David Burdett on Transport

There’s a gentleman, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, called Harry Spencer. He set up the Rigging Company, Harry Spencer Rigging, in Cowes. He was a great character and he ran a Tug called a Hofland.

He owned a Hofland and he actually had a Captain, a full-time Captain to run it and a couple of friends or maybe employees who acted as crew. But he didn’t have any qualifications.

The Captain was very capable, he actually learned his trade on the River Thames taking barges up and down the Thames. So, Harry would ask me to go along for the trips around the coast because I had a Radio Operator’s Ticket as well as a Master Mariner’s Ticket. And, on one occasion we towed a West Country Schooner from the Pool of London round to Gloucester Docks and we took this ship along the canal into Gloucester Docks and we were surrounded by these old warehouses and they’d been converted to museums, cafes.

It was the marine tourers industry at work, and I thought, “why has this been so successful?” And I realised that changes happen so rapidly since World War 2 that people liked to see something that hasn’t changed, that they associate with their youth.