This is the Article (derived from Press Release 1, posted below) published by the West Briton Newspaper on the 5th of Aug 2010. I was hoping to get a direct response from the public and I did! Remember that lovely picture of the boat as a ferry, sent to me by Katheryn Osborne. Well I received an e-mail from a Mr John Green, who lived formerly in St Mawes, and He remembers taking a pleasure trip on the Rosemarie up the Fal to Malpas in 1948 when He was just 12yrs old! As it turned out his Uncle worked as a deck hand for Tommy Clode, which further confirms the story of another contact I made via the Harbour office; Peter Newman, (from Newmans Cruises) of a local ferryboat family, also remembers the Rosemarie working as a ferry in the river Fal at about the same time.
By the mid 1950's I've another lead to follow, as a Falmouth resident Pat Crockford, who was busy doing his shipwright apprenticeship at E.J Burts, boatyard, Turnpike beach. Remembers the Rosemarie coming into the yard for a complete re-fit. At that time He remembers she belonged to a Mr Keen, and had been working as a local passenger ferry. I wonder if the re-fit Pat mentioned, could have been the build of a coach roof onto the boats then open back. She had been initially built at R.S Burts & sons in 1930, when the company was run by Richard Steven Burt. This re-fit would have taken place, some 25yrs later, at the same family firm, now under his son Ernest John Burt.
