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Audio clip 8 available here on audio player.
Marina Harbour Master Steve Hockings-Thompson spent 13 years working as a boatbuilder for Trout’s boatyard in Topsham before he became the coxswain of the Exmouth Royal National Lifeboat Institution. Spending nearly his entire adult life in Exmouth, Steve has experienced the shift from industry to leisure across Exmouth Marina in real time. In this recording, Steve reflects on how his work changed over the years – from sailmaker to sailing instructor – developing his skills for his current vital roles. Being so integral to the marina has allowed him to witness first hand how the marina and its surroundings have developed over the past decade.
This trail marker is situated by the steps to the Marina Harbour Master’s office in the marina.
What 3 Words: ///lively.gambles.fled
Steve: I’ve lived in Exmouth for most of my life. When I left school at 16, I moved down to Falmouth for three years and I did a boat-building course down in Falmouth, and then came back here and became a sailmaker for a couple of years. Then I went to work for the Royal Marines and their sailing centers as a civilian instructor. I used to look after all the boats they had and teach the guys on the courses. I then went away for a couple of years down to Torquay and worked on a charter boat working out of Torquay. When that all finished, I then came back to Topsham. I became a boat builder for about 13 years working for a local family business called W Trout & Sons up at Topsham. I’d been very active on the lifeboat for the majority of my adult years, and it just so happened that I was asked to become the coxswain for the lifeboat here at Exmouth. Enabling me to do that, I had to have a job that was based in Exmouth, and it just so happened that the harbourmaster’s job for the Marina became available and I took that on and I started as a coxswain in the same year. That was 11 years ago now.
Every summer through my childhood, we were down here. We had a big group of friends, and we used to spend the whole of the summer holidays based down at the sailing club. We were always out sailing on the water, or we were over on the Warren, or swimming around. I think that’s where I got drawn into the estuary.
Before, we used to have lots of little holiday cottages around there, so they’re all sort of wooden. This is when the port was commercial. Very active commercial port here with coasters coming in and out, offloading grain, wood, coal, and whatever, with a little shanty town around the outside. Quite a lot of my friends lived in the houses all the time, and when the docks closed down commercially, they sold the land around the outside to a developer. There is quite a good programme on YouTube about the, well, not the kicking out, the getting rid of the people around the outside. They basically just let the whole site run down. They gradually got everyone out because they were people’s homes, and they managed to force them out in the end. That was quite a sad time. And then obviously, the development over the years. They started over this side and developed all the way around.
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