How Two Sea Tragedies Affected Me by Joyce Hewett
by
Joyce Hewett
Born in 1921 in my grandparents’ home, I have lived all my life in Mumbles. My mother died of TB soon after my birth, and I was brought up by my grandparents at Coltshill House, West Cross.
After my mother’s death, my father, Thomas Evans lived with his sister in Landore, near where he worked as an engineman in one of the Swansea Valley collieries. He spent every weekend with us in Coltshill, and to this day I remember him arriving, every Friday, with a bar of chocolate for me.
Thomas Evans
Our family always went for our picnics to Langland Bay. We did so, that fateful day, 9th June 1924, a Whitsun Bank Holiday. I was just three, so my memories are very limited and come partly from reading Press reports. But in the late afternoon, the rains came down, the sky darkened, and the tide was just turning, with a nasty undertow. There were two young men in the water, clearly in difficulties. My father and another man plunged into the water to rescue them. Many other people, including my father’s brother, waded out waist-deep in an attempt to rescue them all, but to no avail. The tides were just too strong. Both rescuers were drowned—Clifford Harcourt, and my father as was one of the boys, John Peacock. The other, Pat Williams (son of the Vicar of Oystermouth) revived, after resuscitation.
At the age of three, I did not of course understand what was going on. I do remember going to the Langland Bay Hotel, where there was a Minister waiting. Years later, my aunt told me that my grandmother literally tore her hat to shreds, as she stood on the beach, watching the tragedy unfold. My father had served with the Royal Navy in the First
World War, and I still have his hat-band HMS Centurion, (photo) and a letter commending his bravery in saving a man who had fallen overboard. For some years after the tragedy, my grandmother told me that I regularly asked ‘Where is my Daddy?’
The Swansea Borough Treasurer Mr Wetherall set up a Fund to help the bereaved families. As a result, £600 was invested for me, which was a princely sum in those days—the price of a substantial house. Mrs Harcourt received the same sum.
My Father’s Citation
In 1947, there was another sea tragedy. The entire Mumbles Lifeboat crew was lost, trying to rescue the crew of the Samtampa.
At that time, I was working in the Guildhall as Secretary to the then Borough Treasurer Mr Greaves. He called me to work on a Sunday (unprecedented!) to compile lists of all the victims and their dependants.
Mr Stuart Watson, the RNLI General Secretary, came down from London. For many weeks, I sat in on, and minuted, all the ensuing discussions about compensation for the victims’ families.
It was an upsetting and sad time for us all.
Later, I received from Mr Watson a copy of his book on the lifeboat service ‘Storm in the Waters’ together with this letter.
These are memories of two very unhappy events –
but most of my Mumbles memories are very happy ones.