Our family sailing started just before the war, in a tubby converted ship's boat, and was interrupted during the years when coastal sailing was forbidden. During those years we acquired (very cheaply) the hull of a beamy twelve foot dinghy complete with centreboard. White Heather had been one of a fleet of sailing dinghies kept by a local preparatory school for sailing lessons, and she was a fine boat for beginners. In those days it was impossible to buy yacht fittings or sails, even if we had been able to afford any. My father made mast, spars and oars from spruce trees out of the woods. He also made a rudder, involving amateur blacksmith work in bending pieces of iron for the gudgeons. We had a second-hand foresail made for a thirty footer, and this we rigged as a lug sail giving us sixty square feet of sail area. A bend in the mast helped the sail set nicely. In light airs we set a jib from the old boat we had owned before the war, running out a bowsprit made from the boathook. With this spread of canvas all set forward she sometimes threatened to run her bows under.

When at last we could get a sailing permit again we launched White Heather at Heswall and set out to explore the Dee estuary. In the four years during which we had been shorebound much had changed. The friend who had sold us the dinghy came of a local fishing family, and he had drawn us a sketch chart showing all the banks and channels he had known as a boy. Their names are hardly known now, but twenty years ago there were still vestiges of the “deeps” which are now not even channels at high water. On a calm day we sailed (and rowed) round Salisbury Bank, between it and Salisbury Middles, and identified Tinker's Dale. We spent a low-tide day in doing this and had to get out and push from time to time. At low tide now the whole area is a mountainous sandbank. When it was not so calm we would thrash across to the Welsh shore and back, all three of us, my father, my sister and I, sitting up the little sail as we bounced through the rough water on top of the banks.

It took a little time to learn how far we could safely sail on one tide, and how easy it is to be caught by the ebb when landing away from home. We spent a day ashore on the Point of Ayr because the tide had left us high and dry only an hour or so after high water — it had ebbed over the sands faster than we could push the boat out. She was too heavy for us to move over the beach — we broke an oar trying to move her nearer the water on rollers. Luckily we had the oars belonging to an ancient pram we had, and with one of these and one good oar we were able to row out against incoming coamers when at last the tide reached us. By then it was late evening, and had the estuary been as shallow as it is now we should have had no hope of reaching Heswall before the tide had again left it. The wind was against us, and finally died away, so we rowed up the Welsh shore to Greenfield and then across the banks to Heswall under the full moon. We reached the mooring about 1am. My mother has never forgiven us.

We learnt in time how to avoid most such mistakes — although we still sometimes came up the gutter pulling the boat behind us just as the tide left the moorings. It was at this stage that we first tried sleeping aboard, our gear cover, as ever, rudimentary. We had groundsheets, but as far as I can remember no proper sleeping bag, certainly no such luxuries as airbeds. By this time we had found a second-hand sail and spars that fitted the boat fairly well, so we used the original mainsail together with the jib as an awning. It must have taken about half an hour to fix this contraption over the boom and lash it down so that it could not blow away. That first night there was a mist on the surface of the water, and everything aboard was soaked in heavy dew. It is not a tent to be recommended.

Soon after this a beamy, shallow eighteen footer moored near to us was put up for sale and we sold White Heather to buy her. She seemed much more of a ship and we were able to take her farther afield, but for exploring the estuary and learning to sail I think the twelve footer should be a beginner's choice every time.

White Heather rigged with the old foresail. (This rig had the advantage of keeping the boom end well above the heads of the crew!)