The South Kent Visit to Barrow

The six remaining members, of an original party of ten, arrived at Barrow rail station about 1550 hours on Friday 15th July Alan West, Mick Dack and I met them at the station and transferred them to the Victoria Park Hotel and confirmed arrangements to meet them at the Harbour later for a 'swalley' or two.

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From around 1930 a reasonable number of branch members arrived to say hello and greet our visitors. They were suitably impressed with all of our submarine memorabilia on the walls and thanked us for making the effort to meet them – reflecting on their previous trip to Plymouth when not a single member of the local branch turned out to greet them. Up spirits was announced, and our now 'experienced' Rum Bosun did his stuff. Again they were most grateful and so impressed with our tot glasses with dolphins on them that we nearly lost them.

It is good to see old shipmates meet up after many years as mentioned in the story of our trip to visit to the Central Lancs branch; on this occasion it was Ted Budgen who had served 50 years earlier with the South Kent Chairman, Brian Newton, in Excalibur. Of course Mick Dack was renewing acquaintances with his buddy of the 'Cavalier' (not sure what class of boat that was).

We discussed a return trip to "Lydd" sometime in the future and as the amber nectar was beginning to flow this mushroomed into a 'Christmas Booze Run' over to France with a visit to Lydd and the South Kent branch thrown in.

The evening was enjoyed by all and some of us promised to meet the boys again on Sunday for a farewell drink.

This was their run ashore and we left them to their own devices on Saturday.

They enjoyed the Dock museum where they met John Hart and he renewed acquaintances with one of his old shipmates, Mike Inshaw, and then the Wheatsheaf where they met Keith Myers for a chat. They expressed their surprise and pleasure that so many people in the town seemed to know who they were and took the trouble to say hello.

That evening they partook of the delights of the Travellers club where Yvonne and Danny Patterson were performing a VE/VJ day show for the customers.

On Sunday we all looked a little wearier but shared a drink or two before saying our farewells Our chairman, Alan, after receiving a fair amount of ribbing about being a sky pilot ensured he had the last word when presenting them each with a glossy pamphlet of the DDH inside which he had deposited a letter from the branch thanking them for the visit etc and of course a special "word for the day".

Their response was once again to thank the branch for their friendship and hospitality and assured us that when they went to their branch meeting that Friday (22nd July) and told the rest of the branch all about the visit, those that had dropped out would be green with envy as they had really had a great time.

Well done to all branch members who turned out on such a busy weekend and helped to give our visitors a good welcome to Barrow.

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