Newsletter Number 8 - February 2021 AN OCCASIONAL NEWSLETTER TO KEEP IN TOUCH DURING THIS STRANGE TIME IN OUR HISTORY Best wishes to all of you and hope you are coping with the latest lockdown conditions. Please take care, keep healthy and safe so that we can look forward to seeing you all once more on the “first Monday” of the month. Our best wishes are also sent to those that are not in the best of health at the moment and that they continue to improve. I’m sure that those members are in our thoughts at this time. INFORMATION REQUEST Mid-Essex member George (Jerzy) Swieszkowski is seeking information on the photograph below posed and taken in a studio in Manor Park (London E12). It has been sent to George but sadly it is not a good copy although it has been improved with a bit of PhotoShop. Is anyone able to identify the uniform with the implicit question, “is it Great Eastern Railway”? It is not possible to positively identify the detail of the buttons or cap badge except to make similarities between the cap that was worn by Captain Fryatt. FROM THE IAN WELLS COLLECTION Two ships that are featured in Ian Wells’ PowerPoint slide show Number 20. GLADSTONE STAR GLADSTONE STAR © Ian Wells, taken on 1st June 1972 Seen here off the Royal Albert Dock arriving from Antwerp to load for New Zealand. Built for Salient Shipping Co (Bermuda) Ltd (Blue Star Line) in 1957, by Bremer Vulkan, Vegesack, she was of 10,635 g.rt. Her sister TOWNSVILLE STAR and GLADSTONE STAR were both built for the Australian service carrying cartooned frozen beef and general cargo. She appeared to have an incident free life except for a collision in June 1962 when she collided with, and sank the unmanned Breaksea Spit Lightship off Queensland. She sustained minor damage above the waterline and proceeded to Port Alma. Towards the end of her life she was on the South American service. In 1982 she was sold to Kate Shipping (Malta) for a single voyage from Immingham to India and then on to Gadani Beach (Pakistan) where she was beached and scrapped. CARNATIC CARNATIC © Ian Wells, taken on 10th May 1972 entering the KGV lock CARNATIC was one of 5 similar vessels, CEDRIC, CYMRIC, CANOPIC, and CRETIC, built for Shaw Savill and Albion. CARNATIC of 11,144 g.r.t was built at Cammell Laird & Co., Birkenhead in 1956. Her last voyage for Shaw Savill was from Mount Mannganui, New Zealand. She is seen here entering King George V docks to load for the Royal Mail Line’s South America service to Rio de Janeiro, Santos and Buenos Aires. She was subsequently renamed DARRO and given a yellow Royal Mail funnel. She was sold to D. Kosmas and C Karafotias (Universal River Inc., Piraeus) in 1977 and renamed LITSA K. In 1979 she became DIMITRA and was delivered to Kaohsiung, Taiwan for breaking. Ian Wells JOHN HARRISON PRESENTS PART 4 of his “SING A SONG OF SHIPPING ” series When I wrote about “The Manchester Canal” in the last part, I commented that I was somewhat surprised that, having been brought up in a home on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal, I was unaware of this song, but then I learnt it did not relate to the Ship Canal. I have now learnt there are in fact a number of Ship Canal songs. There is an article from a folk club newsletter on the web about Ship Canal verses and songs which somewhat unfortunately does not does not tell us which are the songs and which are the verses, www.waterwaysongs.info/documents/The%20Manchester%20Ship%20Canal%20in%20Verse%20and%20Song.pdf. If you google “Manchester Ship Canal song” a YouTube recording of Gary and Vera Aspey singing a song entitled “Manchester Ship Canal” comes up. The song starts, “I sing a theme of deserving praise, a theme of great renown, sir; The Ship Canal in Manchester, that rich and trading town sir.” A website, Waterway Songs”, which gives the words of the song in full says, “The proposal for a Manchester Ship Canal caused many songs and poems to be written, both ridiculing and praising the idea. This song was performed by Mr. Hammond at the Theatre Royal, Manchester in 1827.” Waterway Songs has another Ship Canal song which rather confusingly tells the tale of somebody setting sail down the canal in a schooner named “Mary Anne” to Walton Jail which is in Liverpool and not exactly accessible by ship! Another website has this image of sheet music for a song published in Manchester in 1883, so presumably had the aim or promoting the project. 