M
artyn Heighton doesn’t really do quango speak, it’s a relief to know. Over a pub lunch In the grounds of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where National
Historic Ships (NHS) has its office, he tells the story of Liverpool Council’s brief flirtation with a sentimental slogan that appeared on their vehicles for a while: ‘working for you’. Ridiculous, clearly, and it seemed the residents of the city agreed, when the word ‘not’ appeared in spraycan in front of the slogan. “They’re a council! We know what they do already,” he expostulates as we sip our micro-brewery ale. This is comforting talk for a man who has learned his way through the Orwellian complexities of trusts, charities, quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations and worse. It can’t be terribly interesting for a Cambridge-educated historian who fell in love with ships at the age of six on a visit to HMS Victory.
But we need people like Martyn Heighton, especially in 2010, when the Government announced its cull of the quangos. Many were slain instantly, others like NHS, simply morphed into a new shape and carried on. There must have been more manoeuvres conducted during that period than in an entire Nelsonian sea battle. NHS is now an ‘advisory non-departmental public body’, or ANDPB.
“The defaced red ensigns for historic ships are more than just flag-waving”
Opposite: Martyn Heighton outside his ‘office’, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich
The difference, Martyn assures us, is largely academic and NHS is still funded directly by the government, via the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and makes recommendations on maritime heritage directly to it, as well as to funding bodies, most importantly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). It would have surely been a travesty for the DCMS to have withdrawn its funding for Britain’s only such body, set up to preserve and record our maritime history, especially when you consider that the level of that funding – around the £240,000 per annum mark – is what one individual might expect to pay to campaign a big classic yacht for a single season of racing in the Med. NHS has to do quite a bit more than that, as Heighton discovered when he was hired in late 2005 to oversee the formation of the (then) quango. It had existed before under various guises since 1993 but it was only in 2005 that enough pressure was put on Downing Street to create a nationally recognised, reporting body funded centrally by Government.
Until that point, its principal role had been one universally loved activity: the making of lists, firstly with the National Register of Historic Vessels, essentially a survey of all known ships built and domiciled in Britain over 50 years old and over 40ft (12m) in length. This inventory of every ship – whether rotting, sailing or just waiting – is still a major part of the work of NHS, and is expanding every year to include new categories. Since 2005, the minimum length requirement has been brought down to 33ft (10m) to meet the upper end of the National Small Boat Register set up in 2006 by the National Maritime Museum Cornwall; and ships no longer need to have been built in Britain, provided that their stories are central to this country. Amazingly, a new list – the National Archive of Historic Vessels, which record ships that were on the list but subsequently lost – was not created until 2010. Before then, they simply disappeared off the map. Another list, started under Heighton, is the National Historic Fleet: 200 of the most important of the 1,200 or so on the register. In 2010, NHS applied for and received a special defaced red ensign for ships on the register, showing the NHS logo, with an additional crown for those in the elite Historic Fleet. You don’t have to be a vexillologist (flag expert!) to realise the significance of this: a defaced red ensign is an extremely rare honour in the UK, and this one represents the only instance in the world of historic vessels accorded such an accolade. “But I suspect some of the significance might have been lost on the defence secretary Liam Fox, when he had to sign that one off,” Martyn adds with a smile. It arose in the very middle of a heated debate over whether or not the Royal Navy would enter an aircraft carrier timeshare arrangement with its French counterparts.
FLAGSHIP AWARD
In the same way that the lists are more than an idler’s inventory of favourite things, the ensigns are more than just flag-waving: one of Heighton’s most important aims is to expose Britons to as many active traditional vessels (whether yachts or working craft) as possible, a mission underscored by another new initiative: the National Historic Ships Flagship award started in 2009. It has so far been conferred on the coaster Shieldhall (2009), the GL Watson motor yacht and Dunkirk Little Ship Sheemaun (2010) and the Scottish herring drifter Swan (2011). A principal requirement for the winning vessel is a good season of attendance at regattas and festivals, to
CLASSIC BOAT MARCH 2012 33
STEFFAN MEYRIC HUGHES
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