National Museums Liverpool Blog - Stephen

I think the best film about the Titanic disaster is 'A Night to Remember' which I first saw in a Liverpool cinema shortly after its release in 1958.

It depicts the ship’s baker, Charles Joughin, who drinks a lot of whisky to help him survive in the icy sea. My aunt revealed that he had lived near her in Grasmere Street, Liverpool, but left his family and went to live in America after the disaster.

When the film was made survivors were still around and some advised the film makers including the Titanic’s fourth officer Joseph Boxhall.

The original 20 ft builder’s model of the Titanic, now on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum, was used by the film’s researchers.

This stunning unique model (pictured) originally depicted both Titanic and her sister Olympic and was used to advertise the great White Star ships. It was built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast where the liners were also constructed.

After the loss of Titanic on 15 April 1912 the model was altered to represent Britannic, the third ship of the class, which became a hospital ship and was sunk during the First World War. The rearrangement of the windows on the upper decks was the most important change. In the 1920s the model was altered again to represent the refitted Olympic.

It was later put on display in Blackpool before being given to Liverpool museums in 1951 and in the early 1980s was restored and displayed in the Merseyside Maritime Museum as Titanic.

Second Officer Charles Lightoller (played by Kenneth More), the most senior officer to survive, gives an interesting description of Titanic’s Captain Edward Smith in his 1935 autobiography Titanic and Other Ships.

Lightoller served with him on different ships over many years. Smith was known affectionately as EJ and was quite a character in the shipping world. The tall bearded captain, despite his appearance, had a pleasant quiet voice.

"A voice he rarely raised above a conversational tone – not to say he couldn't", recalled Lightoller.

"In fact, I have often heard him bark an order that made a man come to himself with a bump. He was a great favourite, and a man any officer would give his ears to sail under."

A new exhibit in the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery is a builder’s half-model of the Mount Temple, one of the ships that rushed to the aid of Titanic but arrived too late.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

I don’t hold with the saying that you have to be a comedian to live in Liverpool, although there are probably more here than anywhere else.

I’m convinced much of this is down to our seafaring tradition – mariners tend to have a strong sense of humour to help deal with the many challenges faced on the briny.

Ships’ crews carried out bizarre rituals at sea such as the Crossing the Line ceremony for passengers and crew going over the equator for the first time. Initiates appear before King Neptune and his court and are plunged into water and subjected to other indignities.

Two lesser-known rituals are examined in the Life at Sea gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum. Life on sailing ships left crews with little time for recreation. Despite this, sailors developed various customs that reflected their way of life.

The ceremony of Dropping the Dead Horse originated in the 19th century when seafarers were allowed their first month’s wages in advance to pay for gear and clothing. During this month they felt they were working for nothing or 'flogging a dead horse'.

The end of the month was marked by dragging a canvas horse stuffed with wood shavings and stones along the deck before hoisting it up the main mast and dropping it into the sea to cheers and raucous laughter.

On display is a picture of the Dead Horse being prepared for dropping overboard. It was on the John O’Gaunt while sailing to Melbourne, Australia, in 1889.

Music has always been popular at sea and crews often formed small Foo-Foo bands as a way of relaxing. These enabled musicians to disturb everyone else by making an appalling din while dressed up in ridiculous clothes.

A photograph shows a Foo-Foo band (pictured) on a British sailing ship in 1900 with members dressed in funny hats and playing an assortment of instruments including mouth organs and a squeeze box.

Once ashore fun could turn to fear for sailors on a spree. Sea ports around the world have a reputation for being violent and dangerous places. Mariners often took steps to protect themselves.

Crews paid at the end of voyages could get several months of back pay. There were many people in port ready to separate seafarers from their cash once they got ashore.

Another display features a switchback knife and leather cosh carried by sailor Robert Bruce when he was in the Merchant Navy in the early 1940s.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

I find the subject of slavery deeply disturbing and the more we find out about its workings, the greater the sense of disbelief.

It is astonishing that misery, disease and death could be imposed upon other human beings on such a vast scale. There are many important lessons to be learnt from the slave trade.  

The native peoples of the Americas and Caribbean were profoundly affected or exterminated and their cultures largely destroyed following the arrival of Europeans.

As colonies were set up and plantations established, there was a chronic shortage of labour because the local people had died in vast numbers.

The transatlantic slave trade happened because Europeans needed workers for their colonial enterprises. This resulted in the largest forced migration in human history as Africans were enslaved in their millions and transported across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.

When European explorers arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries, they exploited the riches of the new lands. Initially Spain and Portugal took the lead and were followed by England, France and the Netherlands.

These were the countries that developed the transatlantic slave trade. The Portuguese began growing sugar in Brazil in the 1540s. As Europeans acquired a taste for sweetened food and drink, the demand grew and plantations were established in Caribbean colonies.

Other profitable commodities also entered the plantation system including coffee, tobacco and particularly cotton which was later to play a big part in the growth of Liverpool, Manchester and other Lancashire towns.

On display in the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, are two stone implements from the Taino culture  - rare survivals of the original inhabitants of the Caribbean.

Europeans looked to Africa for a new supply of labour. Liverpool was not involved in early English slaving but came to dominate the transatlantic slave trade by the closing decades of the 18th century.

On display is an oil painting by Henry F James showing Liverpool in 1811 (pictured) just four years after the abolition of the slave trade. During this latter period of the trade, dealings with the West Indies generated about 40 per cent of Liverpool’s wealth.

A Wedgwood creamware bowl of 1786 features a hand-painted view of a sailing ship called the Lord Stanley. It was almost certainly made for presentation to John Smale, the ship’s captain, prior to his departure to West Africa on a slaving voyage.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

I’m not a great pigeon fancier but I do have a soft spot for the biggest of this breed – the long-dead Dodo. Depending on what you believe, the flightless bird waddled or strutted into history around 1693 when it was wiped off the face of the earth.

There is a very rare skeleton of a Dodo temporarily on display at World Museum. It is going to be featured on Radio Merseyside at 8.20 am on Monday 25 January 2010 as part of the BBC’s exciting series, A History of the World. Our picture shows curator of vertebrate zoology Dr Clem Fisher, who was recently interviewed for the show, with the incomplete composite skeleton. It has been in our collection since 1866 and has not been on display for at least 40 years.

Clem will tell listeners how specimens continue to reveal secrets: “The skeleton was made up from various Dodo bones found in a bog and is quite complete. However, we recently discovered that the foot bones had been skilfully carved from wood – probably in Victorian times.”

I have discovered that there is quite a controversy over what the Dodo actually looked like when alive. Live ones were brought to Europe from its only home, the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. These captive specimens grew fat and waddled about their cages. One was painted by Jan Savery and his depiction led to the popular perception of the creature as a bird buffoon.

We now know the reality was rather different and that Dodos were more likely lithe birds that strutted around. Being flightless, they must have been pretty agile to find food in competition with other species. This interpretation is backed up by the 1991 rediscovery of long-lost drawings showing a slightly plump but alert bird. 

Then there is the theory about how Dodos became extinct. The popular story is that they were killed by the crews of passing ships. The Dutch, however, thought the Dodo tasted loathsome. I suppose it would depend how hungry you were. Some people said Dodo meat was tough but good to eat. There were other birds and animals on Mauritius to tempt the palate. Looking at the World Museum skeleton, I am reminded of the turkey after Christmas dinner so perhaps seafarers had the same idea. Turkeys were discovered in North America by the Spanish more than 400 years ago during the time Dodos were being hunted.

The name is probably of Dutch origin, shortened from dodaars meaning knot-arse, referring to the knot or tuft of feathers making up its tail. The Dodo had a relation on the neighbouring island of Réunion called the Solitaire. Sometimes known as the White Dodo, it became extinct some time after 1705.

Like most boys of my generation, spotting trains, boats, planes and buses was my hobby. It started with car number plates before graduating to ships when I was in my mid teens.

This was the early 1960s and Liverpool was still a great port to look at vessels before tight security and containerisation swept away the old scenes.

I would cycle along the dock road or take the ferry to Birkenhead and Wallasey Docks. Among the many ships I recorded were those of the famous Harrison Line whose vessels were once common on the River Mersey and in ports throughout the world.

T & J Harrison Ltd was founded in Liverpool in 1853 as the port steadily grew in capacity and importance. The company, headed by Thomas and James Harrison, had small beginnings focusing on the wine and brandy trades.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum's Art and the Sea gallery there is a fascinating oil painting of one of the earliest Harrison ships – the West Derby, named after an historic village in Liverpool where I live.

West Derby off Egremont was painted by Thomas Dove (1811 – 1886) and shows the sailing ship making sternway – drifting slowly backwards so that the anchor takes hold in the riverbed.

In the foreground is an early Liverpool steam tug which has helped the West Derby into the Mersey. The painting shows five crew members furling (rolling up) a sail. Four stand precariously on the yard hauling up the sail while the fifth stands below manoeuvring the sail upwards.

A Harrison tradition started in 1857 with the naming of Philosopher, a full-rigged ship. From then on most of the company’s ships were named after trades and professions.
Harrison’s first two steamers were the Gladiator and the Cognac, both built in 1860 The last sailing ship was sold in 1889 and the company began to develop its routes which from 1902 included South Africa.

The most famous Harrison ship was the Politician, wrecked in 1941, which inspired the classic 1949 Ealing comedy Whisky Galore. She foundered off the Isle of Eriskay with 50,000 cases of scotch on board.

The Harrison Line (now Charente Ltd) sold its shipping interests to P&O Nedlloyd in 2000.

Shortly afterwards the huge Harrison archive was donated to the Merseyside Maritime Museum archives for use by researchers. A total of 134 boxes of records covering the period 1860 to 1980 give a remarkable insight into the expansion and day-to-day operation of the line.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1 p&p UK).

I like to use spices when cooking but only sparingly. To my mind there's nothing worse than making things so hot or spicy you can't taste the food.

Many years ago a friend took me around old spice warehouses on the River Thames when they were empty, awaiting redevelopment. I was overwhelmed by the wonderful smells that still permeated everywhere – this was part of the East transported to London.

British trade with India and China was controlled by the East India Company from the closing years of the Tudor era until the 19th century.

The company was granted a royal charter by Elizabeth I in 1600 and went on to generate huge wealth for many investors. The charter granted a monopoly of trade with all countries to the east of the Cape of Good Hope and to the west of the Straights of Magellan in South America.

In its early days the company fought Dutch and Portuguese rivals in sea battles on the Indian Ocean. These operations were costly so the company decided to set up bases in mainland India, initially with the agreement of Indian rulers.

These footholds grew over the years until the East India Company was largely responsible for the British conquest of India and was used by the government to rule that vast country.

The company's ships were among the finest and largest of their time. Among the cargoes they brought back were tea, silks, spices, porcelain, sugar and rice.  They also carried passengers – mainly military and government officials – between London and India.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is an oil painting called 'An East Indiaman taking a pilot off Dover', attributed to Robert Dodd (1748 – 1815).

This finely-observed work shows the ship with ensigns flying alongside other vessels off the White Cliffs of Dover as the pilot prepares to board.

The company’s century-long rule of all of India effectively began following the Battle of Plassey in 1757 when Robert Clive defeated Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent ruler of Bengal.

The East India Company's monopolies were scrapped in the 19th century following a campaign in which Liverpool merchants played a leading part.

Liverpool’s Asia trade involving the export of cotton goods and import of tea, East Indian sugar and Asian produce underlined its importance as a world-class port.

The East India Company's monopoly of trade with India was abolished in 1813. The company was dissolved in 1858.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.00 p&p UK).

The idea of taking a slow boat to China is very appealing to me but the company would have to be good and the surroundings congenial.

Travel should be enjoyed as a part of a wider experience rather than just as a means of getting somewhere. Between the ages of 16 and 24 I went on many walking holidays, savouring the people and places I encountered.

Sea travel offers similar experiences as events unfold gradually so we are able to adjust better to our surroundings. It is also much more comfortable and relaxing than air or road travel, for example.

More than 70 years ago people could take a cruise from Liverpool to London, stopping at a number of ports on the way.This was still a comparatively leisurely age with large numbers of people being carried across the seas and oceans. Air travel was in its infancy as passenger aircraft were only capable of carrying small numbers of passengers.

Aerodromes were the provinces of the very rich – everyone else going abroad took to the waves. Likewise road travel was still a big adventure. Before the Second World War, lorries were only permitted to travel at slow speeds.

They would frequently break down and had great difficulties going up hills. Roads crawled through every town and village on tortuous routes across the country before the age of the bypass. It is not surprising, therefore, that some people still preferred to travel by sea between British ports – as they had for centuries – if they had the time and money.

Coast Lines grew into the largest coaster company in the world after being formed in 1913 from the merger of three Liverpool coastal shipping companies. Business declined in the 1950s largely due to the growth of road transport.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum’s World Gateway gallery there is a builder’s model of the Coast Lines’ motor vessel Ocean Coast of 1935 (pictured). She ran a regular cargo service between Liverpool and London.

The 1,700-ton Ocean Coast carried general cargo and up to 10 passengers. The round trip took about 10 days and made an unusual cruising holiday.

Ocean Coast was withdrawn from service in 1964 and she was sold to a Greek company. A smaller half model in the Life at Sea gallery shows how mixed cargo was stowed on the Ocean Coast.

Most cargo vessels carried a wide range of goods. The Merseyside Maritime Museum holds the Coast Lines archives (see our Archives section on our main site).

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I recently appeared on the Liverpool KVFM community radio station hosted by local children and was asked why Liverpool suffered so many German air raids.

The answer was that the city was the main port for the convoys of merchant ships that brought vital supplies to Britain. Liverpool played a key part in the Battle of the Atlantic by serving as a base for escort ships defending the Second World War convoys.

Until mid-1941 only a small force of naval escort ships was based in Liverpool. A fleet of Fleetwood trawlers was established at Wallasey Dock, Birkenhead, for minesweeping and convoy escort work.

