Frank was born in 1921 in Grimsby. He first went to sea at the age of 6 years with his father who was owner/skipper of a fishing trawler.
At the age of 16, he left school and joined the Royal Navy.
In the war he was one of only 19 survivors out of 121 when the ship Daffodil was torpedoed or mined. He then served in different kinds of merchant ships before joining the Belfast in 1948 and going out to China.

He came to Ludham in 1971 with his wife Ellen. They lived at first in Helen Thrower's cottage, next door to the butchers, and then, when they needed to move, they went into The Bungalow in the Manor grounds, where they stayed until Mrs. Brooks died.
From here they moved into Council accommodation, 20 Laurels Crescent and then 14 School Close.

Our Time at The Manor Bungalow
"Bob Unglass was a gardener at the manor. He was a cripple and walked with a garden rake and a hoe as crutches. He had three greenhouses, and he looked after these and the garden all on his own. Much of the ground on the Womack side was allowed to grow wild. At one time Mrs. Books had 15 gardeners to manage the 15 acres of land. Gradually they all went, and Mrs. Brooks became more of a recluse. Bob was the last one left, and he stayed in the little cottage with the bay window opposite the Manor gates. When he died there were no more gardeners at the Manor. 

Bob Unglass

Back of Manor

On the breeze block wall is a plaque with an inscription from Shakespeare, near where the bird baskets are suspended from the trees.
 
In the Manor gardens there was a Japanese wooden feature. It was about seven or eight feet high. It was on the left hand side as you entered from the road.
 
Our Connections with The Dutch House
The date of The Dutch House is in iron work: 16 on one side of the front door and 03 on the other side. My wife Ellen, went to work for Edward Seago when we lived in the Manor Bungalow in the early 1970s, and she worked at the Dutch House almost until she died. She worked for Edward Seago until he died in 1974, and then she used to go baby sitting for Peter and Jane Seymour. When I was made redundant, I would go and do odd jobs for Jane. If Jane was away, Ellen and I would look after the animals; horses, chickens and dogs - and parrots.

This is the back of the Dutch House from the lawn, and also this is the fountain and lily pond that you can see in the other photo near the house on the left. The large object on the lawn  is a large flint. On the right of the photo is the building Edward Seago used as his studio. The door can just be seen and the flowers and steps lead up to this.

It was a single storey building, but he had put in a gallery, (made out of old railway sleepers), where he stacked all his paintings. There is a large window in the end, and on the north facing side is a huge window.
The stables were on the other side of the studio. Jane had these built.

In the rose garden you can see a statue of Mercury standing on a brick plinth. The rose garden has been replaced by a Tudor style garden.

Left - Frank on his bridge

The area where we built the bridge was originally quite wild. Jane employed Sonny Amis to re-dig the channel down to the river at Womack. There was a large pond, but this was channelled, and I built this bridge. It is built out of 12 sheets of shuttering ply. We designed it on this board.

This shows the patterns we designed for the handrail. I drew the plan of the bridge. It was made of a double thickness of shuttering ply, laminated together. The supports for the handrail were 3 by 3 posts, and then we put these designs between the posts.
The supports for the bridge itself were 4 by 4 timbers, which were concreted into the ground. The bridge was then fitted in between them and bolted to them.
I drew the sections out on a sheet of drawing paper to scale. We measured the curves. I made it in sections and then took these to where the bridge was going to be built, put it all together and fastened everything. I used an extending ladder and scaffolding to get up to it. Once the girders were in, then the walkway went on top and the handrails on top of that.

The dinghy "Dragonfly"

I built this for Jane's children. I built it on a ladder; upside down on the ladder - put the frames across and built it up. It was 15 feet long and had a lug sail. It lasted until two or three years ago. I drew the plans for it on the back of an envelope. I made the original sail myself, but it wasn't very good, and I think it got torn on a branch, so they went to Jeckells and had that one made. That's why the spars look a bit long here, because the first sail was a bit wider. We scrounged the mast from a boatyard. The two girls helped me build it, but then Anthony liked to sail it.
We took it down to Neatishead on the back of the Land Rover for the launching. Someone stepped back right into the water as we lifted it into the river. We put it into the river, and eleven of us got into it. That almost sunk it. From there, we motored it with an outboard engine to the Dutch House. She did quite a lot of sailing, especially on Black Horse Broad, and up and down the river - to St. Benet's Abbey and Acle Bridge.

Paintings
I have painted since I was a boy. I would not call myself an artist at all. I have never had any lessons. I do mostly watercolours now, but I used to do a lot of oils. When I was in the Navy, I used to do a lot of portrait painting from photographs. I also use pastels sometimes.
 
Boat Building
I worked for Herbert Woods at Contour Crafts. We were building the 64 foot trawler yachts out of iroka. From there I went to Landamore's at Wroxham. I have also worked at Richardson's at Stalham. I helped Les Elphick as well with some of the work he did on people's boats, and then with his furniture."