A FLOATING HOME
[Illustration: A BARGE PASSING THE MAPLIN LIGHT]
A FLOATING HOME
BY
CYRIL IONIDES AND J. B. ATKINS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
ARNOLD BENNETT
PHOTOGRAPHS, APPENDIX, GLOSSARY, ETC.
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
1918
_All rights reserved_
To
THE MATE
PREFACE
The authors owe to their readers an explanation of the manner of their
collaboration. The owner of the Thames sailing barge, of which the
history as a habitation is written in this book, is Mr. Cyril Ionides.
‘I’ throughout the narrative is Mr. Cyril Ionides; the ‘Mate’ is Mrs.
Cyril Ionides; the children are their children. Yet the other author,
Mr. J. B. Atkins, was so closely associated with the events
recorded--sharing with Mr. Ionides the counsels and discussions that
ended in the purchase of the barge, prosecuting in his company
friendships with barge skippers, and studying with him the Essex
dialect, which nowhere has more character than in the mouths of Essex
seafaring men--that it was not practicable for the book to be written
except in collaboration. The authors share, moreover, an intense
admiration for the Thames sailing barges, to which, so far as they
know, justice has never been done in writing. Mr. Atkins, however,
felt that it would be unnecessary, if not impertinent, for him to
assume any personal shape in the narrative when there was little
enough space for the more relevant and informing characters of Sam
Prawle, Elijah Wadely, and their like.
The book aims at three things: (1) It tells how the problem of
poverty--poverty judged by the standard of one who wished to give his
sons a Public School education on an insufficient income--was solved
by living afloat and avoiding the payment of rent and rates. (2) It
offers a tribute of praise to the incomparable barge skippers who
navigate the busiest of waterways, with the smallest crews (unless the
cutter barges of Holland provide an exception) that anywhere in the
world manage so great a spread of canvas. Londoners are aware that the
most characteristic vessels of their river are ‘picturesque.’ Beyond
that their knowledge or their applause does not seem to go. It is
hoped that this book will tell them something new about a life at
their feet, of the details of which they have too long been ignorant.
(3) It is a study in dialect. It was impossible to grow in intimacy
with the Essex skippers of barges without examining with careful
attention the dialect that persists with a surprising flavour within a
short radius of London, where one would expect everything of the
sort--particularly in the _va-et-vient_ of river life--to be
assimilated or absorbed.
As to (1) and (3) something more may be said.
One of the authors (J. B. A.) published in the _Spectator_ before the
war a brief account of Mr. Cyril Ionides’ floating home, and was
immediately beset by so many inquiries for more precise information
that he perceived that a book on the subject--a practical and complete
answer to the questions--was required. Neither of the authors is under
any illusion as to the determination of those who have made such
inquiries. Most of the inquirers no doubt are people who will not go
further with the idea than to play with it. But that need not matter.
The idea is a very pleasant one to play with. The few who care to
proceed will find enough information in this book for their guidance.
The items of expenditure, the method of transforming the barge from a
dirty trading vessel into an agreeable home, a diagram of the interior
arrangements, are all given. The castle in Spain has actually been
built, and people are living in it.
Here is a scheme of life for which romantic is perhaps neither too
strong a word nor one incapable of some freshness of meaning. The idea
is available for anyone with enough resolution. Of course, not every
amateur seaman would care to undertake the mastership of so large a
vessel as a Thames sailing barge, but that natural hesitation need be
no hindrance. The owner would want no crew when safely berthed for the
winter; and in the summer a professional skipper and his mate (only
two hands are required) would sail him about with at least as much
satisfaction to him as is obtained by the owners of large yachts
carrying bloated crews.
If he is a ‘bad sailor’ he could get more pleasure from a barge than
from an ordinary yacht of greater draught. The barge can choose her
water; she can run into the smooth places that lie between the banks
of the complicated Thames estuary. She can thread the Essex and
Suffolk tidal rivers; the Crouch, the Roach, the Blackwater, the
Colne, the Stour, the Orwell, the Deben, the Aide, are all open to
her, and are delightfully wild and unspoiled; she can sit upright upon
a sandbank till a blow is over. Many people who could afford yachting
and are drawn to it persistently think that it is not for them,
because they are ‘bad sailors.’ If they tried barging on the most
broken coast in England--say between Lowestoft and Whitstable--they
would be very pleasantly undeceived, unless indeed their case is
hopeless. This book, however, is not written to recruit the world of
yachtsmen, but to show how a home--a floating home on the sea for
winter as well as summer, not a tame houseboat--and a yacht may be
combined at a saving of cost to the householder.
