Sunken Treasure

Chris’s day at The Hard Harbour gets weirder and weirder…

We made a trip to Portsmouth Harbour the other day, an area known as The Hard (as opposed to wet and not hard, which would be the sea) and home to a cleverly named food kiosk, The Hard Dock Café. The Hard is also home to a railway station, and we were there to meet my daughter. While my wife Lorraine and I were waiting, gazing across the water at the nearby huge Victorian battleship HMS Warrior, two railway workers emerged from the station.

“Hey George,” said the first, “You seen that boat?”

I glanced at them. They appeared to be looking directly at Warrior, and there were no other boats present, so… “No?” said George.

Two things here. Firstly, these two were presumably here almost every day – how had they previously failed to spot a 127-metre battleship right outside their door? And secondly, how had George still not spotted it?

“Aha, now I see it!” shouted George, so suddenly I jumped. I was glad he could see it, though. “It’s sunk!” he added.

With that they’d gone, leaving me to ponder why George, having only just noticed Warrior, now believed her to have sunk.

Two minutes later, Lorraine pointed at Warrior and shouted, “A boat!”

What was the matter with everyone today? Lorraine wasn’t pointing at Warrior though, she was pointing at a mast protruding from the sea. A boat had indeed sunk – a very little one, right in front of HMS Warrior. How embarrassing for it.

The eagle-eyed station workers had seen something in seconds that I failed to spot at all. There’s a surprise. Also a surprise, was that the workers didn’t find a submerged boat in any way alarming. I’m guessing this must be something that happens at the Hard regularly, or in the not-hard-wet, anyway. Maya arrived moments later, exclaiming, “Oh! That boat’s sunk!” Just me who can’t see sunken boats, then.

As we left the station, we all stopped dead in our tracks. There, on the floor, protruding from a puddle, was a crisp £10 note. After staring at it for a few seconds Lorraine whispered, “Chris, pick it up!” There’s a strange feeling of guilt when something like this happens. After looking around, hopeful that we’d see someone searching for their money so we could be extricated from the situation, we all shuffled forward, forming a protective circle around the fallen tenner. “Pick it up!” hissed Lorraine Reluctantly, guiltily, I did, and twenty seconds later dropped it casually into a homeless man’s collection hat. He stared at it happily. Lorraine stared at it aghast, then slapped me round the head.

There’s an interesting footnote to this. When my dad was young, he was a “mudlark” at The Hard. These were kids who spent many hours foraging in the harbour mud for coins that locals threw there, primarily so they could watch kids get covered in mud.

It may have been a puddle rather than mud, but I feel that in some slight way, 75 years later, I’ve followed in my father’s footsteps…

It’s just me who can’t see sunken ships then…