A group of destroyers was based in Gladstone Dock, Bootle. A few auxiliary merchant cruisers – fast, well-armed former liners taken over by the Navy – also sailed out of Liverpool on North Atlantic patrol duties.

From the summer of 1941, however, as more escort ships became available, the naval presence in port grew rapidly. Liverpool became one of the Royal Navy’s main escort bases for Atlantic convoys.

Eventually nearly 60 naval escort ships, excluding trawlers and other auxiliaries, sailed regularly from Liverpool. They ranged from destroyers and sloops to frigates and corvettes.

While Gladstone Dock supported by other docks provided berths for larger ships, many corvettes were based at Albert Dock. This is now the home of Merseyside Maritime Museum with its many convoy-linked displays in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery.

This 1945 photograph shows officers and men from HM Trawler Northern Wave at Wallasey Dock. Another image shows the armed merchant cruiser HMS Patroclus, formerly of the Blue Funnel Line, leaving the Mersey for escort duties in 1940.

Just five days later Patroclus was torpedoed and sunk by the notorious U99 submarine which sank 40 British and Allied merchant ships before being sunk by a British destroyer.

There is a photo of 19-year-old Nigerian seaman Douglas Memberre who was engaged as a steward’s boy on the Mattawin at Lagos in December 1941. Douglas survived after his ship was sunk by a U-boat in the North Atlantic in June 1942. He later returned to sea and eventually settled in Liverpool.

Merseyside became the main home of the Merchant Navy in wartime Britain. In 1939 Liverpool-owned and registered ships formed at least one-fifth of Britain’s entire ocean-going merchant fleet.

Many were taken over by the Government as armed merchant cruisers, troopships, hospital ships, assault vessels and other auxiliaries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I enjoy cooking and this weekend helped prepare a traditional Christmas meal for six at Lowlands, the Victorian mansion in Liverpool where I am a trustee.

You do not need a great deal of space to cook a good meal – I once went on a French submarine for breakfast and was amazed at the tiny galley. They dished up their own Gallic version of black puddings.

Good food is very important at sea both to seafarers and passengers and this is even more so over Christmas for those who find themselves away from traditional family gatherings.

In the past, sailing ship crews were unlikely to get much change from their everyday diet of water, bread, ship’s biscuits, salted meat, dried peas, rice, tea, coffee and sugar. The best they might expect at Christmas was a double ration of salt pork followed by plum duff (thick flour pudding).

It was not possible to have fresh food on board ocean-going ships before the advent of steam and refrigeration.

However, some innovative cooks might use the bounty of the sea or land they were passing at Christmas. There are reports of crews being dished up such delights as penguins, turtles and even porpoises.

Robert Louis Stevenson captured the atmosphere in his poem Christmas at Sea:

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;
For it’s just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)
This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn,
And the house above the coastguard’s was the house where I was born.

The advent of large liners transformed catering at sea for passengers. British companies manufactured top-of-the-range equipment so that ships’ kitchens could produce top class meals.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum is eerie film footage taken on the wreck of the Empress of Ireland which sank off Quebec, Canada, in 1914 with the loss of more than 1,000 lives.

A huge cooking range looms out of the gloom, clearly embossed with the words Henry Wilson Co Ltd, Cornhill Works, Liverpool. This company supplied and fitted most of the kitchen, pantry and bakery equipment for such ships as the Titanic, Lusitania and Empress of Ireland and many other passenger liners. Its cooking ranges for Titanic and her sister Olympic were at the time possibly the largest ever made.

This contemporary advertisement from the summer 1911 issue of Shipbuilder shows one of the huge ranges.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

The more I learn about travel in the past, the more I am convinced that our ancestors were a much tougher lot than us. They may have had to put up with more disease and hunger but they certainly had great reserves of strength and stamina – just look how they spread across the globe.

Emigrating in the 19th century was a hard and demanding process with lots of hurdles to jump before you even went to sea.

People seeking new lives had to raise the money for the fares, plan the journey, pack up all their worldly possessions then set off into the unknown.

Once they arrived in Liverpool – probably the greatest emigrant port in world history with nine million people passing through between 1830 and 1930 – they were beset with a number of hazards.

Just arriving in the port could be a bewildering as well as exciting experience for emigrants, who came from all over northern Europe as well as Britain and Ireland. Many had never left their homes before and found the place both frightening and dangerous.

Tired and hungry from long journeys, many of the emigrants were accosted by rogues known as runners who worked for dishonest ticket sellers and lodging house owners.

Not everyone was bad and Liverpool’s economy benefitted hugely from the emigration trade. It generated business for many including shipowners, brokers’ agents, shopkeepers and lodging houses.

Emigrants could spend up to 10 days waiting to set off on a sailing ship because journeys were at the mercy of the weather. Most of them spent the time in squalid, overcrowded lodging houses. Even respectable establishments offered only boards to sleep on – and no blankets.

Insanitary accommodation was an ideal breeding ground for diseases such as cholera and typhoid. Conditions eventually improved in line with improvements to ships fuelled by competition between shipowners. By the late 19th century emigrants could stay in lodging houses owned or supervised by shipping companies.

Displays in the new emigrant gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum include this print depicting a government inspector’s office in 1850. Here passengers were checked for diseases prior to departure.

However, these were hardly rigorous examinations - as many as 3,000 people could be seen daily by just three doctors.

In the exhibition’s life-size Waterloo Road display there is a sign saying “Maurice Dalton. Emigrant Lodging House. Good Beds. 4d per night”. A weary emigrant enters the lodging house, confronted by a fierce-looking dog.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

It is unlikely that we will ever see the likes of this ship again because she was very much a product of the age which inspired her.

I find it difficult to imagine what it would have been like travelling on such a vessel. The reactions of the passengers and crew can only be guessed when they first saw her amazing interiors.

The beautiful Cunard liner Lucania offered the most luxurious First Class facilities  available to Victorian travellers.

She and her sister Campania were the embodiments of late 19th century opulence. The high quality and attention to detail were sea-going reflections of the confident and prosperous late Victorian era and would never really be matched on any other ships.

Although the predominant style was Art Nouveau, the top-paying passengers could relax in surroundings reflecting other golden ages of the past. For example, the forward First Class entrance hall was in the French Renaissance style.

The Lucania’s top public rooms and en-suite upper deck staterooms were mostly heavily panelled in the finest woods with thick carpets and velvet curtains muffling intrusive sounds. The finest room was probably the Italian-style First Class dining saloon with a coffered ceiling rising three decks to a skylight.

There was a novelty in the Elizabethan First Class smoking room – the first open fireplace ever fitted on a passenger liner. This was truly a home-from-home on the ocean wave.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum there is brief and tantalising film footage from 1901 showing Lucania at Liverpool’s landing stage. Crowds in Victorian finery wave enthusiastically to friends and loved ones.

There is no foreboding of the sad end that would befall this popular vessel just eight years later in a nearby dock.

Both the Lucania and Campania had the largest triple-expansion engines fitted on Cunard ships.The two ships were partially financed by the British Admiralty, no doubt because of justifiable fears of impending war. Cunard also had to agree that the ships go on the naval reserve list to serve as armed merchant cruisers if necessary.

Lucania thankfully never went to war. Following the arrival of the super liners Lusitania and Mauretania, Cunard decided she was no longer needed. Laid up in Huskisson Dock, she partially sank after being badly damaged by fire on 14 August 1909.

Lucania was sold for scrap and the beautiful interiors that had escaped the flames were sold to the highest bidder.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I am particularly moved by this story which graphically demonstrates the caring nature of people placed in extreme danger. We cannot comprehend what the victims of this disaster went through - many died but the surviving children were tenderly cared for as they awaited rescue.

The sinking of the passenger liner City of Benares with the loss of 81 of 100 children on board brought home the ruthlessness of German U-boat submarines to newspaper readers and radio listeners all over the world.

The 11,081-ton Ellerman Line ship left Liverpool on 13 September 1940 as leading vessel on the19-strong convoy OB213. Ninety of the child passengers were part of a government scheme to evacuate them from heavily-bombed British cities to the safety of North America.

On 17 September the convoy’s naval escort ships had left to accompany another convoy. Some hours later the City of Benares was spotted and torpedoed by the German U48 submarine.
 
There were more than 400 people on board and 250, including the children, were lost. As a result, the evacuation of children by sea was scrapped.

The attack came during a period of the Second World War known to the U-boat commanders as the Happy Time. This came after the fall of France in June 1940 when the Germans were able to use the French Atlantic ports as bases.

This allowed U-boats to reach far out into the Atlantic and the Mediterranean for the first time. Germany soon began to wage unrestrained U-boat warfare around Britain’s coast.
 
Despite the continuing shortage of submarines and air support, the U-boat fleet commanded by Rear Admiral Karl Dönitz became increasingly successful. For the first time, small U-boat pack attacks were used with devastating effect against still largely unprotected British convoys.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery is a contemporary newspaper report of the City of Benares disaster under the headline “Hitler’s Worst Crime”.

A photograph (pictured) shows five of six boy survivors who were rescued after spending eight days in a crowded open lifeboat. They are pictured being given piggy-back rides by rescuing sailors.

Another shows a heroine of the disaster, accomplished classical pianist and music teacher Mary Cornish who had volunteered as a children’s escort. She was awarded the MBE for looking after the six small boys during their horrific lifeboat journey.

Miss Cornish, from London, calmed the terrified children by telling them: “It’s all right, it’s only a torpedo.”

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I like this story because I have kept diaries and holiday logs like the boy who wrote about the Wanderer.

Personal accounts are of great importance as they help future generations understand earlier eras. I believe not many personal narratives will survive from today because few people record their experiences in any depth.

The 19th century left a rich legacy because so much was recorded in minute detail, from records of meetings and speeches to long business and private letters on every subject. Newspapers and magazines were crammed with articles skilfully crafted to answer every query.

A 14-year-old apprentice left a remarkable account of the maiden voyage of the Wanderer, one of the last sailing ships built in Liverpool – a beautiful vessel that brought bad luck in her wake.

The captain died in a raging storm on that first voyage in 1891 and just 16 years later – following numerous unsettling incidents - the Wanderer sank after being rammed by a German liner.

The boy’s name was H Watson and a section of his detailed log is on display alongside a fine 1: 100 scale model of the Wanderer in Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Watson gives details of the death of Captain George Currie and several other incidents which blighted the initial voyage.

Captain Currie died less than two days out of Liverpool heading for San Francisco:

“It was near midnight and the captain was on the poop (the raised stern deck) firing rockets as signals of distress. While thus engaged he was struck by the skysail yard (a wooden spar used to suspend a sail) and knocked down on deck insensible.

“The second mate was first to see him and he, along with the third mate and steward, got him into his room. He lay insensible until 4 o’clock on Monday morning and then expired.”

The Wanderer was a four-masted barque built by W H Potter & Sons at Queens Dock, Liverpool, At 309 ft long and displacing nearly 3,000 tons, Wanderer was said at that time to be the biggest sailing ship ever built.

John Masefield, a former seafarer who trained on HMS Conway in Liverpool, was fascinated by the ship. His first book after being appointed Poet Laureate in 1930 was called The Wanderer of Liverpool. Wanderer’s end came in1907 while she was at anchor in the River Elbe. She was sunk by the Gertrud Woermann in 24 ft of water but thankfully this time no-one died.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My appearance on the popular BBC 2 afternoon auction show Flog It! was broadcast on Wednesday – recorded on the Albert Dock with presenter Paul Martin.

It was shot back in April when the crew spent the day at three separate locations. My main role was setting up and supervising the BBC’s visit. The six minutes of screen time took almost three hours, including setting up the camera and getting the angles right.

Our picture shows Paul and I with the Merseyside Maritime Museum in the background - the chap in the front holds an enormous collapsible reflector which aims to literally put us in the best possible light.

You can watch the full show on the BBC iplayer. It's available until 4.29pm this Wednesday (18 November).

There was a script of sorts but the director stressed this was only meant as a guide – obviously with takes from different angles there had to be continuity. Some wasn’t used, including a close-up of my hand affectionately patting one of the huge cast iron columns.

In between takes, Paul told me that he started out as a professional musician and became involved in Flog It! through his interest in antiques. I shared some memories of the TV shows I watched as a child. They were always live and anything could – and did – go wrong.

I vividly remember two major stars on separate occasions suffering the indignity of their false teeth slipping,  watched by millions of viewers.

I’m a big fan of the Flog It!, when I can see it, and also The Antiques Roadshow on which I appeared recently talking about some 1960s films discovered at Lowlands community centre, West Derby, Liverpool.

I last appeared on Flog It! about five years ago doing a three-minute tour of the Lady Lever Art Gallery with one of the programme’ specialists, Kate Bliss. We did it in our stocking feet because of the echoes from the polished floors.

Flog It! is an in-house BBC production and takes a lot of careful preparation to bring to the screen.

The rest of the National Museums Liverpool footage is scheduled to be screened at 3.45 pm on Monday 30 November, focusing on the stunning new Museum of Liverpool on the city’s waterfront.

The show visits our workshops where some of the museum’s fabulous exhibits are being conserved. Paul interviews land transport curator Sharon Brown in a carriage from the legendary Overhead Railway.

Also featured are the Lion steam locomotive, star of the Ealing comedy classic The Titfield Thunderbolt, and the first Ford Anglia off the assembly line at Ford’s new Halewood factory in 1963.

The feature ends at the Museum of Liverpool where operations manager Martin Hemmings takes Paul on a hard-hat tour of the magnificent building.

Sometimes you have to leave a place to find it again, if you know what I mean.

Liverpool once had many small shipping offices which did good business supplying goods and passengers to the many vessels using the port. Gradually they largely disappeared and are now a fading memory.

Some years ago I went to Las Palmas, the busy capital of Gran Canaria and a shopping mecca. I wandered off to the dock area one sunny day and stumbled across busy little shipping offices. They were like those I remembered in Liverpool with wide wooden counters and ornate metal grills.

In keeping with much of modern business, most ships today are owned by large multi-national companies. These enterprises are often involved in other ventures such as property development, finance or leisure facilities. They operate on a global scale whether by raising money, buying ships or engaging crews.

