Friday 1 July 2022 10:36 PM ROBERT HARDMAN asks...Who will save Churchill's funeral barge from sailing into ... trends now
Her classic good looks still turn heads at the age of 66, as she weaves her way between the hefty sightseeing vessels chugging up and down the River Thames.
‘All the tour guides love to point her out,’ says her proud skipper, Paul Hastings. ‘She’s part of history.’
She certainly is — and has been ever since her finest hour, in January 1965, when she carried the greatest statesman in British history on his final journey.
More than 350 million people around the world watched the Havengore sail up the Thames with the coffin of Sir Winston Churchill, draped in the Union flag, lying in state on her deck.
It was Havengore’s task to carry Sir Winston from his funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral to Waterloo Station, from where a special train would take him to the family burial plot in Oxfordshire.
In the immortal words of the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby: ‘And so Havengore sails into history — not even the Golden Hind has borne so great a man.’
More than 350 million people around the world watched the Havengore sail up the Thames with the coffin of Sir Winston Churchill, draped in the Union flag, lying in state on her deck
Equally unforgettable was the profoundly moving sight of dozens of cranes along the riverbank lowering their jibs in tribute, as she sailed by with the great man’s family and the bearer party from the Grenadier Guards also on board.
This 85ft former Port of London Authority hydrographic survey vessel, made from English oak and finest teak, has gone on to play her part in many great state occasions since then, too. She was at the Queen’s side during that blustery river pageant to mark the 2012 Diamond Jubilee.
She has been a stalwart of the national Armistice Day commemorations each November, when she sails to Westminster to lay wreaths in the Thames.
And on the 50th anniversary of the great man’s funeral, in 2015, the Churchill family came aboard to retrace the funeral route followed by a mid-river wreath-laying.
I was lucky enough to be one of the passengers that day and was astonished by the size of the crowds greeting us from the bridges and the riverbanks on a freezing midweek morning. The relatives were bowled over by it all. Some were in tears.
But might the Havengore now be about to ‘sail into history’ once and for all? For her owner has — very reluctantly — decided that the time has come to find a new custodian. He is the first to admit this has been a labour of (expensive) love.
It was Havengore’s task to carry Sir Winston from his funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral to Waterloo Station, from where a special train would take him to the family burial plot in Oxfordshire
‘I’ve devoted 15 years to her and I have loved it,’ says Chris Ryland. ‘But I am getting on, I’m 74 and I can’t expect my family to keep on pouring money into this so I’d like to find someone else to take her on.’
The former entrepreneur forged a lifelong attachment to all things Churchillian when, as a boy, he took a day off school and hitchhiked from his Gloucestershire home to Westminster Hall where the wartime leader was lying in state.
Young Ryland thought nothing of spending hours queuing in the freezing cold to pay his respects and, back at home, was glued to the funeral on his mother’s little black and white television.
And 40 years later, he had just sold his stake in his successful IT services business when a friend alerted him to a story which might be of interest.
Having spent her twilight years doing trips around Chatham dockyards in Kent, the Havengore had been put up for auction at Sotheby’s by a private owner. She had failed to reach the £1 million reserve price but a would-be buyer was prepared to match the highest bid — £780,000 — and take her overseas to become just another pleasure craft cruising in the Mediterranean.
So Mr Ryland stepped in and offered the same amount with one important proviso: he would bring the Havengore back home to London and keep her active in public life.
Equally unforgettable was the profoundly moving sight of dozens of cranes along the riverbank lowering their jibs in tribute. Pictured: Robert Hardman in the wheelhouse of the MV Havengore
‘It was the only place for her,’ he tells me. A suitably prestigious berth was found at St Katharine Docks, next to the Tower of London.
However, in the finest traditions of old boats, she needed rather more care and attention than he had bargained for. A three-stage refurbishment programme, over several years, has cost him a few million pounds, he says. That is on top of the £100,000 basic annual running costs, which he subsidises through occasional charter trips.
However, now that she is back in top condition, he feels that the time is
