British Ships - Sunday Stamps II

Violet's theme this week of 'ships.boats' enables me to show a favourite set including some ships that were/are world famous.

Great Britain - British Ships,  15 January 1969

Did you know that the Cutty Sark has a figurehead of a witch's hand holding the tail of a horse? 

This is derived from the Robert Burns poem Tam O'Shanter  where Tam is chased by a witch wearing a short shirt (a cutty sark). Witches cannot cross running water and as Tam rode over the Brig of Doon the witch pulled off the horse's tail and was left with it in her hand as Tam and his horse Meg escaped.

If you don't believe me you can always visit the restored Clipper Ship at Greenwich to see for yourself.

These 9d stamps were arranged in horizontal strips of three across the page.

The 1/- stamps below were in horizontal strips of two.

Great Britain - British Ships

You may visit Isambard Kingdom Brunel's famous steamship the SS Great Britain in Bristol's Great Western Dockyard; the place where it was built - and restored  for us to marvel at.

The SS Mauretania was a Cunard Line ocean liner, launched in 1906, which held the Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing for 20 years from 1909.

For other maritime stamps cross over to Sunday-stamps-ii-8.

SS Great Britain - Sepia Saturday

When launched by Prince Albert at Bristol on 19th July 1843 Isambard Kingdom Brunel's revolutionary ship became the world's first great ocean liner.

Launch of SS Great Britain, Bristol 1843
(Painting - Lordprice collection - CC BY-SA 2.5)

In 1845 New York was to greet the SS Great Britain when she completed her first Atlantic crossing, having left Liverpool 14 days and 21 hours earlier.

Disaster struck in 1846 when Captain James Hosken ran the ship aground in Dundrum Bay, Northern Ireland.

Stranded in Dundrum Bay, County Down
(Science & Society Picture Library - Author unknown)

The great ship was not rescued for nearly a year and in 1850 the Great Western Steamship Company sold her to Gibbs, Bright & Company. Two years later she started her life as an emigrant steam clipper carrying people to a new life in Australia.

SS Great Britain, 1853
(Source Arthur J Maginnis (1900) - The Atlantic Ferry Men)

In the years between 1852 and 1875 the SS Great Britain carried around 14000 people to Australia, besides acting as a troop ship for the Crimea War (1856) and carrying troops needed in response to the Indian Mutiny.(1857). On a lighter note she carried the first English cricket team to Australia.

He role changed again in 1882 when her engine and funnel were removed and she was converted to carry cargo. She carried Welsh coal to San Francisco. She suffered bad storm damage off Cape Horn in 1886 and limped into the Falkland Islands. Bought by the Falkland Islands Company, she remained economic to run until 1933. By then she had become unsafe to even be used as a floating warehouse for coal and wool. In 1937 she was scuttled in Sparrow Cove, a remote shallow bay.

SS Great Britain at Sparrow Cove. 1968

Her masts were removed and on 19 July 1970, 127 years to the day after her launch the SS Great Britain returned home to Bristol. 

Restored to all her glory she was relaunched on her 162nd birthday in 2005. Today she can be seen in her original dock on Bristol's Historic Quayside.

SS Great Britain

This is a Sepia Saturday post inspired by another later launching.

I wonder whether any of our Australian Sepians can trace their roots back to Brunel's great ship.

For other flotations sail over to Sepia-Saturday-198.

Herbert(s) - Sepia Saturday

I have two little Herberts, aka grandsons and a large Herbert to match the theme this week and a transatlantic liner as well.

I can even throw in toys, boys and beds (but no toy boys here)

Youngest grandson with key ring

My eldest grandson is using Bamboo to stand on so that he can see more out of the window.

Oldest grandson and Bamboo

You can see toys abandoned on the floor.

But the largest Herbert of all is being cuddled on his (?) bed.

Herbert with his mistress

The sad part is that Herbert and Bamboo now have no-one left to play with and reside in black bin bags in our loft waiting for someone to rescue them and pay their fares to the USA.

Should they be lucky enough to travel by ocean liner they might even get a cabin to share as this young boy may have done long ago.

