James Boyd continues his story of the transformation of ‘Penelee’ back to ‘Concord of Mersea’, eventually becoming a concert. Part 1 recounts how Jamea was ‘pulled’ north to find ‘Penelee’ in Scotland, purchase her and bring her back to Cornwall for restoration.
The work of course was huge but Peter was right; she was ‘Bloody Brilliant’ – not a single sister frame in her, all floors and timbers original English Oak and Rock Elm. We only replaced a few feet of planking in one pitch pine quarter. She still, of course, cost me as much as a small house and the rebuild of the interior, re-engining, re-decking, re-masting, stripping, re-caulking and re-painting were a Homeric epic that left me, at her launch, looking like Robinson Crusoe in threadbare trousers while she slipped with a sigh into the waters of Fowey Haven gleaming in her new paint. We had aimed for a restoration that would capture something of a Percy Woodcock illustration and there she lay like a model ship poised on her own reflection. Peter said in hushed tones, “I’ve never seen a boat of her size that beautiful”. As for me, I could only grin in delight.
Working alongside a master boatbuilder was a dream come true. I was also on the road giving concerts and returning to my 17th century eyrie between times so it was inevitable that music, sailing and the emerging story of ‘Concord’ would combine. She was rapidly becoming a muse. I had followed the trail in the much thumbed book and it had led me to West Mersea where Archie’s daughter Jenny had a house. I would go often and take tea with her. This ritual would end with her taking out her dad’s logbooks from 1937 to the 1950s. They were, they are, extraordinary records of a time before the world darkened, full of exquisite illustrations and beautiful copperplate writing in that particular blend of school boy humour and delight that one finds in a PG Wodehouse novel. I found myself looking down into the eyes of a man who exuded joie de vivre; owlish glasses, a pipe, one foot on a barrel of ‘Concord’ triple X brewed by Tollemarche specially for her launch at Harry Kings Yard. The logbooks held me enthralled and as I read his accounts of voyaging in the Thames Estuary and beyond, music and poetry and the ‘Concord’ story began to entwine themselves into a counterpoint that would eventually become a concert.
‘Stolen Years’ was performed for the first time when we launched Concord’ with Jenny reading her father’s words and telling her own memories. The audience arrived by boat and, with ‘Concord’ dressed overall alongside, and a good barrel of St Austell Ale to oil the proceedings I felt that Archie was looking on with a smile. Of the many places I have given that performance her unique history has never failed to make people laugh and cry in equal measure. I even gave a broadcast of ‘Stolen Years’ from her cabin during the dark days of lockdown when ordinary concerts were an impossibility. A few years ago I embarked on a concert series, travelling with ‘Concord’ and commissioning some of Britain’s most exciting composers to write new works for me inspired by her story and by the sea. We began at the Aldeburgh Festival and gave performances all along the East Coast.
For a while I continued to keep ‘Concord’ in the west country, making the long journey to see her every other weekend but In 2010 I realised it was time for her to come home. We left Fowey haven early one morning. Lester Simpson, a renowned folk musician and fellow sailor, had shipped aboard and he emerged without warning on the foredeck clasping a set of bagpipes. I can hear the skirl of them even now, echoing back from the steep cliffs as we headed for the shallows of the Thames. ‘Concord’ now lies opposite the park where the great elms were felled that made her keel. There is a comfort in her old timbers, a kind of wisdom born of having seen such a passage of time, of having weathered one world war and watched families grow up aboard her. I have been fortunate to be friends with Archie’s daughters Julia and Jenny and to hear first hand their memories and to see the light in their eyes kindle into flame as they told their tales.
When I found her in Scotland another family had grown up aboard her and with similar love had described their adventures with their father; idyllic voyages in Greece and violent storms off the coast of Norfolk as they baled with a frying pan and hoped for the wind to abate. . And now my own children clamber in her rigging and she has become part of their ever widening world. Every time I row out to her it feels like coming home. For the man who dreamed her into being she was a symbol of hope when the second world war made sailing the summer seas a distant memory. In his barracks in Hartlepool, confined to the shore after a hellish stint on the North Sea Convoys he painted a picture of a model he made of her. There is a poem written alongside that says it all. It now hangs on the bulkhead of her main cabin.
The little vessel here portrayed
Sails o’er the tumbling wave
a splendid wind fills all her sails
The flowing tide to save
She keeps her course
She holds her poise
Forever sailing on
She keeps alive the memory of pleasant days gone
Of all that was
And all that is to be when war shall cease
And we shall sail the seas again
In Concord and in peace.
In 2010, ‘Concord’ won the Classic Boat Restoration of the Year Award.
Words and photos: James Boyd
@jamesboydproductions
www.jamesboyd.co.uk
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