The Ghosts of Royston Are Still With Us

One of my true regrets of having earned my journalistic spurs back in the ‘60s is that newspapers and magazines at the time were mostly black and white.

Meaning no, or rarely, colour photos because they were too expensive to process and to print.

Meaning that I took 1000s of photos in black and white—and we now live in an age of full colour reproduction! For example...

This sad reality of changing times came home with a jolt today with my intention to revisit the historic shipwrecks of the Royston Breakwater. How many times I toured those ghostly ladies of the sea when, with permission of breakwater owner, Crown Zellerbach, I was allowed to clamber over, in and around them to my heart’s content, shooting photos—black and white photos, alas—all the while.

Think of it—the current owner’s insurance company would probably have a fit. But all that was required then, courtesy of CZ, was that I check in with their watchman on the rare occasions that he was on duty.

Besides my camera I carried a small tool kit—to rescue bits and pieces that weren’t too rusted or otherwise corroded to come free with a little effort. I didn’t even need a wrench or a crowbar to access a flag locker on the Second World War navy tug Sea King to retrieve port and starboard lamp lenses and some brass fittings which had been left when she was scrapped in Victoria.

But instead of being cut up she and her sisters—other tugs, sailing ships including one of the famous clippers, destroyers, and a frigate—were placed on duty at Royston to protect the log booms from storms.

Somewhat to my amazement, they’re still there although no longer on duty and in a much reduced way since my visits of long ago. I’ll tell you some of their fascinating stories next week in the Chronicles.

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