THE FIFTIES

Well now, the Club’s 75th. I missed the start, I was born a year too late. My parents bought The Round House in 1954 and the Hawkes , Jacky’s family, (points to Jacky on same table) bought Bay Cottage in 1955. Between us, we were probably first responsible for lowering the tone of the place.

All the racing was started and controlled from Gentle Jane beach, where the grandees, the Pynes, the Jeffries and the Zambras, had their boats moored. So we all had to flog up to Gentle Jane for the start, and eventually back again to Rock on the ebb.

In 1953 Kempthorne Ley started a boat building and hire business on the quay. In 1954 Ken Robertson joined him, and designed the Rainbow, which was a sturdy half decked clinker mahogany dinghy. Fibreglass boats were not quite invented, and sails were still cotton. Each Rainbow had different coloured sails. Our new Rainbow R4 Rockit with its raspberry sails and a cream spinnaker was ready to launch in May 1955. I have still got Kempthorne Ley’s letter telling us she was a beauty.

John Looker bought Kempthorne Leys’ business in 1958. He provided the race rescue boat, a 16 foot clinker launch with a Stuart Turner ‘put put’ engine. It was called a Looker Leaker and it took ages to get to any capsize.

There were no concrete ramps from the Quay down to the beach in those days. Just a rotten old track, half blocked by several dozen pram dinghies stacked against the wall from top to bottom. But it was golden sand on Rock Beach right up to the wall. We laid our own moorings. You could catch a train from Padstow. The Padstow Ferry was a rowing boat. And there were salmon in the river.

Jon Greaves 1939-2019