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Smuggling Days

A Portland man claimed he was brought up as a child to help smugglers run cargoes ashore at Church Hope Cove - a small, secluded beach on the eastern side of the Isle of Portland. Later, as a young man, he remembered one night landing 150 kegs of brandy there and then hurrying home to bed.

He had not been in bed long before a coastguard officer knocked on the door asking him to help the Service out. He agreed and did this for several days and was then offered a job onboard the Revenue cutter Eagle. This meant chasing smugglers up and down the English Channel, confiscating their goods and sending them to Dorchester Gaol.

Curiously these coastguard officers were smugglers themselves continuously making flying trips across the Channel and bringing home cargo after cargo of contraband goods. They would then sail out and capture some poor smuggler who never did half the business they did in a month. This group of reprobate officials was led by a former lieutenant in the British Navy.

(Source: Bournemouth Graphic - 30th March 1905.)

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