to Mr. Tony on the telephone,
and I mentioned that my father and I used to play with a pot-pot boat out on the pond on Plumstead Common, firstly a pot-pot boat has no moving parts, inside there is a methylated spirit or candle burner, water in a coil that is drawn from outside the boat is heated and expelled making a pot-pot sound, as the water is expelled it pushes the boat forward, they are available today for just a few pounds,
back to 1957 and this was our boat, in my minds eye it was over 2 feet long, but in reality just over 15", it was based on the design of Miss England, which strangely enough Diana found interesting when we saw it when in London, the one we had looked exactly like the one above, with one exception, ours had a huge gash down one side, Dad had attempted to solder it, but to no avail, but what did temporarily fix the leak was chewing gum, having said that it was always a close run thing whither it ran out of puff or filled with water first!
the boats were made some time in late 1948 by J & L Randall Ltd. the toy steam engine manufacturer took over the marketing of the Miss England speedboat and from this point on it was marketed under the Merit label,
this was due to a Trade Mark issue With G J Hayter & Co. the famous Victory Jigsaw manufacturer, the boats were made as far as I can tell for just 1 year, but what fun we had, and what memories are flooding back as I write this.
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