Houseboats In The Picture Of Bursledon Bridge

A Memory of Bursledon.

In the photo are several houseboats and yachts moored up to the bank on the LHS of the picture, which was 'Deacon's Boat Yard' (no relation to me!). I lived on the large white motor torpedo boat (when she was moved from the River Hamble to the River Itchen, Southampton). She was originally called 'S-8' and owned by Alan Aitcheson from 1949 to 1954/5, later she was called 'Sea Horse/Hippocampus' on the River Hamble and then 'Whimsical Macgoffley' on the River Itchen. She can be seen between the wreck and the large wooden, armour plated 'L.C.S' ('Landing Craft/Support'). She was a houseboat on the Hamble from 1949 to 1974 (25 years) and 22 years (from 1974 to 1996) on the River Itchen. I renamed her 'Whimsical Macgoffley'. She was built in Cowes, Isle of Wight, at the J. Samuel White Shipyard, launched on the 22 July 1944, and was one of six wooden MTBs (numbered S-5 to S-10) manned by the Polish Navy. (Her wartime number was S-8 and she was eventually returned to the Royal Navy as HMTB 427 at the end of the war). She was 'up for disposal' by the Admiralty on 18th December 1945 and sold sometime after that date to Alan Aitcheson. In 1949 she was on the berth shown in the photo which was at 'Deacon's Boat Yard', downstream from Bursledon Bridge, opposite where Moody's Boat Yard was (and is now a large marina), not far from the 'Jolly Sailor' pub (in fact there is a copy of this photo in the 'Jolly Sailor' above a fireplace and also in the pub 'The Ship', at Swanwick!). Sometime in the late 1960s/early 1970s, she was moved and moored 'above the road bridge' on the other side of the river, opposite 'The Cabin Tea Rooms' (now a Chinese Restaurant) at the Hamble River Boatyard which, I believe, became 'Ken Master's Chandlery' in the 1980 TV series 'Howards Way'. She was then owned by Leslie and Marjorie Fletcher (and children John and Gillian Fletcher?), certainly until 1971 (according to the Electoral Register).
The boatyard was eventually redeveloped and all the houseboats had to go and in 1974 she was sold to 'Belsize Boat Yard' on the River Itchen where I bought her for £425 and she was moved upstream to a mooring at 'Priory Boat Yard' (now called Pettinger Gardens), which was adjacent to the Railway Bridge across the River Itchen in Priory Road, St. Denys. I lived on board with my family, until 1979 and the boat then had four other owners until 1996 when she was scrapped (burnt in a Viking funeral!) down river on the Marchwood foreshore. I have discovered her wartime history and discovered all the owners, but would like to know anything about her when she was moored on the River Hamble.
One of the other six Polish boats, S-10, was, for a time (1954/5) moored downstream and named 'm/y Taifun'; she had been used in the 1954 Ealing Studio's film of Nicholas Monserrat's short story, 'The Ship That Died of Shame', starring George Baker, Richard Attenborough, Bill Owen and Virginia McKenna and was up for sale through a yacht broker. She eventually ended up in the Mediterranean, based in Tangier, and used for smuggling; the skipper being Hugh Edwards, the brother of Jimmy Edwards, the comedian with the large handle-bar moustache. She foundered off the North African coast near Cape Bon and sank during a smuggling trip in 1958. Hugh Edwards wrote about his life and adventures in his book 'Midnight Trader'. One of 'S-8s' sister ships is still afloat in Shoreham Harbour, Sussex as 'Houseboat Thanet' ('S-7') and she is the 'last of the line' of the six MTBs originally built for the Polish Navy.
Information, stories or memories of any of these boats on the River Hamble or River Itchen would be most welcome.