On the line

Cabin boy in the merchant navy

Lucinda Blaser — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 09:23:53 +0000

Flora Bain meets the veterans of the Arctic Convoys who recount their memories off their experiences.

Flora Bain: So Mr. Long thank you for coming along to the National Maritime Museum today for our event on veterans of the Artic Convoys.

Mr. Long: Today I thought it was a wonderful reception that we got. But it was also wonderful so many people were interested and either they had had relations that were originally on the convoys and no longer with us but they were all so interested. And even the younger generations.

Flora Bain: How old were you when you joined the Merchant Navy?

Mr. Long: I was only 16 and I actually, still only 16 when I first set foot in Russia in November 1942. So I had my 17^th birthday in Russia and on my next voyage I had my 18^th birthday on the way home from Russia. I was a cabin boy. I’d done three months training at the Gravesend Sea School.

Flora Bain: Did you know you were going to Russia when you set off on the convoy?

Mr. Long: Well me first voyage we didn’t go in convoy. See we sailed and we were asked to volunteer to sail independently and my money as a cabin boy straight from the sea school was only £5 a month. And we were all offered, the crew £50 bonus and the Officers were offered £100 bonus to sail independently.

At that age I’d never been to sea before, you don’t realise the danger and it’s more or less a thought well it might happen to others but it can’t happen to us. One thing that I’ve never forgotten that we, sailing independently it was up to the Skipper to try and get the ship to Russia. Five were on the sea lost, 10, 3 returned twice and actually 13 had volunteered.

We went up into the ice edge. We were actually cutting through ice but the ice was moving very, very slowly, a lazy, what we call a lazy roll on it but as far as you could see was the ice and it was that little movement on it but it wasn’t breaking. And yet as we were sailing through it we were breaking it.

We were in, under the bridge actually where most of the Officers’ cabins were and that, like that I used to have to clean and everything. See the first time the cabin boy gets his ears boxed because I took tea up on the bridge and the Officer on the four, the eight watch wanted a slice of toast.

You go there, the cooks either shouting at you because he wants to get breakfast ready and you want to toast a slice of bread because in those days electric toasters had never been thought of. So I used to have to toast it by fire sort of business.

Flora Bain: And you say when you went to Russia you went on shore?

Mr. Long: The first time not so much but the second time I was up there for 10 months. In Murmansk a lot depended on…each area had a Commissar and the people were actually frightened to, I’m talking about the younger generation now. They wanted to talk to you but they frightened to talk to you because of getting in trouble as soon as your back’s turned.

To get away from the bombing because Murmansk was getting bombed night and day because they were very close to the fighting and our turn came the beginning of May. Landed in Murmansk in the February and we laid, once we’d discharged our cargo, our anchor until the May.

Then we went round to Archangel and slowly all the ships went round there in small convoys. The atmosphere there was totally different along the River Dvina up to Archangel but there were all like self contained villages producing planks and everything like that. And the only way that you could get up to Archangel anyway, the only transport was through a ferry boat.

All the time I was there I only went up into Archangel itself on two occasions and we were lucky, on board we had two lads, one could play the guitar and one could play the mandolin. They, you could get through a packet of cigarettes in Russia at that time. There was nothing else that you could get but musical instruments were 10 a penny but we didn’t use money because money was no good to anybody.

Those two lads used to be in big demand because other than that all the hall had was some old ancient records, all badly scratched and everything like that, well that was the best they could offer. But having the two lads they were playing all the modern songs so the younger generation were lapping it up.

So every night there was either a film show put on or a dance put on. In Archangel and that the time was a lot more relaxed and although as I said we were up there for 10 months all told before we came home. We didn’t come home again until the end of November. We had a good voyage home.

Flora Bain: Mr Long thank you so much for talking to us today and for coming into the museum.

An Able Seaman on HMS Belfast

Lucinda Blaser — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:36:09 +0000

Flora Bain meets the veterans of the Arctic Convoys who recount their memories off their experiences.

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Flora Bain: This is Flora Bain at the National Maritime Museum, and I’m talking to Mr Allan Beer, who’s come today to the Arctic Convoys veterans’ event.

So, Mr Beer, how old were you when you joined the Navy?

Allan Beer: I was actually 17 years and 10 months, but it was rather a unique way that I got into the Forces. Would you like to hear that?

