John Luff and John Woodford on Boatbuilding

Lisa: And what’s your father’s name?

Edwin Frank Luff. Father was born in the village and mother was born in the village. She was the daughter of the local Chemist and he had a building firm which he took over when his father died and then he was seconded during the War to go along the south coast doing the shuttering for the pill boxes, and when he came back he went over to work at Woodnutts Boatyard who were building Naval vessels and that’s where he went and that’s where he ended up.

Before the War, Woodnutts was a high-class yacht builder but they were sort of seconded to build Naval ships and those boats were built there.

They went over to Portsmouth, had the engines fitted and came back to Bembridge, or St Helen’s I suppose it is to be finished. 

There’s an example of two of them round the Embankment. One is called the … what John? The ‘Zoron’ it’s a motor launch, it’s the same as what they were building over there and then they used to build motor torpedo boats, the fast ones. And then at the end of the War, they went back to yacht building and he stayed over there.

John W: Uffa Fox worked down there didn’t he?

Yes, Uffa Fox designed the lifeboat that they dropped from aeroplanes, and several of the village women worked over there making them. It was a lady’s job. They had a parachute at both ends, they dropped it out of the aeroplane and the parachute opened and that was Uffa Fox designed them.