Tag Archives: Colonel Mitchell

Carol Corbett: Harbour, houseboats 1950s

Aerial of harbour showing houseboats 1950s

Aerial of harbour showing houseboats 1950s

A childhood friend, Kay Green, lived on a houseboat moored off Bridge Road. I loved to go there to play  –  it was so wonderfully different. We’d play around the rocks, painting faces on them and using the seaweed for their hair, and being hairdressers.

There was another houseboat moored the other side of the bridge. An old man lived there,maybe Colonel Mitchell, and Kay and I used to take meals to him from Mrs. Green. His boat had boots hanging from the ceiling. Extraordinary!

Pauline and Jack Harwood: Harbour, houseboat,1950s

Houseboats moored on the river side of the old bridge.

Houseboats moored on the river side of the old bridge

 

When we got married we couldn’t afford to buy a house. We were lucky because a sleeping sickness specialist chap in Kenya or somewhere – Robin Cox and his wife –  he went back, and he said we could have their houseboat.
It was nice, plenty of room. We had a nice little stove, and one night Jack built up the stove so it got so hot we thought it would catch fire.
We wondered why there were so many mugs around and pots. When it rained we realised; rain came in everywhere.
When the tide was wrong and the wind came from the south, she used to come up on her end but we never came adrift from the mooring/gangway.  We were on ‘Bluenose’, but it started off as ‘Spinwham’ – same boat.
Stan Smith lived on it for a bit and then Colonel Mitchell. And then Penny and her husband and it ended up at the top of the river. Pauline Harwood nee Hatch b 1935