Peter Mather was a devoted Guardian and an Honorary Member of the Harrison-Butler Association.
This is a post from James Mather :
My late father, Peter Mather (an OG member for several years) pursued AS’s beautiful canoe stern yawl ‘Sheila’ (1915, I think) (note : 1905 actually) for years until the long time Jim Wilson decided it was time.
My father brought her back from the West Coast of Scotland to Woodbridge, and enjoyed owning her.
However, as I recall (this was the 80s and I had left home by then) he recognise that the level of restoration Sheila required to bring her up to the standard he required of any boat in his care, and of course deserved, was greater than the resources he could muster.
So Sheila passed to the loving ownership of his friend Mike Burn, who had pestered my father as he had pestered Jim Wilson! (What goes around comes around.) And I remember seeing the great job Mike and his team of skilled craftspeople were making of her. Alas, I lost touch with the story thereafter.
[My father moved on to projects that were within his scope, a series of sadly down at heel Harrison Butlers, also devoting himself to the HB Assoc].
(Personally, I ended up a bit of a dry classic yacht enthusiast. Our boats were usually out of the water undergoing a full refurb and refit, and as soon as one was finished, Dad would sell her in order to take on another hard luck case!! But the memories and conversations and the boaty culture are etched in my mind.)
Anyway, I’d love to know what happened to ‘Sheila’, perhaps an OG member knows?