Tag Archives: Fort Vic

Nick Chandler: Boat Building at Fort Victoria 1960s

The chap in charge of RASC boatbuilding at Fort Vic was Major Wilkey. He used to live in Plevna at one time.  I had been working over there for about a week when Nelson Simmonds turned up, and after that, two old boatbuilders from Whites.  It was a bit short lived 18 months – two years and it all folded up.
Boat at Fort VicS0102087

Old Nelson, he was a boy! He was he was into everything.  He had a harbour launch pulled up over there, had to be re-coppered. We stripped all the old copper off, fitted the new, and Nelson said,
‘We’ll make a bob or two out of this, mate. I’ll bring the van over one evening and spirit this lot away.’
One day we were having a cup of tea when the quartermaster came in,                              ‘ Ah,  Mr Simmonds and Mr Chandler. Do you know where the copper went that you stripped off that harbour launch?’
‘No,’ we said.  Nelson said, ‘Beachcombers, I expect,’
‘Yes, and I think I’m looking at them.’ said the quartermaster, with that he turned round and walked out.
When the fort was shut the stuff that was taken out to sea and dumped was terrible, harbour launches full of it for days, and the diesel from the tanks was pumped into the beach, pumped in to the shingle.
Towards the end of it, I was going to work one morning and I heard this lorry grinding up the hill. It was old Ball, the scrap merchant, and he was loaded with batteries. When I got down to the fort, Bill, the sergeant was there, and I said to him,  ‘Someone has made a bob or two out of that load,’ and he said,
‘Well, you’ve got to, haven’t you.’ When it finally closed I was offered the same job at Gunwharf over Pompey, but I didn’t want to travel. Nick Chandler b 1937

Nick Chandler: Harbour 1960s, 1970s

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

Harbour: Jim Cooper 1920s – 1960s

Coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

Jim Cooper coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

It was a basic dinghy shape.  They called it a ‘lanch’ the old boys, so that differentiated it from a rowing boat.  It was bigger and it had a net board in the back.  In the transom, six inches below, there was a net board about two foot wide which we used to lay the net on when we were shooting nets out the back of the transom.  It was a very wide boat and the oars he used were about ten foot long, huge big ash oars, they weighed a ton, I couldn’t lift them.

In those days he made a little bit of a living on pout which these days is much maligned.  ‘Sweet little pout’; my mum still says now, ‘Why can’t you get me a sweet little pout?’
It’s like a mini cod, the same flesh, same family.  He used to catch those.

When we used to go out we used to row down to Fort Vic., go out in the tide. You remember those old iron wheelbarrow wheels with a spike in the middle? He used to have one of those, that was his anchor and a big bit of grass rope and he used to chuck that over and he used to have the oars ready. They’d get to where they wanted to go and drift back, and let a bit more rope out;  so they stopped and then they fished, and all they used was line, about three or four hooks on the bottom and garden worms.  They’d catch a few pout and then they’d run out, or they hadn’t caught one, then they’d trip the killock [small anchor]. Pull the anchor up a little bit, let it go, give it a shear with the oar now and again, and drift in the right direction to another bit of ground.  And they’d do that all the way to Bouldnor. There was about three or four places where they stopped.  And of course by the time you got to Bouldnor inshore, the ebb was down again, so you had the tide back the other way.  Alec Cokes b 1945

Harbour: Jim Cooper 1920s -1960s

Coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

Jim Cooper coming in to wooden stage at Sandhard to avoid toll

I used to spend a lot of time with my grandad, Jim Cooper, and he used to have these old rowing boats he used to row about fishing and things.  He’d always done that.  You’ve got to remember he was born in 1883. This was in the sixties and he was nearly ninety when he died. He used to go out, never very far, only to Bouldnor or down to Fort Vic. and somewhere in between.  He went up the river a bit.  Sid Kelleway was always up the river and they used to have their little territories.  Grandad had two boats, one about eighteen foot long he used to stand up and row, and a small one he would stand up and row as well, pushing forward rather than pulling back on the oars, one foot slightly forward of the other one. If you stand with your feet parallel you go forward then you’ve had it, so he always had one foot slightly ahead of the other.  You don’t see anyone do it now, but you could do, if you had the right boat and the right oars.  Alec Cokes b 1945

Les Turner, Alec Cokes: Free Time with Go Karts 1950s

Alec and I would go out after school with one of our karts across to Sandhard or down to Fort Vic. to collect the wood off the beach.   At weekends we sawed it up for firewood.
I remember we used to take turns to ride the Kart down over Fort Vic hill.  The Fort was still manned by the Army then.
It was my turn this particular time.  I went hurtling down over the hill.  All of a sudden this dispatch rider appeared coming  the other way up the hill.  He went in one hedge and I went in the other. Les Turner b 1944

I can remember going over to Fort Vic; it particularly sticks in my mind as I think we brought back a carton of those 7 pound tins of cocoa.  We had about four of them in a box, and we had chocolate cakes for a long time after that, and chocolate puds.  Yeah I can remember doing that one.  Alec Cokes  b1945