Jim Blake was in charge of the Ventnor Coast Guard and Dave Wheeler, my friend Dave was in it and various other people I knew and they asked me if I’d like to join. At that time, that’s what you did, you were asked to join you know, by somebody that knew you, so that’s how I started, and you originally started … I can’t remember the term now, sort of like a ‘Coast Watch’ or something wasn’t it?
30 minutes 30 seconds
David : I don’t know, it was before my time.
Andy : Well, you did bad weather watch. There used to be a hut thing up on Woody Head which is where we went to do bad weather watches and I joined with a chap called Dave Corby, who’s dead now, and do you want a little story about Woody Head? We were up there one afternoon; the weather wasn’t particularly bad but we were on bad weather watch up there and we see a Policeman come up through on a motor bike and he actually got in the field and came up to the hut and we went out and asked what he wanted. He said, “Oh, we’re trying to find a chap that’s absconded from Ventnor” he said, “he’s wanted for various things.” He never did say precisely what and he said, “He headed this way, and so can you just sort of keep an eye open and if you see him ..” I said, “Do you mean the bloke walking across the field down the bottom there?” and he looked round and said, “Yes” he goes, “that’s him.” And instead of roaring off on his bike and arresting him, he decided to call up reinforcements, by which time this bloke had cleared off and I was up there with Dave Corby and we thought this was all quite hilarious. Anyway, the end of the story was that evening, Dave went into the ‘Volunteer’ for a drink and this bloke was sat there, having a drink (laughs). Apparently he was really bad person and Dave thought, ‘Oh dear’ so he went out and he phoned the Police and said, “The chap you’ve been looking for is sat in the ‘Volunteer’ having a pint.” And two other … the Police came to arrest him and I spoke to one of the Policemen this week about this just to get it right who’s Geoff Mundell, and his Niton copper, Bill Donovan. There are two entrances into the ‘Volunteer’ so they went to one entrance and the other one went to the other one and they went in there and this bloke saw them and I asked Geoff this week, and he said, “Yeah, he looked at the other entrance and then Bill Donovan came through that so he realised he was caught and he said to Bill Donovan, “Will it be alright if I finish my pint?” and Bill said, “No” (laughs) so they marched him off out and so he got arrested but yeah, that was the story behind that.
Lisa : So, when you joined in 1972, was that as a volunteer?
Andy : Oh yes, it was all voluntary. It was good in those days. We used to do four drills a year, you know, practice drills, you were paid in cash, the Coast Guard would come over from the Mainland with a little suitcase with the cash in, and you were paid in cash and then we had an arrangement with the Walmer Castle which is South Street. They would put on some sandwiches and stuff and we’d go in there afterwards and would spend … it was only two or three quid you know, so we’d have an evening out on the Coast Guard in effect. It was nice, it was a good thing. And other than that, all we did was callouts, so you had to be available for a callout so if there was something whatever happened, you had to be available to fire a maroon too. Sounds archaic now doesn’t it with all the electronics, but that’s how it was, and the maroon was fired from the Coast Guard hut which was in West Street, in Ventnor. And it did go off with a bang too.
Lisa : So that was to summon the volunteers.
Andy : Summon us all yeah.
Lisa : And you wouldn’t know what you were needed for …
Andy : On no, not until you got there.
Lisa : … until you got there.
Andy : No, you wouldn’t have a clue until you got there.
Lisa : So can you tell me about the sorts of incidents that you went out to help with?
Andy : Um, yeah you’d have perhaps to go and pick up a body that had been found or somebody had fallen over a cliff or something like that. I remember once we all had to get out at the dead of night out to Rocken End. There was a fishing boat had come in ashore there. You had to lug all the search lights and all your rescue gear and rockets ‘cos in those days we had a big rescue rocket that fired a line across the ship and then you had a … what’s it called?
35 minutes 19 seconds
David : A Breeches Buoy.
Andy : A Breeches Buoy, but we never actually had to do that. It was all phased out and the rocket launchers were all cut up so that they didn’t fall into the hands of the IRA, which was the reason, ‘cos this was back then. Now of course it’s totally different. David will tell you how different it is now, but then it was all very much as it had been since Victorian times really. I don’t think we even had radios did we until very late?
David : There was … I’ll come onto that in a minute when we sort of took over, but there was two radios on the Station. So, there was probably 18 blokes in the team at that point in time and there was two radios on with the team.
Lisa : About what decade are we talking now?
David : We’re talking ‘80’s.
Andy : But it was all very Victorian really.
Lisa : In the ‘70’s though when you started, did the Coast Guard have its own vessel, its own launch to go out to assist?
Andy : No, lifeboats did that. Is there a Coast Guard vessel now then?
David : In those days there was a few rigid inflatable Coast Guard boats dotted around various places, not on this part of the coast. We relied on the lifeboats and the inshore lifeboats like Sandown inshore lifeboat and the Coast Guard more recently had a couple of cutters which they’d been reduced down to sort of big sized ribs, but I don’t think they’ve got any boats at all now.
Andy : We certainly didn’t have anything like that. As I say, it was very much a continuation of how it had been since it started and through the Victorian era and into the early 20th century. You know, it was very sort of low tech is the word I think.
Lisa : Can you tell me a bit about the structure in the 1970’s then? You mentioned the Coast Guard came from the Mainland.
Andy : The Chief Coast …
Lisa : The Chief. So, there was a Chief …
Andy : Well not the Chief, What would you call him? Um, District …
David : He would have been like a District Officer I suppose.
Andy : District Officer yeah, but locally there was … well let’s say on the Island as a whole, there was a Unit at Bembridge, unit at Ventnor and Blackgang, and …
David : Altherfield, Sandown, Needles.
Andy : Yeah, but they all had their own teams. Was there one at Sandown?
David : Yes.
Andy : There was Sandown wasn’t there and locally we were, when I joined, Jim Blake who ran Ventnor Beach, he was in charge. I can’t for the life of me remember who was his Assistant in charge.
David : He didn’t have one.
Andy : Didn’t he?
David : They didn’t have one in those days, no.
Andy : Oh right. And then there was the crew and that was it. It was all very, very simple and then when you had a call out, you turned up and Jim told you what was going on. One of the members was Michael Dixon, who had a lorry so he would bring his lorry, and everything would go into the lorry. There was no Coast Guard vehicle or anything like that and we’d go off in our cars to wherever and all the gear was in Michael’s lorry. It all worked, you know. It may sound a bit sort of you know but it all worked perfectly.
Lisa : And what overall then was the Coast Guard responsible for?
Andy : That’s a good question because personally I think that has changed dramatically. David will tell you about that, but we were really only concerned with ships coming ashore and members of the public getting themselves into trouble along the shore, along the coast, but it’s very different now isn’t it?