Many ships are registered in countries like Liberia or Panama where regulations are less stringent than in Britain. Until the 1950s, most ships using British ports were owned by British shipping companies with familiar names such as Blue Funnel.

Most of these concerns were founded in the mid-1800s and were often controlled by families with long maritime traditions. However, only a few independent shipping companies survive today.

On display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery is a colourful spread from Liverpool’s Journal of Commerce of 1882 (pictured) showing flags and funnels of shipping companies that figured in the boom years of the port.

Britain, as an island nation, will continue to rely on merchant ships and seafarers long into the future. Most goods still go by sea and sea travel is growing in popularity.

A new exhibit in the gallery illustrates the impact of container ships in modern sea transport and trading. It is a 10 ft long model of the Liverpool Bay, built in 1971. The ship was built in Kiel, Germany, for the Ocean Steamship Group founded by renowned Liverpool shipowner Alfred Holt in 1865.

The 58,000 tonne Liverpool Bay was one of the new generation of ships designed to handle containers. She could carry more than 2,300 containers and was one of five sisters built at the same time, originally sailing to East Asia.

Huge ships are now a familiar sight on the Mersey but I remember vividly the impact of vessels like the Liverpool Bay arriving for the first time in the early 1970s.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

Homesickness is like seasickness – you only feel better once you’ve stopped travelling. I have suffered from both and hope I never experience them again.

Longing for home gnaws away at the soul and is almost impossible to eradicate. I found that it was just as much the loss of my cultural roots as the absence of family and friends.

The logistics of moving huge numbers of emigrants through Liverpool involved everything from supplying cabins to the plates they ate off – it was very big business indeed.

Around nine million people moved abroad through Liverpool between 1830 and 1930 making it probably the greatest emigration port in world history. It was often very emotional for the passengers as they left their old familiar homes behind for new lives in unknown countries.

Many descendants of those emigrants still have strong emotional attachments to Liverpool because it was the last place their families saw before taking the leap into the dark.

However, some did not like their new lives and returned home. There were a number of reasons for this including work and financial issues but often it was simply homesickness.

The new emigration gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum focuses on many different aspects of this mass migration.

From the tail end of the era there is a fascinating model of the Blaco portable cabin from around 1920-30. They were made by F C Blackwell & Co of Crosby, Liverpool.

Portable cabins were used by shipping companies involved in emigration from the 19th century onwards. The detailed wood and metal demonstration model was used when shipping companies such as Cunard and Canadian Pacific employed Blaco cabins. They could be quickly installed to cater for individual needs of emigrants.

A wooden trunk was used by the Parsons family when they emigrated from Liverpool to the United States in 1906. Oliver Charles Parsons and his wife Sarah Jane were originally from Wakefield, Yorkshire.

After arriving in the USA they lived with their young family in Tennessee, Kentucky and Wyoming before returning to England in 1914.

Oliver died during the flu pandemic of 1918 and Sarah had to raise here five children alone. She kept the wood and metal trunk with its many memories until her death in 1965.

Photographs show Sarah at Bridlington in 1950 (pictured) and her daughter Minnie Chesters in 1954. Minnie was the couple’s eldest child and had emigrated with her parents.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

The nearest I’ve got to emigrating is briefly wanting to flee to the Isle of Man - in the summer it matches any other exotic island in the sun. It was a bright sunny day and I was taking a lunchtime stroll while covering a heavy-going criminal trial at Liverpool Crown Court. Balmy breezes drifted off the sea. Down at the Pier Head the Manx ferry was waiting with last boarders being called.

I was sorely tempted to dash up the gangplank but then common sense kicked in.

Emigration is a drastic step into the unknown and there are usually very good reasons for people wanting to make new lives in different countries

People emigrate for three main reasons – poverty, persecution and ambition. In the great movements of people around the globe in the 19th century, many were fleeing from hardship and poverty.

Emigration was also a way of fleeing political and religious persecution. Many Jewish people left east Europe for this reason.

However, a lot of people were simply attracted by the opportunities offered by life in such places as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The Gold Rush years in North America and Australia triggered mass emigration from Europe as prospectors sought wealth beyond their wildest dreams.

The new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum looks at many different aspects of the trade that helped generate wealth in Liverpool for shipping companies, hotels and many other businesses.

A fascinating colour print shows the emigration of Russian Jews in 1891 (pictured). They are seen crowded on the deck of the Guion liner Wisconsin as she prepares to leave Liverpool.

Other exhibits are linked to the Gold Rush. A 19th century board game called A Race to the Gold Diggings has a box emblazoned with a colourful scene, tiny model sailing ships and a set of rules.

A contemporary poster advertises the Royal Charter emigrant steamer run by the Liverpool and Australian Navigation Company. Saloon passengers paid top prices of between 60 guineas (£63) and 75 guineas (£78.75) – around £4,500 in today’s money – for the voyage while Third Class paid between 16 and 20 guineas.

The Royal Charter met her cruel end in October 1859 when, heading for Liverpool, she was wrecked on the Anglesey coast with the loss of 498 lives. Exhibits include items from the wreck including a section of ornately-carved wood believed to be from the ship’s stern. There's more on the Royal Charter on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Throughout our lives chance can play a decisive part – perhaps I am tempting fate but I believe you can change the course of events. I do not subscribe to the theory that events follow a predestined path.

The following story, though, tests my credulity. It really looks as if this was all pre-ordained, not simply a German U-boat captain seeing his chance and ruthlessly taking it.

They were both hugely popular in Liverpool but one of the beautiful sisters was to have a tragic end while the other carried on until the close of her natural life.

The Lusitania and Mauretania were both built in 1907, the pride of the Cunard fleet. They were bigger, faster and more luxurious than any liners before them – but were soon eclipsed by other giants of the seas as the race to capture lucrative business became ever faster.

The two ships were the first express transatlantic liners fitted with steam turbines. Although more renowned for their luxurious elegance, they also carried many Third Class passengers emigrating to the USA on the Liverpool – New York route.

The 31,550-ton Lusitania had a successful career until she was torpedoed by a submarine in May 1915 while heading for Liverpool, with the loss of 1,201 lives.

There were plenty of famous people on board, many of whom died. The artistic world lost such talents as the playwright Charles Klein and the founder of Dublin Art Gallery Sir Hugh Lane.

The business world was devastated by the loss of leading moguls such as multi-millionaire Alfred Vanderbilt and Paul Crompton, a director of the Booth Steamship Co, who died along with his wife and six children.

Lusitania sank in just 18 minutes and there was a terrifying scramble for the boats, and many people were trapped below decks because of the speed of the sinking.

An etching by W L Wyllie in the new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum shows the Lusitania in the River Mersey shortly before the First World War.

A 1:6000 scale model depicts the Mauretania at the Princes Landing Stage in 1911 (pictured). Among other ships on the river are tugs, a paddle steamer, ferry boats and fishing craft.

Mauretania captured the coveted Blue Riband (westerly) in September 1909 when she crossed the Atlantic at an average speed of 26.06 knots – a record which lasted 20 years.

She served as both a troopship and hospital ship during the First World War before resuming passenger services. Mauretania was scrapped in 1935.

There's more on the Lusitania, including items recovered from the ship, on our main site.

Maritime Archvies has also put together an information sheet on the Lusitania. There are also sheets on the great transatlantic liners and the Cunard Line. 

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My great aunt married as a very young teenager in Malta (this was 100 years ago).

The child bride later settled in Knotty Ash after giving birth to three children in quick succession nicknamed Boy, Girl and Baby.

Girl became a GI bride in the Second World War and emigrated to the US with her new husband, leaving Boy and Baby behind. Years passed and Girl wrote to say she was coming home to Liverpool for a visit.

Boy and Baby and their families went to meet her at the Princes Landing Stage but when she came down the gangplank no-one recognised her. Girl had totally changed her appearance – and spoke with a strong American accent.

It is many people’s dream in the crowded cities of Europe to escape to the wide-open spaces of North America and enjoy a much-improved standard of living.

By the early 19th century Liverpool was well-placed to cater for the huge growth of the emigration trade to the United States and Canada.

As a result, Liverpool became Britain’s most important international passenger port for more than a century. During the period 1830 -1930 Liverpool was probably the greatest emigration port in world history, handling a stunning nine million passengers from as far away as Russia.

It was not until 1927, when transatlantic emigration was in decline, that Southampton finally surpassed Liverpool for international passenger traffic.

Liverpool-based shipping companies ran regular passenger services to every continent until the 1960s.

There are many displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum focusing on Liverpool’s passenger ships. An Illustrated London News image (pictured) depicts a Cunard ship leaving Liverpool in 1881. A photograph shows either the Cunard liner Carmania (or her sister Caronia) at the Princes Landing Stage on 2 June 1923.

Between 1800 and the1920s the busiest ocean travel route in the world was between the British Isles and North America.

From 1850 many emigrants also headed for Australia and other British colonies around the world. From 1900 more and more people became tourists and travelled the seas for pleasure rather than necessity.

In recent years, business and holidaymaking have been the main reasons for travel. A map shows the sea routes taken by British migrants between 1815 and 1930.

As a child in I remember people queuing up at New Zealand House in Liverpool for their £10 tickets to new lives. My friends, who lived next-door-but-one to me, took this huge step in 1958 and I remember everybody waving them off as the headed for Southampton.

Our Maritime Archives department has produced an information sheet for people wanting to learn more about Emigration to USA and Canada. The sheet gives a brief history of the route, information on searching for people who travelled, details of the shipping companies involved and the records we hold on those firms.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I sometimes go to postcard fairs and join the throngs of people leafing through piles of illustrated epistles mailed long ago with every sort of message and greeting. Each stall has cards sorted into themes and one of my favourites is ships and shipping. Recently I bought this card showing the Republic. I added it to my collection simply because I liked it, only later discovering the unique role this vessel once played.

One hundred years ago radio technology pioneered by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi and others became reality in saving lives at sea.

Two significant centenaries are being celebrated in 2009 – the first radio sea rescue and the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Marconi and Karl Ferdinand Braun for their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy.

In the early hours of 23 January 1909 the 15,378-ton passenger liner Republic, owned by the Liverpool-based White Star Line, was steaming from New York to the Mediterranean with 742 passengers and crew. She entered thick fog off Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, and sounded her whistle 

Suddenly another whistle was heard directly in front of the ship. Republic’s engines were quickly thrown into reverse and her helm swung hard-a-port but then a ship’s bow loomed out of the fog and sliced into the Republic amidships.

As water poured into the disabled Republic’s engine and boiler rooms, radio operator Jack Binns wired his new Marconi set with backup batteries and sent out a distress signal using Morse Code – CQD, later replaced in popularity by SOS.

CQD is understood by wireless operators to mean All Stations: Distress (not Come Quick, Danger as is often thought).

The call was relayed to all ships in the area but the first ship on the scene was the Lloyd Italiano liner Florida – the ship that had crashed into the Republic. Passengers were transferred to the Florida, which was in no danger of sinking. Attempts by the captain and some crew members to save the Republic failed and she sank the day after the collision.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery there are many Titanic-linked exhibits including the 20 ft long original builder’s model used to publicise the ship.

Both CQD and SOS were used by wireless operator Jack Phillips as the ship went down but it is a popular myth that this was the first time SOS was used. Phillips, who did not survive, and junior operator Harold Bride, who did, were employed by the Marconi International Marine Communication Company.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

When I started work in 1966 on the Crosby Herald as a junior journalist the big local story was the container terminal planned for the north end of Liverpool docks.

There were protests from local residents who feared the area would be ruined by this new dock – now the Liverpool Freeport. Most of the opposition was on environmental grounds – little did people know how radically the port would be transformed by this project.

Models of the Inventor (shown) and Atlantic Causeway stand next to each other in the new Liverpool: World Gateway gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum. The two ships were only built five years apart but they symbolised a seismic change in the way cargo was carried as container ships took over.

The Inventor, built in 1964, was one of four heavy-lift cargo liners built for the Harrison Line. With their 180-ton lifting capacity derricks, these ships were built to carry machinery to developing countries.

The sudden rise of Roll On, Roll Off (RORO) ships and containerisation, plus changing trade patterns, shortened the lives of many ships like Inventor. In 1981 she was sold to Singaporean owners, renamed Penta World and scrapped in 1985.

Cargo containers had their origins in the 1780s carrying coal on canals and the first standardised container was introduced in the 1920s. The first purpose-built container ships started operating in Denmark in 1951. Over the following decades more and more operators adopted the system until by 1970 it was unstoppable.

The 15,000-ton Atlantic Causeway was a RORO container ship built in 1969 by Swan Hunter at Wallsend-on-Tyne.

In 1966 five major European shipping companies, including Cunard, joined together to form ACL. Their aim was to share the huge costs involved in building and operating a fleet of RORO container ships trading between Europe and North America.

For more than 30 years ACL, now based in Norway but with offices in Liverpool, has been a giant in the North Atlantic trade. Its ships still visit Liverpool every week and continue to dominate ports vital to the North Atlantic trade.

Atlantic Causeway and her younger sister Atlantic Conveyor were owned by Cunard, managed by Cunard Brocklebank and hired by ACL. In 1982 both ships were converted to carry aircraft and serve in the Falklands War. Conveyor was sunk after being hit by two Argentine Exocet missiles with the loss of 12 lives. Causeway returned home safely having played an important part in supporting the British Task Force.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

The impact of the slave trade on Africa was profound as it blighted progress in all aspects of life on the continent for many generations.

The transatlantic slave trade operated for almost 400 years, fuelled by Europe’s almost insatiable desire for sugar, cotton, tobacco and other products of the New World which were then regarded as luxuries.

Liverpool ships were a key part of the trade and the town became Europe’s leading slaving port in the second half of the 18th century.

At least 12 million Africans were forcibly transported by Britain and other countries but many millions more were profoundly affected. The transatlantic slave trade destroyed African societies, robbing them of young people.

A staggering two-thirds of enslaved people were young men aged between 15 and 25. They were in huge demand to work the booming plantations producing ever-growing quantities of crops.