And by those whose heart is equal to the adventure this cure for the
modern ‘cost of living’ will not by any means be found an
uncomfortable makeshift, a disagreeable sacrifice by a conscientious
father of a family. A barge is not a poky hole. The barge described
in this book, though one is not conscious of being cramped inside her,
is only a ninety tonner. It would be easy to acquire a barge of a
hundred and twenty tons, and such a vessel could still be sailed by
two hands. The saloon in Mr. Ionides’ barge is as large as many
drawing-rooms in London flats which are rented at £150 a year. In a
small London flat which was not designed for inhabitants ‘cooped in a
wingèd sea-girt citadel’ (though it might have been better if it had
been) there is little thought of saving space. In a vessel, one of the
primary objects of the designer is to save space. Sailors in their
habits act on the same principle. The success that has been achieved
by both architects and seamen is almost incredible. No one who has
lived for any length of time in a vessel has ever been able to rid
himself of the grateful sense that he has more room than he could have
expected, and certainly more than ever appeared from the outside.
Nor do the points in favour of a vessel as a house end there. A ship
is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. In the summer you have
the sea breezes, which can be directed or diverted by awnings and
windows as you like. In the winter a ship is easily warmed and there
are no draughts. Although a vessel is farther removed from the world
than a flat, your contact with the world is paradoxically closer. If
you go downstairs from your flat you must dress yourself for the
street. The very man who works the lift, and mediates between you and
the external world, expects it of you. But from your comfortable cabin
on board ship to the deck, which gives you a platform in touch with
all that is outside, there are but half a dozen steps up the
companion. And yet, in touch with the world, you are still in your own
territory. You have not, as a matter of habit, changed your clothes.
A sea-going vessel is a real home, a property with privileges
attached, and a solution of a difficulty. We hear much praise of
caravanning--a most agreeable pastime for those who prefer the rumble
of wheels to the wash of the tide or the humming of wind in the
rigging. But is it a solution of anything? It has not been stated that
it is. Let any receiver of an exiguous salary, who trudges across
London Bridge daily between his train and his office, not assume
finally that a more romantic way of life than his is impossible. Let
him lean for a few moments over the bridge, watch the business of the
Pool, and ask himself whether he sees in one of the sailing barges his
ideal home and the remedy for him of that tormenting family budget of
which the balance is always just on the wrong side.
Life in a barge brings you acquainted with bargees. They are your
natural neighbours. The dialect of those who belong to Essex has been
reproduced in this book as faithfully as possible. If certain words
such as ‘wonderful’ (very) and ‘old’ occur very frequently, it is
because the authors have written down yarns and phrases as they heard
them, and not with an eye to introducing what might seem a more
credible variety of language. It is said that dialects are everywhere
yielding to a universal system of education. In the opinion of the
authors the surrender is much less extensive than is supposed. Some
people have no ear for dialect, and are capable of hearing it without
knowing that it is being talked. The users of local phrases, for their
part, are often shy, and if asked to repeat an unusual word will
pretend to be strangers to it, or, more unobtrusively, substitute
another word and continue apace into a region of greater safety. The
authors, however, have had the good fortune to be on such terms with
some men of Essex that they have been able to discuss dialect words
with them without embarrassment. It is hoped that the glossary at the
end of the book will be found a useful collection by those who are
interested in the subject. Some of the words, which have become
familiar to the authors, are not mentioned in any dialect dictionary.
Although the Essex dialect has persisted, it has not persisted in an
immutable form. So far as the authors may trust their ears, they are
certain that the pronunciation of the word ‘old’ (which is used in
nearly every sentence by some persons) is always either ’ould’ or
‘owd.’ But if one looks at the well-known Essex dialect poem ‘John
Noakes and Mary Styles: An Essex Calf’s Visit to Tiptree Races,’ by
Charles Clark, of Great Totham Hall (1839), one sees that ‘old’ used
to be pronounced ‘oad.’ In the same poem ‘something’ is written
‘suffin’,’ though the authors of this book, on the strength of their
experience, have felt bound to write it ‘suthen.’ In Essex to-day ‘it’
at the end of a sentence, and sometimes elsewhere, is pronounced
‘ut’--in the Irish manner. Some words are pronounced in such a way as
to encourage an easy verdict that the Essex accent is Cockney, but no
sensitive ear could possibly confuse the sounds. In the Essex scenes
in ‘Great Expectations’ Dickens made use of the typical Essex word
‘fare,’ but he did not attempt to reproduce the dialect in essential
respects. Mr. W. W. Jacobs’s delightful barge skippers are
abstractions. They may be Essex men, but they are not recognizable as
such. Enough that they amuse the bargee as much as they amuse
everybody else; one of the authors of this book speaks from
experience, having ‘tried’ some of Mr. Jacobs’s stories on an Essex
barge skipper. No more about dialect must be written in the preface.
