A Successful Dinner

Local author Dick Durham proved a hit at our annual dinner held the Chalkwell Park Rooms. His
theme was based around the Forts and creeks of the Thames, all places he has sailed around for over 50 years.

Dick has sailed as mate for the legendary bargee, Bob Roberts, aboard Cambria. Dick was aboard when Cambria delivered her last cargo into Felixstowe. Since those days he has owned a series of boats, and made epic voyages.

He spent more than 20 years as a reporter on the red-tops and recalls a career that was often exciting and sometimes surreal. He covered the Seoul Olympics, the first Gulf War, and the King's Cross fire as well as royal stories. He covered crime including the Rettendon Murders.

When he started in Fleet Street he was earning as much as a judge, after he was made redundant he was offered a job as a care assistant, although only if he was prepared to get some training. Instead, he got a job with Yachting Monthly, of which he is now Editor at Large. He also wrote a series of books and last February published a thriller, A Tide for Drowning.

Currently he owns Betty II, a pretty yacht built in 1921 in Leigh by Cole and Wiggins which is also the firm who built Endeavour. Betty II was one of the boats surveying rivers and estuaries for the
invaluable sailors' guide, East Coast Rivers.