David : Well, not so much. The line was that the Coast Guard were responsible for the cliff and anything forward of the cliff to the sea. Now obviously that can take in a lot of different things can’t it so there’s grey areas and the Police always had overall primacy for everything, but the Coast Guard did used to get pushed inland and in more recent years, the Coast Guard had been pushed more inland to help with search, inland search and things like that. So, the idea of being Coast Guards is still there, its just that in this day and age where you have as Dan said, real volunteers, you have volunteers for the Fire Brigade, you have volunteers for various other things, local lowland search and stuff, you’ve all got to get on because everybody’s fragmented nowadays to get a team together to do a job is quite hard work.
40 minutes 49 seconds
Andy : But we were all local people. You know, there wasn’t anybody from really outside the area and that has changed now hasn’t it?
David : Um, very much so.
Andy : That’s different. And we were all people that worked along the shore or had something to do with it or builders, weren’t there?
David : Um.
Andy : Two or three builders but local builders so it was all very much contained into the Ventnor area although our area was quite large, most of us came from here. I don’t think we had anybody from outside of Ventnor when I joined.
David : Yeah, there was a few interlopers from … there was a guy from Brighstone wasn’t there?
Andy : Not when I first joined, was there?
David : Yeah, when I was in there was.
Andy : Oh right.
Lisa : How long were you involved then Andy?
Andy : I did 19 years and I didn’t like the way it was going because it was starting to turn into a very time-consuming thing to do. It was fine doing the call outs and you’d go at any time, day or night. But then they wanted us to do patrols at weekends and then they wanted us to do this and do that and I wasn’t prepared to put that amount of time in to it. It almost, I don’t know, David will tell you, but it almost became a sort of a full-time job didn’t it? You look at the hours that you put into it and I wasn’t prepared to do that. I had other things on I wanted to do. And also of course I was trying to earn a living fishing, so I packed in when Jim Blake retired at 60 or was it 65?
David : I think it was 60.
Andy : 60. I didn’t even wait a year for my 20-year medal. I just said, “No, that’s the end for me and that’s it” and packed in. So, I did 19 years. David’s done a lot more than me (laughs).
Lisa : David, lets come on to you then. So, can you tell me your full name?
David : David Andrew Butler.
Lisa : And your date of birth?
David : The 14th March 1963.
Lisa : And where were you born?
David : Newport Hospital. So, I am a true Islander (laughs).
Lisa : And can you tell me the names of your parents and where they were born?
David : Andrew Butler is my father and he was born as he’s told you on the Mainland and Enid Butler, my mum, was born … well I’m not actually sure where she was born but ‘up North’.
Andy : Lancashire. She came down here when she was three.
David : So she came down to the Island with my gran and granddad. My granddad was based down here during the 2nd World War and they spent time down here and then after the War, de5cided to move here, so fortunately for dad obviously he met mum and me I suppose (laughs).
Lisa : And where did you grow up. Can you tell me about your family home, was it one home, did you live in different places?
David : Oh, we lived in different places, various places, but my sort of living memory was that we lived in a farm cottage in Chale and I went to Chale Primary School and then we moved to Ventnor as dad has told you with the boat down at Wheelers Bay and I’ve schooled in three schools in Ventnor I think, with the system changing around in those days and we kept getting moved around but basically I schooled in Ventnor until I was 13 or 14 and then went to Sandown High School where I saw out the rest of my days at school, for better for worse, and locally is here in this town. I had a collection of mates and this is where we stayed. But the overriding thing really was the boats and the sea. I’ve always wanted to be by the sea, on the sea, near the sea, and the boats and the fishing and everything just sort of like fell into place with that, being encouraged by mum and dad as well to always be by the sea so that’s where my interest in boats and things has come from.
45 minutes 13 seconds
Lisa : So can you tell me …
Andy : He even worked at the Canoe Lake when he was tiny.
David : Yeah, that’s true.
Andy : About 10 or 12 was it?
David : About 12 I suppose, we did a season on the Canoe Lake, taking the money off the holidaymakers, doing the deckchairs, messing about with the boats.
Lisa : And how old were you then?
David : Probably 12 or 13.
Andy : That’s where you learnt to row, I would imagine.
David : No, I could row before then.
Andy : Could you?
David : Yeah. Mum showed me how to row.
Andy : She was very good.
David : You weren’t any good.
Andy : I was hopeless (laughs). My wife is one of those very exceptional people that love boats, fishing, and anything unusual, so I was very lucky to meet her. Not many girls would as I say, “Give the job up and we’ll go fishing” would have just said, “Yes, let’s do it, get on with it.” Sorry, I’m interrupting.
Lisa : Where did you go rowing?
David : Oh here in Wheelers Bay, that’s where the original boat was and that’s where I learnt that craft (laughs) and then when they had the boat out at Battery Bay, I used to sort of tag along so …
Andy : You had your own little boat out there.
David : I had my own boat out there yeah, I had my own crab round so go and catch my own crabs and lobsters. I had my little crab round that I used to do round town. Cook them up. I have to say that the dressed crabs that mum used to do for me but she never got the money (laughs). I had to deliver them so therefore that was mine.
Lisa : So you had regular customers?
David : Yes, I did, I had a good little round. From sort of like this side of town up round Bonchurch and back down round again, Saturday morning job.
Andy : Paid off quite well didn’t it?
Lisa : So how much money were you making then on these Saturday mornings?
David : Oh I can’t tell you that.
Andy : He’s never told me that (laughs).
Lisa : Enough to buy yourself some sweets and a comic.
David : Oh definitely, yeah.
Andy : I remember you turned up with a ghetto blaster once.
David : Oh well, there you go (laughs).
Andy : … which he bought and paid for himself.
Lisa : Can you tell me about your own little boat that you had?
David : Yeah, that was a boat that … I can’t remember where we got it from. We got it from the other side of town didn’t we? A guy up at Bath Road had it didn’t he? I don’t know how we arrived at getting that …
Andy : I’ve got no idea.
David : … and it was in a bit of a state, so we put it down at Wheelers Bay, tidied it up. Dad had a spare engine which I pinched for it and I made about half a dozen pots, twin pots.
Andy : It was a 12-foot boat.
David : In fact I can show you a picture if you’re interested. It will take a bit of finding and then I moved it out to Battery Bay but of course being a bicycle kind of person in those days ‘cos I was too young to drive, it was a bit dependant on dad running the stuff backwards and forwards for me. I had that boat for quite a few years actually, didn’t we? Kept it for quite a few years.
Andy : Um, a long time.
David : And then eventually got rid of it and then I worked with dad for probably three years or so and then decided that wasn’t for me and went into the building trade and then I was out of boating for quite a long time then, probably getting on for 20 years I should think before I came back to it.
Lisa : So what happened after that 20 years then?
David : Um, life changes. I’d given up building and I’d given up various other things and obviously my tenure with the Coast Guard continued through all of that, so I still had quite a close … I didn’t live in Ventnor at that point in time. I lived in Apse Heath with my wife and my young children. Young children are quite time consuming but when they were starting to get older and a life change and moved back to Ventnor and then decided to get a boat again and I still have a boat to this day.