I put my name on to join Dad’s Army, the Home Guard, when I was 17-

Flora: Weren’t you young for Dad’s Army?

Allan: I put my name, I told a porky. When I was in there I was patrolling the west cliff of Bournemouth with a gun and grenades. When I got back to work the next day, my colleague was in the Sea Cadets and he put a form in front of me saying, “I wish I was a bit older, like you, I could’ve joined the Navy”. And I said, “Oh, let me see the form”? I duly filled the form out, for fun.

Later in the day I said, “What did you do with the form”? He said, “I’ve posted it”. I was then in the Navy within six weeks, hence I was in far sooner than if I’d been called up legally.

Flora: Gosh. And what was … you’re here today because of the Arctic Convoys event, so you went on one of the convoys?

Allan: Yes, just the raid … it was a combination of seeing the ships into Russia safely, and once that had happened, they re-directed us to accompany the aircraft carriers which were taking the planes to bomb the Tirpitz. So they were proper carriers, and some they called the Woolworth Carriers—which was really a merchant ship with the top sliced off and metal plates to make the landing platform on the merchant ships. So that was quite interesting, seeing them try to come in, landing on the metal plates on top of a merchant ship.

I officially was a gunner. I had a twin Oerlikon mounting on the starboard side of the bridge, but because we weren’t get much problems with aircraft … from anti-aircraft firing, I was a lookout on the bridge. Which was rather uncomfortable because every time the ship dipped its bows in we had water, gallons of water, sprayed in your face. We were in macs and sou’westers, and looked a bit like Michelin men with the padded gear. Of course there was so much darkness you couldn’t see much even being a lookout.

Flora: Was that in winter months, then, that you went through the Arctic?

Allan: Yes. This was March.

Flora: And that was when you were going through the Arctic that you were on lookout like that?

Allan: Yes.

Flora: So how long were you on deck for at any one time?

Allan: Well, we were supposed to be up there for four hours, but if my memory serves me right I think after an hour and a half, two hours, they swapped around a bit for people that weren’t involved in aircraft firing or some other duties.

Flora: And was it cold below deck as well?

Allan: No. It was terribly hot. I suffered quite a lot of seasickness and I kept as near the upper deck as possible. I hadn’t eaten for the best part of a week through the roughness, and the Leading Seaman of our mess came up and said, “Come on, you must come down and have something to eat”. I went down below decks. It was stifling hot and there was pork floating about in the gravy, I took one look at it and went straight up on deck again.

I didn’t go into Russia at all. Our ship only went to the bay, virtually, and back again. I wasn’t involved in anything going … some went into Arkhangelsk, some went into Murmansk, but I certainly never went in.

Flora: So what happened to your ship when you get to that … you said you went-

Allan: You’re at sea all the time anyway, so it’s just a matter of turn around and join the aircraft carriers. They were bombing the Tirpitz and then we went out to Scapa Flow after that.

Flora: And what’s Scapa Flow like?

Allan: Just a big open space of water where the home fleet was based, more or less most of the time. It’s where the Royal Oak was sunk by a German torpedo.

Flora: And do you remember how long you were on that convoy for?

Allan: I think it was probably about seven or eight days, as best as my memory … (Laughter).

Flora: And that was on HMS Belfast?

Allan: Uh-huh.

Flora: And you’ve met up with people since then, after the war?

Allan: Well, basically through the Belfast Association, yes. So it’s been nice meeting up with one or two. I can’t remember on board because there were probably a thousand of us on board.

Flora: Really? Lovely. Well, Mr Beer, thank you so much for talking to me.

Allan: That’s all right.

Flora: It’s been a real pleasure to meet you today.

Allan: Thank you.

The Opium Trade

Lucinda Blaser — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 10:01:03 +0000

Flora Bain talks with Dr. Julia Lovell about how the British Empire was bankrolled by the opium trade.

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Flora Bain: I’m talking to Dr. Julia Lovell who teaches Chinese History at the University of London. We’re really fortunate to have you here today, Julia, to talk to us about the Opium War. And you’ve just published a book on the Opium War: ‘Drugs, Dreams and the Making of China’. Can you tell us a little bit about that book?

Julia Lovell: I think in Britain, either deliberately or lazily, we’ve become rather blurry on the extent to which our Empire in the 19^th Century was bankrolled by Opium. Revenues from the Opium trade between British India and China paid for much of the British tea addiction, and it was customs duties from the tea which was imported from China to London that covered many of the costs of the Royal Navy.

