The inspiration for the exhibition and establishing the Diaper Heritage Association was the memoir written by Captain Tom Diaper in the final years of his life in the late 1940s. Tom’s father and grandfather had both been successful yacht skippers in the nineteenth century and Tom had his first experience of sailing with his father at the age of six. While still a child he took his first long distance voyage as a cabin boy and on this trip his young compatriot was washed overboard and lost. Tom recorded these memories and many others of his fifty year career working on yachts. These jottings were on scraps of paper, old exercise books and even the back of Senior Service cigarette packets. In 1950 some of these memories were gathered together and produced as a book. The book retained Tom’s original way of writing and idiosyncrasies of speech. Sadly many of Tom’s personal possessions and memorabilia of his successful career were lost when the family home was bombed in the Second World War but his life is brought vividly to life in his autobiography.

Captain Tom Diaper's chair	Cigar Case
Sail Makers Needles	Watch and Compass
Diaper Watch