Venn, Alfred William

July 15th, 2006 by JCB
Posted in History, Obituaries | 1 Comment »

Alfred William Venn

My father died just six weeks short of his one hundredth birthday. He was the last known survivor of the Bristol Channel Sailing Pilots.

View the original illustrated pdf magazine article (page 8):

At the height of the industrial revolution, the new coal ports of South Wales became boom towns – the Silicon Valleys – of their day. Great wealth was created and commerce from Swansea to Newport, and good Welsh coal was shipped to the four corners of the world to fuel the new era. Even the great port of Bristol, once the second city in England, was overtaken by the convergence of rail, canal and the inevitable melding of coal, steel, iron and the mighty machines it brought forth. Central to the sea-going operation were the one hundred and fifty or so pilots long heralded as master of their calling. The Bristol Channel is one of the most difficult bodies of waters in the world to navigate, with violent seas, the second most powerful tides and attendant currents, and endless changing mud and sandbanks. To qualify for admittance to the ranks of pilotage took half a lifetime, and the boats matched the same degrees of excellence to which the men aspired.

Of these craft much as been written, indeed whole books have been devoted. In essence – they were 40 to 50 feet overall, beam 10 to 14 feet and carried a draft of 7 to 10 feet. Ballasted with concrete between deck and sometimes movable pig-iron bars. They had a number of innovative features including a retractable boom, and roller-reeling called “Appledore”. The decks were clear of skylight or other obstruction which might impair the handling of gear or the boarding punt. Daylight below was provided by glass prisms fitted flush to the deck. These boats were considered the most advanced fore-and-aft craft of the period and even today they are held as the finest weathers by yachtsmen who see the full length keel an essential feature in seaworthiness and ease of handling. In spite of the fact that they were called, and rigged, as cutters, they were known as “skiffs” by the pilots. The all important dinghies that dropped and picked up the pilots, rejoiced in the somewhat frivolous name of “Punts”. Although the Bristol boats started the name of “skiffs,” the Welsh boats, at least for a time also used the term “Yawls” even though it was usually only Swansea who opted for two masts. As they would now say, “go figure!” It was into this world that my father was born in December of 1906. He was the eldest son of his namesake – Pilot Alfred W. Venn of Newport, his skiff was the Dorothia named after his eldest daughter. In those days piloting was much a family business, and in spite of fierce competition once at sea, there was a good deal of socializing and even intermarriage between piloting clans. My father’s youngest sister, Joan, married into one of the most famous pilot families – the Rays of Bristol, then Wales. One of the early Rays assisted the explorer John Cabot as he left to explore the new world in 1497. Since that time, many generations of Rays had distinguished themselves in the service. Born at the end of the Edwardian age, his early memories threw a light on that era. He remembers riding in a hansom cab in London, seeing American “doughboys” in WWI in their cowboy campaign hats, and the memorable day he was taken, mid week, to chapel to a memorial service for “a liner that hit an iceberg mid-Atlantic, and the souls of the poor crew and passengers who drowned.”

When he became a teenager, he was taken to a marine outfitters, bought a pair of seaboots, oilskins and a southwester, and signed articles as an apprentice with his father. On the pilot boat there were usually three crew, the master, the pilot himself (sometimes called “Boss” by the crew to his face or “the Old Man” at other times.) The man-the-boat, a person of infinite talents and a jack-of-all trades. Lastly the apprentice, usually called “Boy,” or sometimes stronger expressions at a time that the sensitivity of the young was not given much account. He was, like all who find themselves beholden to others for their advancement and instruction, the general dogsbody, with multiple duties from hauling casks of water to fill the 60 gallon tanks, to repairing or even making sails, cooking a hearty meal on the iron stove, and taking a turn at the tiller. But tiring and tedious as these duties may have been, there was one in particular that tested his skill and courage. That was the dropping or picking up his pilot using the punt. About ten feet long, four and a half a full midship section, the punt was reported to be very light and a splendid sea boat. The punt was always sculled with a single ten foot oar, and she was stored in her chocks, right way up, on the port side. When it was “out punt” it was manhandled over the side. The Bristol boats had a bulwark that could be removed for this purpose. The actual process of bringing it alongside the lee of the larger vessel was, as always, very demanding on the seamanship of the apprentice, or whoever was doing the skulling, and at night, or with any sort of sea running, it could be a dangerous and skillful venture. My father said that even though cork lifejackets had to be available it was considered “sissy” to be seen wearing one. This pride cost a number of lives.

