Also in my garage
Puttering on the river led to a dream boat buy for this collector of 1950s classics
Classic cars have always been a part of John Calvert’s life, from racing Hillman Imps in the late 1960s to curating a collection that includes a 1952 Morris Minor, a 1954 Fiat Topolino and a rare diesel 1952 Mercedes-benz 170 that he rebuilt from the ground up. But life took an unexpected turn to the nautical in 1978 when he bought a run-down Thames boathouse.
“One end was burnt out, completely derelict – kids used to smash everything up,” he recalls. “I bought it cheaply and would come down every weekend with my tools. When they changed the usage on it I moved in and that was that. I bought an Andrews slipper launch; it was like an XK120 for the river. We used it for about 25 years.”
He and his wife Sally eventually began looking for a boat in which they could travel further afield, but not before L’orage, a ’38 river launch built by Cars & Boats Ltd of Kingston and previously owned by commentator and former Spitfire pilot Raymond Baxter, caught their eye. “It used to come past two or three times a year,” says Calvert. “If I was on the balcony I’d shout, ‘Sally, here comes our boat!’ I never dreamed that I would own it. Then, 13 or 14 years ago, we saw it advertised at the Henley Traditional Boat Festival. I made an offer and she was ours.”
L’orage was one of hundreds of pleasure craft pressed into service during Operation Dynamo in 1940, when more than 330,000 stranded troops were rescued from the beaches of France. “Then named Surrey, it was confiscated in Kingston and towed to Toughs of Teddington where it was totally stripped out before crossing the Channel,” explains Calvert. “It would have worked like stink ferrying soldiers to the bigger boats, and in the end brought back 36. A French rifle was later found in one of the lockers.”
It eventually went to an Englishman travelling the canals of France: “With her being named after an English county, he struggled to get lock gates opened – there wasn’t much love lost in de Gaulle’s time. He had a magnificent Lalique lamp in the saloon and on the bottom was engraved ‘L’orage’ – tempest or storm in French.
The following morning he got up and repainted the name, and all the lock gates began to open.”
It soon became clear that L’orage was in a similar state to the Thames boathouse. “You wouldn’t have wanted to spend the night on it,” Calvert admits. “It was black and dark – with mushrooms growing in it! You could have poked a screwdriver through the hull.”
After a couple of heart-stopping quotes, Classic Restoration Services, itself a Little Ship owner, was commissioned. “It took three blokes nine months to complete,” says Calvert, “and we now have a fridge, a cooker, a wet room and hot water: you want to go away on it.”
Barely a week out of refit, the restorer asked Calvert if he was heading to Dunkirk to take part in the five-yearly crossing masterminded by Baxter. Seven days later they were navigating the Channel: “We got one of the guys to come with us and show us the ropes. It was just the most fantastic experience, leaving Ramsgate harbour at 6am with thousands of people cheering you away. About half a mile out we formed up for a flypast by the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight – the Lancaster shook the boats. I had tears in my eyes; it was almost like the real thing. When you get to Dunkirk you go in between two moles, which were used to evacuate troops in 1940, and on top of the left-hand one was a lone piper who played us in. It was incredible.”