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.

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