Lisa : And what do you do on your boat now?
David : I don’t go fishing for crabs and lobsters (laughs). We just use it for pleasure.
Andy : It’s quite a posh boat (laughs).
David : Yeah, we can sleep on it.
Andy : It’s not round here is it?
David : No, I keep it in the Medina. I did for years have the boat back down at Wheelers Bay and then when mum and dad were moved back … they moved down to Wheelers Bay in 2004, it was quite nice, it was a little bit like old times, but things changed. Nothing stays the same and there was quite a lot of angst among other people down there and the other thing is, working all week, you only get your Saturday and Sunday, and if the weathers not good, you not using your boat so my wife and I decided that it would probably be best if we got rid of it and bought something else and put it in the river, which was a good move ‘cos we do use it a lot.
50 minutes 50 seconds
Andy : Yeah, you get a lot of pleasure from it don’t you?
David : We do, yeah.
Lisa : Can you tell me when you first were involved with the Coast Guard?
David : Again, obviously with dad being in the Coast Guard and with me being around the boats and the fishing and helping out, there were calls that cropped up whereby myself and my peer group which would include Geoffrey Blake, Robert Blake, Mark Wheeler, Jimmy Wheeler and those sorts, we were all on the coast all the time. We would start going to the calls although we weren’t supposed to and that’s how lax the Coast Guard was in those days. You could pretty much do as you liked, so I think one major incident that crops up in my mind ‘cos again it was from our age group was the Squibb boys were fishing out of Castlehaven, similar style to me, you know they had a 12 foot boat and half a dozen pots and they’d been told not to go on this particular day and of course nippers being nippers, they’ve got to go and do their own thing haven’t they and unfortunately they both drowned and we were all quite affected by that because obviously they were the same age as us and also we were … because of dad and Jim Blake and all the rest of the Coast Guards were involved in the search for them, we sort of got dragged into that a bit as well although we were at school, so that’s where your sort of Coast Guard history starts and the … like dad said, the Coast Guard always ran on a recommendation from somebody or a family member. That’s how it all seemed to work so as the 18 members in the Coast Guard when I joined, there was probably only four families because they were all related. There was Jim Blake and Fred Blake plus extras, there was Rainers plus extras, there was the Wheelers plus extras and obviously dad was alone because he was effectively an only child, but then I came along. The Wheelers that were the same age as me came along and there was quite a big group of our age group. We probably made up for half the Coast Guard at that point in time and I joined in 1983. It was changing world, as far as the Coast Guard was concerned as we said before there was two radios amongst 18 blokes. How you’re supposed to operate an emergency service like that just beggar’s belief really, and things didn’t really change until the late ‘80’s and so the breeches buoy system of rescuing people off of boats which had been used since probably 1850-1860 was still on station, was still used and we were still training with it in 1986. I mean it’s not so long ago really is it? And it was archaic stuff, and everybody had their place and I actually got lumbered with the job of launching the rocket and I have no idea why. I’d never fired a gun or a rocket in my life and trying to fire it over a target was quite hard work. It ended up, as technologies moved on with radios and radar and with navigation, less and less boats were coming ashore. I think in my time with the Coast Guard, large boats, and I say sort of like 40 foot plus, probably amounted to what two or three? Would you agree with that?
Andy : Yeah, it wasn’t very many.
David : It wasn’t many at all whereas a 100 years ago it would be one every other week.
Andy : It was a regular thing.
David : So, there was less of a use for that kind of equipment so the Coast Guard needed to change and adapt itself to what was needed in this day and age but before they bailed it all out, we used to have these Coast Guard competitions with who could set this gear up the quickest and who was the most efficient at setting it up and who could get their casualty out to the target and back, and that got quite fierce amongst the teams. In those days you had Bembridge team, the Sandown team had been amalgamated into Bembridge, so you had the Bembridge team, the Ventnor team, the Blackgang team, Atherfield team and the Needles team and the Atherfield team were a law unto there selves and we always invariably ended up having these competitions out on their patch and they hated it because we were better than them. And then they would accuse us of cheating because we would use two sledge hammers was a classic example. We was using our ingenuity because we wanted to win and then it would all tail off and then the Atherfield team which was made up basically of the Young family, ‘cos they were quite a big family, again you see the teams were made up of families, the Young family would then start fighting amongst themselves because we had beaten them but we cheated, but we hadn’t cheated so then they’d start squabbling amongst themselves and they’d be rolling around in the grass, fighting and shouting and hollering at one another. Honestly we had had some good times on that and that was on the tail end of the breeches buoy. We never used the breeches buoy in anger. I think the only time we ever used it was when Ventnor still had a pier, we launched the rocket across the pier, and we tied it to the pier and it was like a demonstration. I think it must have been over Carnival Week or something like that, and we put Robert Blake in the basket and nearly drowned him. That’s how lethal it was.
57 minutes 13 seconds
Andy : It wasn’t a good system.
David : So, they took that gear away in probably ’87 ish, something like that. We had started to get involved more in searches, lowland search, coastal search and also the darker side to it was the body recovery. If ever there was a body that needed recovering from anywhere, the Police in their infinite wisdom would call the Coast Guard to come and do it, which would duly oblige. And the cliff rescue started to become more prevalent. When I joined, the cliff rescue, if I remember rightly, consisted of a rope ladder. Do you remember the rope ladder?
Andy : Yeah. I think that was it.