As I mentioned, competition was fierce! There were three types of Bristol Channel sailing pilots – there were the so-called “Cinchers”, who seemed to be a forerunner of dock pilots and who worked around the river mouth, and served the deep-loaded ships that went to the various wharves in the river. Secondly, there were the most amusingly called “Crack of Dawn Boys” from mainly Barry. They set sail at dawn for a chance at a ship slipping through the net and missed by the last class of pilots – the so-called “Westermen,” These were considered the cream of the crop since they went after the bigger ships, and might end up in Liverpool or Belfast, or even Dungeness in their relentless quest for work.

The aim of this game was to be the furthest west of your rivals in order to win

the right of getting the job. Sometimes this became a battle of wits; sailing without navigation lights, rowing the skiff with big sweeps in a flat calm night. Anything that got you to be the most westerly boat! My grandfather had a friend who was a ship’s butcher, and he got many a tip-off of what ships were due and when. Of course, being an apprentice was not without its fun either. One game the lads invented was “Mid-Channel Football”. There was a sand bar that only surfaced at low tide for an hour or so. They would row out, set up the pitch, and play until the water reached their ankles at which point the match would be concluded the referee’s whistle and the pitch would return to the bottom of the Channel! The pilot skiffs were moored in what is, even today called “Pilots Pill”. A “Pill” being the local name for a tidal creek. With a 40 foot tide at low water the boats would sit in the mud on their “legs,” during which time the apprentices did what my father described as “a fair bit of skylarking”. After serving his five years there came the required deep sea time. In those days a “ticket” was not required as a qualification, so my father shipped out “before the mast”, but was rated as a quartermaster, so learned ship handling on an intensive basis. During the next few years he traveled to Australia, America, India and in particular, the far east. When he finished his obligation the depression began to set in. Jobs in general were few and far between and since piloting was a matter of waiting to fill “dead men’s shoes”, he faced years of waiting until his chance came. My grandfather suggested he work as a boatman on the River Usk at Newport which he did, thus becoming more familiar with the enormous tides and currents which served him well when many years later he was responsible for the safe passage of ocean-going ships in that area. In 1933 he married Edna Barrett, whose maternal grandfather was Pilot Will Evans. They were married for 54 years during

which time my mother was never in good health. She had one of the first open heart

surgeries in the country. My father was devoted to her, and performed many household

tasks without complaint. With a child on the way, he got a job as a rigger, and was

quickly promoted to supervisor at Newport Docks. When WWII arrived, he was very disappointed to find himself too old to serve. He had hoped to help man one of the air/sea rescue launches which were run by the RAF. So, in order to “do his bit”, he volunteered for the Royal Observer Corps. It is important to recall that personal telephones were almost unknown and therefore to report to the fire brigade after an air raid, the solution was to station three observers on high building and through a system of “triangulation” advise authorities as to the location of fires. He spent many hours upon the famed Transporter Bridge and St. Woloos Church tower but by 3am, the Germans would have beat it back to France before daylight, and he could go home. As he had Special Constable status, he had the benefit of a lift home in a police car. My mother used to worry what the neighbours would think about him arriving home in this form of conveyance in the wee small hours!

Father also did some work with the tugs. On one memorable trip they towed a very strange concrete craft with a well set-up cabin below. At first it was thought to be a floating crane platform, but when they towed it up river they found dozens of such platforms. They were, of course, part of the Mulberry Harbour. During all this time, the pilotage in the Bristol Channel underwent a cataclysmic change that would alter their lives forever. This is a long, sad and complicated story that happened over a few years. In today’s terms, its description would include such catch phrases as “bottom-line”, “outsourcing”, “in-house” and “market forces”. Briefly, what happened was that at the end of the First World War, a couple of major steamship companies decided to contract with individual pilots. This destroyed a well-versed system of free lance operation that had been in place for hundreds of years. Violence erupted and one of the “chosen” pilots was tarred and feathered by the angry wives of the affected men. There seemed to be only one solution – amalgamation. This had been tried years before but had come to no avail. Now, however, there as added impetus of financial discipline plus the introduction of steam craft, and the possibility of the fledgling radio to simplify the task of a joint venture. One pilot, in listing the pros and cons, simply stated as his own con – “I will lose my independence.” Even down the years I was aware of this debate, and recall my father, who had a liberal disposition, making the case for amalgamation against those of a more perhaps romantic and nostalgic out look of the past.