I think in Britain today our overwhelming emotion, when we’re thinking about the Empire, is embarrassment because there is so much to be ashamed about: the slave trade; centuries of institutionalised racism; and the countless massacres of barely armed indigenous peoples, and so on and so forth. But I think that Britain’s role in the Opium trade and the Opium Wars that it fought in China in the 1840s and the 1850s, have become a strangely overlooked skeleton in the cupboard of British imperialism, and through this book I hoped to bring British readers to reflect more deeply on our colonial misdeeds in China in the 19^th Century, and on their legacy for contemporary relations with China.

Flora: Wonderful. Thank you.

And I also wanted to ask – this is the sixth lecture in our lecture series on the East India Company, marking the opening of the new gallery, Traders: The East India Company and Asia. Can I ask you about why this subject is so pertinent to a series on the East India Company?

Julia: Because it was the East India Company that ran the factories in Bengal that produced the Opium. Very soon after the East India Company took over the running of Bengal in the second half of the 18^th Century, they established a monopoly over Opium production there. They forced Indian farmers to sign contracts to produce poppy harvests. When the harvests were ready, they were brought to these EIC run factories. There the Opium was turned into resin. It was packed into chests, sold off to private traders, and these private traders took the Opium to China where the Opium was sold for substantial amounts of silver, which then bought tea for the British market.

So the East India Company was deeply complicit in this Opium trade between India, China and Great Britain, so it seems a very pertinent episode to re-visit in a series of lectures about the history of the EIC, and also about the legacy of the East India Company today.

Two crescent moons

Lucinda Blaser — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 09:35:22 +0000

Elizabeth Cunningham answers a Big Question from a caller seeing two crescent moons.

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Elizabeth Cunningham: Hello. I’m Dr. Elizabeth Cunningham, and I’m here to try and answer Laura’s question about something strange that she saw in the night sky.

Laura: Hello. My name is Laura and I’m observing the crescent moon and it looks as if there’s another one directly behind it. There’s a double glow exactly the same size, and I’ve been watching it for the last half an hour and it makes it look as if the moon’s out of focus, but it’s not. There’s actually two and no, I don’t do drugs and no, I haven’t been drinking. And I’m in Buckingham, and the skies are completely clear, and I’m devastated because I don’t know who to call and where to find out what’s going on.

Elizabeth: So thank you for your question, Laura. I’m very pleased to be able to solve this mystery for you.

We received your call on the 25^th February when the moon was right next to Venus in the western sky. Venus is so bright at the moment that you can see it during twilight before the sky is properly dark, and it looked amazing next to the moon that night.

Over the next few weeks you will be able to see several planets. Venus won’t be next to the moon again until the 25^th March, but you can see this bright planet in the western sky every evening until mid-May.

For the next couple of weeks, you will be able to see another bright object in the sky just above Venus, and that’s the planet Jupiter. As the days pass, these two planets will get closer and closer until the 14^th March when they’ll be right next to each other in the sky.

You can also see another planet if you turn your back on Venus and Jupiter and look east: you should be able to make out a bright orangey red light in the sky which is Mars. So there are three planets easily visible with the naked eye in the sky at the moment.

Now if you want to find out for yourself when and where planets are going to appear in the sky, then I recommend using the free planetarium software: Stellarium and this is free to download from stellarium.org and can show you the sky at any time, any date, and any location.

So I hope this reassures Laura that she wasn’t seeing things, and encourages everybody else to have a look for some planets in the night sky over the next few weeks.

Daniel Defoe and Robert Knox

Lucinda Blaser — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 16:33:18 +0000

Flora Bain talks to Katherine Frank, author of Crusoe: Daniel Defoe, Robert Knox and the Creation of a Myth.

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Flora Bain: Hello, my name’s Flora Bain, Adult Learning Manager at the National Maritime Museum, and I’m here today with Katherine Frank, author of Crusoe: Daniel Defoe, Robert Knox and the Creation of a Myth.

Katherine, you were talking today in our lecture series about your book. Do you want to say a little bit more about what inspired you to write about the two characters?

Katherine Frank: Right, well it began as a biography of Defoe, a person who’s impossible to write a biography of, as I discovered, and I became intrigued by Defoe’s own shipwrecks by land, the various disasters that blighted his life, financial and professional and personal. And so this is the seed for Robinson Crusoe.

