Anyone remember Truant on the Roach?

[MRF]

Hello, having had a great success with an enquiry about Burnham houseboats, I have a more long-one about my Uncle's old boat, Truant.
She was a 30 foot, high prow cruiser, I seem to recall a Thorneycroft. She was owned by Ted Parker back around the sixties.
She was always kept in a mud berth next to the old railway carriage foreshoremans' shed of the Keeble brothers and the oyster beds.
My father did a lot of work on her wheelhouse and rear deck. She had a Meadows 4ED petrol engine.
I believe Ted drifted off around the late sixties/early seventies, but can't be sure about that.
The shame of losing touch with her (and Ted) is that she was a Dunkirk Little Ship, plaque and all. Ted had a clipping that showed she was responsible for saving 40 men.
I would dearly love to know where she went or anything about her, since most of my childhood weekends were spent aboard her and she was responsible for my lifelong love of boats of all kinds and estuaries in particular.

Thanks,
MRF

 

[skpt]

she doesn't appear on the DLS list of boats so presumably gone to a boaty grave

 

[Jan Harber]

My dad started keeping boats at Paglesham in 1959 and later my other half and I kept boats there too until the mid 1990s.
I can't recall a motor cruiser answering the description of Truant but I do remember the old railway carriage on the saltings, upstream of Shuttlewoods black shed.
The attached photo was taken by me in 1963. Afraid I cannot remember if the boat in it was taken away or just rotted away in the ensuing years.
Rodney Choppin might know about Truant, he's been a Pagleshamite for much longer than me and I think still lives there. You might be able to contact him via the Roach Sailing Association.
Some years ago Rosemary Roberts wrote and published a history of Paglesham. Truant might be mentioned in it...