The Main Cages. Philip Marsden
for the propeller but not central, on account of the deadwood bolts, and then so that the propeller spun free the rudder had to have a bit of a cut in her and then the stern-tube forced the crew’s quarters up for’ard and that meant the mainmast had to be restepped and that made the hold hard to get at, and then he’d put in a petrol-paraffin engine, and there was a knock she’d had the previous summer –
‘Wait,’ interrupted Jack. ‘Why are you telling us all this? Don’t you want to sell?’
He looked at them sheepishly. ‘Don’t believe I do.’
In Mousehole they met an elderly man with a Mount’s Bay driver that had been in his family thirty years (too big). In Porthleven the boat they came to see had just been bought by a Helston doctor as a pleasure ‘steamer’. In Falmouth, they looked at a drifter that was going cheap because she had been in a collision and ‘her handling’d gone strange’.
In the end they found the Maria V back in Mevagissey where they’d first looked. She was a high-bowed, thirty-seven-foot drifter with tabernacled mainmast and a mizzen astern. She’d been built in 1925 by Dick Pill of Gorran Haven and had been fitted more recently with a Kelvin engine. Maria V herself was Maria Varcoe, who had left the money to her great-nephew, the Gorran man who had originally commissioned the boat.
Beneath a sky of grey-brown cloud, Jack and Croyden motored the Maria V back around Pendhu Point and into the bay. Then came a week of strong northerlies and the Maria V remained on her moorings, tugging at the chain.
On 6 May the last of the winds blew itself out, the seas settled and the Cox of the old lifeboat died. Samuel Tyler was eighty-three and he died in his bed. He had been Cox in 1891 when the Adelaide struck the Main Cages. The following year he lost three fingers fishing and handed over the command to Tommy Treneer. In his years as lifeboatman Samuel Tyler had helped save a total of 233 lives.
At eleven o’clock that Saturday the cortège gathered at the lifeboat station. The RNLI flag flew at half-mast. The same flag lay wrapped around the coffin, its insignia uppermost. Tyler’s cork lifejacket and a yellow sou’wester rested on top.
The procession was led by two black cobs and Ivor Dawkins of Crowdy Farm. He wore a khaki coat and Wellington boots and carried a switch of hazel. Dawkins did not share the town’s reverence for the sea, nor did he have much time for those who risked their lives upon it. He was keen to get his horses back to work and was leading the cortège at something rather quicker than a funereal pace.
Funerals were as popular in Polmayne as lifeboat Coxswains, and almost the whole town turned out to line the route. Jack Sweeney stood with Mrs Cuffe outside Bethesda. Whaler leaned on his stick, staring over the procession to the glow of sun above the bay. On the Town Quay they set down the coffin and for the first of several times sang ‘Crossing the Bar’:
Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me;
And let there be no moaning at the bar
when I put out to sea …
Beside the coffin stood the six pall-bearers in their red dress-hats: the current Cox, Edwin Tyler; his lineman, Dee Walsh; Red and Joseph Stephens; and Croyden and Charlie Treneer.
In front of them all, struggling to keep up with the coffin as it left the quay, was Tommy Treneer. He was hunched and shuffling. His black jacket was too large for him. But the others dropped back to give him space. From his lapel dangled, one above the other, three RNLI service medals. He was now Polmayne’s senior retired Cox.
The following week the town gathered together again, this time for the Jubilee of King George V. On a breezy afternoon, they made their way to the recreation ground. At one end of the field was a low stage, topped by bunting and flanked by a pair of poles. On each of the poles was a trumpet-shaped speaker through which a Broadcasting Apparatus, loaned by Mr Bradley, relayed a crackling version of the ceremony in London.
Major Franks stood on the stage and began by addressing the town’s children. ‘My dear little friends! You have more opportunities for enjoying yourselves than any generation before you. You are living in a wonderful age, you must always endeavour to make the most of this privilege …’
That afternoon’s endeavour was sports. Not a child over two was denied the joys of competition. Each one was placed on the starting line and instructed to run, skip or hop towards a flickering white tape. They were given eggs and spoons and sacks. They had their knees tied together for three-legged races, were upended for wheelbarrow races. They were arranged into relay teams and given a stick. There were chariot races, sprints, sixty-yard slow cycling and a snake race.
All afternoon the cheers rose from the recreation ground. Spirits were high. It was that brief moment between the beginning of fine weather and the coming of the visitors.
Mrs Kliskey of Dormullion was there in her bath chair to hand out the prizes. Two spaniels sat at her feet, their collars wrapped in red, white and blue ribbon. Jack had brought Whaler Cuffe. At three o’clock various people assembled on the stage and the elderly Reverend Winchester was helped to his feet by Mrs Winchester.
‘What’s happening now, Jack?’ asked Whaler.
‘Speech,’ he whispered.
‘Good! Who is it?’ Whaler enjoyed speeches.
‘Winchester.’
‘Oh.’
‘On this auspicious day,’ mumbled Winchester, ‘we thank God for our King’s service to the Empire. We ourselves should never be ashamed of being his servants. For service never degrades. All honest, useful work is a means of glorifying God –’
‘Piff!’ grunted Whaler.
‘Time was when artisans were proud to hang the implements of their craft on the walls of cathedrals. Some foolish people used to be ashamed of certain kinds of manual work, but to the true Christian, work brings dignity –’
‘What does he know of work?’ hissed Whaler. A murmur of conversation began to rise from the crowd.
‘Our King is a devout man who recognises full well his dependence on God. He has been an example of reverent and unaffected devotion. There is in him nor in his Queen no cant or hypocrisy, which is an enemy to the cause of true religion. Loyalty is an easy thing when such a king is on the throne and when
The Reverend Winchester turned the page. But it was the wrong one. He turned the next page, and the next. Major Franks took the chance to nod to Mr Bradley and once again Polmayne’s celebrations were bolstered by sounds from London’s streets. Already the crowd was moving away from the stage to a row of trestle tables where several tea-urns had been set up by the ladies of the Jubilee Committee. The Reverend Winchester looked confused. Mrs Winchester took his arm and said: ‘Come along, dear. Tea.’
The following day, the Garrett brothers brought the freshly-painted Polmayne Queen into Polmayne’s inner harbour. Her funnel was painted custard yellow, her topsides strawberry red, and like a stick of angelica a cove-line of green ran along her side. On the Bench they said, ‘Looks more like a bloody fairground ride ’n a boat.’
At Penpraze’s yard they were preparing the Petrels. One by one they brought the pencil-thin yachts into the shed. Their canvas covers were peeled back to reveal the honey-coloured varnish of their combing, their gently raked decks, the immaculate curves of their hulls. A team of three men rubbed