1883 was when Parliament considered two Bills for the construction of the canal. It was not until 1885 that the Manchester Ship Canal Act was passed. The canal was opened to Manchester in 1894. Unfortunately I cannot find any more information about this song. am a great fan of Michael Flanders and Donald Swann. I cannot think of any other performers who did anything like them with their brilliantly clever satirical songs. In researching this article I was very surprised to discover a Flanders and Swann song I had not previously encountered, “The Gay Gondolier”. This is a tale of a gondolier who found Venice too overcrowded for him to pursue his profession, so he crossed the ocean and became the only gondolier operating on the Manchester Ship Canal. For the benefit of younger readers I should perhaps explain that “gay” is not a reference to the gondolier’s sexuality, but originally the word was broadly equivalent to “happy”. Flanders and Swann singing the song can be found on YouTube. Finally, an addition to the previous articles. During lockdown I was watching a documentary about the “Queen Mary” and they played a song in the background at one point which seemed to have the sort of sound one would expect from the era when she was completed. A bit of googling revealed it to be “Queen of the Sea” written by Horatio Nicholls. There are a couple of YouTube videos featuring it online and if you want to listen to one I would recommend the Lawrence Wright version which has the rather cheesy monologue in the middle. The Songfacts website has the following information about this song, “’Queen of the Sea’ was written by Horatio Nicholls, a prolific composer who made a habit of this sort of song; his compositions included ‘Here’s Health unto Our New King’ and a sugary tribute to the pioneer aviatrix Amy Johnson. His eulogy to the ‘Queen Mary’ includes a monologue ‘to be recited during playing of the chorus.’ The lyrics are rather basic: ‘British labour gave its skill and it’s giving me a thrill. The ship is all British, it’s wonderful, too. The ship is manned by a British crew. So when I go over the sea, the ‘Queen Mary’ takes me.’ The sheet music was an overpriced one shilling from Lawrence Wright Music Co Ltd. At best this is a third rate advertising jingle, and was undoubtedly recorded at the insistence of its publisher Mr. Wright was so enthusiastic about the song: He wasn’t just a publisher, but a songwriter and he wrote under the name Horatio Nicholls.” Need I say more! John Harrison FROM WARRIOR to THUNDERER Three recent articles in our news letters have made reference to a parcel of land straddling the mouth of the River Lea in East London. The first was an enquiry we had on the temporary “Vauxhall bridge” (Newsletter No 3) which was built at the Thames Iron Works. The company had main offices in Orchard Place (Middlesex side) and moved to the opposite bank of the mouth of the Lea in 1903 (Essex side). Temporary Vauxhall Bridge Our newsletter No 5 outlined the demise of aggregates shipper “J.J. Prior” which had its head office at nearby Orchard Wharf from 1888 till 1990. Prior’s PETER P with Blackwall Power Station in the background In last month’s “London Ferry” article (Newsletter No 7) mention was again made of the 10 ferries built for the London County Council by Thames Iron Works. LCC Ferry in the Pool of London In 1837 the original company, Ditchburn and Mare commenced building small iron paddle steamers. Ditchburn retired in 1847 and the company re-named C. J. Mare and Company. The company undertook various projects from warships to liners and ironworks for bridges. In 1857 the company became insolvent and was taken over by Mare's father-in-law, Peter Rolt, and renamed the Thames Shipbuilding and Engineering Company Ltd. The yard occupied sites on both banks of the River Lea at the point where it joined the Thames, with 30 acres in West Ham and 5 acres in Blackwall. (On the opposite side of the Thames to the Greenwich O2 arena). This area was said to be one of the most industrialised regions of the country and Thames Iron Works one of the country’s largest ship builders at the time. However this was soon overtaken by other yards in the country with lower labour rates and close proximity to raw materials. 1860 saw the launch of HMS WARRIOR the world’s first all iron warship which was eventually rescued from Pembroke Dock in 1979 where she had been used as a floating oil pontoon. She was refurbished and is now on display at Portsmouth Dockyard. With its reputation of warship building the company gained orders for warships worldwide along with further orders from the Royal Navy.