WHISPERING SMITH: A safe berth and sound future for Wendy Ann

Her initial role in life was towing ammunition barges, but when retired from Admiralty work, she was employed as a harbour tug in Poole, until her final retirement and dark date with the breaker’s yard.

Then, in 2005 Seb Pattenden and his partner, now wife, Becky Hewlett bought her, he admits in a moment of madness. She was a wreck and the couple were just one step ahead of that breaker.

For some years now she has been a familiar landmark on the west bank of the Arun, perched above the mud and the skeletal remains of other hulls slowly decaying and themselves becoming absorbed into the gloopy morass.

The restoration of the lady (see picture story, below, right) Seb sometimes speaks so fondly of, as if she can hear, and her groans as the shifting tide lifts her keel from the clinging mud, is a fanciful response. At other times and in moments of desperation, he recognises her as the money-guzzling old lady she can be.

Whatever, the work on the Wendy Ann 2 will be completed. She is on the National Historical Vessels Register and a fabulous attraction to visitors and local river walkers.

Her future? Who knows? Her owners love the town and the harbour when here and, for now at least, she is on a safe berth and in sure and loving hands.

Wendy Ann 2 is an important part of maritime history, one of the last of her kind and now a solid part of Littlehampton’s river scene.

THE AFRICAN QUEEN – Bogart and Hepburn managed to find a paddle and make their way out of the swamps, but I feel we are being left right up the creek without our cinema.

Adrift now for 296 days and counting… Word has it, though, that we should be seeing a return of the Windmill Cinema early next year, but I will believe that only when I am sitting in the back row with a Kiaora, a melting choc ice and watching a good movie…