Bathurst - The wreckers: a story of killing seas and plundered shipwrecks, from the eighteenth century to the present day

Copyright 2005 by Bella Bathurst

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

First published in Great Britain by Harper Collins Publishers, 2005

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

www.hmhbooks.com

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Bathurst, Bella.

The wreckers : a story of killing seas and plundered shipwrecks, from the eighteenth century to the present day / Bella Bathurst,
p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-618-41677-3
1. ShipwrecksGreat BritainHistory. 2. PillageGreat BritainHistory. 3. Great BritainHistory, Local. I. Title.
DA 90. B 334 2005
909'.096336dc22 2005045951

e ISBN 978-0-544-30161-0
v1.0813

To John, with love

Much of this book is based on interviews from around Britain. Most of the interviewees were not wreckers themselves, but people who had a strong connection to the sea and to their local area. One person led to another in a chain of links and associations leading all the way from Shetland to the Scilly Isles. Almost without exception, everyone I spoke to gave up their time and their expertise with a generosity far beyond anything I had a right to expect. Without their help, this book would not exist. I remain unrepayably grateful both to them and to all the other unnamed experts who helped along the way.

Several people provided invaluable background information. Sophia Exelby, custodian of what may well be the UKs finest job tide, filled in much of my knowledge on the role of the Receiver of Wreck. Howard Richings, the RNLIs shoreworks manager, gave me both an interview and a list of further contacts, as did John Caldwell in Scotland. Despite my private vow never to step on board a ship with him again, James Taylor, Chief Executive of the Northern Lighthouse Board, is always the best of companions and interviewees. In London, Ben Griffiths provided invaluable legal research, while the staff of the Signet Library, the Scottish Public Records Office, Kirkwall Library, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, Trinity House and the Morrab Library in Penzance all helped with the unending hunt for material.

In Orkney and Caithness, Willie Mowatt MBE, James Simpson, Jackie Manson, Dr Tony Trickett, Brian Williams, Jeff Temple, John Thornton and George Gunn all offered time and insight. David Stogdon provided a wonderful new perspective on the Stroma men, interrupting his Christmas holidays to do so. Kirkwall Museums exhibitions officer Tom Muir filled in vital background history and checked through the manuscript. Further down the west coast, John Macleod, Hector Macleod, Dr Jeremy Hidson, Ken Holland, Roderick and Angus McLean, Lindsay Johnson, Nick Ryan and Sigurd and Rose Scott offered information on everything from smuggling to whirlpools, while Alisdair Sinclair was kind enough to check through the chapter for errors of fact. On the east of Scotland, Chris Marr, Dougie Ferguson and Ron Leask all offered me excellent material, though in the end I was only able to use a small portion of it. On the East Coast, Sid Barnett, Syd Weatherill, Ben Dean and John Porteous provided invaluable expertise on the local salvage industry, while in Norfolk, Richard and Julie Davies made me welcome and put up with endless pestering. In London, Richard Sabin and Bob Jeffries both read through sections of the manuscript and gave me a glimpse of a capital I never knew existed. On the south coast, Andy Roberts, Tess Vandervliet and Bob Peacock expanded my understanding of the Channel and the Goodwin Sands. In Cornwall, Rebecca Pender, Joe Mills, Mike Pearce, Mike Collier, Billy Stevenson and Maurice Hutchens all offered their expertise during a particularly busy time of year. And on the Scilly Isles, Matt and Pat Lethbridge, Peter Kyne, Mark Groves, Frank Gibson and Richard Lam provided me with a clearer view of those exceptional islands than I could have dared hope for.

James and Sarah Dawnay not only provided the loveliest writers retreat in Scotland but introduced me to Sarahs father, David Stogdon. In Edinburgh, Gus and Elspeth Ferguson offered contacts and companionship with their usual selflessness. My uncle and aunt David and Tessa McCosh had me to stay in Norfolk and pointed me in useful directions, while Rory Day showed me Argylls own maelstrom. Alex Rentonwriter, skipper and friendnot only put up with my lousy crewing, but put aside his own writing in order to perform expert editorial surgery on the manuscript. Richard Ross travelled all the way from California to Stroma, made me smile and kept me going. Euan Ferguson, Ashley Heath, Alexa de Ferranti, Kamal Ahmed and Angus Wolfe Murray all offered friendship far beyond the call of duty, while my long-suffering family endured three long years of fishy anecdotes and complaint. Down in London, Alan Jones provided beautiful maps while both Michael Fishwick and Helen Ellis made the business of publication more fun than work. In New York, Elaine Pfefferblit, Libby Edelson and Webster Younces help and insights on publication were invaluable. Most of all, I owe Victoria Hobbsfriend and special agenta debt I know I cant repay. It is one thing to field seven years worth of neurotic emails, but to put up with repeated and systematic food poisoning goes far beyond any reasonable job description. This book owes its existence to her unstinting encouragement and patience, as well as to her suggestion that from now on, we eat out.

Any book about the past is in some sense a ghost story. This one started with Robert Louis Stevenson and was written with his history and his family always in mind. One of the many pleasures of researching this has been in revisiting many of the places where the Stevensons worked. Every succeeding year gives me greater admiration for their works both in print and stone. And lastly, there are the ghosts closer to home; those of Johnny Noble and my father. Who, I very much hope, would have enjoyed this book.

While researching another book five years ago, I came across the following passage in Robert Louis Stevensons Records of a Family of Engineers:

On a September night, the Regent lay in the Pentland Firth in a fog and a violent and windless swell. It was still dark, when they were alarmed by the sound of breakers, and an anchor was immediately let go. The peep of dawn discovered them swinging in desperate proximity to the isle of Swona and the surf bursting close under their stern. There was in this place a hamlet of the inhabitants, fisher-folk and wreckers; their huts stood close about the head of the beach. All slept; the doors were closed, and there was no smoke, and the anxious watchers on board ship seemed to contemplate a village of the dead. It was thought possible to launch a boat and tow the Regent from her place of danger; and with this view a signal of distress was made and a gun fired with a red hot poker from the galley. Its detonation awoke the sleepers. Door after door was opened, and in the grey light of the morning fisher after fisher was seen to come forth, yawning and stretching himself, nightcap on head. Fisher after fisher, I wrote, and my pen tripped; for it should rather stand wrecker after wrecker. There was no emotion, no animation, it scarce seemed any interest; not a hand was raised; but all callously awaited the harvest of the sea, and their children stood by their side and waited also. To the end of his life, my father remembered that amphitheatre of placid spectators on the beach, and with a special and natural animosity, the boys of his own age. But presently a light air sprang up, and filled the sails, and fainted, and filled them again, and little by little the