FROM MUD TO GLORY

There is something quintessentially English about living on a houseboat. They can be World War II motor torpedo boats, steam tugs, barges, canal boats or old racing yachts, all rescued from the scrapyard long after they have been stripped of their lead and bronze, and converted to alternative living for the arty and nomadic.

These vessels are scattered around the mud of England’s yachting meccas: the Hamble River, Bembridge Harbour on the Isle of Wight, at Chelsea in the heart of fashionable London, Shoreham-by-Sea, and perhaps the most famous of all, at West Mersea in Essex and Pin Mill, up the coast a little in Suffolk. Every now and then, a multimillionaire comes along, sees through the rotting timbers an outline masked by a beach hut perched on deck, visualises the past, and spends a fortune recreating it.

And they need to be millionaires, for there