Smells are evocative, especially those of wooden boatbuilding, pine resin from timber being worked, a paraffin blowlamp being preheated, linseed putty, paint, varnish and antifouling being applied.  I grew up with them on the waterfront at Spinola and they have stirred memories ever since.

Many tasks had their distinctive smells, steaming hardwood for ribs, the blowlamp singing their edges, greasing skids with mutton fat to move boats and burning off paint. All mixed with the scent of the sea, fish and seaweed.

Sounds too are evocative, the chip chip of the adze, the scrunching of an auger cutting and rhythmic tap of hammer clenching a copper nail, the caulking mallet a duller note.  The putt putt of British Seagull outboards was the only mechanical intrusion, their two stroke exhaust gases wafting over.

What boatbuilder who let a small boy help would have thought they would be remembered with affection more than 50 years later. They live on in one’s memories, a testament to their kindness and formative influence. No surprise I have a boat of my own and its maintenance evokes those days.