New member
 

Greetings and thank you for registering me with the forum. I have recently moved to Amble from the north of the county. On occasions I used to bump into Hector Handyside, who sadly passed away in May. I was wondering what research has been done on boat building in Amble, and Cobles in particular. Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Hi Cosmo, welcome to the forum.

Robson Green covered the revival of traditional boat building at Amble in the TV series 'Tales from Northumberland' (second series actually, 'More Tales from Northumberland') episode 5, 'Industrial Heritage'. I went to youtube to get the link for the eposode, but Sods Law being what it is, lots of episodes on there but not the Amble boat building one..

Anyway, if you can find that episode it might give you some ideas. I cannot recall who the chap was working on the boat building project shown in the episode, but he would be able to answer all your questions I'm sure.

Cobles
 

Many thanks to you Coquet, that would be helpful. My son did a lot of the aerial filming for that series, but I never saw any of them! Your help is much appreciated and I look forward to a link should you find one.

Welcome Cosmo, the Robson Green episode involved Amble Coastal rowing club (we have a web site) building our firsd St Ayles skiff. The build team involved included Jeff Matthews, a traditional coble builder himself, Rob Angus who spent his younger days coble fishing in Amble and is now restoring his own coble at the Yacht club. The build was a great experience ( so much so we built a second one last year!) Get in touch if you fancy a row out, or a natter on coble building.

Coble
 

Thank you Hollydog for interesting message. I was down at the yacht Club last Saturday evening and missed Rob by a day. He was down at Bridlington, I believe, participating in the Coble Sailing Festival. Had I known I would have cadged a lift! I left a message for him to get in touch, but I shall go down this evening and see if he is there. I should love to get involved in the build if he felt he need a hand! My email is jeremy at jeremycosmodavies.co.uk . many thanks again.