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Your editor is Peter Nash whom many of you will know from his previous role on Boating Business. Peter edited BB since 1982 and most certainly knows a thing or two about boats, the people that build them and the bits that go into making them work.
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About Peter Nash (Editor MIN)
I’ve been working in the leisure marine industry for many years – since the 1970s, in fact.
But I started work in the printing industry, working for a company that produced landing charts for all the major airlines.
This was exceptionally interesting to a man who spent his early life building model aircraft, from those balsa wood rubber band powered models of Spitfires, through to diesel or glo-plug engined control line models.
I never got around to radio control; that was far too expensive.
But my interest in aircraft came from my Dad, who worked working for Fairey Aviation. Faireys built a couple of excellent aircraft in the Swordfish, a biplane torpedo bomber, the Bristol Beaufighter and the Fairey Gannet, which was a chubby little carrier-borne anti-submarine aircraft with contra-rotating propellers and stubby polyhedral wings launched in the early 60s.
But there was another Fairey aircraft that deserves a mention in the Rotodyne. It was a conventional airliner with short stubby wings and one engine on each wing. And it had a gigantic helicopter rotor on top of the fuselage.
The Rotodyne flew into the Fairey Aircraft factory in Hayes, Middlesex (OK. It’s now Greater London, I think) and my dad took me to see the aircraft take off after its visit.
The Rotodyne was a tremendous aircraft, but perhaps built too late to have a lasting effect on the aviation world. The rotors were set off by passing compressed air through the rotor blades and into the rotor tips, which had little jets on each tip.
Once the rotor was at operational speed, the compressed air was replaced by jet fuel and it was set alight, producing a huge circle of flame. As the rotor reached take-off speed, the fuel element was throttled back and the aircraft – which had flown into a tiny square yard in the factory – lifted off and disappeared into the sky.
Be that as it may, once I left ‘the print’ I was always a writer, producing articles for various yachting and boating magazines, most of which disappeared years ago.
But I stuck with it and after a short spell with an offshoot of IPC with offices in Grand Buildings in Trafalgar Square (they were anything but grand – but that was the first time I had an office of my own).
I then moved into upmarket ladies magazines when I became advertisement production manager of Queen Magazine in Fetter Lane, which ran from Holborn down to Fleet Street.
Very smart and very grand, we had Twiggy unfurling her legs from the bright yellow Lamborghini Muira owned by her then boyfriend (and manager, I think) Justine de Villenueve.
Queen was then sold to National Magazines and the title then became Harpers & Queen and was run out of Chestergate House in Victoria.
I then went to work on Vanity Fair, which was in the same stable of magazines, along with Good Housekeeping.
After a nice time in the glossy magazine world, I went to work in the advertising world as the production manager in McCormick Richards, just north of Holborn.
At the time I was living in Earls Court, which was very handy for the annual London Boat Show.
And I remember going to Earls Court to see Led Zeppelin in the 70s soon after the band returned from the USA, I believe. Jimmy Page’s first chord brought a ringing my ears that would last for sometime.
Apart from running good concerts, the venue was, of course, used for The London Boat Show.
I can still remember walking through the entrance, over on the left, then up the short flight of stairs with red carpeting and along the little corridor before opening the double doors and gasping at the lights, the boats, the crowds.
There were boats in the central pool and people hanging over the 1st floor rails peering down to see all the boats and the people milling around. Those were the days, I can tell you…
After McCormick Richards, I decided it was time to move out of London, so I moved out to Sevenoaks in Kent. It was close to the railway station for business trips to town and it was close to Chipstead Lake, where I sailed a Graduate dinghy for a few years.
Then, when some friends suggested Tunbridge Wells was a good place to set up home, I went along and took a look.
And I decided to rent a top floor flat on Mount Ephraim overlooking the town and within easy walking distance of the Grapevine in Chapel Place.
After working on some local magazines with a couple of friends for a while, I decided I would strike out on my own.
Shortly after that decision, perhaps in 1982, I was offered the role of editor of Boating Business.
The Publisher was one Robert Hall and he then worked for a small magazine company based in London’s Farringdon Road.
As with most editors, I worked from home and went into the office only to pass the pages for press as we approached press day for the next issue.
I remember Mr Hall had a military air about him and enjoyed a glass or two of ale…
Over the years, Boating Business developed and, as with all magazines, there was a change of company and Publishers.
I remember Robert Hall passed BB on to a chap whose name now escapes me. But I still remember the names that passed through the title.
Julia Hallam was one. Still in the industry, she now part owns and works for Marina World, as well as helping people out with METS.
This is a great industry – enjoy it.
