Henry Wrigley on Harbours

Tracy: So, when did you become Harbour Master?

Henry 1966, having had a career at sea with P&O having started the initial training at Warsash, as with many people that you’ve probably associated with already, and I left P&O as a Senior Deck Officer and I spent a year with Southampton Harbour Board which was good grounding for the Port industry, and then I came here.

Tracy: Why did you choose to become a Harbour Master?

It was almost like a progression of circumstance. It’s very difficult for a Master at sea which obviously I qualified as a Master Mariner Foreign Going and the … when you have young family, you go away for long periods of time and it wasn’t really very fair, but one has to accept these things.

It was great fun, P&O was a wonderful Company who looked after us superbly well, and even after I left, over a period of five years, they came back and offered me three different appointments. That’s how good they were.

However, I went into Southampton Harbour Board as a Patrol Officer which was like a stepping stone into the Port industry, and Cowes became available, the appointment, and I was most fortunate to come here.

Before I came for interview, I made a study, came up and looked at everything, managed to get hold of the accounts of the Harbour Authority and all this sort of thing, and it appealed very much, and I was fortunate to be appointed.