David : That was it plus our Breeches Buoy lines which you used to just tie yourself on with. There was no real safety equipment as such. It then moved on a bit. Jim had to retire because he was 60. He wasn’t happy about that, he wasn’t ready to retire. We went through like a state of flux when no one really wanted to take over the Ventnor Coast Guard and then the sole full-time Coast Guard on the Island, ‘cos there was only one full-time Coast Guard on the Island at that time, he then decided to put in somebody from outside because there obviously needed to be somebody to lead the team, so he brought in someone from what was the Atherfield team. He didn’t make a very good impression to start and most of the team members up sticks and left, including dad. My business partner and myself, we were both builders and we had been on the outside of the Coast Guard for quite a long time because the whole calling out system was flawed. As dad said, you had the maroon, which was fine if you were in town and if someone actually went up there and took the trouble to fire it, but it seemed to be that the longshoremen would gather up the call and if they needed extra people, then they might try and get hold of you via a maroon, but there was no other way of getting hold of you in those days, pre mobile phones etc. Me and my mate had started to lose a bit of interest in it and we’d said we’d give this new guy a couple of weeks after dad had and his cronies had all decamped. He stood in the hut and he said, “I’ve got a bit of a problem here” he said, “’cos everybody’s gone.” He said, “I got a radio.” This is how I know there was two radios. He says, “I’ve got a radio” he says, “and I’ve got a pager.” It transpired there was two pagers as well on that Station that nobody knew anything about. He said, “I’ll give you a radio” he said, “and I’ll give you a pager.” He said, “If the pair of you give me six months.” So, we had a quick conflab about it and said, “Yeah, we’ll go for it.” And lo and behold, what was it, less than 48 hours later I reckon, this was what really galled the rest of the old Coast Guard school, this pager went off. It was like, ‘what’s this all about?’ and there was a telephone number to call in and we called in and they said, “Yes, we’ve got a yacht that’s coming ashore at Woody. Can you get out there?” “Yeah, we can get out there” and Adrian, who was the guy who that had taken over, he called me at home and said, “Can you go and get the vehicle and get out there? The lifeboat is on it’s way.” So, me and my mate we get in the vehicle, trundle off out there. We can see the lifeboat and we walked up over … when there was a Pub at St Lawrence and the guys in the Pub said it was a yacht. So, we walked up over the mound at Woody and there was, I don’t know, a 150-foot boat ashore, like a coaster. There was a request for us to set the lights up, so me and me mate looked at one another and thought ‘umm, no lights’ ‘cos we’d left then behind ‘cos we’d forgotten them because we didn’t really know (laughs) so we had to turn round, come back, get the lights, get back out there and get the lights set up which we just about managed to do just before the lifeboat got there. The engine was still running on the boat and I believe the Captain or whoever was on the Bridge had been drinking and they’d just steered straight in there. That was the last big vessel to come ashore on this piece of coast. You know, a sizeable boat. We’ve had yachts and things like that since and there was a bit of a fracas between the old Coast Guard that had all left because no one had bothered to tell them that this boat was there, including dad, he got cross about it as well, and we said, “Well look, what di you do? It’s one of those things.” Anyway, they towed the boat off a few days later and away it went so that was my proper introduction to the changing Coast Guard. From then on, things changed considerably. We were expected to work together with our colleagues up and down the coast, more as a unit rather than separate teams. We were given better equipment, we were given proper cliff rescue equipment. We were given an element of training. The training wasn’t great, but it was better. The four trainings a year had disappeared and had been taken up by once a month, but once a month wasn’t enough so it was really pushed to twice a month, and I can see why dad and others didn’t really want to conform to that because it started to consume time. We got a better vehicle for a while. We were given a better vehicle, like I say we were given better equipment. It was progressing and things were moving along, and we were trying to work hand in hand with the Fire Service and the Police and the Ambulance, which is hard work. It’s a hard job trying to keep everybody on side especially as we were all, you know, like I said before, we were all volunteers and it’s taking up your time and we were expected to do helicopter landing sites as well because we had the I J Helicopter used to be very busy in those days so there were various sites along our bit of coast and then we would have to go in to Newport because the landing site was at Sea Close for anybody going into St Mary’s Hospital, so that needed to be manned by Coast Guards which again, whoever was available used to have to go and do. We were expected to take part in Cowes Week. Not take part but be part of Cowes Week with a vehicle down there to be on hand for various things. The Round the Island Yacht Race was another big thing that we always used to have to be part of. Sometimes that would be a very busy day. If you had a lot of wind. We’ve had some major incidents on Round the Island Yacht Race Day, and it progressed and me and me mate, we did our six months and we liked what we had. We gelled with the new man, he was great and we then started to try and recruit because the team had gone down to probably about six people, from 18 to six, so we were trying to recruit people to try and build the team back up again and then unfortunately Adrian, he had a kidney problem which we’d lived with for probably for four or five years, but it got so acute that he had to jack it in and by default, I then became what was then called the Station Officer. It was called the Auxiliary in Charge when dad was in and in the earlier days, so there was no real authority with that title, hence why it was called the Auxiliary in Charge. It was just that that guy used to look after the gear on the Station and basically dish out the orders. They then changed it to Station Officer, and you had a Deputy Station Officer as well, of which I was the Deputy with Adrian, and when Adrian was ill, he then had to surrender his post and I took over from then so that would have been in about 1995, I reckon. ’95, ’96, and I carried on being the Station Officer of the Ventnor team up until 2015, when I packed up.
1 hour 6 minutes 34 seconds
Andy : I would just like to say here that the training and whatever, there was never any provision, and I shouldn’t think it was ever asked for or thought about and David has picked up far more dead bodies than I ever did, which can be a little bit traumatic, you know picking up somebody that’s fallen 500 foot down a cliff and having to get them back up to the top of the cliff. Is there in place now a …
David : No. There was never … the Coast Guard used to be operated from the Needles up until about 1981 …
Andy : Something like that, yeah.
David : … I can’t be precise on my dates, so the whole of the south coast Coast Guard was operated from the Needles Coast Guard Station. They then decided to move it to Lee On Solent where it’s stayed up until it closed a few years ago. They obviously upgraded the training and tried to make us more of a professional outfit, but when it came to the body collection, for want of a better term, there was no provision for the aftercare of the guys. Now I used to go to meetings on the Mainland twice a year. The area ran from Lymington through to Birling Gap in Beachy Head. Obviously the Beachy Head team are quite busy with picking up bodies as well. There was a guy who was a Psychologist somewhere between those two points who did take up the mantle and offered counselling, but basically none of us took it up. None of us wanted to take it up and the way that we dealt with it, which is probably you would say was wrong, but we just used to use the dark side of humour. That is the only way we could deal with it, and that’s still the case now.
Andy : David’s had some really nasty ones to deal with. We had one or two but nothing like he’s had to deal with. Very recently, only a few months ago, I happened to mention to David that, I said, “Do you remember when we had to pick up Mrs Watt?” who was a lady from Orchard Bay House and she fell over the cliff looking for a cat at night into our Bay and was killed and Jim Blake phoned me up and he said, “Oh, go round and pick up Mrs Watt” and Dave Wheeler, Jim Blake and I said, “Oh, I’ll bring David.” But you weren’t very old were you?
David : I was probably 18.
Andy : You still lived at home, you know, you weren’t in the Coast Guard were you?
David : It was just about round joining time, just before.
Andy : So he was hooked out of bed and off we went out there and I said to him fairly recently, “Did it ever worry you that?” ‘Cos it had taken all these years for it to tick round in my mind, you know? And you actually said yeah, you were a little bit …
David : Yeah I was, that did affect us, not horrendously but only partially because we knew the person quite well, as well as going and picking up a deceased person. But, you just get used to it.
1 hour 10 minutes 9 seconds
Andy : You do, yeah, but it’s a side that people, as far as I know, very rarely talk about.
David : It’s a side of the Coast Guard that people from the outside world probably don’t realise how much of that kind of work that the Coast Guard do, and its not a savoury subject but its part of the job. But on the other side of the coin, there’s good times when you actually go and save a life and that makes it all worthwhile. You fish someone out the water and bring them back to life then that is a worthwhile evenings work. And pulling people off the cliffs, finding missing people. We had a couple of girls that went out and walked their dog at Niton. It wasn’t very nice weather and they got lost and we had a hell of a job finding them, but we found them, and we got the helicopter in and hooked them out and they were ever grateful for that. It was great because they were alive etc etc.
