On the High Seas
Categories: uncategorized
Date: 31 March 2007 21:33:21
The delight of yesterday? Believe it or not, a school trip.
We woke bright and early, despite the pleasure of not needing to leave the house quite as early as usual. We were to meet with the other teachers and all of Year Six at the wet end of Ryde Pier at nine o'clock to catch the 9.15 catamaran to England. I say we because, contravening all the school attendance regulations, I had arranged to take Smudgelet with us on our adventure, partly because I wasn't sure what time I'd get home, partly because it was such a worthwhile and educational trip, and partly because I relished the prospect of spending the day with him. It was a cold cold day, and drizzly to boot, which made the walk from the car park to the end of the pier a bit of an ordeal, but we concentrated more on discussing how interesting it was that we usually felt quite safe driving along the pier but it was quite scary walking along it, even though we were far safer on foot than in a car. Interesting that the boy who was nervous of the pier floorboards breaking beneath his feet was equally eager for me to arrange for him to go up the Spinnaker Tower so he could stand on the glass platform hundreds of metres above the ground. (God bless Honorary Auntie M!)
The trip was fantastic. Never mind the kids, I learnt a lot. And I was really proud of all our kidlets too. We were visiting Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to see the remains of the Mary Rose, Henry VIII's ship which sank in the Solent over 400 years ago. First part of the trip was a chance to take part in some workshops. One was teaching the children what it was like to be part of a gun crew on board a Tudor warship. I think the most surprising thing was how little space there was and how much it would have smelled of gunpowder. Sadly I can't show you a picture as it includes members of the class as well as Smudgelet, but suffice to say they loved dressing up and going through the motions of loading and firing a portpiece (not a cannon - do you know the difference?). Then in the second workshop they got to be archaeologists, working out what various artefacts were and to whom they might have belonged.
Doing this was amazing, finding out that sailors weren't the dirty shabby individuals that we imagine but kept themselves clean and healthy (viz the large number of nit combs that they found). The best bit, though, was when we had the chance to handle rope and wood from the actual deck and gun mount of the ship itself. Mind blowing to think that Henry VIII himself could have walked on the very piece of wood we were holding, and an indescribable feeling when we sniffed at the piece of the gun mount and discovered that, in spite of having been underwater for 400 years, we could still smell the strong acrid smell of gunpowder ingrained in the tar-soaked wood from all those years ago.
From the classrooms we went on into the museum to see the thousands of artifacts brought up from under the water. There was so much to see and marvel at, so much preserved from this great disaster. The ship had landed in silt which had preserved an amazing quantity of all sorts of things, including two gigantic brick-mounted cauldrons, longbows, tankards, signs of Catholics and Protestants working alongside one another (quite telling, considering the year), and an amazing range of musical instruments and games.
Then, after lunch, we got to see the great ship herself. Now that truly is an amazing sight. She seems so small, considering she held 400 crew and 300 soldiers (all but around 40 perished when she sank as they were trapped on board behind netting designed to prevent her being boarded by the enemy). About half of the ship was buried in the sand and preserved, the rest was eaten away by (what a wonderful name) the gribble whose favourite delicacy is, apparently, English Oak. She is constantly sprayed with wax - a process that will take until about 2009 as it banishes the water and preserves the wood, protecting it against the ravages of the air - and is kept in semi-darkness as the light too could damage the timber. But it does something strange to the heart to be near something so steeped in history.
Sadly my photos of the ship herself didn't come out because of the lighting and the glass partition but it's certainly worth looking on the Mary Rose website to see the photos of the ship and how it was raised from its watery grave. Instead you'll have to make do with a photo of another ship that's high on the agenda for Smudgelet and me to visit in the very near future - Nelson's huge and beautiful flagship, Victory.
