Britain’s hardest-hitting motorboat magazine

Being the editor of the bestselling motorboat magazine in Britain does have its privileges. This month, for example, I got to drive a beautifully restored World War Two wooden motor gun boat with 3000hp on tap. Thundering across the Solent at 44 knots in this iconic piece of naval architecture, I thought life couldn’t get any better.

But the true the meaning of the word privilege didn’t hit home until a fortnight later, when I talked on the telephone to octogenarians Cameron Gough and Eric Archer. I hadn’t heard of them before, but both are now firmly entrenched in my list of all-time heroes.

Sixty years ago, they both commanded the very same gun boat I had just driven, relying on the cover of darkness and the legendary speed and agility of their craft to stage hit-and-run attacks on the more heavily armed German E-boats.

The fact that they were dodging shells, at an age when my chief concern was dodging 9am lectures, came as something of a wake-up call. Privilege is much more than having a day out on a beautiful boat; what really counts is having the freedom to enjoy it.

All of which makes it doubly sad that the motor gun boat in question is currently for sale. If she was a painting or a sculpture, some public body or lottery funding would doubtless step in to save this important work of art for the nation. But because she’s a boat, which requires rather more than a blank wall and a security guard to look after it, nobody wants to know, and her owner is being forced to consider bids from abroad.

Surely there must be some wealthy philanthropist out there who also understands what privilege really means?

Hugo Andreae, 21 September 2004