Readers who are interested will find the rest of the authors’
information sequestered in a glossary.
Mr. Arnold Bennett, who has settled in Essex near the coast, and is,
moreover, a yachtsman, shares the enthusiasm of the authors for the
peculiar character of the Essex estuaries. He makes his first
appearance here as an illustrator. He has given his impressions of the
scenery in which the barges ply their trade, and which is the setting
of the following narrative.
It remains to say that in the narrative several names of places in
Essex, as well as the real name of the barge, have been changed; and
that the authors wish to thank the proprietors of the _Evening News_,
who have allowed them to republish Sam Prawle’s salvage yarn, which
was originally printed as a detached episode.
ILLUSTRATIONS
I. COLOUR PLATES FROM WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS BY ARNOLD BENNETT
A Barge passing the Maplin Light _Frontispiece_
The Swale River _to face page_ 24
Bradwell Creek 60
Maldon 84
Beaumont Quay 124
Walton Creek 136
Landermere 150
The River Orwell 164
II. MONOCHROME PLATES FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
A Barge at Sunset in the Lower Thames 8
In Sea Reach 30
Barges at an Essex Mill 40
Hauling a Barge to her Berth 50
The Dining Cabin 72
The Saloon 92
The _Ark Royal_ 102
Bathing in the Sluice at the _Ark Royal’s_ Headquarters 178
Plan of the _Ark Royal_ 192
A FLOATING HOME
CHAPTER I
‘I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea.’
One winter I made up my mind that it was necessary to live in some
sort of vessel afloat instead of in a house on the land. This decision
was the result, at last pressed on me by circumstances, of vague
dreams which had held my imagination for many years.
These dreams were not, I believe, peculiar to myself. The child, young
or old, whose fancy is captive to water, builds for castles in Spain
houseboats wherein he may spend his life floating in his element. His
fancy at some time or other has played with the thought of possessing
almost every type of craft for his home--a three-decker with a
glorious gallery, a Thames houseboat all ready to step into, a disused
schooner, a bluff-bowed old brig. He will moor her in some delectable
water, and when his restlessness falls upon him he will have her
removed to another place. Civilization shall never rule him. As
though to prove it he will live free of rates, and weigh his anchor
and move on if the matter should ever happen to come under dispute.
Nor will he pay rent resentfully to a grasping landlord. For a mere
song he will pick up the old vessel that shall contain his happiness.
Her walls will be stout enough to shelter him for a lifetime, though
Lloyd’s agent may have condemned her, according to the exacting tests
that take count of sailors’ lives, as unfit to sail the deep seas.
Certainly those who have the water-sense, yet are required by
circumstances to earn their living as landsmen, have all dreamed these
dreams. In many people the sight of water responds to some fundamental
need of the mind. To the vision of these disciples of Thales
everything that is agreeable somehow proceeds from water, and into
water everything may somehow be resolved. When they are away from
water they are vaguely uncomfortable, perhaps feeling that the road of
freedom and escape is cut off. Inland they will walk, like Shelley,
across a field to look at trickling water in a ditch, or will search
out a dirty canal in the middle of an industrial town. The sea, which
to some eyes seems to lead nowhere, seems to them to lead everywhere.
Iceland and the Azores open their ports equally to the owner of any
kind of vessel, and the wind is ready to blow him there, house and
all. The water-sense is the contradiction in many people of the
hill-sense. They of the water-sense cannot tolerate that too large a
slice of the sky, in which they love to read the weather-signs, should
be eclipsed; the wonderful lighting of the mountains is less
significant to them than the marshalling of vapours and tell-tale
clouds upon their spacious horizon.
