Ace ferretter out of bizarre barge stories, Dave B, publishes this picture of the spritsail rigged barge Rosie Probert moored in Ipswich (Dave and Mrs B are up there for the Pin Mill match) and asks “Does anyone know anything about her?”

 

Half sized barge Rosie Probert, Picture by Dave Brooks

Half sized barge Rosie Probert, Picture by Dave Brooks

I went on a little internet scurry and was only able to find the following, which is probably not a very good answer (so if anyone out there knows any more, please pile in).

 

You can buy a 6 by 4 inch picture of her on ebay at http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/rp5607-UK-Sailing-Barge-Rosie-Probert-Photo-6×4-/390426304421?pt=UK_Collectables_Postcards_MJ&hash=item5ae7389fa5#ht_2541wt_905

 

Rosie Probert is actually a character from Dylan Thomas’s poem, Under Milk Wood, where (so Wikipedia tells me on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under_Milk_Wood) , she is “Captain Cat’s deceased lover, who appears in his dreams.” We are told that “During dinner, Mr. Pugh imagines poisoning Mrs. Pugh. Mrs. Organ-Morgan shares the day’s gossip with her husband, but his only interest is the organ. The audience sees a glimpse of Lord Cut-Glass’s insanity in his “kitchen full of time”. Captain Cat dreams of his lost lover, Rosie Probert, but weeps as he remembers that she will not be with him again. Nogood Boyo fishes in the bay, dreaming of Mrs. Dai Bread Two and geishas.” There you are – culture already!

 

I also found this in the “Maldon Little Ships Club Newsletter” at http://new.mlsc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/MLSCNewsletterNov10.pdf . On page 10/11 Di and John Rogers describing an East Coast Cruise say “John and Di went to the top of Orford castle with its splendid views across to Orfordness with its strange wartime pagoda like buildings. Whilst looking upstream towards Aldeburgh we even spotted my brother’s “half size” barge Rosie Probert coming down the Alde from Snape.  We managed to book a meal in the famous Butley Oysterage and then John Boyce decided that it was time for afternoon tea……” and so on.