The Dinghy<\/h2>\n
A neighbour three doors away on our council estate of Wythenshawe in South
\nManchester had died. Ron Hepburn had died of a heart attack. My mother learned this
\nfrom another neighbour who was collecting for the funeral. We knew Mrs Hepburn
\nwould not be allowed to remain in her Council house. The death triggered a reaction
\nfrom the council well known among the tenants. On such occasions, the family would
\nbe re-housed in a smaller home. The council\u2019s policy had in turn over the years
\ntriggered a custom among the tenants of the estate. The custom was for immediate
\nfriends of the family to help themselves from the items left in the front garden. It was a
\nsort of parting gift, a memento from those who once occupied the house. There were no
\ncharity shops or house clearance companies in the period not long after the Second
\nWorld War.<\/p>\n
Later, others, also neighbours but not immediate friends of the family leaving,
\ncould help themselves to what remained. Everyone knew the council workmen would
\ncome with a large two-wheeled hand cart to empty the house, make repairs and clear
\ngardens in readiness for a new tenant\u2019s family. It was common knowledge this
\nrepresented an ideal opportunity in the days before fly-tipping to tip into the garden
\nwhatever items other neighbours found difficult to dispose of for one reason or another.
\nAncient cast iron gas cookers, old lawnmowers and washing mangles – even First
\nWorld War Lee Enfield rifles, now rusting and dangerous, might mysteriously appear,
\nthen disappear, ghostlike. This was a sort of recycling precursor to today\u2019s community-managed\u00a0waste management.<\/p>\n
My younger brother came running up to me, \u201cMrs Hepburn\u2019s garden has a
\nsquare boat in it,\u201d he shouted.\u00a0 Over a low privet hedge, I saw what at first looked like a bath upside down. The object, discoloured with green moss and the trace marks of dead plants, lay among sticks of
\nfurniture, old carpets, bits of rusty bicycles and broken-backed chairs. Except this bath
\nwas gently curved from back to front, made of wood and had no feet, taps or plughole.
\nThe dark blue paint was for the most part blistered by the weathering of many winters in
\nthe Hepburn\u2019s back garden. A threadbare red coloured patch of the canvas of a sail
\nattached to a pole flapped in the tame air of the council estate. The pole, once a
\nvarnished surface, was now dirty and scored with haphazard spiders\u2019 webs of cracks.
\nThe object that looked like a bathtub had already been examined and rejected
\nby all who saw it. Another scavenging neighbour pulled from under it a complete set of
\npram wheels with solid white rubber tyres only half worn down from years of usage.
\nThe wheels were still attached to their axles which in turn were attached to the curved
\ntubular pram supports having been hack sawn-off long ago. Tilting the object which
\nlooked like a bathtub, my eyes confirmed my brother\u2019s assertion to be correct. The
\nshiny varnished underside of ply, though discoloured with plant and insect dirt and
\nblack fungal mould, was unmistakable as the insides of a boat. Yet, oddly, this boat
\nseemed to lack a proper boat\u2019s pointed bow. Someone had either chopped the bow off
\nor had not enough wood to construct a bow. Having lifted the vessel to see what was
\ninside, to my sixteen and a half-year-old mind, she felt solid. For all the neglect and
\ndetritus covering the hull she felt firm and intact.<\/p>\n
I had established, by dragging this object into our garden, my ownership of the boat to all around.
\nMy pulse quickened.\u00a0 Not having a clue what I was looking for, I returned to the deceased neighbour\u2019s garden
\nand sifted through piles of bundled newspapers. I searched inside dirty old wooden
\norange boxes. I sought anything of the same colour as the boat or made of wood which
\nmight match with something on the boat\u2019s hull. This way I, found a badly rotted rudder
\nand a tiller and daggerboard. I found some pulleys and bits of neatly coiled twine yet
\nthicker and grey with a red fleck not normally used in a garden.