Arms and ammunition brought to Africa by European traders helped perpetrate conflict and political instability.

Displays at the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, focus on the consequences of the trade on Africa.

Successful trade routes that existed before European intervention were disrupted. The development of African communities and cultures was severely stunted. Agriculture suffered as communities abandoned fertile land as they fled the long reach of the European slavers.

The labour and inventiveness of enslaved peoples shaped the Americas and enriched Western European, rather than their African homelands.

On display is a lithograph featuring ships on the 1841 Niger Expedition (pictured). Thomas Fowell Buxton was leader of the British anti-slavery movement in the post-slave trade era.

He urged the British government to make treaties with African leaders to abolish the slave trade. The expedition went to the Niger River delta to set up a headquarters and began negotiations. The party suffered so many deaths from disease that they had to return home.

There is a half model of the Balmore, bought by John Holt & Co in 1908. The Holt family was involved in the West Africa trade from the 1860s.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

We would drive around Liverpool in a mini chasing news – two six footers crammed in the tiny car.

Stephen Shakeshaft was already an established staff photographer at the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo in Victoria Street when I joined as a news reporter in April 1970.

Even as a young man he was very distinguished-looking, tall with an aristocratic nose and an excellent head of hair (which he still has). Stephen was also very funny ha-ha, veering between droll comments and biting sarcasm. We got on well and often traded insults.

It was obvious that he was a rising star among some other very talented people in the office including John Sergeant, Tony Wilson and Roger Alton.

This is not to mention others making their mark such as Phil Key and a youthful, pipe-smoking Joe Riley. I worked with them all until September 1973 when I joined the Press Association in Fleet Street.

Stephen sometimes gave the impression of being rather cautious and methodical. This was deceptive as I could see he was always looking out for a good picture.

I have never seen him at a loss or flustered in any way. I think he may have sometimes regarded his day-to-day work as unchallenging – such things as head-the-ball shots at soccer matches, people scurrying out of the criminal courts or competition winners.

Stephen always poked behind the scenes for gold and about 70 of these largely hidden treasures are on view in his new exhibition Stephen Shakeshaft: Liverpool People at the National Conservation Centre until 24 January 2010.

I find this show totally and utterly fascinating. These brilliant studies capture a Liverpool going through great change from the 1960s onwards.

This is the third of Stephen’s exhibitions I have helped to publicise. I think it is the best because it demonstrates his great ability to capture the personalities of ordinary people.

He has also recorded some of the city streets as they were before pedestrianisation, CCTV, pelican crossings and hideous steel shutters.

This is a world before superstores sucked the life out of our corner shops and closed local pubs, where most people got around on shanks’s pony or took public transport.

To me the pictures evoke a time when people enjoyed mucking in together and laughing at the experience.

I also remember some of the people in the pictures. One of my favourites is this famous shot of greengrocer Lizzie Christian at her city centre barrow (shown). Mrs Christian always had a ready smile for everyone, lighting up the street around her.

Other pictures I like include a crowded wash house which was a great place for exchanging news, Prime Minister Harold Wilson at a packed public meeting and two dockers with a traditional wooden handcart.

I met the late Lord Sefton (1898 – 1972) several times walking around his country estate with his dogs in West Derby when I was a child out with my father. The 7th Earl was the last of the mighty Molyneux family who dominated Liverpool for centuries until merchants successfully challenged their power. After that they more or less retreated to their estates. I am involved in preserving their memory on the committee of the Friends of Croxteth Hall and Country Park supporting Liverpool’s own stately home.

Liverpool remained virtually the same size for hundreds of years – seven streets dominated by its medieval castle. For the first time the town started to grow quickly – and it was all down to ships bringing trade and prosperity in their wake. After the Civil War, when Charles I lost his crown and his head, big changes started happening in the growing port. The townspeople rebuilt their homes and their livelihoods while incoming entrepreneurs encouraged the expansion of trade.

A small group of wealthy merchants became the most important citizens and started to dominate the borough, setting a pattern that would continue into modern times. They believed Liverpool’s future success depended on its political freedom. The merchants resisted the influence of the nobility and landed gentry with few interests in trade. They refused to elect the local landowner Sir Edward Moore as either Mayor or the town’s MP in 1660. In 1668 they challenged Viscount Molyneux’s rights to land close to Liverpool. Their victory over him in 1672 gave the borough a large rental income.

The Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum charts the exciting early growth of Liverpool and beyond. Confidence increased with success. Many wanted a more open style of local government and in 1695 they secured from William III a charter establishing Liverpool Corporation. This new civic authority confirmed the merchant elite’s power. The first imports of American tobacco arrived in Liverpool in 1648 and the first sugar from Barbados in 1666.

In order to raise the £12,000 (£1.4 million today) needed to build the first dock in 1715, the merchants who controlled Liverpool Corporation mortgaged the whole town.

In 1799 alone Liverpool ships transported more than 45,000 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic. Between 1801 and 1901 Liverpool’s population mushroomed from 77,693 to 685,000 – an increase of almost 800%. An 1847 print (pictured) shows St George’s and Albert Docks on the busy waterfront as Liverpool boomed.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Some years ago I took my father to the Old Head of Kinsale in Ireland where we stayed in a remote hotel with superb views over the Irish Sea. Underneath the choppy, sunlit waters lay the twisted wreck of the Lusitania. Dad felt particularly sad because one of his earliest memories was seeing a mob attack a German baker’s shop in Liverpool after the sinking.

The destruction of the Cunard luxury liner by a German U-boat submarine sent shock waves around the world.

The disaster was one of the most horrific incidents at sea during the First World War (1914 – 18) and came as the ship was heading for Liverpool, a port where she was much-loved.

She was sent to the bottom on a bright sunny day. Early that year the German government declared that all Allied ships would be in danger of attack in British waters. Lusitania sailed from New York on 1 May 1915 with 1,962 people of board.

At 2.10 pm on 7 May the liner was struck by a torpedo fired by U-20. It blew a massive hole in Lusitania’s side and she sank in less than 20 minutes with the loss of 1,201 lives.

The sinking of this unarmed passenger ship caused international outrage and there were riots in Liverpool, London and other cities around the world.

The German government claimed that Lusitania was carrying military supplies and there is some evidence to support this. However, British and American inquiries later declared the sinking to be unlawful.

This event devastated the tightly-knit dockland communities in north Liverpool where most of Lusitania’s crew lived. A total of 404 crew members died, including many Liverpool Irish seamen.

A photo on display (pictured) shows Staff Captain James Clarke Anderson, the most senior Lusitania officer to die in the sinking. His body was returned to Liverpool and buried in Longmoor Lane Cemetery, Fazakerley.

The fascinating exhibition Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress at Merseyside Maritime Museum looks at the tragedy. There are a number of items from the ship with stories behind them

There is a lifebuoy from the Lusitania – a rare survivor of the sinking.

Captain William Turner, from Crosby, survived after struggling for three hours in the sea. The British government tried to blame him for loss of his ship but he was cleared of any wrong-doing by the official inquiry. A picture on display shows him on deck.

The Maritime Archives and Library also hold a lot of relevant material about the Lusitania. You can read more online with information sheet number 42: RMS Lusitania.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I admit to being wary of catching infections and take the precaution of washing my hands whenever possible. Other useful safeguards are adding disinfectant to the bath water and gargling with mouthwash. It was impressed on me at a very early age the awful things you can catch – especially when travelling. I caught TB as a child but threw it off – a natural immunity, I was told later.

Passengers and crews of ships have always feared outbreaks of contagious diseases that could sweep through vessels like wildfire, affecting everybody’s safety and wellbeing. The words typhus, cholera, yellow fever, smallpox and plague were enough to chill the bones of the most seasoned traveller.

It was the same on shore when epidemics swept through crowded poorly-housed communities, killing old and young alike. But on land you could at least get away to somewhere healthy – not an option on a crowded ship where there was no escape.

There is still the ever-present threat of contagions being brought into Britain. Cargoes which might carry disease are handed over to Government officials. They may be placed in isolation or quarantine for further investigation.

Historically, Customs officers played a vital role in preventing the spread of contagious diseases. This is illustrated in a display in the exciting new exhibition, Seized: Revenue and Customs Uncovered at Merseyside Maritime Museum. A photo shows a ship’s crew members being inspected by Liverpool’s medical officer around 1925 (pictured).

A painting called A Revenue Cutter on the Clyde by Robert Salmon (1826) depicts the cutter approaching a newly-arrived vessel to check for diseases. The cutter flies a signal flag from the mast which asks: “Are you healthy?”

In the 19th century the arrival of migrants in the UK brought the danger of contagious diseases. A ship’s master was required by Customs officers to swear on the Bible as to the condition of his ship. If it was healthy, he would be issued with a certificate and cleared to enter port.

A photo shows a young smallpox sufferer covered with pustules, particularly on her face, hands and arms. Smallpox was a scourge which killed and disfigured countless people over the ages - in the 20th century alone up to 500 million died from it.

There have been more than 100 disease outbreaks associated with ships since 1970, according to the World Health Organisation. Today the main infections associated with ships are gastrointestinal and Legionnaires’ diseases.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

I always relish the anticipation of travelling – it is enjoyable to plan your journey and visualise what you will see and do. It is wonderful that many people can now travel relatively cheaply for pleasure. Once people stayed put and only journeyed out of absolute necessity.

In the early days of mass emigration many travellers probably thought of their approaching voyages with dread. It was often an exhausting ordeal just getting to your embarkation port and successfully boarding a ship.

Emigration was boosted by steamship development and by the 1870s most emigrants travelled this way rather than by sail. Steam power at sea – like the railways on land – made journeys quicker and also led to regular reliable timetable services. No longer did passengers have to cope with many delays mostly caused by bad weather.

In the second half of the 19th century, shipping companies such as White Star, Cunard, Allan, Inman, Guion and National ran regular services out of Liverpool. They took trade from the American sailing packet services, bringing money and business to the port. Importantly for the benefit of emigrants, they brought competition. Fares and charges were driven down as the shipping companies fought to attract business.

Publicity was often focused on First Class as the liners developed and became more luxurious. However, emigrant passengers provided the bread-and-butter profits for the shipping companies.

In the winter some rooms were now heated, unheard of in the days of wooden sailing ships where accommodation was invariably cold and wet.

On shore, appalling conditions experienced by emigrants gave cause for concern and moves were made to relieve their plight.

In the new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a contemporary print of a Government-funded emigration depot (pictured). It was opened in Birkenhead in 1852 for British emigrants heading for Australia. The depot provided meals, warm shelter and safety until its closure in 1868 when general conditions for emigrants had improved.

The accommodation which the depot offered helped to increase sailings from Liverpool and shipowners competed for lucrative Government contracts. In the depot you had to behave and follow the rules.

Liverpool-based Thomas Ismay’s White Star Line (Oceanic Steam Navigation Company) become one of the major transatlantic emigration operators which later built the Titanic.

On display are several items which saw daily use on emigrant ships. There are large coffee and tea pots embossed with the famous White Star flag. A soup ladle was made for the Guion Line in 1871.

Our Maritime Archives and Library have information on firms involved in emigration. There's more on the experiences of emigrants in our 'Leaving from Liverpool' feature.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

The Beatles’ song 'Being for the benefit of Mr Kite' is particularly evocative for me because of the seaside fairground memories it conjures up. I think the organ sounds create images of garish 1950s roundabouts and hot dog stands. John Lennon’s words were inspired by a 19th century poster but the musical arrangement is pure New Brighton.

John would have visited Liverpool’s own seaside resort on a ferry across the Mersey where his senses would have been bombarded with the sights, sounds and smells of the fairground surrounding the Tower Ballroom.

The Beatles sang about Mr Kite challenging the world with his act featuring acrobats, the Hendersons, leaping through “a hogshead of real fire”.

A tobacco hogshead on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum (pictured) makes you appreciate the bravery of the Hendersons.

This huge round barrel is more than four feet tall and about the same diameter. It was found in the Albert Dock warehouses – now housing the museum – where tobacco was stored on arrival (there's more on the history of the dock and it's warehouses on our main site).

Although today most goods within Britain travel by road and rail, ships carry some cargoes between British ports. In particular, it can be more convenient and profitable to use ships for goods carried in large quantities such as petrol and aviation fuel.

Two hundred years ago, before proper roads and railways, it was often easier and cheaper to carry goods by sea or on rivers and canals.

There are exhibition models of coastal vessels in the museum’s Life at Sea gallery. The three-masted Liberty and Property was built in Whitby in 1752.

One of the largest coastal trades in the 1700s and 1800s was carrying coals from Newcastle and other ports in the north east of England to London. The expression “Carrying coals to Newcastle” means a pointless action. There was a huge demand for coal in London and south east England, mainly as a household fuel.

A modern coastal vessel is the Mersey Fisher which was added to the fleet of James Fisher & Co in 1998. She carries liquid petrochemicals to ports in the UK and north west Europe. The model was commissioned with the generous support of the Sir John Fisher Foundation as a reminder of the firm’s long association with the port of Liverpool.

Among the museum’s ship collection housed on the Historic Quaysides is the De Wadden, an auxiliary schooner based in Arklow, Eire, from 1921 to 1961. She was the last sailing ship to trade in and out of the Mersey.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I prefer the cold to the heat – at least you can usually escape into the warmth when temperatures plunge. It is more difficult to get away from excessive heat. However, those who were on the Arctic convoys in the Second World War endured the dual hardships of battling both the enemy and the cold.

More than 100 Allied merchant ships on Arctic Ocean convoys were sent to the bottom by the Germans during a four-year period. Between June 1941 and May 1945 one in every 20 Allied ships (a total of 104) sailing to and from north Russia was sunk.

These figures are comparable with the worst annual sinking rates for 1942 for the much more numerous North Atlantic convoys during the war. The cost of the Russian convoys to the Royal Navy was also high. Among the 22 ships it lost were the cruisers Edinburgh and Trinidad. The German navy lost four surface warships and 31 U-boat submarines.

