All bran …

Empire Trooper was to be broken up but her lifeboats were alright as lifeboats go – notoriously, they were pigs to sail and my dad was somewhat of a purist but with all of us children and money being short -needs must.

There was a lot of work to be done converting a double ended lifeboat to a transom sterned yacht. A lifeboat was all we could afford.

He put the lifeboat on chocks on the saltings near Miscellany. Then he cut through the hull of the boat down the stern post and opened it out. He steamed new timbers, using a bonfire and a long drainpipe making them more flexible.

My mother had remove the timber from the pipe and run them, one at a time to my dad who then bent them to make the new curve to the beautiful new mahogany transom he had made – it…