But this water-sense which lays a spell on you often exacts severe
tolls of labour. The yachtsman who employs no paid hands, for
instance, must sweat for his enjoyment; the simple acts of keeping a
yacht in sea-going order, of getting the anchor and making sail, and
of stowing sail and tidying up the ship when he has returned to
moorings, mean exacting and continuous work. If he goes for a short
sail the labour might reasonably be said to be disproportionate to the
pleasure; and if he goes for a long sail the pleasure itself may
easily turn into labour before the end. These disadvantages and
uncertainties the yachtsman knows, and yet they are for him no
deterrent. He may spend a miserable night giddily tossed about in an
open and unsafe anchorage, and call himself a fool for being there;
but the next week he will expose himself to the same discomfort. Why?
Because it is in his blood; because he has this water-sense which
compels him, bullies him, and enthrals him.
The houseboats of the Thames are famous centres of a dallying summer
existence in which life tunes itself to the pace of the drifting punts
and skiffs, and seems to be expressed by the metallic melody of a
gramophone or the tinkling of a mandolin. At night there is enough
shelter for paper lanterns to burn steadily; and as the wind is
tempered, so is everything else. All is arranged to add the practical
touch of ease and comfort to the ideal of living roughly and simply,
and the result is a mixture of paradox and paradise. One wonders what
proportion of the population of the houseboats, if any, lives in the
houseboats in the winter. The boats always seem to be empty then, and
of course they were not designed for regular habitation. A wall or
roof which, like
‘The soul’s dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made,’
is not a meet covering for the winter. Nor would even a thoroughly
weather-proof boat be so if it have no fireplace. But thought runs on
from the spectacle of the mere Thames houseboat to the further
possibilities of this mode of life. Why keep to the tame scenes of the
upper Thames? Why not live on the Broads, under that clean vault of
sky, scoured by the winds, among the wilder sights and sounds of
nature? Thought runs on again. Why on the Broads, after all? They are
a long way from London, and it may happen that one has to be often in
London. And in the summer you might imagine that the upper Thames had
been transported to Norfolk, so full are the Broads and rivers of
picnicking parties. Why, then, not live in a houseboat on sea water?
Sea water is a great purifier. No fear that it will become stagnant or
rank. Its transmuting process turns everything to purity. Take an odd
proof. Even rubbish or paper in sea water is not an offence as it is
in fresh water. Hurried along on the tide, it bears a relation to the
great business of ships; but in fresh water it reminds one of
disagreeable people, careless of all the amenities.
The houseboat, then, must be a ship lying with her sisters of the sea
in a harbour. Attracted by the Government advertisements that appear
from time to time in shipping newspapers, one thinks, perhaps, or
buying an old man-of-war. But old men-of-war, though very roomy, are
more expensive than you might suppose. Besides, in the conditions of
sale there may be a stipulation that the buyer must break up the ship.
A barque, such as is often bought by a Norwegian trader in timber, and
spends her remaining days being pumped out by a windmill on deck,
might serve for a houseboat. So would a steam yacht when the engines
had been taken out. But then the draught of either is not light, and
the occupier of a houseboat might want to lie far up a snug creek, and
there even the highest spring tide would not give him the necessary
depth. A sea houseboat might be built specially, but that is not the
way of wisdom; the cost would be very great. The houseboat must be a
vessel of very easy draught, and also one that can be bought cheap and
be easily adapted for the purpose.
Often had my thoughts carried me to this point by some such stages as
have been described. But the floating home had remained a phantom
because my desire for the sea was partly satisfied by the possession
of a small yacht, the _Playmate_, of which I was the Skipper and my
wife was the Mate, and in which we had spent all our holidays. Our
home was a country cottage, which I had bought at Fleetwick, not far
from a tidal river that strikes far into the heart of Essex. But at
length circumstances, as I have said, caused the dream to become for
me a very practical matter.
It happened in this way. The shadow of the change from governess to
school had fallen on our two boys. We regretted it the more because
there was no school within reach of home, and they were, in our
opinion, too young to go to a boarding school. And so there seemed
nothing to be done but to sell or let our cottage--if we could--where
we had lived for nine years, and move to some place where there was a
good school for the boys. Whatever place we chose had to be on or near
salt water, for neither my wife nor I could seriously think of life
without water and boats.
We found a satisfactory school near a tidal river in Suffolk, but we
could not find a house--at least, not one we both liked and could
afford. One day, having returned dejectedly from a search as futile
as usual, we were discussing the situation, which indeed looked
hopeless, for our means were obviously unequal to what we wanted to
do, when the idea of a floating home suddenly repossessed me with a
fresh significance.
