A VICTORIAN harmonium and a chair are all that remains of Maurice Bennett-Green’s former life.
Maurice, 63, sold his home in George Street, Chester, six years ago – along with everything in it – to pursue his dream of life on the waterways.
“I have been interested in sailing since I was a child,” he said.
“I was brought up in Heswall and I was a junior member of Dee Sailing Club.
“I sold everything, right down to the last stick of furniture, to buy my boat. It took a lot of organising!
“The only things I kept were a Victorian harmonium and a Victorian chair that once belonged to my grandmother.”
Maurice, a former electronic engineer, has worked for the Ministry of Defence and John Lewis during his career.
But in 1986 the commodore of his sailing club asked him to survey a boat and his life took a dramatic turn.
“I ended up doing 50 of them over the next couple of years,” he said.
“After that the insurance company asked me to visit them at their offices in Liverpool and asked me to work for them.
“I then went on various courses to look at and study various types of construction and I have now surveyed hundreds of boats.”
Maurice has sailed all around the coast but he prefers to stay closer to home these days.
He said: “I am quite happy on the canal.
“I tend to moor where the work is and I’m not generally on the move all the time.
“A lot of people don’t really appreciate how nice Chester and Cheshire is.”
Twice-married Maurice has two children. His son is a gamekeeper in Yorkshire and his daughter is a teacher in Manchester.
As well as yacht surveying, Maurice keeps busy teaching computer skills part-time and giving after-dinner speeches.
“I call my talks Yacht surveying and the frightened man,” he said.
“Fear is an essential part of what I do and if I didn’t feel frightened or apprehensive I would stop doing it.
“Complacency is very dangerous; people’s lives are in your hands so fear is very important.”
He always finishes the talk with a true story of when he told a fishing boat captain that his vessel was missing a bilge pump.
“I have the best bilge pump in the world,” replied the captain.
“A frightened man with a bucket.”