Andy : I think one of your best stories is the liner. You ought to mention that.
David : The Canberra. So, the Canberra liner, which was a Cunard boat wasn’t it?
Andy : Yeah, I think she was.
David : Again, it was a foul evening and it was on the borderline with better communications. We had a mobile telephone by then, but my phone rang at home and it was Adrian, and he said, “We’ve got a boat coming ashore.” He said, “It’s just off of Ventnor at the moment. Can you get over and get the vehicle out and see if you can find it?” I said, “OK, right” so I rallied up a couple of other guys and we went up there and that was it … before I left the house I said, “When you say it’s a boat” I said, “what kind of boat.” He goes, “It’s the Canberra and it’s got 1500 people on it.” So, I’m thinking, ‘blimey’ that’s a bit serious. So, I said, “So what are we going to do with them then?” He goes, “I don’t know yet, let’s find the boat first.” So, we trance off to Ventnor, gets the vehicle out and the cloud was right down. I mean it’s down probably about much the same level as we are at the moment so you couldn’t see the sea. And the Needles gang had come over as well and were trotting around looking for this boat and they had no power so they couldn’t communicate. All they had was their emergency lighting and we were up at the viewpoint car park at Leeson Road, we’d just pulled in there to have a bit of a regroup, and the cloud lifted up, just sort of like went up and the thing was right in front of us, just heading into … ‘cos this is very shallow water here. Very shallow, sandy seabed with very nasty big rocks (laughs) and this thing was sat there, and it came over the radio, “Have you found this boat yet?” and we both went, “Yeah, it’s right in front of us.” “What do you mean, it’s right in front of you?” “Well, we’re at Leeson Road carpark and it’s right in front of us.” And then, “OK” (laughs). Luckily their emergency power was on and they managed to anchor it and stop it from dragging in to shore and the weather abated a bit so luckily the Canberra didn’t come ashore.
Andy : It was a very near miss.
David : But we did have an emergency plan put in place if a boat came ashore, I had a secret box that I used to keep on the Coast Guard Station which was not to be opened unless this kind of thing happened, and of course that had been opened that evening because we thought we would need it and I think it had about 50 tags in it for tagging people as they come ashore and we were going to put them in the Winter Gardens, but with 1500 people plus the crew (laughs) we weren’t quite sure what we were going to do with them all (laughs).
Andy : The general consensus afterwards was that the only thing you could have done was leave them on board …
David : Yeah, leave them on board and …
Andy : … there was nothing else you could do. Imagine winching that lot off one at a time.
David : There was only two helicopters and they could take well … the helicopters could take sort of about seven or eight people at a time but we had another incident off at the lighthouse where a yacht had overturned, and we sent the helicopter to deal with it and I can’t remember how many people were on board, something like 14 people, something like that. The helicopter went down and picked them all up all in one go which it shouldn’t have done and there was another incident up in Scotland where something had happened, and I think there were 23 people in the water. Helicopter put himself right down on the water, he shipped water and he picked the 23 people up and came back as well and so those old helicopters were pretty good. I think they’re better than the helicopters they use now but again time moves on. And going back to the technology, so the two pagers then increased to we had a pager each. We were issued with a pager each, the Coast Guard in their infinite wisdom decided to run it on BT cell net mobile network which didn’t work here so they then had to go back to like a radio page which did work, which was fine, that was OK, that was no too bad, and more latterly, probably in the last 15 years I suppose, we were given a radio each as well, so Coast Guards are very well equipped now. They’ve even got torches (laughs).
1 hour 15 minutes 52 seconds
Andy : Talking this morning about it, I didn’t … you know ‘cos it’s something you never think about, but now discussing it I think it was archaic, it really was.
David : And I believe, I mean I’m in touch with the Ventnor Coast Guard still now, and they had done away with the pagers now and they give you a smartphone with a text that sort of comes through to tell you what the call is and then you hit the ‘can I respond or will you respond or won’t you respond.’
Andy : What about the … I mean I’ve got no reception down where I live so how would you have got on if somebody was down there then?
David : Well, you wouldn’t be in the Coast Guard.
Andy : Oh right.
David : Probably not, there’s no way of contacting you is there. That’s how it is now, that’s the way they alert their teams, so I mean it’s not 100% but it’s better than it was.
Andy : So how many years did you do?
David : 32.
Andy : 32, yes, good lord. It’s quite a long time isn’t it?
David : It’s a lifetime.
Lisa : You’ve mentioned about the breeches buoy. Can you tell me exactly what it is?
David : Basically the breeches buoy was a life ring with a pair of, for want of a better term, breeches attached to it.
Andy : Cut off trousers.
David : Yes, like a pair of cut off trousers, so when the rocket launcher put the line across the boat, a hauling warp was hauled out to the boat and secured, and then through a set of pulleys it was pulled up tight and then the breeches buoy was attached to the line and it was hoisted by hand out to the boat and then the people that needed to be rescued climbed into the breeches buoy and then they were hoisted back to land. That was the theory behind it. It never really I don’t think worked particularly well because you wouldn’t really have wanted to be in it on a rough night. You couldn’t get the lines tight enough to stop it from dragging in the water. I don’t think anybody ever drowned through coming …
Andy : I think somebody did up in Scotland, I think.
David : Did they?
Andy : A lot of people got injured.
David : But if you weigh up how many people were rescued by it in the sort of mid ‘18’s to the mid ‘19’s, it certainly served its purpose.
Lisa : And when you did the training drills that you’ve spoken about, is that what you were practicing to do?
Andy : Yes.
Lisa : And where did those drills take place?
David : Mostly in Flowersbrook, in the Flowersbrook Park down where the caravan site used to be, so you’ve got a nice dished piece of grass there and looking at old photographs from the 1850’s – 1860’s the Ventnor Coast Guard did most of their training at Flowersbrook.
Andy : Up until a few years ago, around the Island, you’d see a thing like a telegraph post with steps up it and lots of people wondered what they were for, but that was what they were for. That was to be a substitute for a ship and the line was fired across it and then somebody climbed up and made it fast and then you used it to haul somebody in and out. There was one at … the Ventnor one actually wasn’t at Flowersbrook …
David : Well there was one at Flowersbrook …
Andy : Oh there was but the other one was at Castle Cove.
David : And there was one at Woody as well.
Andy : There was one in the field at Chale. You know where the big … opposite the Pub, in a big field as you come on to the Military Road, there was one there. They were all over the place.
David : There was one at Atherfield as well, so every team has a pole to practice on.
Andy : That’s what they were for.
David : And they had all this gear. The Ventnor team had a cart to put it all on which was horse drawn and I believe that that cart eventually became a carnival float and it got dumped up in the Industrial Unit. What was the old train station, which is where the Coast Guard Station now is, but what became of the cart I don’t know. I did try to make some enquiries but to no avail.
