Adventures With Harvey

British Naval History… and garden parties

For those of you who like history (and in particular naval history) this is the blog for you. For those less inclined, I’d encourage you to hang in there because we also have some garden shows and parties to report, as well as the final resting place of a famous New Zealander that I think will surprise you.

I will apologise in advance if this edition goes into a little too much detail at times, however as well as an account of our holiday for you, our faithful readers, it also doubles as a travel dairy for the Woodies. Therefore, a fine balance needs to be struck between recording, in sufficient detail, those aspects of the trip that your author (and his faithful editor-in-chief) find interesting, whilst also maintaining enough brevity so as not to put you lovely lot to sleep 😊. The aforementioned editor-in-chief points out that the museums covered in today's edition were also in fact some of her favourites so far…

So you paragraph-skippers in the pink corner, keep reading!

Before we departed several people asked if we planned to visit the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. I’ll be honest, up until a year or two ago I hadn’t even heard of the place however at a bbq in Russell last winter I bumped into an elderly English gentleman who was Covid-marooned (and not altogether unhappily) in NZ. He asked if I planned to visit the Mary Rose? “the what?” I asked… and he proceeded to summarise for me the story I’m about to tell you now. From the get-go I’ll say this has to be the best museum I’ve ever visited.

Back in 1545 the navies of England (80 vessels) and France (200 vessels) were facing off at the entrance to Portsmouth harbour. As the battle was just getting underway (and while King Henry VIII watched on from the shoreline), his pride and joy, the Mary Rose capsized and sank to the bottom of the Solent with the loss of all but 35 or so of the more than 500 souls on board. Although resting on her side in only 40’ of water, attempts to salvage her at the time failed and, within a very short period of time, the mud and silt had pretty much completely buried her, and the Mary Rose was all but forgotten. In the 1960’s some rather industrious divers decided to try and locate her and in 1971 she was positively identified, and the site painstakingly mapped by marine archaeologists. In 1982 after a massive preservation effort, the Mary Rose was finally brought to the surface along with (would you believe) more than 19000 meticulously catalogued artifacts. All of which means you have available at the museum, the most fascinating insights into life aboard ship in the British Navy more than 500 years ago. As well as the artifacts there are 179 skeletons and, based on where in the ship they were found, we now know their professions, and (based on DNA) where in the world they originated from, their state of health, and many other insights that were unknown prior to the discovery of this ship. Interestingly, the senior officers on board each had a wooden chest containing their belongings, for example the chest of the chief surgeon contained more than 70 objects – prior to this discovery, no-one knew what equipment a ship’s surgeon 500 years ago would have at his disposal.

As your faithful correspondent said to his lovely wife over dinner a couple of nights ago – one could write a complete blog just on this one museum. The problem is, the next ship we visited was just as fascinating… I warned you to buckle in for a history lesson 😊

Moving forward almost 300 years, in 1805, the flagship of the British fleet was HMS Victory which was commanded by none other than Lord Nelson - yes we're talking about the Battle of Trafalgar. Up against the French and Spanish armadas, this is one of the most famous naval victories in history and the flagship from that event over 200 years ago is beautifully preserved and still looking resplendent (sadly minus her rigging at the moment). The audio guide on board talks you through the preparations in the 2-3 weeks before the Victory set sail, then a blow-by-blow account of the battle which ended with two historically significant outcomes. The first was that the British prevailed thanks in no small part to the cunning and genius of the aforementioned Lord Nelson (thus preventing Britain being invaded by Napoleon and co), and the second is that the same gentleman lost his life in the battle, having received a musket ball in the shoulder courtesy of a French sniper and dying around 3 hours later.

As well as the story of the famous battle, the actual ship itself is an overgrown museum with a history all of its’ own. The gun deck is bristling with cannon, the hold has a mountain of barrels for stores, and everything else needed for a lengthy naval campaign. HMS Victory remains the oldest commissioned navy vessel in the world although she was officially put out to pasture in 1812.These days she is permanently in dry dock having undergone several restorations and renovations, the final of which took more than 50 years, being completed just in time for the 200^th anniversary of the battle in 2005 (in fact, another reno is just about to get underway, thus the scaffold you see in the photo). By walking around her decks and innards you truly get a feeling for what life aboard ship must have been like and how truly terrifying a 19^th century naval battle was.

The remaining section of this missive comes with the following undertaking – a little less detail 😊. And you’ll all be pleased to know that, because what you’ve just read is the first day out of 2.5 that your faithful author spent wandering these dockyards (1.5 of those accompanied by his wife). The following is therefore a bullet point summary of the remaining highlights:

1. A short boat ride away is the Royal Navy Submarine Museum. Here you can walk through a WWII submarine (HMS Alliance) along with viewing many which are much older. For me the highlight was Britain’s first ever WWI submarine (Holland I) which, shortly after the war concluded, came adrift from the tow vessel on its way to the scrapyard and sank, all but forgotten about until some likely lads found, raised and then restored her. Serving King and Country beneath the water in the early days was a dangerous old business - did you know that during WWII the mortality rate of those serving in the Royal Navy was 3% but for submariners it was 36%?

