"Far down in the romantic West Country," "Will the accordion player grinds out his haunting old tunes to an audience which is composed of the last survivors of a great race of seamen." "Will was a sailor himself once, but now he works in the pits at St Austell, Cornwall, home of the china clay industry." "St Austell produces the best clay in the world and it's shipped from there all over the world to make fine porcelain or the shiny pages of illustrated magazines." "The pits are open quarries, which are still worked with the almost primitive gear that has been used since they began." "The great white mounds of useless slag, called burrows, makes landmarks that are visible for miles out to sea." "From the little port of Charlestown it is taken east to the paper mills at the mouth of the Thames, or round Land's End to Runcorn near Liverpool, and thence by canal barge to the Potteries." "The loading is done by hand." "From lorries it goes down wooden chutes straight into the hold of the schooners." "Great white chunks that almost look good enough to eat." "For over 60 years, the clay has been shipped in topsail schooners." "Once there were hundreds, but now there are only half a dozen left." "The children have even commemorated some of them in stone." "ln the nearby harbour of Par, the Jane Banks and the Water Witch are lying rotting on the mud, finished." "No more will they heel gracefully over under the freshening breeze." "They're gone, and their crews with them." "Steam and motorcraft are rapidly taking the place of the schooners." "Some in a pathetic attempt to compete have installed auxiliary machinery." "One of these, the Mary Barrow, is warped out of Charlestown harbour." "The lock gates open, and with most of the villagers lending a hand, she makes for the open sea on her way this time to Glasgow." "Watched by the regretful eyes of those for whom there are no ships, she makes her way slowly out into the bay." "Past the headland the breeze catches her and she makes sail to the westward." "But we go to London with the Katie, to Dartford creek, to feed those huge paper mills which turn out the paper you may have been looking at today." "When she's unloaded, there's a general clean up." "A sailor's proud of his home, and his home is his ship." "The decks are scrubbed, the ropes coiled down, and when all is shipshape, she is towed out into the Thames to load with cement." "With a new load she can now make sail." "The Katie once worked amongst the frozen Newfoundland Banks." "At another time, she brought pineapples and oranges from the sunny Azores." "She has braved the storms of the wide Atlantic, but now her deep-sea masts have been cut down and her last days are being spent in this backwater of industry, running between Fowey and London." "Anchors aweigh, sir!" "Captain Cork, the skipper, has tried steam as well as sail, but he's now back to his old love." "With all sails drawing, he leaves the factories and smoky chimneys far behind." "The Alert, a double topsail schooner reaching down channel with an offshore breeze on the beam." "Alert is owned and loved by her skipper Captain Dudridge, a great sailor with the poetry of the sea in his soul." "He runs this schooner at a loss because he couldn't bear to see her hauled onto the mud like the Water Witch." "For him, she's a person." "She's alive." "And who can say that he's wrong?" "She slips along with a bone in her teeth." "As the evening drains the colour from the scene, we leave her homeward bound." "Farewell, topsails."