Bill Clark worked for Clement’s, Knowling and Company Limited. His, and Harry's dialects, would have sounded like "Nolan's", but there was no such company operational on the river. It was "Knowling's".
Tigris I made the trip from Kingston, stopping at Teddington, then to Westminster Pier, Gravesend, and Southend Pier, alone. She crossed from Southend Pier to Sheerness, late in the evening of Monday 27th May 1940.
The 'Billingsgate fish market boat' piloted Tigris I from HMS Wildfire to Ramsgate, (probably) departing (according to Bill Clark's dictated account) 11:00 Tuesday 28th May 1940. It is not known if this is the same vessel that piloted them to Dunkirk.
Harry 'Peddler' Palmer was the skipper aboard Margherita, Ted Chittie the skipper aboard Princess Lily, and Jim Whittaker the skipper aboard Princess Freda.
They did not go to Dover. Harry, Warren and Bill would not have known the difference between Dover and Ramgsate, from the sea. Because Calais had fallen, there is no logic to sail Ramsgate to Dover, with Route Z in range of German guns. They sailed via U, V and W buoys, along Route X.
The mud-hopper belonged to the Tilbury Dredging & Lighterage Co. Bill Clark was familiar with her crew (possibly Queen's Channel).
Tigris I was towed back from Pegwell Bay to Gravesend, then eventually up river by the Tough & Henderson tug Barnes, on 28th June 1940, to Tough’s Teddington yard. In August 1940 Toughs began repairs. She was sold in November 1943 to a bank manager, who had been bombed out of his house, and towed up the Grand Union Canal, through the Grosvenor entrance to Davies’ timber wharf, just onto the Paddington Arm, to become a houseboat.
During early 1963, the British Waterways Board undertook a project, to clear the Grand Union Canal and its arms in the London area, of all old and derelict vessels. Most were wooden narrow boat buttys, but amongst them were an admiral’s barge, a naval pinnace and Tigris I.
In interviews, George Mercer, and his brother-in-law John Marks, both B.W.B. employees, remembered towing Tigris I, from Davies’ Timber Wharf, up the canal, for dumping with the other vessels. They were taken to Bowyers flooded gravel pits, located between Denham Green and South Harefield in Hertfordshire. There all the vessels were sunk, and lay underwater until around 1967, when the new owner of the gravel pit, a Mr. Powell, decided to clear the water of obstructions, and convert the northern end of the pit into a marina, linking it directly to the canal itself. The bulk of the wooden buttys in the marina were hauled out and burned between 1967 and 1969, and this would probably have been when Tigris I was finally destroyed.
Corrections
Bill Clark worked for Clement’s, Knowling and Company Limited. His, and Harry's dialects, would have sounded like "Nolan's", but there was no such company operational on the river. It was "Knowling's".
Tigris I made the trip from Kingston, stopping at Teddington, then to Westminster Pier, Gravesend, and Southend Pier, alone. She crossed from Southend Pier to Sheerness, late in the evening of Monday 27th May 1940.
The 'Billingsgate fish market boat' piloted Tigris I from HMS Wildfire to Ramsgate, (probably) departing (according to Bill Clark's dictated account) 11:00 Tuesday 28th May 1940. It is not known if this is the same vessel that piloted them to Dunkirk.
Harry 'Peddler' Palmer was the skipper aboard Margherita, Ted Chittie the skipper aboard Princess Lily, and Jim Whittaker the skipper aboard Princess Freda.
They did not go to Dover. Harry, Warren and Bill would not have known the difference between Dover and Ramgsate, from the sea. Because Calais had fallen, there is no logic to sail Ramsgate to Dover, with Route Z in range of German guns. They sailed via U, V and W buoys, along Route X.
The mud-hopper belonged to the Tilbury Dredging & Lighterage Co. Bill Clark was familiar with her crew (possibly Queen's Channel).
Tigris I was towed back from Pegwell Bay to Gravesend, then eventually up river by the Tough & Henderson tug Barnes, on 28th June 1940, to Tough’s Teddington yard. In August 1940 Toughs began repairs. She was sold in November 1943 to a bank manager, who had been bombed out of his house, and towed up the Grand Union Canal, through the Grosvenor entrance to Davies’ timber wharf, just onto the Paddington Arm, to become a houseboat.
During early 1963, the British Waterways Board undertook a project, to clear the Grand Union Canal and its arms in the London area, of all old and derelict vessels. Most were wooden narrow boat buttys, but amongst them were an admiral’s barge, a naval pinnace and Tigris I.
In interviews, George Mercer, and his brother-in-law John Marks, both B.W.B. employees, remembered towing Tigris I, from Davies’ Timber Wharf, up the canal, for dumping with the other vessels. They were taken to Bowyers flooded gravel pits, located between Denham Green and South Harefield in Hertfordshire. There all the vessels were sunk, and lay underwater until around 1967, when the new owner of the gravel pit, a Mr. Powell, decided to clear the water of obstructions, and convert the northern end of the pit into a marina, linking it directly to the canal itself. The bulk of the wooden buttys in the marina were hauled out and burned between 1967 and 1969, and this would probably have been when Tigris I was finally destroyed.
Steve Hastings