Tin canoes

'We like England very much. It is very beautiful.We have seen Salisbury Cathedral which is very fine and the ship where Nelson died which is all gold with wooden guns, and Westminster Abbey where they crown the kings of England and the Tower, where they cut thier heads off. But the best things in England are the tin canoes at Southsea.'

Andre Maurois, the French author, visiting Portsmouth in the 1920s