WHEN actors and a television crew moved in to Newnham last week to set up a make-believe marine salvage company on the riverside, they were only a few yards from a real life salvage attempt.

The signs went up at Collow advertising "Macready's Marine Salvage" yard with a Holby City telephone number while down in a nearby riverside creek local man Dale Marshall and his friends were up to their necks in mud clearing the way for a fresh bid to raise a former German torpedo boat from its watery grave.

Efforts to raise the Samantha foundered six years ago when she slipped on to her starboard side and took in water and mud. Since then she has been hidden in Collow's tree-lined pill at the mercy of Severn tides.

Now Mr Marshall and his friends are making a determined bid to refloat her.

"The plan is to get her upright and see what we have. We have been using pressure hoses to remove tonnes and tonnes of mud and we hope that by next month we will be is a position to attempt a lift," said Dale.

"One way or the other she has to come out – I'm just hoping it does not have to be in kit form!" he said.

In October 1994 a three-man Chepstow team attempted to recover the former E-boat which has had a chequered career since being built for Hitler's navy in 1945.

She was brought to Britain from Copenhagen and used as a floating club in Barry Docks from the late sixties to the mid-seventies.

Later, she was refurbished in the Gloucester to Sharpness canal and there were hopes she would become an historic exhibit in Gloucester Docks.

She measures 115 feet overall and in her German Navy days was fitted with twin torpedo tubes and a pom-pom gun on deck - but she never saw action.

"At a glance she would appear to be a total wreck but we have been surprised how sound she is. It's a challenge to see if we can refloat her and we will give it a really good go," said Dale.