‘Let’s buy an old vessel,’ I said, ‘and fit her up as our house. We
have often talked of doing it some day. That may have been a joke,
perhaps. But why not do it _seriously_--_now_?’
The Mate evaded the startling proposal for the moment.
‘I wish the children wouldn’t grow up,’ she commented sadly.
‘If we don’t have the vessel,’ I persisted, ‘we shall fall between two
stools, because with all the expenses--school, rent, and so on, which
we’ve never had before--we shall have to give up the _Playmate_.’
‘That would be worse than anything.’
The mere idea of giving up our boat was more than we could
contemplate--our boat in which we two had cruised alone together,
summer and winter, on the East Coast, and from whose masthead more
than once we had proudly flown the Red Ensign on our return from a
cruise ‘foreign.’
‘I would rather live in a workman’s cottage and keep the boat, than
live in a better house and have no boat,’ said the Mate emphatically.
‘Well, we’ve got to leave here, and it’s something to have found a
decent school. I suppose, if we take a house really big enough to hold
us, it will cost us forty pounds to move into it.’
‘_Much_ more than that if you count all the new carpets, curtains, and
dozens of other things we shall want.’
I thought an occasion for reiteration had arrived.
‘Just think. If we had a ship, we should do away with the expense of
moving for one thing, the rent for another, and the rates and taxes
for another. We may be absolutely sure our expenses will increase, and
our income almost certainly won’t.’
The Mate was silent, so I continued: ‘Suppose we are reduced to doing
our washing at home. Washing hung up to dry in the garden of a villa
is one thing, but slung between the masts of a ship it is another. Not
many people can scrub their own doorsteps without feeling embarrassed,
but one can wash down one’s own decks proudly in front of the Squadron
Castle.’
‘There is something in that.’ She was gazing out over the marshes,
where the gulls and plover were circling. She sighed, and I knew she
was thinking of the ‘move.’
I sat beside her and looked out of the window too, and the familiar
sight of a barge’s topsail moving above the sea-wall caught my eye.
‘That’s what we should be doing,’ I said, pointing to the
barge--‘sailing along with our children and our household goods on
board instead of waiting for pan-technicons to arrive with our
furniture, and spending days in misery and discomfort moving it into a
house we don’t like, and then paying a large rent every year for the
privilege of staying in it. If we had a barge we could anchor clear of
the town, and when the holidays came we could up anchor and clear off
to a place more after our own hearts. Of course a barge is the very
thing--the most easily handled ship for her size in the world. I see
the way out quite clearly now.’
[Illustration: A BARGE AT SUNSET IN THE LOWER THAMES]
‘Yes, that sounds very jolly, but there would be a lot of drawbacks
too.’ The Mate began to retreat towards the drawing-room.
‘Oh, but you haven’t heard half the advantages yet,’ I called after
her.
The Mate wanted time. So did I. I lit a cigarette and thought for a
few minutes over our position; and the more I thought the more sure I
became that a barge would solve the problem for us. And when I joined
her I felt that I had a pretty strong case.
‘Now listen to me,’ I said. ‘Not only should we save a great deal over
the move, and over the rates and taxes, and have no landlord to
interfere with us, but we should actually be freer than we are here.
We should be sure of our sailing, which is one great advantage; and
later, when the boys go to their public school, we can move wherever
we like and not be tied to a house for seven, fourteen, or twenty-one
years. A move without a move--think of that. I am sure salt-water
baths will be good for the children, and hot salt-water baths will be
excellent for rheumatism--or anything of that sort. The barge will be
warmer in the winter than a house, and cooler in the summer. She will
be cheaper to keep up. You will save in servants and also in coals.
You know you hate tramps, and hawkers, and barrel-organs. Well, you
will be free from all these things. Of course, we don’t have
earthquakes in England, but if we did have one we shouldn’t feel it.
If we had a flood, it wouldn’t hurt us. You remember we paid about
four pounds to have our burst water-pipes mended last winter, but we
shouldn’t have that sort of thing in a barge. We shouldn’t be swindled
over a gas-meter, and servants wouldn’t leave because of the stairs.
It will be a delightful place for the children to bring their friends
to, and no one will know whether we’re eccentric millionaires or
paupers only just to windward of the workhouse. We’ll have the saloon
panelled in oak, and white enamel under the decks, and our books and
blue china all round. We’ll....’
I had just begun to warm to my work when an expression on the Mate’s
face showed me that I had said enough and said it reasonably well. I
had made an impression on her adventurous heart.