\nI knew my Father would not allow me to keep the boat in its sorry-looking state
\nin our back garden.<\/p>\n
I was not disappointed. I was given three days to get rid of it. The only person I knew True to my expectations, Uncle Tom rolled up his sleeves after returning from The nearest stretch of open water was the River Bolin. This river was several In those days, shops were not allowed, for religious reasons, to open on Sundays, so the The day of the launch was raining and windy. The dinghy now had a I was instructed to row to the middle of the river where I would lower a thirty I hauled up the grocer\u2019s weight anchor. By the time I reached the stern my Through my grip of the tiller, I felt the raw power of these sails pull the dinghy towards I surfaced with the inner tube partially covering my face, spitting out the brown THE END<\/p>\n Copyright “Gandalpuss” member of Lovesail.com<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\nwho might know what it was that lay in our back garden was my Uncle Tom. My Uncle
\nhad been an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy during the war. Uncle Tom had regaled
\nme with tales of his time in the Navy and encouraged my interest in boats, yet was
\nadamant in his opposition to my joining the Navy. My uncle agreed to having the boat
\nin his garden for he was well aware of my Father\u2019s views. This was the real reason for
\nmy visit – I hoped my relative might show me how to restore the boat. Not daring to ask
\nmy Father for help transporting the dirty old hull, I removed what dirt I could with a
\nbucket of water and a stiff scrubbing brush. I persuaded my best friend, David Copsey,
\nto help hand carry the dinghy three quarters of a mile across the council estate to my
\nUncle\u2019s house. Uncle Tom was unable to tell me anything about my boat except that it
\nappeared to be a plywood sailing dinghy which lacking a pointed bow. He thought it
\nmight be called a \u2018pram dinghy<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n
\nwork and we spent hours cleaning, sanding, painting and varnishing the hull. He
\nshowed me how to replace rotten parts, providing materials from his capacious shed. I
\nlearned a lot during those precious evenings at my Uncle\u2019s. Not the least of which he
\ntaught me how to use hand tools. More than this, in my Uncle\u2019s company, his
\ninfectious enthusiasm, his \u2019can do\u2019 spirit and his unstinting generosity \u2013 in later years I
\nfound common to many in the sailing community. The time flew by. The day of the
\nlaunch of the \u2018mirror dinghy\u2019 approached.<\/p>\n
\nmiles away accessed down a wooded track from a bend in a lane not far from
\nManchester Airport. It was too far to carry the dinghy by hand. My uncle called in a
\nfavour of a friend who drove a small flat bed lorry for a greengrocery supplies
\nwarehouse in Manchester.<\/p>\n
\nlorry was available for the launch. Life jackets only existed at that time on ships so, as
\na precaution, a half inflated scooter tyre\u2019s inner tube of black rubber was positioned and
\nheld by string across my chest below my arms.<\/p>\n
\nrudimentary sail cut and shaped and stitched on my Auntie Irene\u2019s cast iron foot treadle
\noperated sewing machine from a template of the original ragged red canvas. This sail,\u00a0 as with the jib sail, was made from dark red marquee tent canvass which, with a wink of
\nhis eye, my Uncle told me had fallen off the back of a lorry.
\nKnowing nothing about sailing I had come to assume Uncle Tom would instruct
\nme once afloat. With the confidence of youth, I soaked up my Uncle\u2019s instructions full
\nin the knowledge of the all shining certainty that what this man said would come to
\npass. Both my Uncle and I were relieved to get out of his friend\u2019s chain smoking,
\ncigarette fog, of a smoke filled cab. Using his friend\u2019s sack barrow we all three eased
\nthe dinghy down the track to the river.<\/p>\n
\npound greengrocer\u2019s scales weight borrowed from the lorry now reborn as my anchor.
\nThe anchor was attached to a length of clothes line secured to the bow of the boat. I was
\nthrilled to heave on the oars as the dinghy ploughed forward under the power of my
\narms toward the centre of the river. I was told to lower the dagger board within its\u2019
\ncentral housing and attach the rudder on its pintles. I was oblivious to the rain and wind
\nof that day. Once at anchor, my uncle shouted instructions over the noise of the swelling
\nsurge of water. I raised the main sail and its Gunter boom, cleating off the main halyard.
\nThe sail flapped like a frightened beast in the rain, its lower boom banging against my
\nleg. Next, the jib sail was hoisted as instructed. I was only just able to catch my
\nUncle\u2019s instructions above the combined din of the flapping sails and rush of river
\nwater.<\/p>\n
\ncompanions were racing along the bank. This was how fast the current had swept my
\ncraft. Caught in the surging water the boat rocked. The main sail filled and jammed,
\nforcing the boat sideways on to the river\u2019s flow. Unaware, I was standing on the jib’s
\ncontrolling rope called the jib sheet. The jib sail filled and bellied. Unable to flap, it
\ncaused the dinghy to tilt at a crazy angle.<\/p>\n
\nan overhang of trees as the river approached a bend.
\nThe speed of movement made the dinghy all but leap sideways, taking the boat under
\nthe lower branches of the canopy of trees.
\nThe wind here became light, the mast shot up vertical taking me off balance.
\nThe main sail\u2019s upper Gunter boom struck the lower branches of the canopy, shaking a
\ndeluge of water which soaked me inside the boat.
\nI slipped ….. SPLASH! In I went.<\/p>\n
\nriver water. My companions ceased running \u2013 falling about in paroxysms of laughter as
\nthe now tangled jib formed, to them, what looked like a nun\u2019s wimple against the black
\nof the inner tube. My feet found the river\u2019s bottom as I stood up, presenting an even
\nmore comical sight, for I had become the anchor for my boat.
\nIt occurred to me – a boat owner I might be, but I was far from being a sailor.<\/p>\n
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