A few days ago another ‘blast from the past’ hit me.

An email winged its way into my post box from a chap who had read something about my meeting John Prime’s cousin aboard the Edith May last February. John owned the spritsail barge Gipping during my childhood and I’d met him when May Flower was in Maldon for repairs in 1964.

http://nickardley.com/barges-a-small-world/

Anyway, I’ve since put the two ‘lost souls’ in contact. And too, John wishes me to make contact. I would have been a boy of 9 at the time of our temporary home in Maldon. I have always remembered the barge: she was a sailing home, like our own home.

Most of the other barges were largely freshly rerigged and used as yachts – the charter trade hadn’t really started at that point in time. Some others had been in use as pleasure vessels for a little longer, such as Ardeer, Marjorie, Millie, Maid of Connaught and Saltcote Belle. Another, the Anglia, was also a sailing home too.

Only one of these names survives. She is the Marjorie… And in fact the last survivor from the 1962 Thames and Medway barge matches!

Happy Days!