THOM WESTCOTT
Rov in g Repor ter
“We owe a lot to wars, not least some extraordinary military vehicles, the Lightweight included”
Alongside my passion for the Lightweight Land Rover, I have a lingering fondness for repurposed military vehicles. So it is with great sadness I read that the wonderful London Duck Tours, operated by a fleet of amphibious WWII Us-built DUKWS, are soon to end.
Despite the improbability of amphibious military vehicles built in the 1940s being turned into a lucrative tourist business venture, these tours have been running for almost 17 years. But then, the DUKW itself is an improbable vehicle – a competent if sluggish 4x4 as well as a perfectly adequate seafaring vessel. And soon they will be seen no more, thanks to London’s urgent need for a new sewer.
After being declared biologically dead in 1957, the Thames has since gained the accolade of being the cleanest river in a major city. Surprising, since we still pump tons of human waste via Victorian sewers. A scheme to construct a replacement ‘Super- Sewer’ has been underway for some years, and work has finally reached a central component which has seen Thames Water reclaim possession of a ramp that has provided the Ducks’ access to the river. And the company has been unable to find an alternative.
I book me and a friend onto a tour before it closes. Our DUKW is fabulous, its rugged wartime glory undiminished by the lurid yellow paint job. We admire the dials, gear sticks and knobs, which my friend says are reminiscent of a WWII helicopter cockpit. To me, it’s a pretty small step away from the Lightweight, but with more legroom. Clearly not all that much changed in the 30-odd years between 1942 and 1977 – the respective manufacture years of this DUKW and my Land Rover.
The Duck attracts a lot of attention, including people in double- deckers who peer enviously down upon us from the upper decks of their, by comparison, rather dull tour. In my experience, re-purposed military vehicles have enduring appeal for many.
When we reach London’s absurd MI5 building, beside which runs the precious ramp leading into the Thames, excitement mounts. We exchange our driver for a captain and trundle down the ramp, across a few yards of shingle and out into the Thames with a splash. The Duck sits low in the water, made still more exciting by the wash of faster passing vessels. “Don’t worry about sitting in the Thames in a 75 -year-old vehicle. Under the floor, it’s filled with foam so we cannot sink,” the tour guide reassures the passengers, yelling above the engine, which has crescendoed to an extraordinary level since it entered the water. But no one is worried. Bobbing on the Thames in an ancient military vehicle is a kind of fantasy come true. Everyone is enthralled.
Watching a few children ill-advisably trail their hands in the still fairly filthy Thames water, beneath the rolled-up plastic canvas on the DUKW makes me wistfully recall the halcyon days of having the original canvas on the Lightweight. The switch to hard top was essential for a rotting canvas in England’s appalling climate but driving without a roof was a pleasure I sorely miss.
The views of the Houses of Parliament and assorted historic buildings and riverside landmarks are stunning in the evening sunshine, providing one ignores the fact that we are on a level with a series of gates belonging to London’s clearly-foul extant sewage system.
As we emerge onto dry land, and the bilges are noisily drained via a curious system of pipes on the sides of the Duck, our tour guide tells us the sad story of London eels. “At low tide, the Thames used to be black with eels but, thanks to pollution, 98 per cent of the eel population has died out.” Gesticulating towards our driver, who has taken over the wheel back from the temporary captain, he says: “George used to fish for eels when he was a boy and then fed them oatmeal to make them regurgitate Thames silt from their stomachs before they could be cooked or jellied. We now have to import eels from abroad to make jellied eels.”
Despite the reference to this most revolting traditional English dish which probably no one aboard apart from George has ever eaten, most of the tour is still grinning from the thrill of our wonderful, improbable sailing feat.
As we drive back towards Waterloo, I think that we owe a lot to wars, not least the development of some completely extraordinary military vehicles, the Lightweight included.
My final Duck Tour, in keeping with the vehicle itself, was legendary. Sadly, the tours have now finished but, having given some 1.8 million passengers an extraordinary view of central London and insight into the enduring legacy of military engineering, happily they will not be forgotten. And there might soon be a whole load of eccentric DUKWS looking for new homes.
Thom Westcott is a British freelance journalist who has written for the Times and Guardian, and now mostly spends her time reporting from Libya