But I was also interested in real-life castaways, people like Alexander Selkirk and Henry Pitman and Lionel Wafer and others. And I came upon one that really, I found really compelling; Robert Knox, who was shipwrecked in 1659, same year that Crusoe was shipwrecked on his island; and was held captive on Ceylon by the native king there for 19 years. And he eventually returned and wrote a best-selling book about his long captivity.

And we know Defoe owned this book – it was in the catalogue of his books after he died – that was the catalogue of the books that were auctioned after he died – but also he used Robert Knox as a character in his novel, Captain Singleton. And not only that, he borrowed verbatim, long passages from Knox’s book. In other words, plagiarised in Captain Singleton. So it turned into a book about a sort of dual biography and then the amazing fictional character of Crusoe, that the two men created between them.

Flora: The lecture is part of a series on the East India Company; Trade and Empire, which accompanies the new gallery at the National Maritime Museum, Traders, The East India Company and Asia. I wondered if you could say a little bit about Robert Knox’s own story and his connection to the East India Company?

Katherine: Well, Robert Knox was not only a captive on Ceylon; after his father was a captain – an East India Company captain, Captain of an East Indiaman, the Anne – and after Knox escaped when he was 38, he studied navigation and was taken under the patronage of Sir Joshua Child, the governor of the East India Company, and given command of his own ship, The Tonqueen Merchant, and then he made four further voyages for the East India Company. And he was very proud of his status as an East India captain. This in fact had been a childhood ambition; he wanted to go to sea as a child, and he really felt this was the height of what he could accomplish. And he made four voyages for the East India Company with mixed success.

One was an expedition against the Mughal Empire, emperor; and one was a slave-trading voyage. His crew mutinied against him, but he was eventually exonerated of any ill doing because of that. Sadly, his long association with the East India Company ended after about 15 years when the company put a ban on private trading for East India Company captains and officers, and Knox was very bitter then about the Company’s treatment of him, and not being able to trade privately. And he eventually – he ended his association with the company and became the captain of an interloper, the Mary, on his last voyage to the East Indies.

Flora: And of course Robert Knox himself, his story of captivity, I wondered if you could say something about… I think he was – how long was he a captive for?

Katherine: Nineteen years. He was captive for 19 years. Crusoe’s captive – or Crusoe was isolated on his island for 28 years. Alexander Selkirk in contrast for only four years and four months. And the main difference between Knox – well, there are two main differences between Knox and Crusoe – Knox was not all alone on his island. There were Ceylonese people obviously and also other captives, European captives, whereas Crusoe was all alone.

But the really intriguing difference is, they both dwell in these hostile, or alien environments, for long periods of time. And Knox was indelibly changed; he assimilated, he learnt the language, he learned about the people’s beliefs and ideals, and endorsed them. He came to be persuaded that the Ceylonese lived in a healthy, productive way, and he embraced this life, and was radically changed in the process.

Whereas Crusoe on his island remains Crusoe from beginning to end. He doesn’t change at all. It’s the island that has to change.

Flora: And I believe he had a kind of – his own work and trading life on that island as well. You were talking about earlier…

Katherine: Yes, Knox assimilated, he acquired land eventually, he was a moneylender. He probably fathered the three-year-old little girl that he adopted and to whom he left all his wealth and property when he finally escaped.

He traded. He knitted cotton caps, even after he was a quite wealthy man, so that he could move around the island. He had promised his father that he would escape. He probably didn’t want to escape; he loved his life on Ceylon but he had promised his father that he would return to England and tell his brother and sister what had happened to him. And he did sort of reconnaissance journeys as a peddler on the various routes out of the Kingdom of Kandy, and found the least populated and the most obscure ways of getting out of the kingdom. And eventually after several abortive attempts, he did escape to a small Dutch settlement and from there was taken to Jaffna and Colombo and then eventually returned to England.

Flora: Katherine, thank you very much. It’s been fascinating to talk to you today, thank you.

Katherine: Thank you very much.

Traders

Lucinda Blaser — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 15:26:26 +0000

John McAleer talks about the National Maritime Museum’s new permanent gallery.

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Lucinda Blaser: Hi, I’m Lucinda Blaser and I’m here with John McAleer, Curator of Imperial and Maritime History, and we’re here to find out about our new gallery, Traders.