On both sides casualty rates among crews were often even higher than in the Atlantic due to the bitterly cold Arctic weather. In mid-September 1942 the strongly-protected convoy PQ18 lost one third of its merchant ships (13 out of 39) to German aircraft and U-boats.

Just two months earlier the disastrous PQ17 had lost two-thirds (24 out of 35). The main damage to both convoys had been caused by aircraft. The switching of many of these aircraft to other theatres of war led to much lower losses on later Arctic convoys.

On display in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum is a picture showing a convoy PQ18 ammunition ship exploding after being attacked by aircraft.

There are wartime mementos of Liverpool-born Captain Henry Saalmans OBE (pictured). He was master of the 3,000-ton Empire Bard which sailed in convoy to Russia in March 1942.

After surviving heavy air attacks, Empire Bard arrived at Murmansk on 6 May. For the next 10 months, in the absence of cargo-handling equipment on shore, she used her own deck cranes to help Allied merchant ships to unload their cargoes.

By the end of her stay in Murmansk, despite being damaged several times by air attacks, she had handled a mammoth 27,000 tons of war supplies for Russia. Captain Saalmans was awarded the Order of the British Empire and the Lloyd’s War medal for his efforts.

Exhibits include these medals along with his sheepskin coat lining worn on Arctic convoys.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

When I was at primary school in the 1950s we used to enjoy singing the popular Smugglers’ Song with words by Rudyard Kipling:

Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark –
Brandy for the Parson,
Tobacco for the Clerk:
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
And watch the wall my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodpile if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy wine;
Don’t you shout to come and look, nor take them for your play;
Put the brushwood back again – and they’ll be gone next day!

It is a song that races along but embraces a popular myth masking the brutal reality behind smuggling. It is true that gangs of smugglers operated right along the coast with whole communities involved.

However, sickening violence could be used by smugglers driven by greed, poverty and lack of employment. Customs men often assisted by soldiers, used counter-measures which were both brutal and harsh, including the death penalty.

It was not until the 1840s with the introduction of free trade and the reduction of excise duties that smuggling was reduced.

The Hawkhurst Gang of Sussex smugglers was notoriously violent in the era of highwaymen and pirates. In 1748 gang member Daniel Chater was arrested by Customs officer William Galley and turned informer.

When both men were captured by other members of the gang Galley was beaten, tied to his horse and had his nose cut off. Chater was hung down a well and stoned to death.

The stark reality of the lives of smugglers past and present is revealed in the new Merseyside Maritime Museum gallery Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered.

On display in Seized is a contemporary print showing the two men hung upside down while they are whipped by gang members. Another shows Chater being thrust down the well.

In 1785 it was discovered that most of the fishing fleet in Deal, Kent, was involved in smuggling. The fishermen were desperate to earn a living. Every vessel was burnt to ashes on the orders of the Prime Minister William Pitt, who was just 26.

Exhibits include weapons used by smugglers and Customs officers – a blunderbuss, musket, pistols, swords and cutlasses. You can see some of them here.

A smugglers’ lantern has a spout which directed a beam of light to avoid detection. A sinking stone was used to secure smuggled casks to the seabed while a grappling hook was used by smugglers to retrieve their contraband. 

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

One of my older relatives used to joke that you should not bathe too often because hot water removes the skin’s natural oils. I’m all for keeping clean but some people overdo it and this can be very wasteful in a world that needs water.

However, I would not like to go on a long journey without having the opportunity to bathe but this was hardly the situation on most passenger ships in Victorian times, for example.

Competition to capture business during the emigration boom through Liverpool spurred shipping companies to create better facilities for travellers.

The arrival of large steam liners meant that services could keep to publicised timetables and schedules. This was a huge improvement on sailing ships which were at the mercy of wind and weather.

Cunard’s transatlantic passenger liner Gallia of 1879 was a beautiful ship built during the transitory period when steam was still supplemented by sail.

There is a superb builder’s-style model of the Gallia in the new emigrants’ gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum (pictured).

The 430-foot long Gallia was one of the steamships that brought new standards of safety and comfort to the North Atlantic emigrant trade. She spent most of her career on the Liverpool to New York and Boston run.

Gallia could carry 300 first class passengers in luxurious (for the time) two-berth cabins plus 1,200 steerage (third class) passengers along with 2,000 tons of cargo.

She had both engines and sails and her captain used sail whenever possible. Two new features were an improved main saloon which took up the full 42 feet of the ship’s width along with steam-powered steering.

Despite all these luxuries and improvements, Gallia was fitted with only two baths for the entire ship. You can read more on SS Gallia on our main site.

About nine million people emigrated through Liverpool in the period 1830 to 1930 making it probably the biggest emigration port in world history.

Few of these emigrants, who came from many parts of northern Europe including Russia, recorded their experiences in Liverpool.

Dirk van den Bergh and his large family emigrated from Holland, via Liverpool, to Canada in 1906. He wrote a diary about his journey - audio extracts are available for museum visitors to listen to, or you can listen to some here.

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Dirk writes: “We went into the centre of Liverpool – what a busy place and what traffic! If you could imagine Liverpool without fog and smoke it would be really impressive city. It streams with many emigrants.”

There is more on the emigrant experience in our Leaving From Liverpool online feature.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Great vanished buildings always hold a certain mystique and the Liverpool Custom House was one I would have loved to explore.

There are many pictures of the exterior of this huge H-shaped structure crowned with a dome but I have yet to see any of the interior. In its prime this was one of the busiest places in the port with people beavering away and rushing hither and thither.

The Custom House was damaged in the May 1941 Blitz and later demolished – although many believe it could have been saved.

On display in the new Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a large contemporary wooden model of the Custom House, built in 1837 from a design by John Foster Junior (circa 1787 - 1846).

Trade brings profits and those who do business through ports have to pay the appropriate duties and taxes on many items that are imported.

From the 1700s Britain’s trade with the rest of the world grew hugely. It fell to Customs officers to control it and protect the revenue so that the Government got its share.

On the quaysides and in the warehouses of Liverpool and every other port, amid the hustle and bustle of unloading ships and moving cargoes, the Customs officers went about their daily business.

Each man had a special job. For example, front line officers known as tide waiters met each incoming vessel and stayed with it until the cargo was unloaded. Some weighed and measured cargoes while others toiled at paper work in the Custom House.

Custom Houses were once the hub of every port. They were run by the comptroller who had immense power. He could prevent ships from unloading their cargoes or leaving port.

The Long Room was the heart of his domain where captains arrived from months at sea to present their paperwork to bench officers who made out a warrant and copied out six extracts. These were then sent to six different colleagues elsewhere in the building.

On display is a fascinating aerial view of the Custom House taken around 1935 (pictured). It shows the Overhead Railway station outside the entrance so that Customs officers on foot had fast and easy access to all the Liverpool docks.

An enamelled notice from about 1909 declares: “The Commissioners of His Majesty’s Customs and Excise hereby give notice that spitting is strictly prohibited in all parts of this building. By order.”

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My ancestor Henry Guy was one of many Liverpool shipwrights in 18th century Liverpool where life was often short and hard. Henry, of Peters Alley, died in 1763 aged 35, just six weeks after his wife Jane. They had been married for 13 years.

I think it is very difficult for us to imagine how hard life could be for people of those days. The poor struggled to survive – the rich may have had more comfortable lives but mortality was high among all sections of the community.

With so much activity on the docks in the 19th century shipbuilding, repair and supply became important local industries.

We have recently seen the resurgence of the former Cammell Laird’s yard in Birkenhead securing big Royal Navy contracts for ship repairs and renovations.

Until the 1860s wooden sailing ships and clippers were built in Liverpool’s Kings and Brunswick Docks. From this time onwards, the Mersey Dock and Harbour Board took measures to concentrate shipbuilding around Birkenhead.

Liverpool concentrated on repairing ships between voyages and this employed up to 20,000 people. Thousands more worked to supply the many items necessary for successful voyages – from ropes, flags and sails to brass fittings, telegraphs, tableware and kitchen equipment.

Laird’s yard in Birkenhead dominated shipbuilding on Merseyside by 1900. It built many great warships and liners including Cunard’s Mauretania II in 1939 (you can zoom into a photo of the launch on our main site) and Union Castle Line’s Windsor Castle (1955).

On display at the Magical History Tour exhibition in Merseyside Maritime Museum is a sailmaker’s tool kit in use with the Alexandra Towing Company until 1984.

It includes:

• Needles of various sizes for different jobs.
• Cord and twine for sewing seams and bolt ropes. (Bolt ropes are the ropes around the edges of awnings and sails.)
• Beeswax to waterproof the twine, making it easier to use when sewing.

The tool kit was stored in its own bag which was custom-made from sail canvas.

A Liverpool Shipbuilding Co brass tally dates from 1855. Nearly all shipbuilding and repair work was casual and workers were taken on only as required. However, some companies would give favoured workers such tallies so they could get work more frequently.

The Liverpool Shipbuilding Co (formerly Jones, Quiggin & Co) was one of dozens of companies in mid-19th century Liverpool building wooden ships.

There is a 1935 advertisement for J W Pickering & Sons, ship repairers. This was one of many small companies operating from graving docks scattered across Liverpool’s dock estate.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have always been interested in the Anglo Saxons who dominated England before the coming of the Normans and it’s astonishing how long they ruled. The great Anglo Saxon historian Bede said that his people were descended from three Germanic tribes – the Angles, Saxons and Jutes.They migrated from northern Germany and Scandinavia from the 5th century onwards, seeking better lives in the fertile lands of England. They subdued the native people, the Celts.

At one time it was thought that the Celts literally fled to the hills and moors to form distinct Welsh, Scottish and Cornish peoples. However, most historians now agree that the native Celts were assimilated into the new Anglo Saxon kingdoms from 400 onwards. These lasted around 600 years until William of Normandy invaded England and defeated the last Anglo Saxon king, Harold II, at the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

This Sunday 19 July 2009 from 11am to 4pm visitors have a chance to meet the nearest you will get to a real Anglo Saxon, at an exciting free event called 'Clues from the Grave' at World Museum Liverpool. Part of the Festival of British Archaeology, it features a group of Anglo-Saxons carrying out a burial in the museum’s Weston Discovery Centre.

You can find out what the clues in the grave tell us about the lives of people who lived in England more than 1,000 years ago. Visitors can also discover how these ancient peoples used leeches, what they ate, their clothes, weapons and much more.

I met two of the Anglo Saxon enthusiasts when we did a media photo opportunity to promote the event. Linda and Sonnie Raee, of Wallasey, are pictured at the museum entrance. They are wearing authentic Anglo-Saxon style clothes and carrying weapons essential in those far-off days. Sonnie says: “Clues from the Grave gives an insight into the world of the Anglo Saxons. Visitors get a sense of what it was like to live in a very different England.”

My ancestors probably came over with William the Conqueror and I wonder what they made of their new home – the most beautiful islands on earth. I love the names of those long-gone Anglo Saxon kings – Egbert, Aethelwulf, Ethelred (the Unready) and Eadwig along with the more familiar Alfred, Edward, Edmund and Harold. It is a joy to occasionally come across people with ancient names in our own time.

I’m a great admirer of beautiful ships but in the tough realm of trading it also helps to be practical and economical.

In the shipping world, like any other commercial enterprise, you have to be competitive – there is no sentiment in business and profits literally keep ships afloat.

The steamship America was a stunningly lovely ship, as a 1:48 scale model in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s new emigrant gallery clearly demonstrates.

This is my favourite ship model in the museum, displaying the graceful lines of the America to perfection. Her two black and white funnels are finely proportioned and tiny detailing such as individual deck planking adds an air of reality. The remarkably-detailed figurehead shows a woman in flowing white robes.

Perhaps the America was too good for the work she had to carry out – a transatlantic passenger liner with the Liverpool shipping company, National Line. The 5,528-ton America was built in 1884 for National by J and G Thomson of Clydebank. Her owners hoped she would be faster than any of her rivals in the highly-competitive north Atlantic passenger trade. The 442 ft long liner was powered by 9,000 hp engines and could travel at 18 knots.

On her first voyage between New York and Liverpool she made a record crossing of six days, 14 hours and 18 minutes. As is so often the case, her moment of glory was soon eclipsed and the record was beaten by other vessels on the route.

America was an elegant ship looking like a very large steam yacht. However, her large coal consumption and high fares made her too expensive for the north Atlantic with its cut-throat competitiveness.

Just three years after being built the America was sold to the Italian Government, renamed Trinacria and was used by the Italian Navy. She was scrapped in 1925. There is more on the SS America on our main website.

Another model of a J and G Thomson ship is on the gallery - the Friesland (more on that ship on our main site). However, she was a profitable ship that saw many years of service on the north Atlantic. Friesland was built in 1889 for the Red Star Line’s Antwerp to New York passenger trade which she served until 1903.

Red Star was eventually absorbed into American financier J Pierpont Morgan’s International Mercantile Marine along with White Star, Dominion, Leyland and Atlantic Transport Co shipping lines.

The International Mercantile Marine was set up in an attempt to monopolise the North Atlantic shipping trades.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I like to think that the courtesies of life can be observed in even the most challenging situations so this particular story is very appealing to me. A pair of threadbare khaki trousers stand testimony to a compassionate wartime gesture after a German U-boat submarine sank a British ship.

On display in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum, the overall trousers belonged to a crew member on U-41.

They were given to James Kearon, of Arklow, Eire, a crew member of the steamship Darino of Liverpool after she was sunk off Spain in November 1939. He was one of 11 survivors who were taken on board the U-boat for three days before being transferred to an Italian ship bound for England.

Sadly, such acts of humanity by captains were forbidden by U-boat command later in the war.

In the late 1930s Karl Donitz, officer commanding U-boats, had estimated that Germany would need at least 300 U-boats in the event of war with Britain. In September 1939, however, Germany had just 57 subs with less than half having the range to operate in the Atlantic.

Until early 1945 all the German U-boats were based on First World War designs. By this time more than half (704) were of the Type VII (pictured) or its variants, the largest class of warships ever built in numerical terms.