Family cabin aboard SS Great Britain.

I hope neither they or he are so sea sick that they need a doctor or Noah's Ark to complete the trip.

To see how others have fared you need to check the links at Sepia-Saturday-196.

Multiples - Thematic Photography

One of the things I like about the weekly challenge set by Carmi is that it makes you look at your photos in a different way. This week it's "Multiples" and although I could take a shot of the multiple snowflakes falling as I write,  it's easier to raid my archives again.

Birds figure on Carmi's shot used as the prompt; I'm starting with birds as well.

Beechwood Rookery - 2011

The rooks were making quite a din when I walked by earlier today when there was many more birds to see and hear. Not as many though as in my next shots taken on the Isles of Scilly.

Gulls on Tresco - August 2008

If ten is not enough, look what happened when I move to a different vantage point.

Tresco Gulls (and multiple cattle too)

Back in Bristol you might need to take this shot with a pinch of salt.

Barrel Store on Quayside for SS Great Britain

Meanwhile in my local town you can find multiple arches in a half-mile stretch, far more than in this photo.

Yarm - Railway Viaduct

That completes my repertoire for this week. For multiple more multiples check out Thematic-photographic-230.

Broken - Thematic Photography

Once broken, never forgotten but rescued and restored to all her glory Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain sits today in the dry dock at Bristol's Historic Quay

When launched by Prince Albert in 1843 she was the biggest ship in the world, At the time she was the world's first ocean liner and completed her first trip to New York in 1845 in 14 days and 21 hours.

Brunel had designed the ship to be run chiefly by steam but but she could also use her sails.Between 1852 and 1875 she undertook the role of Emigrant Steam Clipper taking families to a new life in Australia. !856 saw SS Great Britain carry troops to fight in the Crimea; in 1861 she carried the first England cricket team to Australia.

In 1882 her role changed again as she was converted to carry cargo, her engine and funnel were removed. With three tall masts and broad square sails she became a 'windjammer' carrying coal to San Fransico.

Badly damaged by storms  rounding Cape Horn in 1886 she took shelter in the Falkland Islands where she was used as a floating warehouse for coal and wood. Her working life ended in 1933. In 1937 holes were made in her hull and she was scuttled in a remote windswept bay.

If you visit the restored ship in its Bristol dry dock you can see the 'broken' state of the great ship below the 'waterline.'

SS Great Britain Scuttling Holes

SS Great Britian - c1968 'broken' but rescued

The ship came back to England in 1970 on a pontoon and now takes centre stage on Bristol's Historic Quay.

SS Great Britain - Bristol 2011

 A long way from that Falkland's windswept cove.

Add caption

 For more broken artifacts don't forget to look in on Carmi's thematic-photographic-205

Orange - Thematic Photography

I have shown photos before of Brunel's steamship the SS Great Britain in its Bristol dry dock; the orange theme this week allows me to show two more.

Rudder of SS Great Britain

This shot is taken through the 'glass' covering that surrounds the ship. Visitors may go into the dry dock and walk round the hull of the ship. You can get a different view of the rudder and go right up to it.

Propeller and Rudder - SS Great Britain

Boat races are held on the River Tees on Yarm Gala Day; the boats fit our theme.

Boat Race on River Tees

During my holiday in Michigan this year one of the jobs to keep me amused was to cut the grass.

Orange mower

If you are wondering about the driver, he's behind the camera ready to take photos of the wildlife before moving them out of harm's way with that metal snow shovel.

Snapping Turtle laying eggs in the grass

It's not often that you get the chance to see a bird of paradise but this is one I like,

Bird of Paradise flower

growing in my son's flat in Cornwall.

For orange treats you need to pop over to Thematic-photographic-204 where you will find others who have responded to Carmi's challenge.

Looking Up - Thematic Photography

I often think that we do not look up enough. As soon I saw this looking up theme I remembered two photos I had taken where I had deliberately shot what was over my head.

Brunel's SS Great Britain towers above in its Bristol dry dock.

SS Great Britain

However there was another shot where I lay down on my back much to the amusement of other people.

