Tag Archives: Harold Hayles

Susan Hayles, Mary Hayles: Harbour Sports 1940s, 1950s

My father, Harold Hayles was on the Carnival Committee for many years, so my sisters Mary, Chris and Sally and I were always very involved.
We really looked forward to Carnival Week, as we still do now. Squeak and I practised the pair oared rowing for weeks and we entered all the events. All the money we won was spent at the Fair. Sue Russell nee Hayles b 1940

Harbour sports with RASC boats

Harbour sports with RASC boats :photo Effie pitman

 

For passing the 11+ I was bought a dinghy, a proper clinker one. We desperately practised rowing for weeks ready for the harbour sports. The ladies’ race went right out round the buoy off the pier. It was our chance to earn money for when the funfair came. I don’t think I ever tried the greasy pole – it was stuck out from one of the army boats in the harbour and dipped right down at the end. Mary Lord nee Hayles b 1936

Hayles girls

Harold Hayles’ daughters :from left Susan ( Sue) , Mary, Christine, in front Sally. Photo: Mary Lord

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

Sue Russell: Harbour, lifeboat, 1950s, 1960s

Lifeboat Crew 1966

Lifeboat Crew 1966

Our Father was lifeboat Coxswain for many years and the maroons were let off from our garden,  under the clothes line. We always had to make sure the line was empty of clothes otherwise they would have gone up too.  I was paid, I think it was two shillings and 6 pence, to time from when the maroons went off to when lifeboat left the harbour, which was a lot of money in those days. Sue Russell nee Hayles b 1940