MSBNEWS

Date for your diary, Saturday 11th July, 2009!

Here is the full announcement, so you can print off this page and send in your cheque for £20.00 a head.

I would suggest you do not go alone but book a clutch of tickets for your dearest and nearest. It will be such a delight no doubt that the sadness will only be that you did not invite more of your friends if that is possible. I am well aware that this is close to the hated danger of creating an aristocracy of the waves rather than the democracy these vessels have promoted in the past, but that is the price of being able to set a value on a scarcity, and the fortune of the fortunate few who obtain tickets in time.

Fortunately, like the best scientific experiments, if for some reason you are elsewhere on July 11th, you can achieve something similar any other day in the summer with this outfit.

I went on a similar charter for the celebration of the Hengistbury Head Noddy train’s 40th anniversary, and it was a very pleasant experience to travel at ease with friends you have known since you were a child, exploring parts of the river that came as a surprise. Then of course we followed the trip with a meal at the nearby restaurant followed by fireworks let off by Sean, a sidekick from the firm and from my youth.

Here is a likely choice for the vessel:

There is nothing wrong with this grand old lady, her firms history arises from and within this section from “Estuary and River ferries of South West England” by Martin Langley and Edwina Small, obtainable hopefully at least on reference from the Bournemouth Public Library.

Here it is, below, to use a nautical expression.

The outfit is now in the hands of Peter Lamb (a director of the Bournemouth Belle as well,) whose firm in Christchurch harbour try very much to maintain the splendour and service of the last 75 years ( and maybe more) in a spirit that has been framed by and framed many thousands’ happy experience of the harbour.

If I cannot get back to working in my retirement on the Noddy train (there are three notebooks full of drivers-in-waiting, like me) then this will be the next thing to paradise....working to a natural rythm in contact with nature whilst doing something useful for the rest, transport and recreation of one’s fellow man.

Few people touched by the lives of these boats have ever regretted their contact with these craft, and your £20 a head is a worthwhile gamble. (on the weather, not the safety of the craft).

Here then is a schematic map from long ago indicating the area, but not necessarily the route, you should read the official announcement above for the all important detail.

I wish I could be there, wait a minute, I should be, if only to photograph your setting off and if I had the nous, interviewing the participants, for I suspect they will have stories to tell commensurate with the dignified history of this nautical wayfarer.

My story, the stories from my childhood, the snatches culled from ambient sources here in this item, are nothing to what will be afloat on the 11th July.

God Bless all who have sailed in her, I feel moved to poetry.

Tennyson’s

Crossing the Bar

might be appropriate, although unlike the reversals one can encounter in life, these boats are proof of life after a normal life is over, of a cyclical rythm, a peaceful eternal return....and so on....

Sunset and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar

When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too much for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell

When I embark;