John McAleer: Thanks Lucinda. Yeah, our new gallery, Traders: The East India Company in Asia will be opening at the end of September [2011]. And some people might be wondering why is a maritime museum doing a gallery about a company that people generally associate with India, a landlocked empire and the Indian interior. And I suppose there are lots of facts that I could give you to sort of dispel that myth. But one of the best facts that I’ve come across in relation to the East India Company, is that in 1701 the company bought enough tea to brew about 4 million pots of tea. Essentially, later, a 100 years later, it’s importing enough tea to brew about 950 million pots of tea.

So if you think about the impact that this East India Company had on what people in Britain drank – and it’s huge, obviously – all of this has been done on ships. It’s all been done through long distance, maritime trade and that’s really why we’re doing this gallery, why we’re putting this story on display in the Museum here. And it’s not just a story of tea, there’s lots of other commodities that the East India Company trades in; things like pepper, all sorts of other spices, textiles; then it becomes the textile trader to the world in the 18th century; and of course, tea.

So the East India Company had a massive impact on what people in Britain ate, what they drank, what they wore; the way that they looked at people, their attitudes towards other people, and places around the world. So it’s a huge story, a big story about commodities, luxury items and things that we eat and drink. But it’s also a story of wealth and power and the pursuit of profit. So it’s a really important story, not just from domestic ritual point of view, of what’s in your larder at home, but also about how the economics of the world work, and how they changed by virtue of long distance maritime – maritime trade.

And we’ve got some other things that you may expect to find in a museum dedicated to the history of Britain and the sea. We’ve got ship models, both European and Asian ship models are on display for the first time. We’ve got oil paintings, we’ve got edged weapons; we’ve got coins and medals. We’ve got some figureheads, and we’ve got some textiles and flags. All sorts of different types of things that make up the Museum’s collection here, that we’ve put together to try and tell the story of the East India Company and Asia.

Some of the things people might be familiar with them from previous galleries that we’ve had on display here at the Museum; a large figurehead from HMS Seringapatam, which shows Tipu Sultan, one of the great enemies of the company; and he’s depicted on this figurehead that was put on a British ship, a Royal Navy ship in 1819, but built in India.

We’ve got some old favourites like a portrait of James Lancaster who’s the commander of the first East India Company voyage to Asia. So we’re very lucky that we’ve got, I think, the only surviving portrait of this commander of the first voyage to Asia.

And then we got lots of things that haven’t been on display before, or haven’t really been looked at in this way before. So we’ve got a portrait of Robert Knox, who was shipwrecked in Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka, and kept as part of this sort of domestic household, the menagerie of the King of Kandy for 19 years. He essentially was kept in a zoo for 19 years and learned the language, about the people and the customs. And came back and wrote his memoirs, which some people have argued provide the basis, the inspiration for Robinson Crusoe. So his story’s in the gallery.

We’ve got a fantastic henta-koi from the Nicobar Islands. Henta-koi are called ‘scare devils’. Essentially, they’re objects that scare away bad spirits, that drive away colds and flus; so you could use one today Lucinda, probably. And again, it hasn’t been on display for a very long time indeed.

Why is it there? Well, has anyone heard of the Nicobar Islands? They would have done in the time of the East India Company because they’re a very important way station on the way to South East Asia in the Bay of Bengal. So, we’re trying to bring in some places that are very important to the history of the East India Company and had a huge impact on what – was the story of Britain and the East India Company. But they’ve sometimes slipped through the pages of history, because we’re used to flying to places now, with the Suez Canal changed and the way that people travel between Britain and India.

So, lots of different things. We got a flag from Canton, the Chinese Imperial flag, captured in 1857 by a Royal Navy squadron. So, lots of different new objects, quite impactful objects, things hopefully that will make people think about this story that they’re encountering, and provide lots of different perspectives on what is a complicated, complex story; hopefully one that the gallery tries to convey to visitors in a sort of friendly and engaging way.

Lucinda: John, thank you.

Anvilled stars

Lucinda Blaser — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:45:41 +0000

Marek Kukula talks with artist and blacksmith Matthew Luck Galpin about his installation at the Royal Observatory, and how it was to work with meteorites.