1 hour 20 minutes 33 seconds
Andy : Terrible that’s it’s gone.
Lisa : The Coast Guard Station, how long has it been where the old train station was?
David : That’s what I consider to be the new Coast Guard Station. So, we … I worked hard to get a new Coast Guard Station for the team, and we moved in there in 2000, I think.
Lisa : From where?
David : From Kent Road, where the old Coast Guard Station had been since 1880 something, so the Kent Road Station was literally just one room, more like a large garage, and the gear was stacked at one end and there was a couple of shelves and that was it.
Andy : And the water was just out the side to fire the maroon.
David : Yeah, down the side wasn’t it? There wasn’t even a toilet or anything there, it was that basic. So, when I had taken over from Adrian in ’95-’96, I sort of made it a bit of my mission that we were going to have a nice Coast Guard Station for the Ventnor team. I’d built the team back up again, I’d got some really good people in the team, we were back up to 13 or 14 members and we really had outgrown. With the modern gear that the Coast Guard were pushing on to us, we really had outgrown that Station. We also had a female team member at that time as well, so to not have any kind of sanitation or washing facilities or anything at all wasn’t acceptable, so a couple of units came up for sale up on the Industrial Estate and I managed to convince the Coast Guard hierarchy that that was where we wanted to go and they duly obliged, bought the building, we converted it and that’s where the Coast Guard Station is to this day.
Andy : It’s not a bad building actually.
David : It was one of the best Coast Guard Stations on the south coast and it was nice, fresh, new, plenty of space, plenty of training space and plenty social space as well. You could spread the gear out and clean it after a call. We could accommodate the other two teams all at the same time if we needed to, so it has a lot going for it. There was always arguments that a Coast Guard Station should be right on the coast but that isn’t really the point. The point is that you’ve got to have a decent building to put your guys and your equipment in, something that’s comfortable, so I was quite pleased . That’s my legacy (laughs).
Andy : I mean where’s the main … where they go from Lee on Solent?
David : They’ve moved to …
Andy : Fareham is it somewhere?
David : Yes, so they’ve now moved into what was going to be the Fire Headquarters, but the Fire Brigade decided not to, and they are controlling the whole country from there now, so that’s how things have changed from …
Andy : And that’s not on the coast.
David : No, it’s not on the coast. How things have changed from you know your one radio and your one pager to their controlling the whole country from one building now.
Andy : I’ve got a feeling the rescue of that Round the World yachtswoman the other week, that was controlled from there wasn’t it?
David : I’m sure it was.
Andy : They liaised with Costa Rica, just mind boggling isn’t it?
David : The Coast Guard were always world renowned for their ability to control things like that. I don’t know how it still stands ‘cos I’ve been out of it for three or four years now but like dad just said, they would take on calls in the middle of Oceans, God knows where, and they coordinate them and get them sorted. There was some very good people in the Coast Guard in the Operations Room, the full-time Coast Guards and like I say I’m not so sure what it is like now because that all changed when I left.
Lisa : Could you tell me a bit about the Coast Guard’s relationship with like your local Lifeboat Stations?
David : The relationship with the local Lifeboat Stations is quite good. As far as the Ventnor Coast Guard team is concerned, our closest neighbour was the Sandown and Shanklin Inshore Rescue boat, and they are based just to the west of Sandown pier. They are alright, they are a good bunch of lads and we’ve worked together. There’s been a little of friction on odd occasions, but it’s always been sorted out and they serve a good purpose. They can see things that you can’t see from the land. They can get to places that you can’t get to terribly easily from the land, so over the years we’ve worked quite well with them. The next full-sized Lifeboat is the Bembridge Lifeboat. Again, we’ve worked with them on many occasions, and I was just thinking actually we had a … there was a yacht had gone missing down off of Blackgang, with a granddad and a grandson on, so there was much concern about this particular yacht. Anyway, eventually the Lifeboat found it. I think the Coasties found it and the Lifeboat went to it. The boat was actually from Wheelers Bay, so the Lifeboat brought the yacht back up to Wheelers Bay, but as I said to you earlier on about the shallow water, they couldn’t get in close enough so dad and myself had to get dad’s little boat out, in the middle of the night …
1 hour 26 minutes 17 seconds
Andy : It was a little girl actually.
David : Oh, it was a little girl was it? Yeah, sorry, I stand corrected there. We went out and picked them off of the big Lifeboat and then brought them back into Wheelers Bay.
Andy : We initiated the whole thing because the little girl’s mother wondered where she was. She was supposed to be with her granddad, you know, doing this boat up down there and he’d shoved off and disappeared. So, we actually got the whole search underway and like David said, these men found the boat just as it was getting dark really, spotted it right down in Chale Bay, run out of fuel and yeah, we had to launch off … I actually think I put a lifejacket on then, I think you insisted.
David : I think I did, yeah, ‘cos you were on Coast Guard duties then.
Andy : Yeah, first time in my life I put a lifejacket on and then we went and brought them back in.
Lisa : When did you start using lifejackets?
[Both laugh]
David : As I said before, the Coast Guard wasn’t massively well equipped so Coast Guard in their infinite wisdom, like the two radios and the two pagers, they had two lifejackets, so it was a case of … believe it or not, it was two pairs of wellington boots and two sou’westers in the early days so it was like first come first served or you got cold and wet.
Andy : You had your own gear didn’t you?
David : You did, but not lifejackets. Lifejackets became a big issue in probably … there was a big Coast Guard incident where some Coast Guards, possibly even one might have even got drowned, I wouldn’t swear to that, I can’t remember the details, but there was a big incident and it might even have been … no, it wasn’t the ‘Marsh Mist’ incident, there was no Coast Guards there at that time. Something happened and the Coast Guards didn’t have enough lifejackets and there was a furore in Government about it and so it was deemed that there should be a number of lifejackets on each Station, and that was increased to basically every team member had a lifejacket, but that’s only in more recent years. Probably in the last 12-14 years, something like that.
Andy : Amazing when you think about it. Like talking this morning, I actually didn’t realise how backward it all was.
David : Ill equipped was an understatement really.
Andy : Yes, we never gave it a thought, you know, it never occurred to you.
Lisa : Can you talk to me about your uniform?
David : My uniform? Right, in the early days you had a pair of overalls and a beret. No auxiliary Coast Guard had anything more than that did they? Like I said, there was two pairs of wellies, two sou’westers, so you had to bring your own foul weather gear. You got given a pair of overalls and that was it. As time moved on, they then started to produce I’d say better overalls, but they weren’t, they still didn’t fit very well. They sort of were like of one size fit all and it was massive (laughs) and then they started bringing in some t shirts, like polo shirts that you would wear, and then when, as I said before about the Station Officer and Deputy Station Officer, when that came along, they then decided that Coast Guards should have white shirts, black trousers, a Coast Guard tie and Coast Guard epaulettes, so that we looked a little bit more professional when we were out on our patrols or out doing Cowes Week stuff, rather than turning up with a pair of overalls on. It didn’t fit well with a lot of people because, as dad said, you’ve got longshoremen, builders, fishermen, they don’t do uniform wearing, but they pushed on with it and I think … so that would have been again early to mid ‘90’s with the whole uniform thing crept in. Now, up to date, they’re not even allowed out without a proper uniform. I don’t know what it consists of now ‘cos obviously I’m not a part of it, but they’re not allowed on the calls or anything unless they’ve got their proper Coast Guard uniform on.
