Tony Dixon on Boatbuilding
He was such a character, you know, whenever you went out to dinner with him to a restaurant, he seemed to just take the restaurant over and get everyone singing and listening to his stories.
Lisa: Where did he live in your childhood?
He had a number of houses, he had ‘Twenty Acres’ which I mentioned before, which was at Whippingham. He had a place out at Niton which was quite a big place and I think about 30 or 40 acres of land out there.
Then just after the War he took over an old warehouse in Cowes and got his blokes to re-new it and build it up and called the ‘Commodore’s House’ and that’s where he lived from then on.
The ‘Commodore’s House’ is open to the water on three sides so typical Uffa he had his own Quay for the Flying Fifteens and so-on.
It was nice when the Duke had come in and Prince Charles would come in with him. And I remember Prince Charles when he was, I should think, about eight or nine and he’d never really known about cookery or anything and he didn’t know how potatoes were prepared so, or tins were opened, so Uffa sent down to get some, load of tinned stuff and potatoes and the Duke would make Charles peel the potatoes and open the tins.
My step-daughter who was a nurse well up in the NHS, she went up to Buckingham Palace for one of the parties, ‘cos she’s in the higher ranks and there’s a photo of her there with Prince Charles came round and asked her and she mentioned that her mother was married to me and Prince Charles says, “Wow, he said I remember that.” He said, “I remember when I was about ten years old, Uffa used to say, “Now come on, you’ve got to drink two glasses of champagne before you go out racing”.
He said, “I was only ten” and Joanne, my step-daughter said when she mentioned the words ‘Uffa Fox’ his face went into a beaming smile.
So, she was quite chuffed with that and to think that there was a photographer taking the photo.