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Marek Kukula: Hello, I’m Marek Kukula, Public Astronomer here at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Now, we’ve been running a season called ‘Impact’, which is all about asteroids, comets and meteorites, and things hitting the Earth and other planets. And we’ve been looking at the science behind that. But there’s also an artistic dimension to this, and we’ve just installed an installation of art works by the artist Matthew Luck Galpin, called ‘Anvilled Stars’, and these are actually mirrors made from meteorites.

So Matthew is here with me, now, and I wonder Matthew, if you could tell us a little bit about the inspiration behind this project?

Matthew Luck Galpin: Yes. As a maker, my original idea for working with meteorites was loosely connected to astronomy, but mostly connected to the act of making an instrument that I understood, as opposed to a scientific working instrument. So I think, as a starting point, I was looking at finding material that specifically talked about the firmament, and so a meteorite was a perfect example.

Marek: So you’ve used a meteorite made mostly of iron, and you’ve actually turned it into an object — these beautiful little mirrors that we’ve installed around the site. What was it like actually trying to make something out of this material, which is incredibly old — I mean it’s older than the Earth, four-and-half-billion years old.

Matthew: Yes, well, very nerving actually, because they are very powerful. I think another reason for working with these wonderful irons, which are mostly iron but also nickel and various other materials — metals and minerals — was to actually heat it up and basically deconstruct its evidence and its natural form, was quite daunting.

My background is as a metal worker, as a blacksmith, and I then went into, after training as a blacksmith, into Fine Art and went through art school in a very sort of ordinary way. But I found that, as a maker, metal does have a sort of beginning point to construction for me.

So, yes, these were curious things and it was very scary to put them in the fire and find some of them disappear and fizzle up into crumbled mass and not hold together. And it’s very unlike working metal that’s been derived from ore, which is what steel and iron comes from on our planet. This is equivalent to the core of our planet, so it’s a crystal metal; it’s a sequence of metal components that don’t have a natural, malleable, alloyed designed quality.

Marek: So you’re used to working with metal from ores on Earth —

Matthew: That’s right.

Marek: — But this is metal which crystallised in space billions of years ago —

Matthew: That’s right.

Marek: — It must have been a very different experience to work with it.

Matthew: Yes, that’s right. And it’s not just about working it in a familiar way, I suppose with my experience as 30 years as a blacksmith, I’m aware of what I can do with material, so I balanced heat and activity and how much I hit this hot metal. And I found that there was a way in which I could control it, and it’s a bit like if you were making a pastry — you know, if you make an elastic pastry then of course you can stretch it out to anything you want, which I’d class as a manufactured steel or a manufactured iron. Whereas this reacted very much like a flaky pastry, so you can hold it together but you can’t actually fuse it together without taking it to another stage. And I didn’t want to go into that alloying stage of working it; I was wanting to maintain it as what it is and deal with it as it turns out.

Marek: Now, these things formed billions of years ago out in space, so they’ve experienced things like intense heat as they were forming; gravity, rotation, intense cold for billions for years as they floated through the solar system. How did you work those things into the process of making the mirrors?

Matthew: I think that actually is the core of what the ‘Anvilled Stars’ are, I think, is that they’re not …. My initial intention — and I think like any art process, the initial intention is a design and a thought of process — as soon as I worked these and found that they didn’t adhere to design, they presented themselves very much as their own shape; they crumbled or held together according to the individual meteorite.

And I thought a bit about this in the doing, in a sort of meditative way, about what it is that I’m trying to do. And decided that I wasn’t making an instrument, I was making something that actually referred to the formation of the planets. So these meteorites have been through, as you say, billions of years of chance to manufacture through the gravities and the rotations of matter.

I’m fascinated by phenomena and by what something is, so they basically, I suppose in quite a pure sense, I wanted to sort of emulate or kind of relate to this formation of a planet. So the hammering is something to do with pushing gravity further, it’s a basic act of a maker to kind of change the shape of something through percussion.

And then to polish in the rotation on a hand levigator, there’s this constant rotation that grinds the surface down. And I suppose it also has this idea of how the tectonics of our planet is made and the coastal edge in the sense of plane.

Marek: And our planet has been made from this kind of material —

Matthew: That’s right.

Marek:: — From meteorites that clumped together, so it’s the stuff that we’re made from.

Matthew: That’s right. I suppose I’ve got to be clear about things in the sense that I learn about it as I go along. So I would say, in retrospect, there’s a kind of developed piece of work that is as much about its thought and its ideas and its possibilities as it is about its physicality.