Together with the larger Type IX, the Type VII Atlantic boats spearheaded Germany’s war at sea. The diesel–electric type VII was designed as a submersible, ocean-going torpedo boat.

In its original form it was only some 218 ft long with a displacement of 745 tons. This small size made it manoeuvrable and difficult to locate.

The Type VII had a fast surface speed of 16 – 17 knots, submerging in just 30 seconds. Its average range was more than 4,000 miles making it well-suited to ocean-going operations. Until mid-1943 these subs enjoyed remarkable successes in the Atlantic campaign.

Up to June 1940, U-boat operations in the Atlantic were limited because no more than 10 boats were usually available at any one time. Faulty torpedoes and the withdrawal of some boats to support operations in Norway were other handicaps.

German High Command, fearing American entry into the war, also placed strict limits on U-boat activities. Despite this, U-boats sank more than 200 British, Allied and neutral ships in the Atlantic during this period at the rate of 22 per month.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My perfect cup of tea is made from loose leaves spooned carefully into a warm teapot before being drenched with water just off the boil. I’m interested in all aspects of the quest to make the perfect brew. This is mission impossible because what makes a great cuppa is very subjective. My grandmother hated weak tea, calling it maiden’s water.

Entrepreneur Robert Crawford Johnson discovered how to avoid spilling your tea while on board ship – he invented a square teapot that would not tip over. For years designers had wracked their brains to create the ideal teapot for sea travel. What was needed was one that didn’t drip the golden nectar when poured, would not overturn in rough weather and could be easily stored without chipping the spout. Rather than change the whole design, other designers concentrated on one of these defects in their endeavours.By creating a square teapot with the spout neatly tucked away in a corner, Johnson solved all the problems at once.

He registered his Cube Teapot in 1917 but it was not put into production until 1920. Some other companies decided to muscle in on Johnson’s brainchild by producing similar pots which were not under licence. Johnson hit back by forming Cube Teapots Ltd in 1925 under an Accept No Imitations marketing banner. Sales stunts included a “living window display” featuring a lady pouring the perfect cup of tea from a Cube Teapot.

Square teapots were adopted by major shipping companies such as Cunard. There are several featured in displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum – they were used on the Queen Mary and earlier Cunard ships. Plant’s Bird of Paradise pattern dates from the 1920s. It was mixed freely with the Pink Rose pattern (pictured) on ships such as the Aquitania, Mauretania and Ausonia II.The designs were still in use on the Queen Elizabeth 2 at late as 1968 although the pattern and manufacturers changed over the years.

The Queen Mary was the first British liner to embrace the Art Deco style embodied in ivory-coloured tableware with touches of golden brown, grey and black. Jewish passengers were catered for with a kosher kitchen and separate crockery. A kosher coffee cup and saucer are inscribed “meat” in English and Hebrew.

In the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery can be seen a First Class china coffee cup and saucer of the same design used on Titanic.

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A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

I believe the attraction of sea travel will continue to grow because there is one priceless thing that crossing the waves gives you – time. Once on board ship you are largely cut off from the rest of the world which to me is great news. There are no phones ringing, texts or e-mails demanding responses or friends and relatives calling.

I think it is pointless to answer mobiles or emails when travelling – nothing is so urgent that it can’t wait until the end of the voyage.
 
Shipping companies involved in the emigrant trade, such as Cunard and White Star, made their biggest profits from large numbers of steerage or third class passengers who were packed into dormitories.

The luxury first class side of the business was often seen as a marketing tool – glamorous, wealthy passengers gave ships such as Titanic and Lusitania a glittering aura which persists to this day.

People seeking a new life made up the bulk of passengers on liners 100 years ago. Others were travelling on business – very few people travelled for pleasure, as is the case now. The reason was that the liners, in the days before cheap air travel, were the only way large numbers of people could get overseas.

In the heyday of emigration by sea, in the years up to the First World War, even third class passengers enjoyed a relatively relaxing crossing. They had comfortable bunks, decent washing facilities and excellent wholesome food.

However, travel was a very different experience for wealthy people who were emigrating or moving to British territories overseas either for business reasons or in service of the Crown.

Before boarding ship, their domestic servants packed and organised the luggage, leaving their employers to enjoy the attractions of Liverpool. Once on board, rich people travelled in style.

Exhibits in the new emigrants’ gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum include a photo of the first class dining room on the Cunard liner Carmania about 1913 (pictured here).

The opulent surroundings include potted palms, starched white damask napkins neatly arranged in place settings and beautiful display cabinets – all under ornate plaster ceilings supported by fluted columns.

On display is the ultimate luxury accessory – a pair of grape scissors used on Allan Line ships about 1900. Elegant ladies and gentlemen did not pull grapes out of the bunch as the juice might squirt over their gloves, gowns or shirts. Instead, they neatly snipped the stalks then languidly nibbled the fruit.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Two of my ancestors, John Guy (1731 – 1792) and his younger brother Peter (1736 – 1791), were Customs officers in Liverpool during a period of great growth in the port.

They were both tide waiters who would meet incoming vessels arriving on the high tide and make sure they tied up at the right place on the quayside. Tide waiters needed to ensure that the cargo was not unloaded out of sight of three other officials – the Customs controller, collector and surveyor. 

The brothers also spent periods as mariners. Peter was Liverpool’s only letter carrier (postman) about 1775 when the people of Liverpool applied to the Post Office for more postmen to be appointed. However, the application was rejected because only one was allowed in any town in England.

Only two years earlier Liverpool street names were marked and the houses numbered, making Peter’s life a lot easier.

Since the days when tobacco and brandy were landed on remote beaches from sailing ships, beating smugglers at their own game has taken ingenuity and daring. Watching what is going on at our ports, airports and other access points is where much of the day-to-day work lies.

Front line officers check containers, vehicles, ships and aircraft – sometimes examining their contents. They are on constant lookout for suspicious-looking passengers and goods, often acting on information received from law-enforcement agencies abroad. Until the 1960s this was a male-dominated world. It’s only recently that female officers have joined the front line.

These days some tasks once undertaken by Revenue & Customs are carried out by the Border and Immigration Agency.

There are fascinating displays in Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered, the gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

There is a tuck stick disguised as a walking stick. Manufactured by the Dring and Fage instrument company of London in the late 19th century, it was used by Customs officers to detect contraband. It would be used to probe bundled products such as tea and cotton.

An oil painting, Smugglers Unloading Barrels in a Rocky Cove Entrance by Thomas Luny (pictured), captures the atmosphere of covert contraband operations.

There are examples of seals used by officials. A waterguard’s button seal was used to stamp red wax seals on taxed goods after inspection after 50 years ago. There is an official reference manual from the same period.

A 1960s Customs officer’s cap shows a portcullis topped by a crown, the symbol of Customs until 2005 when the new Revenue & Customs service was created.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I can see it now – the strange carving of a man’s head on a stout wooden pole half hidden in the shady garden. It was one of the curiosities brought back by the man whose family lived at the house. He was a sea captain who did not return from the Second World War.

The head and pole looked Polynesian, hewn from the wood of a tropical forest before ending up in a Liverpool garden. The face would stare at me as I swung languidly in the hammock slung between the pole and a tree – an indelible childhood memory.

Before 1914, accommodation on British merchant ships was very primitive. Crews usually lived together in cramped quarters with basic washing, eating and toilet facilities. Even the cabins occupied by the captain and other senior officers were usually very small and basic.

Living conditions didn’t greatly improve until the 1950s and 60s when old steam ships were replaced by motor ships. On today’s ships crews have many facilities including comfortably-furnished cabins, excellent food and sporting and leisure amenities.

Displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum include a seaman’s hammock dating from about 1900. Hammocks were used for hundreds of years before bunks and beds became common. Seafarers would sling their hammocks in some convenient place and, when not in use, they could be easily stowed away. If a sailor died, his body was stitched up in his hammock and buried at sea. Hammocks were used on both Merchant and Royal Navy ships until the 1950s

A seaman’s horsehair mattress from the 1920s was used on the steam coaster, Enid. Wooden bunks were fixed to the sides of fo’c’sle (forecastle) below decks in the ship’s bow (front). Mattresses were placed on the bunks. They were known as “donkey’s breakfasts” because they were traditionally filled with straw.

An 1848 drawing (pictured) shows the basic conditions in the fo’c’sle of a sailing ship.  It graphically illustrates the damp, claustrophobic conditions. Two seafarers are seen trying to relax after a makeshift meal as the ship lurches heavily in rough seas.

Crews had to supply their own bedding, towels, soap, a plate, mug, knife and fork.

Photographs include washday on board a modern steamer in the 1930s. On many older ships dhobying or washing clothes was done in a bucket on deck. In contrast is the officers’ saloon on the BP tanker British Duchess in the 1960s. By this time, officers enjoyed particularly good living conditions on board ship.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

In the 1980s I spent several happy holidays in the Canary Islands where you could buy fabulous big Cuban-style cigars very cheaply. The Canaries – although part of Spain - were not in the EU so only a limited amount of duty free tobacco could be brought home. However, the Los Cubanos were so cheap I’d buy lots and declare them at UK Customs. The officer would weight them and work out the duty to be paid. A receipt was handed over as proof of the transaction.
 
Smuggling has been around ever since duties and taxes were levied on goods and commodities. From the days of sailing ships to the present day, Customs officers have relied on the latest technologies to counteract smuggling.

Both in the 18th century and now they have used some of the fastest and most manoeuvrable boats available. These cutters, as they are known, enable officers to chase and board vessels at sea and in remote ports.

In 1779 nearly four million gallons of gin and more than five million pounds weight of tea were smuggled into Britain, landed on beaches up and down the coast. At that time tea was a very expensive luxury which was kept in locked caddies usually in the homes of the rich. More than two-thirds of the tea consumed in Britain during the 18th century was smuggled.

The Commutation Act of 1784 slashed the tax on tea, smuggling it ceased to be profitable and the smuggling trade vanished virtually overnight.

Today tobacco and spirits are still smuggled and have been joined by Class A drugs such as heroine and cocaine. Between 1996 and 1998, the London-based Wright Gang smuggled in at least three tonnes of cocaine on yachts. In April 2007 they were jailed after an 11-year investigation.

Seized: Revenue & Customs Uncovered at Merseyside Maritime Museum looks at many different aspects of smuggling and related issues.

Two ships models show the development of the Customs cutter. The Sprightly was used by the Revenue service at the end of the 18th century. She was heavily armed, fast and could be moved with dexterity and skill. The other cutter model shows the Vigilant, one of a fleet of five cutters that today patrol the waters around Britain. The 42-metre long vessel was built in Holland in 2003.

An 1840 coloured engraving (pictured) shows the Revenue cutter Harpy chasing a smugglers’ ship. Casks are bobbing in the water after being jettisoned by the smugglers.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I was never caned at school but was threatened with it on one occasion for failing to whiten my pumps for PE. Another time the class bully - a hefty blonde - flicked ink at me. I told the teacher who sent Muriel to the female deputy head for two strokes on each hand. Muriel was as nice as pie to me after that.

Life for the ordinary seaman on sailing ships was hard with poor food, atrocious living conditions and frequently diabolical weather. There was also very harsh discipline to make sure crew members literally “toed the line” – believed by many to be a seafaring expression referring to the lines created by deck planks.

Captains ordered wrongdoers to be flogged. This involved the culprit being whipped on the back, usually with a cat o’ nine tails – a whip with nine thongs or tails. Very young seafarers were flogged with a lighter model with just five tails known as a boy’s cat. It was administered on the bare backside while the culprit was “kissing the gunner’s daughter” (bending over a cannon). The cane was also used but rarely on the hand, as this could hinder the victim when hauling ropes or doing other work.

One of the most feared punishments in the Royal Navy was being flogged around the fleet. The total amount of lashes was divided by the number of ships in port. The offender was rowed between each ship for the crews to witness his punishment. The gravest offences – such as sedition and mutiny – could attract a sentence of hundreds of lashes. However, a surgeon was present and could stop the flogging if it endangered the culprit’s life. A tally was kept of how many lashes were still to be carried out. Once the wounds had healed, the floggings would be resumed. As a result, sentences often took months or years to complete.

The ultimate punishment was execution by being hanged from the yardarm, again witnessed by the crew.

Apart from formal punishments, crew members were often thumped and hit as a matter of course.

In Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery there is a hastener from about 1877. These were applied by bo’suns (boatswains - junior officers) to keep crews in order. This hastener on display was used on the iron ship Eulomene of Liverpool. It is made of cane with the end formed into a Turk’s head knot. It is more than 18 inches long and as thick as a man’s thumb.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I grow my own rhubarb and am a strong believer in its health-giving properties – as was the great Venetian explorer Marco Polo who is credited with introducing the sweet vegetable to Europe from China. Just simmer the chopped stalks for about 10 minutes in water with a spoonful of sugar, put in a bowl with some of the liquid, add dried mixed fruit, let it cool then add some natural yoghurt – delicious.

Liverpool’s initial prosperity was built on the successes of shipping lines with fleets of sailing ships. It took several decades for steam to become the dominant source of power. One of the most successful of all the sailing ship lines was Black Ball with its emigrant packets on the Australia run.

The Black Ball Line was started in 1852 by James Baines of Liverpool. Baines operated a regular service between the port and Australia, principally Melbourne. Black Ball packets were renowned for their fast voyages. The company captured much of the emigrant trade during the Gold Rush years between 1851 and the late 1860s when the Australian state of Victoria dominated world gold output.

The new emigrant gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum features an exhibition model of the renowned Black Ball ship Marco Polo. Built in 1851, she made record-breaking voyages to Australia. The model shows the ship refitted for the emigrant trade.

Two richly-coloured replica stern carvings from the Marco Polo show him wearing 19th century Western and Eastern dress. In reality, he lived between 1254 and 1324.  One of the life-sized figures (pictured) shows clean-shaven Polo in a green frock coat, plumed hat and black boots. In the other he is bearded and sports traditional Eastern headgear and matching blue, pink and gold gown.

