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benm wrote:

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Heres a wonderful story for you Pat. One of my favourites about a Thames steamer. Amazing to even think about. Its such a shame this boat was scrapped with such historic stories behind her. This is where there should be laws to preserve these old boats.

So true benm. Tigris I lies under an earthfill at 51.58408,-0.482964. 1. Henry and Warren Hastings aboard Tigris I circa 1938 2. Tigris I just upstream of Teddington Lock after recovery from Herne Bay. Late June 1940 3. Bill Clark 1943 4. Henry, Harry and Warren Hastings with The Queen of England in Molsey Lock 1937 5. Britannia, Sunbury Belle and Tigris I on the Hastings Moorings upstream of Town End Pier, Kingston, days before Dunkirk (Note Britannia showing Tigris I's "O4D" Admiralty Plates)

Hi Pat, Hi Ben,

Here's a couple more:

1. Halliday's plans for Toughs of Teddington for the conversion of ML7 into Tigris I

2. Postcard picture of Tigris I approaching Kingston Bridge, circa 1938.



The photograph in my Avatar is Harry skippering the Yarmouth Belle in 1948.

So, I'd better introduce myself. I am Stephen Hastings, Harry's eldest grandson, and the eldest son of Alan (who was the lockkeeper at Benson 1978-2002). His younger brother, my uncle Gerry, still works the boats out of Charing X Pier. Harry and his two sons, Roland and Alan were Freemen of The Port of London (ie. both Watermen and Lightermen). When I was 16 I wanted to be apprenticed by my father, but he said, "Containerisation at Tilbury, son. Git a proppa job"... and I suppose, in hindsight, he was right. I now live in Munich, Germany, where I'm the Chief Technical Officer for a Laser and Space Optics company.

I started investigating the Dunkirk story around 1981. By the time Harry died in 1989 I had exhausted his rather hazy knowledge of the events from his perspective. Harry was a devil for not wanting to be proved wrong, so years after the event, he would insist on things that were just not possible. For example, he always claimed that the flotilla of little boats in his party (which did include Princess Freda, Court Belle II, Maldon Annie, Princess Lily, Lansdowne, Mutt, Good Hope, Dreadnought I, Dreadnought II, Skylark, Margherita, Jeff, Mary Spearing I, Mary Spearing II, Queen Boadicea and Queen of England) lay off Dover on the evening of Wednesday May 29th 1940. They didn't. They lay off Ramsgate. Only, as Harry never set foot in Dover before, and had never seen Dover from the sea, to his memory, Ramsgate was Dover.

After my Grandfather died (nearly 20 years ago now, and I miss his massive character), I started the real investigation. Bob and Gwen Tough gave me a copy of Bill Clark's recollection of the events, which in many cases conflicted with Harry's. Warren died in 1966, so there was nothing to be gleaned there. So I started contacting anybody who was alive in the family and wider friends at the time, and started to turn up men who were actually on some of those boats in that flotilla. Then the National Maritime Museum (although, at first they insisted Tigris I had a steel hull) and especially the The Naval Historical Branch in Whitehall were a great help. Then I could trace Tigris I's logical movements and build-up a timeline working from tidal and military communications data (I have to tell you that my favourite radio Comms were from a small group of commandos dispatched to hold the advancing German forces at the beach on the northern end of La Panne: [from memory] 18:01 - Am engaging enemy. 18:04 - Am surrendering. They were overwhelmed). This was a massive battle area strewn over many square miles. You have to walk from Dunkirk harbour to the top end of La Panne to realise just how big the battle area was, and it extended quite a way inland too. More than half a million men fought there. British, German, French, Belgian and Dutch.

Tigris I and the flotilla were guided from HMS Wildfire, Sheerness to Ramsgate, and then over the Channel to Dunkirk by a fish cutter, Strathelliot (and towing the Malden Annie and Court Belle II) flanked by two destroyers... which both peeled off during the early hours of the morning of the 28th. The Queen of England, one of our old boats, was cut in two and sunk by a Dutch skoot in the blackness. Mary Rose developed engine problems as they approached the mole at Dunkirk, and according to the log, was vacated and machine-gunned along the waterline by the crew on the fish cutter to prevent her clogging up the already confused navigation channels, or falling into enemy hand (although, what they'd want with her is anybody's guess). Almost immediately, a Royal Navy destroyer, escaping Dunkirk and presumably loaded with rescued troops, ran close to Margherita and her wash drowned the boat, sending it straight to the bottom, not far off the mole. Luckily, Harry 'Peddler' Palmer skippering her, and the Wavy Navy assignee swam clear and were rescued.

So, over the period of 28 or so years, I put together a 120,000 word manuscript. But I'm still not happy with some of it, because it jumps backwards and forwards into and out of the third person in the telling of the story, and this needs fixing... when I get time. The story isn't what you think it will be. These men were reluctant heroes, duped by The Admiralty, and lost a lot of money, vessels... and in some cases, their lives. They weren't thanked, and there was no love lost on Winston Churchill. They came back totally dejected, fearing an imminent invasion. They had just experienced a horrific week with blood, guts and death everywhere, and the might and power of the far more technically advanced German military. Many men had serious psychological problems until the day they died. In the weeks and months after Dunkirk, my grandfather would wake in the middle of the night screaming and crying. In one case I contacted the wife of the Lighterman that skippered Queen Boadicea over and although she had been married to him for 40 years, she never knew he had been at Dunkirk. Harry liked to brag about it. But to others it was something to forget. I've also tried to capture exactly what the Thames from Kingston right out to Yantlet Creek looked, sounded and smelt like in May 1940, and have also tried to capture, in the writing, the way these men spoke and how they thought. I tried to get into the minds of each character, using their personalities, and the incredible situation they found themselves in... and dealing with.

The biggest bone of contention is how many men they rescued, and how many runs they made between the beach and the bigger ships laying off in The Roads. Harry says four, Bill suggests more. By back-calculating positions, tides and battle activity, Tigris I should have made 14 runs... otherwise, where was she in between and what was she doing? Four is not plausible... unless they decided on a little holiday cruise for a couple of days. The first run they badly overloaded. As more and more damage to Tigris I knocked out caulking, she limped low in the water and by the end could only take a few tens of men. Loading soldiers was also a slow and painful business. Many of these men hadn't eaten in days and were incredibly tired. I had to get weaker men dressed in wool battle dress and packs, standing chest deep in water and haul them onto a boat to prove this. It takes time and a great deal of effort. I also had to calculate in additional factors, like tidal movements, sudden attacks by ME109's strafing down the waterline, and higher altitude bomber alerts. When they arrived back aboard the Tilbury mud hopper Queens Channel they had to register at The Merry England fairground in Ramsgate. The last thing they wanted was to be sent back to Dunkirk, I can tell you. The debrief would have been three tired, confused, dejected and scared men working a way out how to get back home to Kingston with the rail lines chocked with escaping soldiers and with not enough cash for tickets. "How many men did you rescue, Mr. Hastings?" Pick a number and get the hell out of there!

One day, the manuscript will be finished, as a fly-on-the-wall observation of a seven day period in the lives of the main characters: Bill, Warren and Harry. It is an epic. But I don't dwell too much on heroics. I just get on and tell the story as it was, to the best of the information I have at my disposal.

I know where Tigris I is because I interviewed the two men, George Mercer and John Marks, of the British Waterways Board, Apsley Section, who dumped her and a naval pinnace there in 1963 and sank them. Tigris I wasn't above ground in 1985.

Steve

PS: I have a good collection of Thames Steamer photos. What do you need?