Osprey, which was built in 1902, around the same time boatbuilders were campaigning for better rights (Gazette file picture)
I FEAR Rachel Roberts has confused pre-decimal currency (Gazette Nostalgia, September 26, 'Working conditions of a local boatbuilder').
Seven shillings an hour for 54 hours equates to £18.90 per week in decimal currency in 1897. Boatbuilders from all over England would have been fighting each other for jobs at those rates. Seven pence per hour would be more realistic.
Peter Wilson
Windermere
Editor's note: The Westmorland Gazette contacted Windermere Jetty, Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories, which supplied the Nostalgia page article last week and it confirmed the sentence should have read "7 (old pence) per hour".
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