FOR the first time in a hundred years a feeling of sadness and nostalgia hung over the Christmas visit to the Calshot Lightship back in December 1965.

It was a feeling that could not be ignored, because the trip carried out by Southampton’s leading citizens and chief port officials exactly fifty years ago was, at the time, believed to be the last as the Calshot Spit Lightship (L V 78) – well known to every sailor using the port – was to be replaced by an unmanned, electrically-operated buoy the following spring.

For years the beacon guided vessels in and out of the port of Southampton and the isolated crew were rewarded each Christmas when a special delivery of Christmas fare provided some welcome home comforts to the men stranded off Calshot Spit at the entrance to Southampton Water.

That year the party of gift-bearing dignitaries left Town Quay in dull, overcast weather in the Harbour Board launch, Triton.

At her masthead flew the flags of the Admiral of the Port – the mayor, Alderman RC Haskell – the harbour master and the Missions to Seamen, and a Christmas tree was tied to her forestay.

First aboard the Calshot was the mayor, who handed over the turkey, plum pudding and other gifts to Skipper Dawson.

Daily Echo: Carol sevice on the Calshot Spit Lightship.

The feeling was reflected by the Bishop of Southampton, the Right Rev KEN Lamplugh in his address during the service in the ship’s stern.

“It is very sad to bid this ship goodbye,” he said.

“I have been coming on this trip for the past 14 years and it has always been one of the highlights of the season.”

“To the crew we all owe a great debt. They do a tremendous job for the community and they have always been very kind to us. Good luck to them wherever they find themselves.”

His words were echoed by the Missions to Seamen chaplain, Canon JW Clift, who commented: “It it the end of a wonderful era, and we do say, this Christmas, a fond farewell to the men of the Calshot.

"We shall never forget you.”

Perhaps the saddest person of all on board the lightship, however, was the master, 58-year-old Leonard Dawson.

“I feel pretty bad about it,” he said.

“I had thought I could have finished my time on her, as I retire in two years' time.”

“The news was a bitter blow.

"There is such a marvellous spirit on board – there has to be for anyone to live to these circumstances.

"All my men have the temperaments of saints.”

Understandably the somewhat downcast Skipper Dawson was in a very reflective mood at the time, having spent the last 38 years of his career with Trinity House.

Before the war he was a lamplighter and seaman, and had been a master for the past 13 years, with the last five of these being at the helm of the local lightship as the master of the Calshot.

Daily Echo: The Calshot lightship pictured during its heyday, when it would guide shipping from its location off Calshot Spit in Southampton Water

When asked by the Echo about the ship he had served on since 1951, Dawson sighed: “I don’t know what will happen to her now.

"She will probably go to Harwich and be used as a spare vessel or sold. The whole process is terribly sad.”

During a short carol service, prayers were read by the Rector of St Mary’s, Southampton, and the mayor’s chaplain Canon R Chamberlain.

Prayers were read by the Rev HA Eyton-Jones, vicar of Holy Trinity, Cowes, and the service was conducted by Canon Clift.

After a few bottles of champagne had been opened – “Well, it is the last trip,” said Canon Clift – the party left for Calshot radar station before a final call was made at the pilot station at Hythe where they enjoyed a buffet lunch as the guests of the pilots.

Christmas visits to the Calshot had been made by the Mission since they started work at Southampton in 1856. Canon Clift and his lay-reader, P G Devereux, also paid a visit to the ship every week.

Despite the fears for her future at the time, the Calshot managed to enjoy a period of longevity that saw her career continue for a number of years into the 1970s and 1980s.

Christmas journeys to the bright red lightship known as number 78 continued up until 1972, just months before the crew were forced to abandon ship in early 1973 when The Calshot became Trinity House’s first unmanned lightship.

Built at the Woolston yard of John I Thornycroft in 1914, the Calshot was eventually retired from service in 1987 before being lifted from the water in 1989 and landlocked in concrete at Ocean Village where she became a familiar landmark for many years.