Beware Boats That Drive Men Mad
I ONCE knew a man who fell prey to a mad desire to own a large boat. He found the vessel of his dreams, an Arctic trawler, in Norway, but he lacked the captain’s papers to sail a ship of her size, earning, as he did, his living in the London art market. Nothing daunted, he bought a British admiral’s hat with which to bully the Norwegians into submission. The hat was scuffed and Victorian, but officialdom obligingly turned a Nelsonian eye to that and to the lack of qualifications—and to his being only 26—and off he steamed.
I have no boat to my name, but, last summer, I bought a Breton sailor’s hat in a market in the landlocked Provençal town of Apt. My children said I looked silly and my wife dubbed me Capt Haddock. Boxsets of The Onedin Line next, she sniffed sarkily over the blurred points of her knitting needles.
Little did we know what the hat presaged. Even then, I must have been harbouring the germ of a desire to take to the waves, a dream perchance to island hop around the west coast.
Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin February 07, 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
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Bu hikaye Country Life UK dergisinin February 07, 2018 sayısından alınmıştır.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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