old BBC program about coasters

Is it Para Handly? loved that series

It was the "Maggie", John, re-named at the very end of the film as the 'Calvin B. Marshall', who was the Yank unfortunate enough to have all his stuff loaded onto Captain McTaggart's fine ship by mistake. I've got the film recorded on a digital box, and last watched it two nights ago, . . one of my all time favourite films !

Thanks for posting that BBC film, by the way. Great to be taken back to the days when you just got on with the job without making a song and dance out of every minor problem, or 'iffy' situation that comes along in the course of a day's work. I loved that bit where they used a headspring to get round the end of that jetty at Exmouth that looked as if it had been battered into oblivion by every ship that had ever been in there ahead of them, then finishing up with the Pilot boat shoving the old girl sideways into a berth.

Thanks for posting that link John, I watched that video with great pleasure and fond memories of some of my family members sadly of the past now.

An uncle of mine from Delfzijl in the Netherlands was a small coaster captain/owner, his 2 sons where on coasters too, 1 was at the time the youngest fully licenced coaster captain of the Netherlands, and his brother was an engineer on another coaster.

The young captain cousin did pretty well and soon was captain/owner himself, but his father thought that his son was a big money waster, as fathers coaster had only a twin cylinder engine, and the first one his son bought had a 3 cylinder, so he thought that his son was going to waste money in more fuel use than he used on his coaster, this was in the very early 60's, and the coasters were already a good 30 years old at the time.

My uncle died in the early 60's and his son became a successful coaster operator, he had 2 big coasters when the times were good, with so many horsepower that would surely have made his father die when knowing about that, if he wouldn't have been dead already.

But there was a big decline in coaster traffic, and he had to sell one of his coaster with a big loss, and with the one that was left he took on cargos that coasters weren't really made for and went much further than only coasting, he's even been to Canada with his last one.

I'd lost contact with him for 46 years, my last visit to him was when I was 14 years of age, and he was loading in Amsterdam where I went to visit him with another cousin of mine both on our bicycles, we loved everything so much that we didn't want to leave when they were laden and had to leave the port, and we managed to stay on board for the trip from Amsterdam to the sea locks at Ijmuiden, from where we had to bicycle back home in the middle of the night to Amsterdam.

Our parents were most unhappy about our behaviour, and I couldn't sit for several days after my dad had finished with me.

Through a member of a Dutch bargees forum I met with someone that knew my cousins from Delfzijl, and he gave me the phonenumber of my cousin, I called him straight away to ask if I could come and visit them, which he accepted.

When I got here, after a very long trip from France to the North of Groningen, he questionned me for the first hour without stopping, before he finally started telling me endless very interesting stories about their working lives on the coasters him and his wife had very good memories and were both excellent storie tellers.

I stayed with them for 2 days, and when I left he asked to excuse him for all the questionning he'd done, but this was because they found it strange that I contacted them after 46 years, and were worried that I came to beg them for money.

My cousin had become diabetic already 15 years before, and sadly died less than a year after my visit, of which I still have very fond memories.

My cousin

a bad photo of the first coaster on which his wife joined him permanently.

Peter.

Sorted John ordered Maggie from amazon plus the vital spark and tales of para handy perfik!! will let you borrow them ok?

smashing Peter ..... thank you !!!

Funny to read that you've got some Dutch roots too John, many Dutch names finishing on "a" came from Groningen and Friesland.

The family name of my cousin wasn't the same as mine, and not even of my mothers, as my cousins mum had the same family name as my mum, but she married someone with a different and quite common name in the Netherlands which is "Visser" (Fisher), so it wasn't easy to find him, I had tried many times before without any success until that guy on the Dutch bargees forum told me that he knew my cousin well and supplied me with the phonenumber.

About the Parahandy now, I've always loved these Puffers, sturdy little coasters, and learned about them in '79 when I found a story about the "VIC 32", a boat that the sadly late Tim Leech had been engineer on for several years, and that's still trading, but now with passengers through Scotland.

Here's the link to a short video about that lovely vessel, and there are several more on youtube.



Peter.

  don't worry, I signed the Official Secrets Act years ago