So it was my father who was an apprentice in the two eras, from sail to steam. (It might be of some interest that my own son became an engineer on a US Navy nuclear submarine, so our family went from Scottish flax sail cloth to nucleur fission in three generations!) When the Bristol Channel pilots amalgamated, overnight a fleet of these splendid skiffs became redundant, discerning yachtsmen snapped up many but sadly many were left as rotting hulks in creeks and on mud banks. In 1952 my father finally realised his ambition! At 46 years old he was called to take the examination before the Pilotage Board. I was in school at the time, but recall my grandfather and him pouring over charts on the kitchen table as they sailed invisible ships in an endless variety of states of tides by the quickest and safest route. Passing his exams, he obtained his license that gave him the right to pilot from Lundy to Caerleon Bridge. By now the Newport cutter was stationed at Barry Roads, and in spite of the loss of freedom, he was compensated by a warm bedroom, a full time cook and a fast vessel to whisk him to his charges. He used to say that the Bristol Channel has a nice muddy bottom, so it avoided a problem of never going aground. However, he had one nightmare, and that was running aground in the river with the ship’s bow on one bank and the stern on the opposite, then, with a 40 foot tide the ship unsupported would “break her back”. It never happened.

“About the shipwreck,” he would say, and then recount the night that the cutter in a violent storm went on the rocks at Barry. In the dark, the crew jumped aboard the life boat and hauled away out to sea to relative safety. My father coming on deck on the port side looked through the rain and darkness and saw below him a rock, so he slid over the side. Finding a sort of pathway, my father made his way up to what seemed to be a lighted building. It turned out to be the local coastguard station, where, so he said, “They made me a nice cup of tea.” Meanwhile, the rest of the crew, now realizing he was missing, feared he may have perished. Afterwards he had difficulty living this down! Once he was contacted by the BBC wanting to know if the pilot boat could take a camera crew out to film the Nonsuch, a 17^th century replica of an explorer’s ship. They found her off Lundy Island in a howling gale. My father told the somewhat famous TV presenter that he was about to see something few people had witnessed – a 17^th century ship riding out a full gale while still at sea. But alas! All the TV people spent the trip with their heads over the side and thus missed their chance of a lifetime!

One of his saddest jobs was taking ships on their last voyage up to Cashmores, the famous ship breakers up the River Usk. It didn’t matter what she was: coaster, warship, liner, even once a submarine, it was always a sad moment when “Finished With Engines” was rung down. One of the most difficult moments in piloting (or so I understand) was bringing a ship into the lock-gates of Newport Dock. Located at the mouth of the Usk River there was a strong cross current, and to fit in the locks required allowing for sidewards tendency of slippage. In docking the largest ship ever to enter Newport, there was only 18 inches on each side of the ship to fit the lock. My father said it was a good job he had brought his shoe horn with him that day!

During this period I had emigrated to Canada and I eventually moved to California to start up and eventually manage the financial service operation of a federal bank in San Francisco. Both my parents were regular visitors, then when my mother died, my father spent three months each winter at our home on the San Mateo Coast, where he loved to walk around the local harbour chatting to the local fisherman and generally being a member of the unofficial “dock committee”. We made a number of trips. Once to Death Valley, one of the hottest places on earth. My father would consider himself naked if he was not in a “collar and tie” and a local ranger told me it was the only time he had seen a man in a tie in years! Another memorable trip was a cruise to the western Caribbean. In all his travels he had never touched the Panama Canal, and he was delighted when the captain sent for him and invited him up to the bridge to meet and observe the canal pilot at work. It appears most of these pilots were Canadian. My father said he had to bite his tongue he had such a desire to take over just one last time! At one point he whispered to himself, “Just a touch of bow thrust,” when the pilot repeated the order almost simultaneously. My father had not lost it!

For many years he was a very proud member of Rotary, and later one of the founder members of Probus. His good humour, natural modesty and teller of stories made him popular with all who met him. No doubt he found the fellowship he had long enjoyed be it in the saloon of the cutter or the foc’s’le of a steamer. When asked how he had lived so long, he would tell people he had never drank or smoked and that he always had a big door at home. He would wait for this to sink in and then when asked why, he would say “to let my halo in!”

In his last years he would like to be driven down to the moor below Newport. There he would look over the channel and say “look, not a ship in sight!” and shake his head.

When it became too much for him to fly to California, my wife and I, now retired, were able to spend a lot of time in frequent visits to the UK. It became obvious as he approached his centennial he would require more around the clock medical attention, so he entered a nursing home where in December of 2005 he finally died just short of that centennial. Like a lot of old sailors, he used a number of nautical phrases. Groceries, for examples, were called “stores”. After he died I found a piece of paper in his jacket pocket. It was headed “Stores for next Friday”. I had to find a suitable verse to put on the memorial cards we were having printed. The verse I choose was what Shackleton said to his men as they looked about them at an appalling disaster with nothing but a frozen and lingering death thousands of miles from any hope. Shackleton simply said to them: “Ship and stores gone – so now we will go home.”

G Barrett Venn