A welcome change

“I first saw a DP&L-owned ship lying in Perth Lower Harbour in 1951 loading seed potatoes outwards for the riverside harbour at Strood, then in Kent,” emails harbour correspondent John Aitken.

“The Dundee-registered coaster Crombie was moored at the head of the harbour, the traditional loading and discharging location of the company’s vessels from the late 1930s. Shortly before the onset of the Second World War, a steel sheet-piled wharf had been constructed in order to accommodate the coasters Arbroath and Glamis.

“A uniquely-shaped warehouse was subsequently erected behind the wharf to store cargoes of potatoes and oats etc. Heating was installed to prevent frost damage to the potatoes while in storage.

“With a flotilla of foreign-flagged merchantmen beginning to dominate the UK coastal and near Continental trades, the arrival of a ship with a Tayside name was a welcome change.

“Clova, Cortachy, Errol and Gannochy joined the diminutive Crombie regularly trading along the upper reaches of the Tay to and from Perth. The former Dron appeared later as the Jackonia. Their cargoes were usually potatoes, grain and a range of fertilisers with an occasional shipment of stone chips loaded outwards by Perth Quarry Company vehicles.

“The last vessel to call at Perth in DP&L colours was the Errol in 1954 to take on oats for Great Yarmouth. On the same tide as the Errol arrived, the Flensburg-registered coaster Schleswig Holstein sailed with a cargo of stone dust bound for Denmark. The Errol returned in September of that year with a cargo of bulk potash from Antwerp and sailed on 29th of that month.

“However, in 1969 the Hamburg-registered Ore-hoved appeared at Perth. There was something familiar about her despite layers of flaking paint and having had her mast and derricks removed. She was the Clova returning to her old haunts after an absence of 15 years. The disappearance of the well-maintained black hulls, buff upper works, white rails and lifeboat davits and, of course, blacktopped red funnels complete with Tayside nomenclature, left a large gap in the coastal shipping business on the Tay.”