The Kent History Forum
Maritime History => Miscellaneous Maritime and Naval History => Topic started by: castle261 on October 30, 2019, 12:15:52 PM
-
Just after the war-- One man came to our house, for lodgings (mother took in lodger`s then )
He said his father had bought two M.T.B.s, to be broken up in Gillingham or Rainham.
He went off to work, on returning he said ` too much work, I might have to sell one whole `.
Then he offered me a job `can you weld, or use a torch, I need both`. I could not, do either.
He was stripping the boat`s for the scrap value, and time was an element. He said the next day
`I have done a deal for the second boat, and I finish up here, today. He paid mother, & was away..
He told us WHO his father was. `He bought the WARSPITE for scrap ! I remember it broke away
from tugs, on the way to the Clyde to be broken up. He seem genuine, about his father.
-
It's true about HMS Warspite. She broke away from her tow, ran aground on The Lizard in Cornwall and had to be broken up as far as possible there. I believe the remains of her lower Hull are still visible at low water on the biggest spring tides.
-
Living in Cornwall, I heard about the Warspite. Two enterprising Scotsmen were involved in salvaging her and started a hardware business near Redruth called Macsalvors. Play on words.
Alastair
-
Macsalvors
A little bit of our history, In 1947 the Queen Elizabeth Class Warship H.M.S. Warspite sank off Prussia cove in Cornwall. Two Scotsman (With some assistance) Refloated the ship and beached her along the coast at St. Michael's Mount. It remains the largest salvage operation ever carried out in British waters a piece of the Warspite can be viewed at Macsalvors. The Scotsmen (both "Macs") incorporated their trade (Salvors) into a new venture in 1957 and created Macsalvors. The company's early work was buying and selling Ministry of Defence surplus, dismantling and demolition work.
https://www.glequip.com/GB/Redruth/155568344544597/Macsalvors (https://www.glequip.com/GB/Redruth/155568344544597/Macsalvors)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPEwq9gSBdw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWtJ1ijUEok
-
There was a chap called Brown with some tasty Daughters lived on and MTB on the Mainland side of Elmley Ferry circa 1955. Could have been the one the lodger sold.