And what’s, I think, rather interesting about these mirrors is that it’s about the imminence of them, they’re becoming mirrors, so it’s about their structure, it’s about their stuff. They maintain their own identity in the sense of shape. So I haven’t cut them, which is a very different process.

So it’s very much about flattening and grinding into a sort of, into the beginning of, a polished form. Which is a sort of early instrument, it’s an ancient instrument; a reflection, a reflective surface.

Marek: Now, we’ve got six of the mirrors on display around the Observatory site, and the way you’ve chosen to display them is inside our display cabinets with some of the historic and modern astronomical objects that we have here. There’s no commentary in the cases, they’re for people to find and discover and appreciate for themselves. But the way they’re laid out around the Observatory site, it’s like an imaginary constellation.

Matthew: Exactly. And I think that was very key to my desire to talk with you and the Observatory. Is that it seemed to me that apart from the cartographic kind of … Earth-s
pecificity of Greenwich in the sense of the longitude, it’s just how we look at the space, how we look at the firmament. Being aware of this, being in specific position, where we are, non-privileged — we just happen to be here in the solar system.

So constellation became very important to me and I think that it made sense, having shown the work in the Museum of the History of Science, in Oxford, where a single room containing astronomical instruments was a beautiful space. Some other mirrors were placed and took on a shape, which stuck in my mind.

And I thought about this in terms of contacting the Museum here, that it would be interesting to think about a geometry, and to wonder whether that geometry is something that has a kind of sticking power in the mind. Whether that has relation to the geometry of stars, or whether it was something to do with location of the map of the planet, so there’s something like a ‘points of’ reference within a place.

And it felt right in this building, these buildings, to place mirrors in chosen positions with instruments and with artefacts and things and objects of importance.

Marek: So I guess what we have in the Museum are instruments that human beings have designed and built in order for us to learn and understand more about the universe and our place within it. And what you’ve done is you’ve juxtaposed these artefacts, which you have made from pieces of the universe, which have come randomly to us. And I think seeing them in the cases; it’s a very beautiful juxtaposition between these two things.

Where to see asteroid YU55 from Earth

Lucinda Blaser — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 13:26:54 +0000

Find out where the best place to view asteroid YU55 is, and how close it will come to the Earth.

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Elizabeth Cunningham: Hello, I’m Dr Elizabeth Cunningham, and we’ve had the following question about astronomy.

Kieran Jackson: Hi, my name’s Kieran Jackson, and my big question is: where would be the best place to see YU55 from, in November this year? Thank you very much, bye.

Elizabeth Cunningham: Thank you for your question, Kieran. YU55 is a near-earth asteroid which means its orbit brings it very close to the Earth. Now on 8 November it will get extremely close, and will pass within 0.85 lunar distances. This means it will be closer to us than the Moon, but as there is no threat of collision, we can sit back and enjoy watching the asteroid fly harmlessly by. According to predictions, we should be able to see it with the naked eye, but unfortunately we may not have the best view from the UK. I couldn’t find anywhere on the web that showed the path of the asteroid through the night sky, so with a little help from some friends, I’ve put the orbital parameters of this asteroid into some free software called Stellarium to see where the asteroid will appear.

Just after sunset on 8 November, YU55 will be low in the south-west sky, between the horizon and the three stars that make up the summer triangle, Vega, Altair and Deneb. It will move towards the horizon and will set almost due west around 11 pm. In order to see it, you will need a clear dark horizon towards the south-west. Some astronomy societies are planning viewing events, so, if you are not an experienced star-gazer, this may be the best way to see the asteroid. But if you fancy using the flyby of YU55 as an excuse for a holiday, then the best views will probably be from the east coast of America or the west coast of Africa.

The Maritime Lecture series

Lucinda Blaser — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 13:13:40 +0000

Sara Wajid, Adult Learning Manager, discusses a new lecture series about the making of maritime icons.

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Sara Wajid: Hi, I’m Sara Wajid, Adult Learning Manager here at the National Maritime Museum. I’d like to tell you about our next Maritime Lecture series which is called, The Making of Maritime Icons. Our lecture series run on Thursdays at 11 ’til one, and this one’s going to run for six weeks; you can either book for one lecture or the whole series if you like.

