The medway, our Comeback queen

8:05am Thursday 20th March 2008

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SHE is a monarch of the estuary and east coast who has been through more highs and lows than Michael Jackson.

In her time she has been a holiday attraction, a war heroine, a wreck and a floating hostelry. Now the regal little ship is set for another role - as comeback queen.

This is just the latest high-stakes struggle in the life of a ship that found her greatest fame as a fighting vessel, even though she wasn't born to be a warship.

But the Medway Queen has had to fight her way down the years. What other pleasure boat has shot down German attack aircraft? Or been rescued not once, but twice, from what seemed like a watery grave under the sea?

So the fight for survival will be, to her, just another battle.

The Medway Queen Trust has embarked on a major campaign to raise funds to restore its precious charge to full working order. It's hoped fundraising organisations in Southend - which has been linked with the Medway Queen since the day she was launched - can help raise the £4million needed.

The National Heritage Memorial Fund has already contributed £1.86million for restoration of the hull, but the remainder has to be raised by volunteers.

The Medway Queen was launched in 1924 and destined from the start to serve the Thames Estuary and Thanet ports circuit, where she could carry 1,000 passengers at 15 knots.

She has always been a homely old boat, never choosing to stray far from the Southend-Clacton-Margate loop.

For these places, she became as familiar a part of the scenery as their seaside piers.

Most of her trips were ones which could be completed within the span of a day.

The Medway Queen's regal name conveyed the fact she was an upmarket vessel, more luxurious and aimed at a slightly wealthier class of passenger than some of the other, bargain boats.

Her name was chosen as a deliberate echo of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth - the great, proud Cunard liners.

The Thames Estuary was awash with floating queens at the time. Others included the Southend Queen and the Queen of Essex (later to transfer allegiance and become the Pride of Devon).

These little ships, with their hint of a Buckingham Palace garden party, might not have braved tempests and hurricanes, but they provided a mean high tea aboard.

With the outbreak of war in 1939, however, Medway Queen's predictable, comfortable world changed.

Medway Queen joined the Royal Navy, as part of the Dover Patrol. On May 29, 1940, the crew members were anchored off the south coast, spotting enemy minelaying operations, when the call went out to head for France and the Dunkirk beaches to take part in the evacuation of the British Army. The Medway Queen was one of the first ships to arrive at Dunkirk.

She immediately took on men to her full capacity and headed back to Dover. On the return trip, she was attacked by German aircraft, but her machine-gunners fought them off, bringing down at least one plane.

Her crew witnessed the destruction nearby of another, less fortunate, seaside paddle-steamer, the Brighton Belle. The Queen picked up as many survivors as she could.

By the next day, she was heading back to Dunkirk, entering the blazing harbour and negotiating the wreckage under heavy gunfire.

Again, she took more than 1,000 men aboard. Then came, perhaps, the boldest and most perilous move of all.

To save time, Medway Queen was driven straight over the minefields, relying on her shallow draught to avoid annihilation. On her third trip, the little ship plied up and down the Dunkirk coast, picking up survivors, stragglers, men in small boats and even soldiers clinging to wreckage in mid-Channel.

Had she been born a man rather than a ship, Medway Queen would now have military ribbons for courage and service plastered across her bows.

It wasn't war, but peace that almost did for the Medway Queen.

As with all the scores of other paddle-steamers, her fortunes declined along with those of the coastal trade.

As holidaymakers flocked to Majorca and the Spanish costas, the paddle-steamers became mirrors of the seaside towns they served - shabby, empty and forlorn.

One by one, they were put out of service, abandoned or broken up.

But once again, the Medway Queen proved to be a lucky ship, though doubtless it didn't seem like luck at the time.

Withdrawn from service at sea, she became a floating clubhouse on the River Medina, on the Isle of Wight. Sold on from there, she was under way down the river when she hit an underwater obstacle and sank.

Hauled up from the depths, Medway Queen was returned to her home port in the Medway in 1983.

There, she managed to sink for a second time, slumped against Chatham dockyard wall, before being rescued and broken up.

Broken up? Surely that marks the end for any ship. But the Medway Queen has been broken up constructively.

Her pieces lie carefully organised and filed away in warehouses and boatyards around the Medway, awaiting the magic touch of that £4million.

When the restored Medway Queen sails again on her second maiden voyage, she is guaranteed front page coverage in Britain and many other parts of the world.

She will steam out of the Medway and there is little doubt which estuary landmark she will head for. As on her first maiden voyage, her premier port of call has got to be Southend Pier.

"It would be unlikely, given the history there is between the two, if she didn't call there," says Brian Goodhew, of the Medway Queen Trust.

On this side of the estuary, we should do everything possible to make that happen. South Essex does not have a great stake in the heritage industry. We are low on stately homes, preserved steam railways or prehistoric monuments.

But we do have a strong link and bond with historic paddle-steamers. The other surviving seagoing paddleship, SS Waverley, already attracts growing numbers of passengers when she calls at the pier.

But the Glasgow-based Waverley plies her trade all round the British coast, while the Medway Queen is a local ship, with her anchor deep in the Thames Estuary.

Her restoration as a working ship will also be a major step in the revival of coastal cruising - and of Southend Pier, which was built to service the coastal tripper trade.

All the more reason why we should put our hands in our pockets now to help the Medway Queen commence her new reign.