Donald Young on Boatbuilding

He still worked there for a little while after the War finished ‘cos they tried to keep it going for civilian boats but of course there wasn’t the demand and they just slowly sunk into the ground as you might say, although of course the buildings they put up were still there which were there for years afterwards.

Nice big slipway which they’d built during the War, whereas when he first went there the slipway was pretty horrible. They had to what they called greasy planks to put boats up on.

They’d have planks that they greased up and then they had a little cradle under the boat they’d made so that the legs would have a fore and aft bit between them and they used to slide on these greasy planks so the plank would only be about, I don’t know, about 18 foot long or something, and they’d have to move it each time.

You know, they’d have four planks, two each side, and they’d just … when they got the whole thing onto one pair, they’d move the other pair up ready to take over and thy used to pull them up quite a long way like that. Messy job though.