There is a picture model of another Black Ball three-master, Indian Queen, depicted with pennants flying.  The model belonged to Capt John McKirdy, of the Isle of Bute, Scotland, master of the ship 1854 – 5.

A fearsome Bowie knife is inscribed with the name of the infamous Black Ball Capt James Nichol Forbes. He was known as “Bully Forbes” because of his harsh treatment of both passengers and crews.

A major competitor of Black Ball was Pilkington and Wilson’s White Star Line (predecessor of the later Titanic line). The White Star was an emigrant sailing ship between Liverpool and Melbourne. A pair of binoculars, dating from about 1860, came from the White Star when Captain T Kerr was in command.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Beautiful gold and silver items are always a joy to the eye but I think they are much more interesting if there is a story behind them. This particular piece of gilded silverware is linked to a very famous story indeed.

The White Star line – which later included the Titanic among its fleet – was founded in Liverpool in 1869 by shipping mogul Thomas Henry Ismay. Known also as the Ocean Steam Navigation Company, White Star eventually led the way in building prestigious luxury liners such as Titanic and her almost identical sisters Olympic and Britannic.

When Ismay died in 1899, White Star was the most successful transatlantic passenger line. In 1902 it was bought by the huge American firm, the International Mercantile Marine Company.

Ismay’s son, Bruce, became the first president and managing director of the new company. He remained in control of White Star and its ships continued to fly the British flag. J Bruce Ismay, as he was known, continued his father’s close partnership with the Belfast shipbuilders Harland & Wolff which led to the construction of Titanic and her sisters.

Thomas Henry Ismay’s original home can still be seen at Beach Lawn, Waterloo. He later built a huge mansion called Dawpool at Thurstaston, Wirral, but this was demolished many years ago. J Bruce Ismay – who survived the Titanic sinking by escaping in one of the last lifeboats - lived at a large house called Sandheys in Mossley Hill, Liverpool.

In the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there are parts of the magnificent Ismay Testimonial silver.  This parcel gilt dinner service was presented to Thomas by the company’s shareholders on board the White Star liner Adriatic in 1884.

The service, made by London silversmiths Hunt & Gaskell, is one of the finest of its kind. It was intended to “illustrate the progress of the art of navigation from the earliest times to the present day”.

The centrepiece (which there's more about on our main site) depicts commerce on top of the world with figures of the legendary navigators Jason (of Argonauts fame), Vasco de Gama (first European to sail to India around the Cape of Good Hope), Christopher Columbus (New World explorer) and British naval explorer Captain James Cook.

There are beautiful models of tiny vessels used for fishing and hunting – a kayak, canoe and coracle. Most of these pieces could be used for condiments such as salt, pepper and mustard. A large sweetmeat dish is flanked by two contemporary (1884) seafarers – a merchant navy officer and a sailor.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

It’s strange to think that bananas were once considered an exotic luxury in Britain.

My grandmother Lillian Potter, who was born in 1885, remembered them being hawked around the streets by a “banana man” - they were not cheap.

As late as 1915 bananas were still rather glamorous and featured in society soirees, as illustrated in the classic music hall song: “I’ve just had a banana with Lady Diana, I’m Burlington Bertie from Bow”.

Sir Alfred Jones (1845 – 1909) is credited with introducing the banana to Britain when he transported the fruit on refrigerated vessels run by his Elder Dempster shipping company.

We now take for granted refrigeration for perishable goods travelling by land, sea and air. This has enabled all manner of meat, fish, fruit and vegetables to arrive in our shops throughout the year.

Little more than 100 years ago this would have been unthinkable and it was pioneers like Sir Alfred who helped transform the way we eat.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum’ s Life at Sea gallery there is a wax plaque of Sir Alfred, who was the dominant figure in the development of the trade with West Africa (pictured).

He looks the epitome of the Victorian businessman with his formal jacket, starched collar and fancy whiskers. Born in Carmarthenshire, Sir Alfred started work at the age of 12 with the African Steamship Company in Liverpool. He made several voyages to West Africa and was manager of the business when he was only 26.

He then started business on his own account with two or three small sailing ships. In 1891 he was headhunted by Liverpool-based Elder Dempster which, through purchasing shares, he later controlled.

Sir Alfred had wide territorial and financial interests in West Africa. He played a key part in opening up the West Indies to trade and tourism. In addition, he was instrumental in setting up Liverpool’s School of Tropical Medicine and left large charitable bequests in his will.

Other exhibits include a visiting card case commemorating the 1902 trials of the Elder Dempster ship Burutu.

A vintage illustrated poster declares: “Travel in comfort, travel in style, travel better - travel Elders”.
 
Elder Dempster operated mainly between its Liverpool base and West Africa. In later years it ran three still fondly-remembered liners – Aureol, Accra and Apapa – to Ghana and Nigeria.

Eventually the Elder Dempster line name came to an end in 1989 when it was bought by a French company. However, the company continued as shipping agents before being wound up in 2000.

There's more on Elder Dempster, and the company records we hold in our archives, on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

I spent Monday with a film crew from the popular BBC 2 show Flog It! – not at an auction but perusing some of our fabulous collections.

 

We focused on the Liverpool waterfront – looking back at the fascinating history of the Albert Dock and touring the new Museum of Liverpool.

 

First stop was the Merseyside Maritime Museum and the Albert Dock where I was interviewed by presenter Paul Martin walking along the quayside admiring the stunning architecture and remarkable Victorian cranes, winches and pulleys.

 

It’s not easy talking and walking with a camera crew in front of you. Then there was the issue of my face. “We’re getting too much profile,” said the cameraman. It was explained that the viewer likes to see your full face not the side of it.

 

I managed to get the hang of facing forward and occasionally glancing at Paul. We talked about the dock’s builder Jesse Hartley, Prince Albert’s visit in 1846 and why the dock was almost demolished in the 1960s.

 

After lunch featuring the excellent pies at the Maritime Museum café, we headed to our workshops to see some amazing exhibits being conserved for the Museum of Liverpool when it opens late next year.

 

Paul interviewed land transport curator Sharon Brown in the 3^rd class carriage from the legendary Liverpool Overhead Railway (pictured - more information here). It is one of the many stars of the new museum.

 

It may have been the carriage I rode in with my father in 1953 to see the smouldering wreck of the Empress of Canada in Liverpool docks. I was only five but remember vividly the incredible experience of clattering along in the elevated railway and seeing the capsized ship resembling a great whale.

 

The crew also filmed senior conservator David Letsche working on the Lion which once hauled carriages on the Liverpool to Manchester railway in the 1830s. Lion starred in the classic Ealing comedy The Titfield Thunderbolt.

 

They were fascinated by the first car off the assembly line at Liverpool’s Halewood plant in 1963 – an immaculate Ford Anglia.

 

We ended the day at the Museum of Liverpool with its breathtaking views of the Liverpool waterfront and River Mersey.

 

National Museums Liverpool’s building operations manager Martin Hemmings took Paul and crew on a tour of the enormous building.

 

Martin pointed out the specially-constructed area where the Overhead Railway carriage will stand, overlooking the Lion.

 

The cameraman cleverly used artist’s impressions of the new galleries to line them up exactly with the real display areas.

 

The day had started with cloud and rain but ended in bright sunshine, enabling the crew to get superb shots of the dazzling stonework and huge shimmering windows.

 

This edition of Flog It! is due for screening in the autumn.

Just looking at this plan of a slave ship hold almost makes me break out into a cold sweat.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I have a strong aversion to crowded enclosed spaces. This print of 1789 brings home to us all the hideous nature of the slave trade.

Liverpool’s slave ships carried their human cargoes from West Africa over the Atlantic to the Americas and Caribbean on journeys that took six weeks or more. The Africans were held in atrocious and dehumanising conditions – violence, terror and degradation were everyday occurrences.

They had already suffered terrible hardship before reaching the coast. Sometimes the slaves were forced to march hundreds of miles from the interior of Africa. Sold several times over, they passed from one owner to another, their sense of disorientation and dread increasing with each sale. However, the prisoners took every opportunity to escape. One group of women tracked their husbands for several days before breaking them free.

Some African leaders were actively involved in the trade but others took a stand against slavery. They included Tomba, leader of the Baga in Guineas and Agaja Trudo, king of Dahomey.

The slaves’ final destinations on land were forts and places such as the island of Goree where they were held before boarding ships. The message to potential escapers was clear – skeletons of those who tried to make a run for it were impaled on spikes as gruesome warnings.

The horrors of the Middle Passage, as it was known, were made worse because many of the captives had never seen the sea. They were packed into unbelieveably hot, cramped and suffocating conditions in the holds. The men were kept separated from the women and children. In good weather they were brought on deck.

The men were humiliated and forced to ‘dance’ for the crew. This also have an ulterior motive – to keep the slaves fit and healthy so they would fetch higher prices. Women were abused by crew members and rape was common.

The physical conditions, fear and uncertainty left many of the captives totally traumatised and unable to eat. Some preferred death and took their own lives. Disease and brutality took their tolls. Between one tenth and one quarter of enslaved Africans died on every journey. Mortality among crew members was also high.

At the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, there are displays which explore slave voyages including a model and painting of slave ships.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have always wanted to invent something that cannot be bettered - the best ideas are always the simplest. What could possibly be better than the wheel? Another idea that I think will never be improved is the wash basin plug. You could think of all sorts of weird pumps and other devices to do the same task but not so simply. Traffic lights solved a problem people had agonised over for years before discovering the (now) obvious solution. The anchor is another simple foolproof invention.

Anchors must have been created shortly after the invention of the boat and the earliest ones were hauled up by hand. Ship models found in Ancient Egyptian tombs dating from around 1600 BC have grooved or perforated anchor stones. By 800 BC bronze anchors were being produced in Malta. By about 300 BC anchors, now made of iron, had a more modern appearance. A 16-foot long anchor from a ship of the tyrannical Roman Emperor Caligula – dating from about 40 AD - was salvaged from an Italian lake in 1929.

It is said that the first iron anchors forged in England were made in East Anglia in 573 AD. There is a modern-looking anchor in the Bayeux Tapestry depicting the Battle of Hastings in 1066.

As ships and anchors got bigger, a device needed to be invented to haul the anchor up – thus the capstan was born, probably more than 2,000 years ago. This is a vertical rotating drum originally operated by sailors using removable levers known as handspikes. Crew members would sing popular songs and sea shanties as they raised the anchor - probably the best known is The Drunken Sailor. These days capstans are powered by petrol motors, electricity, hydraulics or even pneumatics.

A large anchor outside the main entrance to Merseyside Maritime Museum  came from HMS Conway, a 92-gun wooden battleship built in 1839. Surprisingly, it is about the same size as the one from Caligula's Roman ship.

In 1876 HMS Conway became a school ship where thousands of Royal Navy cadets were trained. She was anchored in the Mersey for many years before being moved to North Wales. She was wrecked in the Menai Straights in 1953 and later broken up. The anchor, saved from the wreck with other relics, was later donated to the museum by the Conway Club – a group made up of former cadets.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I remember the widespread introduction of containers on ships in the late 1960s but little realised how it would transform the character of Liverpool.

Seafarers were once highly visible around the city with their distinctive clothing and style. This photograph of Norwegian tanker crew members with a monkey and dog reminds me of similar scenes once common around the dock road. The almost universal use of roll on – roll off ships means that crew members now rarely spend much time ashore. We have lost much of the colour and vitality mariners brought to our streets by their presence.

In both the First and Second World Wars members of Britain’s merchant navy and those of its allies were on the front line in the struggle for survival. Until 1939 most people involved in British shipping used the terms Merchant Service or Mercantile Marine in relation to the merchant fleet and its sailors. It was only in the Second World War that the title Merchant Navy became the accepted usage. This development was greatly influenced by the issuing of a Merchant Navy buttonhole badge to be worn voluntarily by seamen from January 1940. There is one on display in the Battle of the Atlantic gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

In 1938 the British Merchant Service employed more than 190,000 seafarers. Of these, more than 130,000 were British residents while 50,000 were Indian and Chinese mariners. Women seafarers were relatively few and were usually employed either as stewardesses or children’s nurses on passenger liners. When the war began, most of these women lost their jobs as ships were converted to troop carrying and other duties. Some, however, continued to go to sea throughout the war.

The fiercely-independent, multi-racial body of civilians sailing under the Red Ensign had a long history of poor pay and working conditions.

In 1917 Parliament approved a standard uniform for general use by the Mercantile Marine. But during the Second World War most seafarers on British merchant ships wore either the uniforms of their own shipping companies or just ordinary clothes. A display of archive photos of merchant navy uniforms was held recently at the Maritime Archives and Library.

In May 1941 a shortage of manpower prompted the Government to set up the Merchant Navy Reserve Pool. By this, all seamen and some 60,000 former seafarers were obliged to register with the Pool.

Other exhibits include a Ministry of Information poster showing two gunners on an armed merchant ship with the slogan: “To the Merchant Navy – thank you!” and an officers’ Mercantile Marine cap badge from 1917 onwards.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have just finished reading the fascinating 1935 autobiography of seafarer Charles Lightoller whose amazing career stretched from sailing ships to ocean liners. His book kept me spellbound with tales of shipwrecks - most famously when, as second officer, he survived the Titanic disaster. Lightoller saw service on merchant ships commandeered for operations in the Great War and also helped in the Dunkirk evacuations in the Second World War.

British merchant vessels and their crews have often been required to support military operations in a variety of ways. In both world wars, for example, many ships were converted for use as auxiliary warships, troop ships or hospital ships. The Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life At Sea gallery has a section focusing on these roles.

The loss of the troopship Lancastria was one of the worst disasters to hit Britain. On the declaration of war in 1939, this Cunard passenger liner was requisitioned for troop carrying. On 17 June 1940 the Lancastria was anchored off the coast of France taking on board retreating British troops. There were more than 5,000 troops as well as civilians and crew when she was subjected to a heavy enemy air attack. To this day it is not known exactly how many people died but it was many thousands.

