Cooks Yard

In late 1945, and 1946, Cook's yard undertook the re-fitting for the owners, Chief Engineer Bill Wilson and Skipper Albert Brand, of the Southend Motor Navigation Co. of their 75 ft TSMV Julia Freak.

She had been volunteered for Operation Dynamo in 1940, thereafter requisitioned by the Admiralty for service as a coastal minesweeper and handed back to her owners in an appallingly-neglected condition.

Cookie's boat-builders helped S.M.N.CO Staff outfit her for the 1946 holiday season at Southend-on-Sea after the Admiralty released the vessel from her wartime service.

For that 1946 season, the refitted Julia Freak, built by Hayward's of Southend on Sea at their Yard hard by The Kursaal, during the 1920s, was re-registered as the New Prince Of Wales 1 in memory of the Fleet Flagship of that name sunk off La Panne during Operation Dynamo in May 1940 with Sub Lt Peter Bennett in command.

She returned to fishing service, used by The Southend Motor Navigation Co. to fulfil a fishery contract issued by and paid for the Ministry Of Food.

"Cookie" also built two new twin-screw passenger-carrying launches for the Southend Motor Navigation Co. in the late 1940s both successively larger replacements for the prewar Princess Maud which was volunteered for Operation Dynamo in 1940 and reported "lost to causes unknown".

The Hythe at Maldon alongside Cookie's Yard became the Southend Motor Navigation Co. 's regular winter-layup base after World War II.

Cooks were also contracted by the Leigh Building Company to maintain their fleet of barges, which suffered from very rough treatment and were constantly needing repair.