SS Great Britain - masts and rigging

Last week when the theme was trees I thought about using this shot, taken looking up.

Sycamore branches overhead

 

Sometimes though it's not necessary to point your camera straight up as you can get a power shot without doing that. (I just wish we could get some weather like this now!)

Power lines

If you want more things to look up to I suggest that you visit Carmi's thematic photographic 196

Screens - Thematic Photography

When I saw that the topic for this week's thematic photography was 'Screens' I decided I only needed one new shot,

Thematic Photography - picture archive

I just hope you can read the header. Other photos are a selection from my files.

Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge - Visitor Centre

Wall display plus small screen of bridge in action

The Tees Barrage is up-river from the Transporter and there I found a different type of screen, this time designed to keep people out.

Archimedes Screws at Tees Whitewater Rafting Centre

The four screws recycle water from the rafting course back to the start. Only the two centre screws were lifting water when this shot was taken.

There's a ghostly look to my next set of screens in use back in the early 1940s.

Mosquito Nets - Egypt - UK naval base

You may think my next picture does not include a screen but there is still a maritime connection.

Rudder on SS Great Britain in Bristol Dry Dock

I would claim that the glass cover to the dock screens out the sunlight at least..

In the next a glass screen in the form of a box encloses a model.

Truro Cathedral inside Truro Cathedral

The crowd has still to arrive in this basketball stadium in Lansing, Michigan and the screens are blank.

Graduation Day for Thomas Cooley Law School

And for the golfing fans.

Olazabal Takes A Putt

For a leisurely ride home there is nothing to beat the view through a windscreen like this.

Helicopter approaching Nice.

Here's two who are saying it's time to go.

You Drive

But before you go make sure have your sunscreen on when you visit Carmi's Written Inc. screens

Strangers - Thematic Photography

Strangers in my photos are there for a variety of reasons. On Brunel's SS Great Britain it was the anchor I was interested in.

Anchor for SS Great Britain 

No matter how I tried for a picture of the anchor in the Bristol dry dock under the bows of the ship, strangers got in the way.

In other pictures the stangers are needed as an integral part of the action like this one shot in Norway.

A Foal's Feeding Time

In Germany this street scene would not be complete without all the strangers involved.

Freiburg Street Market

My final photo is one where the strangers had to be included although the dogs were the stars for me.

Forest of Dean Dog Show - Judge under pressure?

For other 'Strangers in Paradise' photography visit them here on Carmi's blog

To sleep; perchance to dream

Ay, there's the rub.

With Alan's Sepia Saturday photo this week being of a man asleep I was reminded of a not so private joke in our family. As I've grown older there has been a greater tendency for me to fall asleep in the evening. Hence someone saying, "Bob, you're tired. Go to bed."

I maintain that this is what inspired my daughter to send me this photo taken a few years ago on a trip to Washington DC.

 

I've been on a few red-eyed flights in my time but always managed to avoid travelling by sea. Perhaps as well because I don't think I would have appreciated  sleeping arrangements like this,

Steerage aboard SS Great Britain

Travelling on business can be a bit of a dog's life. I've always envied the way a dog can lie down and dream - presumably about the the finer things in life.

Tired Golden Labrador Pup

Some people of course may sleep for ages - Rip Van Winkle springs to mind. However Britain's oldest known poet has been asleep for quite a while.

Memorial to Caedmon, St Mary's Churchyard, Whitby, North Yorkshire

(By Richard Thomas - CC A-S A 2.0 license)

Cædmon is the earliest English poet whose name is known. An Anglo-Saxon who cared for the animals he was attached to the double monastery of Streonæshalch (Whitby Abbey) during the abbacy (657–680) of St Hilda (614–680), he was originally ignorant of "the art of song" but learned to compose one night in the course of a dream, according to the 8th-century monk Bede. He later became a zealous monk and an accomplished and inspirational religious poet. (ex wikipedia)

As Cædmon cared for animals I decided to end with a dreamer of the future.

Sweet dreams.

 For more dreams that hopefully won't require you to go to sleep, please visit Sepia Saturday 93l