Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2008 | Page 37

SOCIETY life Spare Duke takes a lesson from Yarmouth Primary HAVING been officially opened two months earlier by the High Sheriff, Alan Titchmarsh, Yarmouth Pier was further honoured with a visit from the Duke of Edinburgh. The Duke first met the crew of Yarmouth Lifeboat, before unveiling an inscribed plank, one of many which have had to be replaced after the pier’s supports have been consumed by the voracious gribble worm. After the unveiling, attended among others by project manager and namesake Richard Gribble, the Duke returned to the crowd – www.wightfrog.com/islandlife what he was heard to call the swarm – and noticed the children of Yarmouth School were clutching their own colourful interpretations of the destructive worm. “These are the things that are eating the pier, are they?” he asked. “They’re not that big, surely?” William Toms, 8, said: “No, they are really tiny”, while Bertie Whistance, 7, speculated: “They are probably the size of four specs of dust.” It was Jack Daley, 7, with the coup de grace: “They are related to woodlice,” he said wisely. “Ah, maritime woodlice,” said the Duke, as if the gribble had been explained at last. 37