Lillian

‘Skipper lost near Lancelin’ was a front page headline in the West Australian on Saturday, 15 August 1964.

It was the last day of the crayfishing season on Friday 14 August and the Lillian and her crew, John Taylor (34) and Peter Fletcher (36), were bringing in the last 23 of their pots, along with the last catch of the season, one bag of crays.

The Lillian was a decked vessel worth £6,000 and Taylor had been fishing the Lancelin waters for ten years. Fletcher was also an experienced fisherman. He was a migrant from Britain where he had been on fishing trawlers in the English Channel since he was nineteen years of age. He was warmly referred to as ‘Peter the Pom’.

Fletcher recalls that they were on their way home, about two miles from shore, when one wave turned the boat over and a second wave sent the Lillian to the bottom.

‘I was underneath the boat and struck out to get back to the surface’, he said. ‘John Taylor and I grabbed a 7 ft. by 3 ft. piece of the wheelhouse and started using it as a kickboard to get ourselves back to the shore’.

They were still together, only 100 yards from the beach, when Fletcher decided to leave the board and swim for shore, at this point Taylor stayed with the board.

On reaching the shore, Fletcher was knocked over in the surf. Getting up he ran back along the shore to the place opposite where he had left Taylor and the board. He saw only the board and no sign of Taylor.

After his two mile struggle, he was too exhausted to go back into the water to try and find Taylor and decided to run the two miles along the beach to the Lancelin township to get help.

Twenty men with four wheeled vehicles went to the scene. For a while they could see the kickboard floating just off the shore, however it was soon swept out to sea.

A watch was maintained until dusk but there was no sign of Taylor, or any wreckage. A jeep party scoured the coast from Ledge Point, some seven miles south of Lancelin, however there was no trace of Taylor, or any wreckage from the Lillian.

Fletcher re-joined those searching the coastline after he had recovered from his exhaustion.

John Taylor was married with three children. He had been an amateur boxing champion for Australia at the 1950 Commonwealth Games in Auckland, New Zealand. He competed in the Light Heavyweight (81 kg) division reaching the semi-finals, where he lost the bout, but took home a bronze medal.

Peter Fletcher was also married with three children and lived locally.