Beret'd at sea

As containers from the stricken MSC Napoli are washed up in Devon and people walk off with motorbikes and bales of nappies, Shaun Shackleton looks back on the day fisherman Peter Bougourd salvaged a container full of berets - 28,000 of them. IT IS all over the newspapers, on the television and radio and across the web: at beaches in Branscombe, Devon, scavengers are making off with everything from shoes, steering wheels and carpets to beauty cream, motorbikes and even nappies.

Police have warned that those who take away goods and fail to report it are committing a criminal offence and all visitor traffic to the beaches has been stopped.

One observer, a historian, said that the scenes were reminiscent of the days when Branscombe was a notorious landing place for smuggled goods.

Go back to Guernsey on 20 March 1981 and the scene is somewhat more placid.

It had been a slow day for local fisherman Peter Bougourd, skipper of Telen Mor, when he and his crew spotted a green container bobbing in the sea 13 miles south-east of St Martin's Point.

'We had no idea what it contained, it was just floating along,' said the former lifeboat coxswain. 'We thought there'd be a few bob in it but it was a hazard to navigation.'

For six hours, the Telen Nor towed it back to St Peter Port and by the time it arrived at the Cambridge Berth, spectators had gathered to watch Peter open the container.

'There was a huge crowd on the quay. When we opened it, the crates said "Flora". So we thought it was margarine. Then people in the crowd began saying whisky and watches - though they'd be pretty wet by now.'

Instead, the container held berets. Thousands of berets.

Peter logged the find with the receiver of wreck to find out the owners of the cargo.

It had come from the vessel, Juno, which had sailed from Hamburg to Lagos, Nigeria, and was one of six that had been lost in heavy weather on 16 March. The receiver of wreck decided that the cargo was 'finders keepers', so back went the berets to Peter.At first it was thought there were 11,500, but after inspecting the catch back at home with his wife, Annie, he discovered there were a lot more.

Twenty-eight thousand of them, to be precise.

They came in six different colours and four sizes - bright green, bright blue, dark blue, brown, black and red.

All were clean, but damp with seawater.

'My wife washed them all in the washing machine, wore the bloody thing out, but they eventually paid for a replacement.'

Then they were hung up to dry in the couple's greenhouse.

Peter's dilemma was how and where to flog 28,000 berets. He first thought of putting a sign up in his garden saying: 'Berets. Apply within.' Then he dabbled with a hedge-veg-style box.

'We sold them all over the place,' he said. 'We put some with La Societe Guernesiaise to sell at Le Viaer Marchi for 50p - we copped half - and every Easter the Hockey Club held a tournament for teams from all over the world - Australia, Canada, South Africa.

'Each country had a different colour so they all wore the things. We had people banging on the door only a couple of years ago for some.'

But interest in Peter's beret treasure wasn't confined to the island.

'The Sunday Times picked it up. They said, "We'd like to send a photographer across" and talked me into it. They sent Derek Cattani. He took photos everywhere, spreading the berets out on the beach. You've seen a photographer with a model, that's exactly what he was like, egging my wife on. We had a laugh-and-a-half.'

Then interest in the berets came from a UK company called Cheryl Toys.

'The fella wanted them to go with kids' army uniforms, like commando and SAS, and they were put on cardboard along with the guns and holsters.'

But these particular berets weren't so easy to get rid of.

'My wife saw them in Creasey's toyshop. She looked inside them and they had the same fluff from the cardboard bands. They'd come back to Guernsey.'The story was then taken up by a yachting magazine, which asked readers for ideas on how to get rid of them. A teacher, Miss Harris, from Christ Church School, south London, got her pupils to send letters to Peter suggesting various ways.

'One kid said, "I'd buy them off you for 10p and flog them to Rastas for 50p each.". He was only nine or 10."

Peter's uncle, Albert Gaudion, lived in London so before returning home from a holiday in Guernsey, Peter gave him 32 berets as presents for the schoolchildren.

'They were tickled pink. We had laughs galore out of it.'

But perhaps the most bizarre and most coincidental story of all is about one of the Juno's other containers.

'In those days we got on famously with the Breton fishermen. They'd come at Christmas for the spider crabs and Christmas shopping. A fisherman friend of ours, Yves Creach, salvaged it. Would you believe it was full of fezzes?'

Although he does not know what became of his friend's booty, it's safe to say that Peter got the lesser of two evils. Can you imagine trying to sell a fez to a donkey?

Fast-forward to 2007 and Peter has briefly seen the news about the people sifting through MSC Napoli's washed-up treasure.

'It's an old Guernsey custom that seems to have been forgotten. If you found timber on the beach, you put a stone on it while you went to fetch your transport. That meant it was yours.

It has no significance now.'

Since retiring, he has left the sea behind, saying it's all in the past. Instead he looks after someone's garden for nine hours a week.

He does, however, have a few mementos of that unusual catch back in 1981.

'I've still got two or three of the crates kicking around - one of them holds the firewood. And I kept one of the berets for memory's sake. The grandkids can fight over it.'

So, all in all, how much did his catch of 28,000 berets finally net him?

'That's between me and the taxman,' he said.