2. Back to vessels of the floating variety, the HMS Warrior was constructed in the mid-19^th century (100 years or so after the Victory) and was the largest battleship in the world at that time. So feared was this mighty vessel that no-one ever took her on and therefore she has never fired a shot in anger. The visit contained a handful of ‘crew members’ in period costume and giving a talk in the first person about their life aboard and answering questions. I can tell you that being a stoker in the boiler room would have been particularly grim – 4 hours on, 8 hours off 7 days a week in 40-50deg temperatures and expected to shovel a tonne of coal per hour of work. They had to commit to a 10-year length of service, had a life expectancy of only 40 years, and all for £37 a year! (mind you, at the time a UK factory worker earned a mere £19 per year & had to pay his own food and board!)

3. Currently in the world there exist only 6 warships from WWI and only one of these is from the Gallipoli campaign – her name is M.33 and you can visit her at the very same dockyard museum. Built in just 7 weeks in 1915, she is a smaller flat-bottomed gunship that can float in only 5’ of water. This means M.33 and others like her could get in nice and close to the shore of the Dardanelles and give the Turks a good ole’ pummeling. Walking and exploring aboard it felt, just a little, like I was taking in some of NZ’s significant history.

4. Your ticket to the dockyards also includes a boat trip around the port which has been a naval base (starting with the Romans) since 275AD. In modern times it is home to a large proportion of the Royal Navy which, at the time we visited, included an aircraft carrier and 2 other large and impressive frigates (or whatever they’re called these days).

5. And of course, there are several actual museums building full of naval history and other artifacts (which in the context of this blog, hardly rate a mention).

Those of you who are still with us may be interested to know that for the last 3 nights we have been staying at Emsworth, a beautiful little seaside town – where in fact we also stayed a night just before heading to France a few weeks back. The friend we stayed with then introduced us to some of his friends and, although he isn’t in town this time, we were made to feel just sooooo welcome. For Anita this involved visiting the Stansted Garden Show at a stately home which included lots of garden art, stalls, bands and creative ideas for the outdoors. All of which are a little moot given we won’t have a garden any time soon. However she tells me that the glass or two of Pimms in the sunshine reconciled her to such disappointments.

Meanwhile your author found himself invited to a traditional English garden party which was certainly a new and most enjoyable experience. A little jazz band was playing up in front of the house and one would estimate the guestlist to number somewhere around 200, all picnicking on the lawn and having a jolly old time. Lined up at the bottom of the garden were a bunch of fancy old and newer cars which were driven to the party by their owners and later in the afternoon, a drive-around to show them off.

You may remember in my intro I mentioned the final resting place of a famous New Zealander… well, here’s the story. One older gentleman I got chatting to asked:

“You’re from NZ – did you know Peter Blake?”

“Not personally” says I, “but I was distraught at his untimely and tragic death all those years ago”

“Oh I just wondered because I’m friends with his wife Pippa – did you know her family is from Emsworth?” asks my new friend

“No” again says I

“And” my friend adds… “did you know that Peter is buried right here in Emsworth?”

Well I have to tell you, that sat me right on my bottom. Nek minit this gentleman is explaining exactly whereabouts in what cemetery I can find the headstone so this morning, guess what we found. Yes that’s right, the final resting place of Sir Peter Blake who, in the opinion of this author, is one of New Zealand’s greatest sportsmen. I recall how the needlessness of his death back in 2001 hit me quite hard – as such a small nation we have so few true heroes. And he was one for me.

Today on our travels we each came across an ideal way to spend a couple of hours. Just a few km apart are the MTank Museum at Bovington and Monkey World, an ape rescue centre so everyone was happy doing their own thing for a bit. To be honest, I’m surprised Anita wanted to spend more time with a monkeys given she gets to live with one full-time!

Unfortunately, a couple of hours really wasn’t enough to take in all the tanks and other exhibits, and a few of them were double-ups from the museum at Angers from a few weeks ago however their prized exhibit was the only working German Tiger Tank anywhere in the world!

Anita here: Monkey World was a thoroughly enjoyable experience – nice to be in the present rather than the past for a change! From tiny baby capuchin monkeys to enormous orangutans, most of the apes have been rescued from being trafficked in Asia or from laboratories. They had lovely open areas to roam which made it hard to see them at times but such intelligent animals need their privacy too. I have mixed emotions regarding zoos these days however this was a wonderful rescue and rehabilitation centre. I did wonder how they coped with adjusting to the English weather after steamy Asia!

We’ll say farewell to you this evening from the small seaside town of Sidmouth on the South coast where a friend has given us the use of her seafront flat – the kindness of some people has, at times, been almost overwhelming. Although we have no working Harvey for the time being, we are able to carry on with our adventures no worries and we’re still having a blast!

So with that it’s goodnight and much love to you all.

Woody and Chief

PS: Video captions

1. Dave's garden party

2. Anita and Dave off for another day exploring museums

3. Monkeys

4. Monkeys

5. Anita's garden show

raised and preserved after 437 years at the bottom of the ocean. as you walk through, the artifacts on the left match the part of the ship you're passing on the right.

cannon from the Mary Rose - being under mud is apparently a great preservative!

every few minutes the old ship darkens and they project holograms onto the side depicting life aboard

Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory

gun deck of the Victory

Victory's galley

Victory's cooking range. once battle stations had been called, the fire was extinguished and it was cold meals all around until the smoke had cleared.