Bringing home to Hull the WW1 steam trawler my dad skippered

Two great survivors could be reunited later this year '“ if the ship comes in. Eric Tharratt, 99, is looking forward to the homecoming of the Viola '“ the 110-year-old steam trawler his father skippered.
Eric Tharratt is the son of the skipper of the WWI steam trawler, Viola. 
Picture: James Hardisty.Eric Tharratt is the son of the skipper of the WWI steam trawler, Viola. 
Picture: James Hardisty.
Eric Tharratt is the son of the skipper of the WWI steam trawler, Viola. Picture: James Hardisty.

Eric and daughter Pat were the very first to contribute to a new appeal to bring home Viola, which is lying abandoned in South Georgia, having survived all the slings and arrows that war, weather and the passing of the years could muster.

The Beverley-built vessel sailed off in September 1914 to run the gauntlet of Germany’s U-boats, and never returned. It helped sink two and after demobilisation worked around the world as trawler, whaler, sealer and exploration vessel.

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Eric’s dad George was a skipper until the last week of his life, but died a pauper, aged just 60. He was in charge of Viola when she sailed in her first incarnation as a trawler with the Boxing Fleet.

Mr Tharratt’s ambition is to stand in the wheelhouse where his dad was in command from 1912 to 1914.

Mr Tharratt, who lives in Gipsyville, vividly recalls the grinding poverty of the Depression years and the family of five children sharing an attic room on Hessle Road in Hull, with their parents.

When his father died, his mother said she would have to put his four younger siblings into an orphanage in the city – Newland Homes – but Eric, then 10, volunteered to go in place of his youngest sister Violet, who was just two.

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He said: “My father was at home. There was no trawlers going out, there was a General Strike.

“He had a constriction of the kidneys and he died because he couldn’t afford a doctor.”

He added: “The Viola project is very good. I’m very interested and I want to go on it. In a way it’s done me good, I lost my wife 19 months ago and I think it has helped me get over it.

“I hope to go in the wheelhouse that my father was in. That’s why we have sent some money to it. We thought it would be a very good idea to help.”

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The plan is to convert Viola into a tourist attraction and training facility when she comes back to Hull, possibly this winter.

Amazingly the wooden decking on the ship is, Mr Tharratt says “as good as the day she was built” and her engines are still in working order.

His daughter said: “Dad will be 100 in June and so it would be amazing for it to come back and he could walk in his father’s footsteps.”

“Viola is a great survivor. She has had four lives, as a trawler with the Boxing Fleet, and then was sent to Scotland as a minesweeper and never came back.

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“ Then she was bought up by the Norwegians and was a whaling ship and a sealer in the South Atlantic “

Eventually she was abandoned at a research station at Grytviken with two others – and became the spark for the Falklands War.

She said: “The Argentinians went onto South Georgia intending to take the three for scrap.

“They made the mistake of planting the Argentinian flag.

“There was a small group of British Marines on South Georgia – they contacted the Governor of the Falkland Islands who got in touch with the Government – and bingo the Falkands War.”

For more on the boat’s history and to donate to the appeal see www.violatrawler.net

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