Breaks my heart to think of her sitting there rotting away in
Chatham, Alistair. The preservation of "Waverley" and "Kingswear
Castle" is highly laudable and hopefully "Medway Queen" will follow.
Admittedly the little tug is not as "glamorous" as her sleeker
passenger carrying counterparts, but I'll bet there are many of the
public who would eagerly pay to sail on the "last fully operational
British sidepaddle steam tug in the World". She's got a pretty
impressive shingle to hang out..and that alone makes the price of a
ticket a bargain. It beats me why she has not attracted some
philanthropic attention. If she were a sailboat to train cadets on or
a steam locomotive to haul passengers behind over a few miles of
country line, she'd have been restored long ago. There has to be
something I'm missing here but my fear is that she is now beyond
viable restoration at any price!!
Imagine the different preservation story if 55 years ago anyone had
realized THEN that a flying Spitfire today would be (conservatively)
worth well over 1 million pounds!!..and that's the reality of TRUE
APPRECIATION...in more ways than one!!
PJ
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