Three boats in a man

As Jerome K. Jerome might have said — every man has three boats inside him: the model (or toy boat) representing the innocence of childhood; the dream boat, representing ambition and desire; and the lifeboat — for when he has reached that stage in life when he feels that time is fast running out.

I have no idea if this is true or not, in fact I have just made it up.

But while we're on the subject, my childhood boat was not an elegant yacht carved from a solid wooden block and rigged with canvas sails, but a work-a-day cabin cruiser, the hull and deck made from blue plastic, the cabin from red plastic painted silver (which gradually wore off). It had a plastic outboard motor housing an electric motor, very basic controls (a switch to turn it on or off), and to set the course you angled the outboard one way or the other and hoped the batteries didn't fail, or that it got stuck in the reeds half way across the pond.

Besides the battery compartment the hull was open, just about large enough to fit a seated Action Man inside (in his commando's uniform if you had one), or most likely just naked.

I held onto this boat for most of my life, and even though it had no beauty I was pleased to see it when I occasionally stumbled upon it while looking for something else. But I'm sorry to say that it never brought back any vivid glimpses of happy days spent at the boating pond with my father. (This is not to say that my childhood was unhappy, which was far from the case).

I think eventually I consigned it to the landfill a couple of years back, realising at long last that it was not something my son would ever be remotely interested in inheriting.

My dream boat is perhaps one of the most beautiful boats ever built — the Riva powerboat. Of course I never distorted my sense of reality to the extent that I remotely thought that I would ever own one. But I can still admire its elegance and the alternative reality it inhabits.

As for the lifeboat, luckily I don't think I've quite reached that stage yet, and even if things get a little stormy at sea, you have to remain positive.