A Ghost Story from the Exeter

 

A Ghost Story from the Exeter

 

Exeter (LT 139) Alongside the Fish Market in 1935


 From the West Wales Guardian of Friday 22nd January 1937:

 On Wednesday the steam trawler "Exeter" entered port with her red ensign flying at half mast, bearing the mortal remains of the skipper of the vessel, Mr. Avery Pitman, 43, Starbuck Road, who had died at sea on the previous day.

    The mate, Mr. W. Johnston, of Hill Street, Hakin, Pembrokeshire, Wales, immediately turned the vessel round and headed back to port. The deceased, a native of Brixham, was fifty-three years old and had been fishing out of Milford for the last twenty years.  A week before he died, skipper Pitman was in another vessel when he netted a six-foot Bay tree firmly planted in a tub of earth while fishing off the Smalls.  It was a coincidence that he was found dead at approximately the same place as the Bay tree was netted.   

    Local legend has it that when the tree was netted in the trawl, the mate wanted to throw it back into the sea.  The skipper insisted that the tree should be kept on the casing of the ship ready to take ashore for his garden.  The mate then told the skipper that it was very unlucky as the wooden tub was the wood to build the coffin, the earth to cover the coffin, and the tree to give the grave shade.

    As you now know, a week later, they found the skipper dead in the wheelhouse, whilst fishing over the same area as the tree was found. The Skipper's body was placed in the trawler's small boat aft and brought back to Milford Haven, Wales.

 

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