We did have a real shocker; the Doctor, Doctor Brydon. He was such a shocker that when the Smith’s boatbuilding business was going, they kept a stock of bow sprits for him . He was always smashing his bow sprit up. I can’t remember the name of the boat, lost in the mists of time, she would have been somewhere in the 3 to 5 tonner size. He sailed her single handed.
When Charlie was working, if he saw Dr Brydon under full sail coming in, he would guide him straight on to the mud bank, so as he came to a stop. He would then be safely manoeuvred on to a mooring.
Harold Hayles went with him to Cowes one day, why I don’t know, but anyway Dr Brydon said to Harold, ‘I have a lobster on board. We’ll have that going to Cowes,’
so off they went with lobster on the boil. When the lobster was done, the water was tipped out of the pot and in the bottom of the pot were two spark plugs.
Harold said, ‘What are they for?’
‘Oh, I ‘m boiling them clean,’ said the Doctor, ‘They’ll do no harm, and I thought I would cook the lobster at the same time.’

The last I ever heard of Doctor Brydon was when I was working at Fort Vic. Nelson and I were sent down to inspect some damage to one of our boats (RASC). The Doctor had sailed into the harbour and driven his bowsprit straight through one of our boats, through a port hole, through the toilet door trapping someone in the toilet.
It was definitely an army boat, it was either the Foil or the Erme. I remember going to the store to draw a new port hole. You could draw a new port hole, but ask for sheet of glass paper and you were asking for the world. Nick Chandler b 1937