This particular session is inspired by our new Voyagers gallery, which is a permanent gallery, which is going to open in our extremely exciting new wing called The Sammy Ofer Wing; and Voyagers is really about how individuals help us explore maritime history.

And traditionally, since the 17th century, there’s been a trend towards hagiography, and sort of, these very reverential biographies of maritime heroes. Shall we say a classic example being Lord Nelson. But in recent years there’s been a trend away from this sort of idolisation if you want, to also include and broaden out into looking into everyday people’s lives, and their experience of maritime culture and what they feel about the sea really. And this new gallery, Voyagers, does that extremely well by looking; by slicing the cake differently and looking through emotional states at the sea; so, love or anger for instance. Also it revaluates some of the maritime icons that we’re familiar with. So, this lecture series is pretty much sort of tied to that idea, and inspired by that theme.

So, we are going to in this lecture series look at both why we’ve picked the kind of heroes and devils that we have in our own maritime history, and how they change over time. As well look at some of those icons, and unpack them a little bit.

And it’s going to be a combination of internal speakers; so drawing on our own very kind of knowledgeable, charismatic curators, as well as people from outside of the building. So, for instance, there’s an exhibition at the moment about Captain Kidd, and pirates have seen a resurgence, typified by interest, the film trilogy Pirates of the Caribbean. Now, the bad boys at the seas have become more sort of sexy if you will, in recent years. But there’s been a long tradition of British fascination with pirates, and it will be interesting to hear from Tom Wareham, the curator of this popular exhibition, about how he has gone about sort of capturing that interest. But also you know why they’ve chosen Captain Kidd at this moment in time, as someone to look at, and how representations of Kidd have changed over the centuries.So, that’s one of the talks you’ll be hearing.

Another one is about for instance Samuel Plimsoll, who is not the typical icon you might think of as a naval hero; he didn’t win any battles as such, but he has become sort of part of the culture and known, because of the Plimsoll line, and that was named after him. So, that’s a different kind of hero we can examine you know his story in some depth. And that will be Richard Gorski talking on Samuel Plimsoll.

So come to The Making of Maritime Icons if you want to know more from the experts about the heroes and villains of maritime history.

Curry and a pint

Lucinda Blaser — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:46:28 +0000

Steve Martin reveals how you can sample a wonderful curry and a pint with the NMM, while finding out that this is an older tradition than you may have thought.

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Steve Martin: I’m Steve Martin, and I’m the Archive Learning Officer at the National Maritime Museum, and one of the ways we are looking at sharing the extraordinary treasures of the archives here at the museum is by putting on an activity which we’ve called ‘Curry and a Pint‘. Now, ‘Curry and a Pint’ is a new way of looking at archives; it’s a new way of looking at food; it’s a new way of looking at curry; a new way of looking at beer. And it all is linked in with the history of the East India Company, of which we have a large body of information at the museum.

When anyone thinks of a curry and a pint it’s a typically, or stereotypically British weekend ritual, but where did it come from? And why is it so popular? Well, the history of all of these things is tied into the East India Company; the growing taste for spicy or exotic foods to which British palettes became accustomed between the 17th and early 20th century, and what the ‘Curry and a Pint’ evening is going to do is to track those changes. And we’ll track them in a lot of different ways, including of course, last but not least, a wonderful biryani, supplied by one of our partners, the Mogul Restaurant in Greenwich. And accompanied by a taste of a wonderful IPA, a wonderful India Pale Ale, supplied by another of our partners: the Meantime Brewery in Greenwich.

We’ve got some great speakers as well: it’s not just an archive session. We’ve got two great speakers, one of whom is the renowned beer author, beer writer, Peter Hayden, who will be telling us about the history of India Pale Ale: how it came to be; how it came to be in its present form, as well as taking us through a sample of the Meantime Brewery edition of IPA.

We also have a history of the cuisine: the British curry from Rozina Visram, the historian, who’ll take us through the appearance of the first curry houses, the first curry-based recipes in Britain from the early 18th century, to the early years of the 20th century. So it’s a large package of very, very exciting things; very, very exciting speakers. It’s £20 per person and we’ll be looking at archives, we’ll be drinking India Pale Ale, we’ll be eating biryanis, and we’ll have a lot of history thrown in, and a good little walk through Greenwich as well, and we hope that as many people as possible will join us, on 20 May.