Wednesday 11 August 2010

Rosemaries Ferryboat history is confirmed!










This is the Article (derived from Press Release 1, posted below) published by the West Briton Newspaper on the 5th of Aug 2010. I was hoping to get a direct response from the public and I did! Remember that lovely picture of the boat as a ferry, sent to me by Katheryn Osborne. Well I received an e-mail from a Mr John Green, who lived formerly in St Mawes, and He remembers taking a pleasure trip on the Rosemarie up the Fal to Malpas in 1948 when He was just 12yrs old! As it turned out his Uncle worked as a deck hand for Tommy Clode, which further confirms the story of another contact I made via the Harbour office; Peter Newman, (from Newmans Cruises) of a local ferryboat family, also remembers the Rosemarie working as a ferry in the river Fal at about the same time.

By the mid 1950's I've another lead to follow, as a Falmouth resident Pat Crockford, who was busy doing his shipwright apprenticeship at E.J Burts, boatyard, Turnpike beach. Remembers the Rosemarie coming into the yard for a complete re-fit. At that time He remembers she belonged to a Mr Keen, and had been working as a local passenger ferry. I wonder if the re-fit Pat mentioned, could have been the build of a coach roof onto the boats then open back. She had been initially built at R.S Burts & sons in 1930, when the company was run by Richard Steven Burt. This re-fit would have taken place, some 25yrs later, at the same family firm, now under his son Ernest John Burt.