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get blown up by a mine, but there’d only be six men on board, not a lot of passengers. In any case, after a raid by German bombers the dredger used to go into dry dock to be what was referred to as degaussed. This meant the boat would be given some electric treatment that stopped it drawing magnetic mines towards itself. If a magnetic mine was pulled against a ship, one of its spikes would get broken and allow chemicals to mix and cause an explosion, blowing a hole in the hull. Most paddle steamers were ‘mothballed’ as soon as the war began – that is, kept in a dock or a river somewhere until peace came again. A few did other kinds of work carrying cargo, instead of passengers.
    â€˜The ships were known as the Masthead fleet,’ his father would say. ‘There were four. All pleasure paddlers are laid up now or converted to small freighters owing to what’s known as “hostilities”. I worked on one called …’ He would pause and snap his fingers in a fond, encouraging way then. ‘But perhaps I’ve told you that before, Ian, and you’ll remember the name of the vessel.’
    â€˜You used to work on the
King
Arthur
, Dad.’
    â€˜The P.S.
King
Arthur
. The Paddle Ship
King
Arthur
. In the old days, many ships, even the biggest, relied on sails. So, ships with engines powered by steam took the P.S. in front of their names, if they had paddles, or S.S. – meaning Steam Ship, if they had propellers. And later, when some ships used oil instead of coal, they had M.V. meaning Motor Vessel. But the
King
Arthur
was steam, a paddle steamer, closed stokehold, burning coal at more than two tons an hour when flat out. It’s as if I can see her now – a proud, bold-looking craft, two silver-painted funnels, the paddle boxes making her broad amidships, of course, sort of tubby, and on a good summer’s day the decks crowded with passengers, off to a holiday in, say, Ilfracombe or Weston-super-Mare, or returning. Or just an afternoon and evening non-landing cruise around Lundy Island, sometimes a choir outing, with singing of famous pieces from
The Messiah
and
Chou Chin Chow
,
which would resound above the noise from the engine room and the paddles digging into the waves.’
    From adulthood, Ian would occasionally still look back to those days when Mr Charteris did his reminiscing, and could recall that as a boy he had a foolish, very limited idea of what words could do. He’d detested it when people said ‘as if’ and especially when his father did. Always what he considered rubbish came next. ‘As’ and ‘if’ – each of these meant not really, so two of them must mean
really
not really. Of course, his father couldn’t see the
King Arthur
and her funnels then. Ian and Mr Charteris would be talking in the kitchen at home. His father might be looking at a cupboard or the sink, and they were nothing like a paddle steamer.
    â€˜â€œWeather and circumstances permitting” – advertisements for the trips carried this caution, Ian. The Bristol Channel can be diabolical. There might not be all that much of it, and some called it only the Severn Estuary, but the Channel could produce real mischief. A ship might set out in fine conditions and the barometer reasonable. Then, suddenly, a squall, or even a storm. Spray up from the ploughing bow so high it hit the wheelhouse. I say wheelhouse, but it had no roof or walls, just rails all round with tarpaulin lashed on to give the helmsman and captain some protection against the hurtling water. And, also during rough weather, the sea would sweep over and soak passengers’ shoes on deck, but some of them didn’t notice because all they wanted was to stand there chucking up into the waves, and feeling so rotten they’d like to chuck themselves over, too.
    â€˜Although these craft were called pleasure boats, sometimes the passengers did not get very much pleasure,