1 hour 30 minutes 54 seconds
Andy : And helmets you’ve got now haven’t you?
David : Yeah, that was another thing that came along was obviously the wearing of head protection which should have been done many, many years ago, so everybody has their own head protection now, has done for quite a long time. All of the Coast Guard team members now, or when I was in, were entitled to a proper dress uniform as well, which I sort of necessarily agree with because I couldn’t see when a Coastie was going actually wear it. Obviously the Station Officer and the Deputy Station Officer should have full uniform, but I couldn’t see the point in everybody else having uniform because I couldn’t see when it was going to be worn. What occasion would you want your whole team dressed up in full uniform, but that was what the Coast Guard had deemed so that’s what’s happened. And I do still have my full uniform upstairs (laughs) and my hat (laughs).
Andy : I would never wear any of it. I wouldn’t even wear a beret. In that photo I’d got my woolly hat on, you know? Most of us didn’t like uniforms.
David : You say that but look how many of them have got their berets on in that picture?
Andy : Ah yes, that’s them. You haven’t.
David : No, I haven’t, I’ve just got a mass of hair which I don’t know what happened to it.
Andy : But yes, they were all quite keen on their uniform, but certain of us didn’t.
David : So that picture you see there, those are the overalls that we were issued with and … if you were the right size for the overalls, they fitted quite nicely, but most of us weren’t.
Lisa : What does it say on the badge here?
David : Oh that says ‘Auxiliary Coast Guard’ on that one and then the Auxiliary got dropped in the mid ‘90’s because the Coast Guard seemed to think that we should be upgrading ourselves to some degree so it then became HM Coast Guard or just Coast Guard and I believe that is still what it is in the moment in time.
Lisa : And Jim Blake at that time?
David : Umm.
Lisa : Is that Jim Blake in …
David : That’s Jim Blake there …
Lisa : … the white hat.
David : In the white hat with one of the sou’westers (laughs).
Lisa : And he was known then as the Station …
David : Auxiliary in Charge.
Lisa : … Auxiliary in Charge.
Andy : He’s in a Care Home now. Didn’t know where he is or what’s he doing. Very sad.
Lisa : Can you tell me a bit about the involvement that the Coast Guard had or has had during your service in the community?
David : In the community, we tried … when I took over charge of the Ventnor Coast Guard team, we were a little bit disenfranchised from the rest of the community and so I took steps to try and remedy that. The first thing I did was try and get us involved with the Ventnor Carnival, so our vehicle went at the front of the Ventnor Carnival, which was a good move. It shows a lot of people that we do exist, the Coast Guard did exist, ‘cos that’s part of the problem. When people call for an emergency service on the coast, they don’t actually know the Coast Guard exists. They sort of automatically ask for the Fire or the Police, and there’s quite a delay or there used to be quite a delay in actually getting the Coast Guard to the job to get it sorted. We also put in our own carnival float for a number of years which grew ever bigger and ever bigger which is a shame it’s not still done now, but that was a good little publicity thing as well, and we also used to do Remembrance Day maroon firing with the British Legion down in the High Street, which I believe the guys do now but they’re not allowed to use the maroons anymore. So, over the years … and then we were trying to involve ourselves with the local pubs and things as well, not from a drinking point of view but just to be around and that and we had quite a good relationship with the Niton pubs and the Ventnor pubs etc. And if we had any events or things we were doing, we would try and use our local pubs so that they knew we were about. We would do occasional Open Days where we would set all our gear up on the cliffs above Ventnor or out at St Catherine’s we did …
1 hour 35 minutes 33 seconds
Andy : You did a big one out there.
David : … yeah, we did a big one out there, didn’t we and that attracted a lot of people to come and see what we do, which was good and more of that needs to be done really.
Andy : Something just crossed my mind. I my day, I don’t know whether you will be able to answer this, on my day, on an incident, a call out, the Coast Guard was the senior people there, and if the Police turned up or the Fire Brigade, then they had to do what the Coast Guard asked or said. Is that the same now?
David : Well, that was the case. The Police have primacy over everything, but as I said to you earlier on, the Coast Guard was responsible for anything cliff and forwards, so yes, if we turned up and that was the situation, then yes, we would call the shots. There was a statue in law which gave the Coast Guard exemption and I can’t remember the dates or anything about it now, but basically we could do as we pleased. That has been taken away from us now and they’re not allowed to do as they please anymore so it was difficult because you were a volunteer and you turn up and you’ve got the Fire Brigade and you’ve got the Ambulance and you’ve got the Police there and they’re all semi-professional, professional and it was hard to control an incident because too many people thought they were in charge. But the reality if was , yes, the Coast Guard were actually in charge.
Lisa : About how many incidents were you called to in the course of a year and did that change over time?
David : It certainly did.
Andy : Very much so.
David : In dad’s time, you probably had what, half a dozen?
Andy : Something like that, yeah.
David : In my early days in the Coast Guard it probably was 15. When I left, in 2015, we were probably up to about 120 calls a year, so there was a big difference in the call outs but there is also a difference in the kind of call out as well. As I said to you before about the helicopter landing sites and things like that, they were all classed as call outs, so yeah, it increased a lot, and I believe talking to the guys very recently, they’ve had plus 200 calls this year on the Ventnor team.
Andy : That’s just Ventnor.
David : But of course the Ventnor team now, well it’s not … well things have changed now that it’s not so much the Ventnor team now, it is more of an Isle of Wight Coast Guard, but the thing with the Ventnor team was about 12 years ago, we were given mud rescue equipment as well, so the Ventnor team was there to look after any mud rescue on the Island, across the Island so although it’s not been used a lot, it does mean more calls for that particular team.
Andy : How much of your time would you say you would spend on Coast Guard business. This was the point that I made earlier to you that I didn’t want to spend all my life doing that, I had other things that I wanted to do, but I mean it must have taken up a huge amount of time.
David : I think the thing with it is, is yes, it did take a lot of time and I couldn’t even begin to tell you how much time it took up, but it is quite a big sacrifice on the individual and also it’s equally as a big sacrifice on the family because you can be doing any number of things and then that pager goes off and you’ll be gone for a day, an hour, maybe two days, who knows? So, it’s as much a commitment on your family’s part as it is on your own part and you know the guys have had 200 calls this year roughly and that’s quite a lot of time in itself isn’t it? I don’t know, I can’t answer that and where I was in charge of the team, so I’d be looking out and getting the team training, cleaning up the equipment, looking after the vehicle, looking after the Station. I can’t even begin to guess how much time because I used to enjoy it.
