When she was 18 or so we were living in Colchester and Marion and her boyfriend bought an old Alvis Healey roadster.  They renovated it but decided that they would rather spend time sailing at West Mersea.  They put an ad in Yatching Monthly which said "RAFT WANTED:  Willing to swap for Alvis Healey roadster."  A chap in Kent contacted them saying he had a 21 foot Bermudan sloop they were welcome to have for nothing, but he didn't want the sports car because he preferred motor bikes.  And so Marion became the proud half-owner of "Snark", as well as the Alvis.

In July 1966 we ventured out with our boyfriends on a two week odyssey from West Mersea up the coast past Felixstowe and into the River Deben at Bawdsey.  Somewhere off Harwich we hit a sandbank and gybed nastily, spilling our cans of Double Diamond and taking in a huge amount of water.  Marion said she had seen her whole life pass before her.  She was only 19 then so it must have come and gone in a flash.

We survived but after that "gybe" was always a four letter word in the Taylor family.

One day we sailed all the way up the Deben into Woodbridge where we dropped anchor and went for a cuppa in a little cafe on the riverbank. We listened to the football on the cafe radio as England won the world cup.  We sailed back to Bawdsey in the late evening but there was a huge, almost full, moon so it was bright enough to see the river.  Bright enough in fact to see a rainbow.

Marion always loved being near the water.