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My First Boating Holiday

“Golden Star” 1972

By Terry Clarke

                        It is probably worth me spending a few lines explaining how I became hooked on The Broads.

As a family we comprised of my father who was virtually blind through severe cataracts in both eyes, my Mum, older brother and me. We were a working class family. Because of my father’s disability jobs were low paid. Accordingly we rarely had a holiday’s but occasionally my grand parents would hire a caravan on the Vauxhall Caravan Park in Great Yarmouth for a week and we all went. Crammed in my granddad’s ageing car, luggage piled high on the roof rack, it was brilliant.  As money was tight, as kids we rarely went on the amusements in Bottons but spend many an evening watching others come down the helter skelter into the big bowl at the bottom. The one thing we always did however was to go on a ‘road and river’, trip booked through Seagull Coaches at one of the little booths which used to be by one of the piers on Great Yarmouth sea front.

We would board the coach on the sea front and after a fight for the front seat we would journey to Wroxham where we all board the Princess Alexandra (I think it was called) for a 2 or 3 hour trip down river to Horning and back. I just loved this, sat at the window seat looking at all the boats, the bungalows and the wild life. I don’t know what it was and still don’t but it seemed like a whole different world and I loved it.  If Granddad could be persuaded to drive, we would also all go to Reedham where we would park on the river front, take a walk to Pettits when it was all feather made butterflies and then back to sit in the car and have an ice cream.  I loved the river more that than Pettits and seeing the Bridge swing open and a large coaster go by if you were really lucky, was something else.

Many years passed and every year I would say why can’t we have a holiday on a boat on The Broads.  I would spend hours going through the Blakes and Hoseasons brochures reading the boat details and then having almost total recall on which boatyard a particular boat came from. These pleas were always met by we can’t afford one of those and how will Dad manage.

In 1972 as a young 16 year old lad I started work for Nat West Bank and started earning the princely sum of £584 per annum. Most of this went on bus fares to work each day and contributions to the household budget.  My older brother was contributing to the household income too and things were not so hard financially. When it came to holiday decision can we go on a boat, I finally got a yes. Happy, I was like a dog with 4 sphericals.  My brother had already committed to going on holiday with his girlfriend and her family, so we chose the same week to take our holiday. This meant a crew of 3. Golden Star (Y931) from Pearson’s of Reedham was chosen for a variety of reasons:

• No interior steps which Dad could fall down
• The right bed combination
• Steered from the front which seemed like it would be easier being more like a car (although none of us could drive)
• We knew Reedham and thought this would be a good place as any to start.

With no car and no Grandad, we booked a taxi to take from Kent to Reedham. There was a company that did regular car hire journey’s back then between Kent and East Anglia.  Endless lists were made about what we needed to take, hammer for banging in the rhond anchors, large screw driver and pliers to undo any knots which pulled to tight. Mum packed something for every conceivable eventuality (or so we thought).  We arrived at Reedham in this big estate car and unloaded all our luggage in the boatyard. Golden Star was not ready to receive its new crew, so we had to sit and wait. Sit I could not, to eager to get aboard. The lady at the boatyard brought Mum and Dad a pot of tea out to the bench on the grass over looking the river.

Eventually Golden Star was ready and we carefully managed to get Dad on board. The yard owner I think it was, showed us all the things you had to do each day on the boat, clean weed filters, screw down the greasing knob on the shaft through a small panel removed from the floor, how to flush the loo, how to start and stop the engine etc. I was starting to realise the responsibility I was carrying now to look after the boat, navigation, steering and mooring. The owner cast off from the bank and took us a little way down the river and then made me turn her around and take him back to the bank.

What are the main memories for that first fantastic week afloat on The Broads all those 34 years ago:

• Boats don’t steer going astern. First overnight stop was at St Olaves in a small basin. My first encounter at mooring stern on, Mum shouting back a bit, back a bit with me worrying about hitting the bank. Mum not being confident enough to step off with a rope (she could not swim and still can’t), Dad being unable to help and me running through the boat from the front to grab both ropes and make fast. What a shambles.
   
• The boat was old fashioned, the steering wheel looked like it had come straight off a Morris Minor. The gear lever was a long pole coming straight through the floor about 4 feet long.
   
• The loo which pumped straight out into the river and when you pumped the brass handle, you saw weeds and all flush the bowl. The shower was the same straight out in the river.
   
• Mum sleeping in her life jacket in case we sank at night.
   
• The strong tides on the southern broads which I had not realised, oh the innocence.
   
• The rivers were brown in colour compared to the green of the northern rivers.
   
• Approaching Beccles Bridge and realising that we might not get through and trying to turn the boat around against the tide when much too close to the bridge, we missed it.

• Getting stuck on Rockland Broad on the mud because we (I) mis-read which side of the markers to go.
   
• The smoke billowing out of Cantley.
   
• Mum making a make shift washing line with the boat hook and some string and us forgetting about it when going under St Olaves Bridge which resulted in me losing my new jeans in the Waveney.
   
• Mooring up at the Buckenham Ferry, so wild and remote, absolutely beautiful.
   
• Fishing all week and not catching a thing, due largely to Mum not allowing maggots on board.
   
• Mud weighting on Oulton Broad on Thursday night so I could watch the power boat racing, Mum insisting we move to the bank to moor overnight, in case something hit us and sunk us at night.

• Discovering Beccles, what a lovely place.
   
• Jumping up every few minutes when a boat went by to cross it off in the Hoseasons and Blakes brochures.
   
• Meeting the Reedham Ferry which never waited for a gap in the boat traffic just pulled out whenever it was ready to leave.  
   
• The trip down the Chet to Loddon, so twisty and windy never knowing what was round the corner.
   
• How much boat activity there was then compared to now.
   
• How many boat yards there were then, too many to name, such a shame so many have closed now.

• Mooring at Bramerton and walking to the pub, having a shandy and a packet of crisps outside.
   
• Fantastic weather.
   
• Closeness to the wild life.
   
• Peace and tranquillity of early morning on the water, absolutely perfect and still my favourite time.

Saddest thought was always just how much of the beautiful scenery my Dad was missing with his failing eye sight. We all fell in love with The Broads on this first holiday on the boat, since then we have followed with:  

Silver Arrow (H260) in 1975 from Silverline Marine at Brundall.

Carribbean (E56) from Wilds at Horning

Tropicana 3 (F920) from Mixer Marine at Stalham

Diamond Emblem from Ernest Collins at Wroxham

Caribou from Ryder Marine at Womack where I fell in love with Womack and it remains my favourite place in the world.

Glittering Light 8 (G819) from Herbert Woods at Potter

Golden Girl (M606) from Summercraft at Wroxham

Moon Stream (J609) from Belaugh Boats at Belaugh

Moorhen (T459) from Moores at Wroxham.

 

We still talk about that first holiday today, the boats we have been on, the holidays we have had.

Terry Clarke 2006