1 hour 40 minutes 5 seconds
Lisa : Looking back then for both of you, what are the sort of most memorable moments, memorable events?
David : One of the most memorable … there’s been some.
Lisa : It must be a difficult question to answer.
David : It is a difficult one but there is one that does stick in my mind that we were due to go out on one of the guy’s birthday, so the team was going to go out on a birthday bash, and we were going to end our evening up at Bogey’s nightclub in Sandown. About half an hour before we were due to go, I’d got a call that there was a dolphin on the beach at Blackgang, could I go and have a look. So, I said, “Well, were going out, I don’t really want to be going looking at a dolphin on the beach” so I grabbed a couple of team members and we shot off out there and Blackgang is not the easiest of places to get to, you have to walk 400-500 foot from the nearest car park down the cliff. Then we had to walk along the shore and find said dolphin. They’d also sent the helicopter out to this dolphin as well, which we couldn’t quite work that out. Anyway, we found the dolphin and it was a young one and it was still alive, and it was blowing quite hard down there and I can show you a picture of it in a minute. It was blowing quite hard so we stood and had a little conversation about this dolphin and the fact that we were all going to go out and get beered up and what were we going to do, and we decided that we would rescue it. So then ensued quite a massive rescue. So, I got the rest of the team out. We used to put our casualties into a thing called a Neil Robinson Stretcher in those days, and it was a stretcher that they used to use in the wars to get casualties out of submarines, so you used to be wrapped up in it and strapped up in the thing so I got the rest of the team down there, got this Neil Robinson Stretcher down there, we put this dolphin in this stretcher, trussed it all up and picked it up. I guess it weighed probably about 80 kilos, something like that. It wasn’t massively heavy, but it was heavy enough. We then proceeded to march it along the beach, from Blackgang back to Rocken End Corner, and then we embarked on getting it up the cliff. So, we had to get some buckets of water to come with us so that we could keep the dolphin wet. We’d also enlisted … there was another guy that was going to come out with us for the evening who was just a friend really, and he had a little van, so he’d been detailed to get his van up in to the car park. This is like old school Coast Guard, get his van up in to the carpark, so we carried this dolphin all up through the cliff path between us which was hard work, put the dolphin in the back of the van, still with our buckets of water to try and keep it wet, drove the dolphin to Shanklin and then put the dolphin in the water at Shanklin. It didn’t want to go, so we then got Sandown Rescue involved. They came and took the dolphin out and took it in to the middle of the Bay, where it did decide to go. What happened to it after that I don’t really know. I mean it was obviously disorientated … preceding that we had got the dolphin rescue people out to us it well, so they’d come down and administered some first aid to it by the time we got to Shanklin, so there was a lot of people involved in it by this time. I fell in the sea with a radio, a mobile phone, my pager, the keys to my car, all went in the water and I had to make excuses for those later to get them replaced, because if they’d said it was a dolphin, they wouldn’t have bothered replacing them, and I went and picked up my wife (laughs) from Bogey’s at about half past two in the morning. I did get there but obviously we didn’t get there as a team, because we’d been involved in this rescue all the time and the poor guy that we actually borrowed the van from, he went home and he got in the shower and his wife came out and she said, “What are you doing?” so he regaled this story to her, she clouted him round the side of the face and said, “You’ve been seeing another woman haven’t you?” And he said, “No.” He had genuinely been helping us out and the poor bloke got some stick because his missus thought he’d been seeing someone else (laughs).
Andy : I’ve not heard that bit of the story.
David : So, that one of the more memorable ones…
Andy : It’s not a bad one is it?
David : … but there are so many stories, so many things that we’ve done and you’ve rolled up to a Coast Guard call and you think, is this really happening? And the other thing with a Coast Guard call is, there are never two the same. Never ever two the same. You might get the same briefing but they’re never two the same when you actually get there to deal with it.
Lisa : We could do another interview just on stories then?
David : Oh, quite easily.
1 hour 45 minutes 23 seconds
Andy : Oh, that would go on for …
David : Quite easily I’m sure.
Andy : That’s not a bad one David.
David : For dolphin.
Lisa : What about you Andy? Does anything stick in your mind, memorable from your time? Happy or sad.
Andy : Don’t know really. I mean [looking at photographs] ah, there he is.
David : We have got lifejackets on.
Andy : We have. No, I don’t know really, there’s all sorts of things that crop up really in your mind over the years, both with the fishing and Coast Guard. I suppose the most sort of traumatic event if you like for want of a better word was when our Bay got destroyed, ‘cos there was absolutely no hint that the weather was going to, you know, turn like it did and it wasn’t a gale, it was just a massive swell and just watch what you’d be doing for decades, just disappear in front of your eyes and you realise that side of your life is coming to an end. I’ve always been sort of very resilient over things, you know, if anything sort of goes wrong you just shrug your shoulders and move on to something else, so I suppose that’s probably the most memorable of that side. I just had a really good time, you know, I’ve had a great life, you know. I suppose it may appear a bit mundane to people, but I don’t know. I met the right girl and married her, so no, it’s been good. Watching the Bay go affected my wife more than me but it did us a favour because it forced our hand to stop fishing ‘cos we were struggling because we were getting old and it was a difficult place to work from but that’s definitely the most sort of dramatic thing.
Lisa : What do you both love about the Island? What makes it special?
David : It’s one of those places isn’t it? I mean my girls, both of my girls have moved away, which is a shame, but they don’t like the Island, but I would find it hard to leave this Island. I mean obviously there’s a family tie there isn’t there from hundreds of years, but again I just quite like it here. I know it’s not the easiest of places to live, but I can’t see that I would really want to live anywhere else. I like it (laughs).
Andy : Everything I like is here and I’m very interested and have been since I was a child in natural history. I do a great deal of work with especially butterflies and the Island, if you are interested in natural history, is really good anyway. If you also like geology, archaeology and things like that, the Island is just stuffed full of it all isn’t it? And history as well. Like David said, my family have been here for hundreds and hundreds of years. I actually don’t go off the Island. I have no desire to go to the Mainland at all and it’s just the place I want to be and always wanted to be. So yeah, I’ll see my time out here. Are you from the Island? Hard to explain then to somebody, very hard. You hear people talk about roots and all the rest of it, but if you find somewhere you love, why move? It’s very easy to go, to move, and you make a big mistake. A lot of people have left the Island and wish they hadn’t. A bloke I know said, “Oh, I should never have gone, wished I’d never left.” You get an awful lot of people move down here but of course a lot of them are second homes isn’t it? I won’t go in to that (laughs).
Lisa : That’s probably a good place to stop then. Thank you.
Recording ends
I hour 50 minutes 28 seconds
Transcribed February 2019
Chris Litton