Literary Merit.

[Scotsailor]

I contend that whilst the East Coast lacks the scenic charm of Scotland and the historical associations and grandeur of the South Coast, it has produced better writing.

The Para Handy tales by Neil Munro take some beating.

 

[Kukri]

Probably the sea walls were much lower in those days. Even during my drinking career you used to be able to see the Crouch from the White Harte and the Anchor in Burnham.

Thanks! Mystery solved!

 

[Sniper]

I submit ‘The art of coarse sailing’ by Michael Greene
Every year I am inspired by his writing and find myself yelling ‘for god’s sake turn right!’ at my crew.

 

[Marmalade]

Don't forget Ransome - mybe not high literature but some of the best yarns ...

Secret Water
We didn't mean to go to Sea
Coot Club
The Big Six

OK those last two are about the broads rather than the coast per se but it's East Anglia

 

[Kukri]

Carl Giles. Sailed from Waldringfield. President of Felixstowe Ferry SC.

 

[LittleSister]

Our copy of The Magic of the Swatchways is a paperback. On the cover is a photograph of an archetypical East-coaster:




A Wayfarer.

I first read Magic of the Swatchways as a musty, yellowed, old second-hand hardback a friend had. When I finished it I soon went out and bought the paperback so I could read it again. But it's not the same, when Griffiths is regaling us with tales of boats that reeked of paraffin, damp hemp ropes, tar and pipe smoke. So I went and found myself a suitably musty old hardback, too!

 

[Kukri]

And Mike Peyton:

My crews say the next one applies to me. I cannot imagine why:

 

[Charlie Boy]

And we don't have midges!

Frances Cooke, Alker Tripp?

We used to!
The Dreaded ague, a.k.a. malaria

 

[ianc1200]

Thank you. I knew I had read it! Oddly “Chance” was the first of his books to sell really well, though nobody thinks much of it.

I suspect that the “riverside inn” is not the Butt and Oyster which so many of us know but the Lobster Smack on Canvey Island which was well used by yachtsmen in Conrad’s day. Indeed my late father on his first single handed cruise in the Thames Estuary in 1919 in his brother in law’s 18ft half decked day boat went out of his way to visit it.

(edited to add - oh no it’s not. You can’t see the river from the pub windows, as it is below the sea wall. But it does have a pier. So, a small literary mystery, as the Butt doesn’t have a pier. Another contender might be the Anchor in Brightlingsea (now flats) if the higher bit of the hard can count as a pier. I think the Burnham pubs are all behind the sea wall, too. The Shipwrights’ Arms at Oare would qualify...
Suggestions...)

An American boat owner lent me Chance on the upper Thames years ago (had quite a job posting it back to him) but I always thought it was the Lobster Smack at Holehaven where they discussed the tale.

Pre WW1 the Lobster Smack was known as "Beckys" after the owner, and featured in several books, but particularly "In Tidal Waters" by F B Cooke.

 

[ianc1200]

Wasn't Storm the boat Maurice bought twice?

Yes. But then owned by one family on the south coast for 60 odd years. David Cade, owned her from 1962, he long time editor/president of the Old Gaffers & really loved her.

Swan, the barge yacht before MG owned Storm was at Leigh until about 20 years ago, and is reputably being restored at the boatbuilding school at Lowestoft.

Wilful, in between MG's ownership of Storm, was racing in the Gaffers races up until about 20 years ago, not aware where she is now.

Nightfall, the boat MG had after Storm was on the EC for many years, now been rebuilt and owned by the RYS artist Martyn Mackril see a nice video here

 

[Jan Harber]

I once attended a yacht club lecture given by Jack Cootes on the literature of the East coast, an excellent evening.
It is too long ago to recall many of the books he read from but I would love to try and re-read some of them.
I wonder if Jan still has his notes or can remember any titles?

Dan, my dad did do a talk to various sailing clubs on books with an East Coast connection. I went with him to one at Pin Mill SC. It was many years ago, not sure Jack ever had any notes. However, I have inherited most of his books and also his enthusiasm for them. The bibliography in East Coast Rivers lists many of them. Here is my list that includes some of Jack's original suggestions plus a few more of my own. Some have already been mentioned elsewhere on this thread.

Suffolk Estuary by WG Arnott (1950) There are many references in this delightful and well written book to Edward Fitzgerald, or Old Fitz. Arnott's mother remembered seeing him 'complete with old tartan shawl thrown carelessly over his shoulder, walking down the Thorofare (in Woodbridge) in animated conversation with Tennyson.'

Mehalah, A Story of the Salt Marshes by Sabine Baring Gould (1880)

Last Stronghold of Sail Hervey Benham (1947)

Coastwise Cruising from Erith to Lowestoft Francis B Cooke (1929)

Sailing Tours Part 1 Essex and Suffolk Frank Cowper (1882 reprinted 1985)

The Last Sailorman Dick Durham (1989)

Boadicea CK213 Michael Frost (1974)

The First of the Tide; The Magic of the Swatchways; Swatchways and Little Ships Maurice Griffiths

The Sailor's Coast; The Salty Shore John Leather (1979)

A Taste for Sailing John Lewis 1989

Coasting Bargemaster Bob Roberts (1949 reprinted 1985)

We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea; Secret Water Arthur Ransome (1937 and '39)

Suffolk Sea Borders; Shoal Water and Fairway; Under the Cabin Lamp Alker Tripp (1926)

Coastal Adventure James Wentworth Day ( 1949)

Tideways & Byways in Essex and Suffolk Archie White (1948)

London to the Nore WL and Mrs Wyllie (1905) Brilliant on the London River illustrated with wonderful plates of Wyllie's paintings

Willy Nilly to the Baltic John Seymour (1965) sadly out of print, written in Seymour's entertaining style about his adventures in a Yorkshire coble.

Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers

This Thing of Darkness Harry Thompson (2005) A ripping yarn if ever there was one, concerning Darwin, Fitzroy and The Beagle.

 

[johnalison]

I submit ‘The art of coarse sailing’ by Michael Greene
Every year I am inspired by his writing and find myself yelling ‘for god’s sake turn right!’ at my crew.

Yes. Better than the perfectly readable ‘Art of coarse cruising’. My only memory of the first is the account of a breezy day when they were trying to decide whether or not to take in a reef. At that point he saw a seagull flying past - backwards.

 

[ianc1200]

Swin Swale & Swatchway, 1892 H Lewis Jones, sailing from Leigh, is another worth reading IMO.

 

[Dan Tribe]

We used to!
The Dreaded ague, a.k.a. malaria

Father in law was born in Burnham in the 1920s and, apart from war service, lived there all his life. When any of the family got a cold or flu, he would say they had "got the ague, must have been over the marshes"

 

[Dan Tribe]

Dan, my dad did do a talk to various sailing clubs on books with an East Coast connection. I went with him to one at Pin Mill SC. It was many years ago, not sure Jack ever had any notes. However, I have inherited most of his books and also his enthusiasm for them. The bibliography in East Coast Rivers lists many of them. Here is my list that includes some of Jack's original suggestions plus a few more of my own. Some have already been mentioned elsewhere on this thread.

Suffolk Estuary by WG Arnott (1950) There are many references in this delightful and well written book to Edward Fitzgerald, or Old Fitz. Arnott's mother remembered seeing him 'complete with old tartan shawl thrown carelessly over his shoulder, walking down the Thorofare (in Woodbridge) in animated conversation with Tennyson.'

Mehalah, A Story of the Salt Marshes by Sabine Baring Gould (1880)

Last Stronghold of Sail Hervey Benham (1947)

Coastwise Cruising from Erith to Lowestoft Francis B Cooke (1929)

Sailing Tours Part 1 Essex and Suffolk Frank Cowper (1882 reprinted 1985)

The Last Sailorman Dick Durham (1989)

Boadicea CK213 Michael Frost (1974)

The First of the Tide; The Magic of the Swatchways; Swatchways and Little Ships Maurice Griffiths

The Sailor's Coast; The Salty Shore John Leather (1979)

A Taste for Sailing John Lewis 1989

Coasting Bargemaster Bob Roberts (1949 reprinted 1985)

We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea; Secret Water Arthur Ransome (1937 and '39)

Suffolk Sea Borders; Shoal Water and Fairway; Under the Cabin Lamp Alker Tripp (1926)

Coastal Adventure James Wentworth Day ( 1949)

Tideways & Byways in Essex and Suffolk Archie White (1948)

London to the Nore WL and Mrs Wyllie (1905) Brilliant on the London River illustrated with wonderful plates of Wyllie's paintings

Willy Nilly to the Baltic John Seymour (1965) sadly out of print, written in Seymour's entertaining style about his adventures in a Yorkshire coble.

Riddle of the Sands Erskine Childers

This Thing of Darkness Harry Thompson (2005) A ripping yarn if ever there was one, concerning Darwin, Fitzroy and The Beagle.

 

[Hydrozoan]

I have yet to read The Silver Darlings by Neil Gunn, a novel of 1941 about Scottish east coast herring fishing in the late C18th (I think), but I'm not seeing here any comparable novel set on England's east coast. I'm guessing that the herring fishery was dominated by Scots at least until steam drifters (around 1900?) - which made the whole thing less 'romantic' anyway.

But are there no novels of comparable fame to Gunn's set around fishing, barging etc. on the English east coast?

 

[Dan Tribe]

Jan
Thanks for your reply.
Your Dad gave a talk at North Fambridge Yacht Club, probably some time in the 1980s approx. I remember it being a very entertaining evening. NFYC at the time had just been bequeathed F Cooke's library, but nobody knew where best to keep it.
I realise that I have most of the books on your list, time I started re-reading some.

 

[Kukri]

I have yet to read The Silver Darlings by Neil Gunn, a novel of 1941 about Scottish east coast herring fishing in the late C18th (I think), but I'm not seeing here any comparable novel set on England's east coast. I'm guessing that the herring fishery was dominated by Scots at least until steam drifters (around 1900?) - which made the whole thing less 'romantic' anyway.

But are there no novels of comparable fame to Gunn's set around fishing, barging etc. on the English east coast?

There is indeed:

“The Smacksmen; a story of the Fishermen of the Borough”, by George Goldsmith Carter, published 1948. Cod, not herring.

 

[Dan Tribe]

An American boat owner lent me Chance on the upper Thames years ago (had quite a job posting it back to him) but I always thought it was the Lobster Smack at Holehaven where they discussed the tale.

Pre WW1 the Lobster Smack was known as "Beckys" after the owner, and featured in several books, but particularly "In Tidal Waters" by F B Cooke.

I have just re-read the passage about Hole Have from F B Cooke's Cruising Hints [1st published 1928].
He waxes lyrical over it's charms, describing it as a "Mecca" for all good yachtsmen, and says that the anchorage would become packed with yachts on Saturday night. A bit different now.

 

[Hydrozoan]

There is indeed:

“The Smacksmen; a story of the Borough”, by George Goldsmith Carter, published 1948. Cod, not herring.

Thanks - I shall look into that one. I had not seen it mentioned, and I'm not sure it has as high a profile as Gunn's work - which perhaps has some relevance to your claim in the OP. (I'm not being deliberately contentious, as I was genuinely surprised at the apparent lack.)