On 10 December 2014, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of Cutty Sark coming to Greenwich. To mark the event, we asked people to share their memories of the ship with us. The memory below comes from Graeme Tipp, Volunteer Visitor Assistant at Cutty Sark.
Cutty Sark arriving at foot tunnel - 1954
40 years on…
My introduction to Cutty Sark came by a rather surprising route: from Outer Space!
In 1954, the highlight of my week was to rush to the newsagents and part with fourpence-ha’penny in exchange for the latest edition of the “Eagle” comic, which I always read in the same strict priority order. First up of course, was Pilot of the Future, Dan Dare, whose spaceship was once again under attack from his arch-enemy the Mekon. The next regular stop was the centre-fold and to the latest masterpiece from the great graphic artist, L Ashwell Wood. His magnificently detailed cut-away drawings of some machine or means of transport, real or imaginary, always enthralled. This week, his drawing was of a beautiful three-masted sailing ship, charging through the waves under a huge press of canvas, the cut-away section, finely detailed as usual, showed her cargo of wool bales; I was captivated by the sight. Beneath the picture, the caption read “Cutty Sark”.
At that time I was a pupil at the London Nautical School in Waterloo, training for a career in the Merchant Navy, so I was already keen on the sea and sailing, but the sight of this magnificent merchant ship from another age, 60 years earlier, was something quite extraordinary. I carried on flicking through the comic, day dreaming about what it must have been like to sail on Cutty Sark when, on turning the page, I came across a letter from The Duke of Edinburgh. He asked all readers to support his plan to have Cutty Sark preserved for the nation in a specially constructed dry dock at Greenwich. Eagle readers who wanted to help, were invited to send a Postal Order for half-a-crown (12½p) towards the appeal.
Half-a-crown was a significant outlay in 1954, but I was hooked and took myself off to the Post Office to buy my Postal Order. A couple of weeks later, when I came home from school, there was a package waiting for me. Inside was a letter from the Eagle comic, together with my Certificate, signed by Marcus Morris, the editor, confirming my membership as a Junior Shipmate of the Cutty Sark. Best of all, was a blue enamel oval lapel badge bearing a silver image of a three-masted sailing ship, the emblem of the newly formed Cutty Sark Preservation Trust.
Junior Shipmate certificate G Tipp
In December of that same year, at a school assembly, volunteers were called for to attend a ceremony at Greenwich, to mark the arrival of Cutty Sark into the dry dock that had been specially built for her with my half-a-crown (plus, no doubt, a little help from others).
The 10th of December was a Friday, which meant that the volunteers missed rugby practice. About 20 of us, in our Merchant Navy cadet uniforms of navy blue battle dress and black peaked caps (white cap covers were only worn in the summer), set off by train from Waterloo to Greenwich and formed up on the side of the new dock, near the entrance to the foot tunnel. It was a cold day, misty, (as most December days in the 50s were) and I remember there was a great deal of hanging around waiting. Opposite was a similar group of trainees from HMS Worcester, our long-time rivals. The Worcester had been home to Cutty Sark since before the war.
Eventually out of the gloom came the famous old ship, with tugs fore and aft belching black smoke, looking very little like the magnificent racing clipper that had been pictured in my Eagle comic months earlier. She was manoeuvred in a rather undignified way, stern first, into the mouth of the dock, knocking some brickwork off the river wall in the process. The assembled guard gave three cheers, I believe a band played something stirring and there were a couple of speeches which none of us could hear.
That was not the end, however, at least not for me. By the time she opened to the public after restoration, I was away at sea and I saw little of her for some years. Later, I became a regular visitor. In the 70s I brought my two sons to see her and more recently, my two grandchildren.
But for me, the fascination with the beautiful old clipper never faded and when she re-opened to visitors again in 2012 after her third restoration, I was lucky enough to get a job as a Volunteer Visitor Assistant. So now, sixty years after our first introduction, Cutty Sark and I are still together and I now have the immense pleasure of showing visitors around the ship and telling them some of the amazing stories of life at sea in the late 19th century. Not only the best job in the world for me, but also a chance to wear the lapel badge that I carefully preserved for 6 decades. Maybe I always knew I would need it one day!