On display is a menu for lunch on the day Lancastria went down. A watch was worn by survivor Sidney Dunmall, of the Royal Army Pay Corps, as he leapt into the sea from the stricken ship.

A discharge book belonged to the Lancastria’s assistant butcher, Gerrard Walsh of Liverpool. There are also two miniature Lancastria souvenir trophies owned by Royal Engineers who also survived, Arthur Pownall and Corporal Bray.

A spectacular painting by Burnett Poole (shown here) shows the famous Cunard liner Mauretania in camouflage dazzle paint when she was used as a troopship and hospital ship during the First World War.  More on this work on our main site.

A handbook called War Instructions for British Merchant Ships 1917 contained a safety device. It was weighted so that, in the event of attack, it sank when thrown overboard rather than falling into enemy hands.

Handcuffs came from the troopship Antenor. She was used to repatriate troops at the end of the Second World War. The handcuffs were kept on board to restrain anyone under arrest, especially if troops got carried away during victory celebrations.

A plaque records the role of the Ebani as a troopship between 1914 and 1919 when she carried 50,000 sick and wounded troops.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I’ve always admired the style of Prince Rupert, probably the most famous cavalier of the English Civil War. He lived in an age when a man had to be able to fight and when not using his sword could elegantly trip a dainty measure (dance) with a lady.

However, Liverpool gave Rupert a massive challenge when he marched his Royalist army to the heavily-defended town expecting a walkover. The sea has always provided a means of escape from danger and this was true in this famous siege.

In the war Royalist cavaliers were led by King Charles I and the Parliamentarian roundheads by Oliver Cromwell. Dashing Prince Rupert was Charles’ nephew and besieged Liverpool held for Parliament by the town’s governor John Moore, member of a powerful local merchant family. Moore was also a vice-admiral and commanded a small fleet of six ships which inflicted substantial damage on the Royalist fleet in the Irish Sea.

Rupert camped at Everton, which was then a small village on the hill outside Liverpool. When the siege started, he haughtily dismissed Liverpool as “a mere crow’s nest which a parcel of boys might take”. However, it was a month before Rupert took Liverpool after a constant cannon bombardment and the loss of more than 1,500 of his own troops.

Moore concluded that the town was no longer defensible. He and his men escaped by sea in ships that had been moored in the Pool, the creek which gave Liverpool its name. Moore’s action was taken without consulting the local civic leaders and the town was left defenceless. Many citizens fought on and Rupert’s men had to take Liverpool street-by-street. No mercy was shown and about 400 people – many unarmed – were slaughtered. The troops were then allowed to ransack the town. Liverpool was recaptured by Parliament a few months later in November 1644 after it was cut off by land and sea. Moore became governor again.

There is a fascinating display of Civil War armour and weapons in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

A breast plate carries a small dent indicating that it was proof against pistol shots. A mortuary sword was a common type of cavalry broad sword. It is believed to get its name from the basket hilt resembling a human rib-cage.

Part of a timber beam is believed to have come from the cottage on Everton Brow which served as Prince Rupert’s headquarters.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Great oaks from little acorns grow is a real truism and one that particularly applies to ships.

I like to think of early adventurers taking to the water countless centuries ago, presumably on logs that were later hollowed out to make primitive boats. The technology got better and better and today we are still improving our ships which seem to increase in size as each year passes.

The first steamship on the River Mersey was the paddle steamer Elizabeth which arrived on 28 June 1815 to serve as a ferry boat. This was also the dawn of a new era of comparative peace that was to last a century. The Elizabeth’s arrival came just 10 days after the Battle of Waterloo at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Although regarded by many people as a passing novelty at the time, ships such as the Elizabeth were in the vanguard of change which would see the maritime world transformed.

A 1:48 scale model of the Elizabeth in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Art & The Sea gallery shows how small she was. Models on the same scale appear giants alongside the tiny wooden ship. The Elizabeth was fitted with an eight horse-power engine and inaugurated the ferry service between Liverpool and Runcorn. She made just one trip daily travelling at between nine and ten knots.

The first experimental steamboat was built in 1704. However, it was the brilliant English engineer James Watt (1736 – 1819) who realised the importance of steam and its great potential. His work inspired others to develop the concept of steamships. The first practical steamboat was the Charlotte Dundas which towed barges along the Forth and Clyde Canal to Glasgow in 1802. Her success opened the floodgates to steamship development in Britain and abroad.

The 1:48 scale model of the 13,518-ton Cretic (pictured), in the same case, shows the huge changes in steamships in less than a century since the Elizabeth was built. It is like comparing a whale to a sprat.

Cretic was a passenger and cattle carrier with the famous White Star Line of Liverpool. She was bought by White Star in 1904 and remained with the company until 1923.
Cretic could carry 245 passengers while the Elizabeth could only transport a fraction of this number and had no cabin accommodation.

Steamships continued to be built until recent times. The Queen Elizabeth 2 was the last passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic before being converted to diesel in 1986.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Teamwork is vitally important in human endeavours but teamwork is nothing without leadership – and I think this is especially so in wartime.

Arguably the most important theatre of the Second World War was the convoy system that brought vital supplies to besieged Britain standing alone against Hitler’s legions. There were many examples of great leadership on different levels as the Allies battled with the U-boat submarine menace. I believe leadership at sea can be one of the most testing because of isolation and lack of back-up.

The dominance of Germany’s U-boats was broken in the spring of 1943 with a decisive victory during the Battle of the Atlantic. In late April and early May, the escorts of convoy ONS 5 (UK to Halifax, Nova Scotia) scored conclusive success over the Wolf Packs.

For eight days and nights, the British B7 Escort Group led by Commander Peter Gretton on the destroyer HMS Duncan and assisted by two Brirish Support Groups, beat off attacks by 40 U-boats. They sank five and damaged many others for the loss of 12 merchant ships. Two other U-boats were sunk by the Royal Canadian Air Force and RAF aircraft. Even for the largest U-boat packs the cost of attacking convoys had become too high. This defeat marked the end of the U-boats’ ascendancy in the Atlantic.

Displays in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery include this photo of three heroes of the ONS 5 battles. Commander Gretton is seen between Lt Cdr Raymond Hart (HMS Vidette) (left) and Lt Commander James Plomer, Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (HMS Sunflower). Commander Gretton had a distinguished naval career, later becoming a vice-admiral. Among his many honours was a knighthood in 1963.

A map shows the positions of U-boats in May 1943. A 1944 poster features a painting of a convoy seen from an escort ship.

In 1943 most of the American and Canadian troops and supplies needed for the Allied invasion of Europe were sent across the Atlantic. Victory in the Atlantic was essential if the Allies were to win the war in Europe.

While most of the naval escort work during the Battle of the Atlantic was done by the Royal Navy, the ships of many other navies were also involved.

A photo shows the Free French corvette Aconit on convoy duty in the North Atlantic. In March 1943 she and the British destroyer HMS Harvester sank the U 444.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

At one time I had a yen to be a commercial artist but decided, at the age of 12, to become a reporter instead.

Public artworks that made the biggest impressions on me were the huge posters that screamed at you from Liverpool’s many cinemas. One I particularly remember for its wonderful colourful images advertised the classic double horror feature “The Blob” and “I Married a Monster from Outer Space”. It certainly grabbed everyone’s attention on the bus.

Later I learnt about the big contribution artists made to the war effort by boosting morale and passing on information.

Liverpool was Britain’s most important port in the Second World War, handling at least one third of the country’s imports brought in by convoys running the gauntlet across the Atlantic. Greatly assisted by other west coast ports, she was the main terminus for the convoys. By early 1941 Liverpool had also become a major naval base and the HQ of Britain’s North Atlantic campaign.

Recognising the port’s key role, Germany made her the target for 68 bombing raids – more than any other British port outside London. Liverpool’s ships and merchant seamen played a crucial part in ensuring Britain’s survival, as did her dockers, ship builders and repairers. 

Posters on display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery highlight key areas. There are two showing variations of the Careless Talk Costs Lives campaign, perhaps the most famous in the Second World War. One shows a group of men talking in a pub and a picture of a ship sinking with the slogan: “She sails at midnight. He talked … this happened”.

The second is headed S.O.S and includes the lines:

Idle words – things heard or seen
Help the lurking submarine

A colourful poster shows ships entering harbour and being unloaded. The cargoes are put directly into steam trains similar to the ones that steamed along Liverpool’s dock road until the 1960s. In another, shown here, a cloth-capped dock worker is told by a soldier:

“Go to it chum! That’s war work – we get munitions in return for that lot!”
Our good go out. Food and munitions come in.
"We must have exports", Ernest Bevin

One declares: “Dockers help nail these lies! Back up the seamen – speed the turn-round.” This His Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) poster is illustrated with a German propaganda leaflet dropped over Britain in 1941.

Merseyside’s 30,000 dockers, whose average age was over 50, played a vital role in the unloading of cargoes. Younger men joined the armed forces or went to other industries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

All reporters remember big stories they worked on and the 1993 Grand National was for me one of the most memorable. It was the year the race was famously declared void after demonstrators disrupted the world’s greatest steeplechase.

This week I was quizzed by BBC racing presenter and former top amateur jockey Clare Balding about my memories of that amazing day. It was for an edition of The One Show being screened in the run-up to this year’s big race.

The show’s producers were prompted by my collection of passes, pamphlets, statements and press releases amassed on that day in the mayhem of the press room at the renowned Liverpool racecourse. Some years ago I donated them to National Museums Liverpool and they feature on our website where BBC researchers spotted them. This 1993 ephemera is destined for display in the new Museum of Liverpool opening next year.

It was decided to do the interview in the bitter cold in front of the County Stand. I admitted to Clare that the last time I had been to the course was when they secretly buried legendary winner Red Rum at the winning post. Since then I had watched the race from the Blue Anchor Bridge, a spot where you can be a spectator for free and avoid the crowds.

As we talked, my memories stretched back to my first visit in 1961 when Nicholas Silver won and I placed an unsuccessful sixpenny bet with exotic tipster Prince Monolulu.

I was there when Gay Trip won in 1970 but remember most the tiny comedian Jimmy Clitheroe, dressed in a suede coat, with his horse. That year I walked around the track with local MP Dick Crawshaw attempting an endurance record. I interviewed the formidable owner of Aintree Mirabelle Topham on the telephone – a major coup. 

In 1978 we had the ‘will he, won’t he?’ saga of Red Rum making his final appearance at Aintree. I met TV personality Angela Rippon when she cantered on Rummy along Southport sands.

I was there in 1981 to see cancer victim Bob Champion’s epic win on Aldaniti on a glorious sunny day.
 
But nothing could prepare me for the Race That Never Was. I told Clare it was like being on the Titanic steaming on regardless after being mortally wounded.

Nobody seemed to know what was going on in the press room until racecourse chairman Lord Daresbury took the helm at a news conference. The race was declared void because of two false starts.

This picture was taken by assistant director Sophie Wallace-Hadrill and shows Clare preparing to interview me as cameraman Tim Sutton and director Hamish Summers get things right. The structure in the background is the biggest marquee I’ve ever seen.

When I was young, slavery was rarely mentioned either at home or in school – it was rather a taboo subject. Grown-ups would point out parts of Liverpool, saying things like “That’s where the slaves were sold”. In reality very few enslaved Africans were sold in the port although merchants, traders and ship owners grew rich on the trade.

Liverpool was the leading European slave trade port in the later decades of the 18th century and people of African descent were living in the town from at least that time. A number of merchants brought slaves from the West Indies to work as servants in their homes.

Some African chiefs sent their sons to be educated in Britain. In the 1790s more than 50 of these children were at school in Liverpool.

With the development of the palm oil business after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, African seafarers were increasingly employed to crew the ships. Many of these seafarers settled on the outskirts of the town in the area now known as Liverpool 8.

There were significant numbers of Black people in Britain in the 18th century. By 1800 London may have had a Black population of around 10,000. Although they had a variety of jobs including serving as soldiers and sailors, most were domestic servants to the rich.

This is illustrated on a coffee pot among the displays at the International Slavery Museum in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building. Other exhibits include a print showing a dock and sailing ships which also features the first known images of Black people in Liverpool – two youngsters near the dock side.

An 1895 photograph, shown here, taken by Charles Frederick Inston, shows a Black street trader at St George’s Dock. An item from a 1756 edition of Williamsons Liverpool Advertiser announces  the sale in a shop of “three negro men, two negro women, two negro boys and one negro girl” along with quantities of raisin wine, cider and flour.

A notice of the sale of “11 negroes” at the town’s Exchange Coffee House appeared in the same newspaper in 1766. For wealthy English families, a servant was an asset to be shown off as evidence of wealth and status. These notices show how enslaved Africans were part of the consumerism of the time. Africans were exotic accessories and would often be exquisitely dressed to reflect the riches of their masters.This hid the reality that Black servants were often brutalised in their daily lives.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have an open mind about psychic happenings and the alleged auras that surround people and things. A simple apron from a distant time has a profound effect on me. Whenever I stand next to it I feel the icy blast of the sea, hear the cries of people in distress and experience a sense of despair.

The starched white apron bears silent witness to the terrible night when the luxury White Star liner Titanic hit an iceberg and sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.

It is among exhibits in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s exhibition Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress which looks at three great shipping tragedies. The Empress was the Empress of Ireland whose loss was overshadowed by the others.

The full-length cotton apron, with lace-trimmed top, was worn by survivor Laura Francatelli on the night of the disaster. It may be the only item of such clothing on display in a public collection.

Miss Francatelli was personal maid and social secretary to the fashion designer Lady Lucile Duff-Gordon. Miss Francatelli was travelling First Class with her employer and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, baronet, a champion fencer who represented Britain in the 1908 Olympics. They boarded the ship at Cherbourg travelling under the names Mr and Mrs Morgan, presumably to prevent them being pestered by social climbers.

Miss Francatelli and the Duff-Gordons were among the first to escape from Titanic. They boarded Lifeboat No 1 which had just two male passengers and seven crewmen although it was built to hold many more people. On board the rescue ship Carpathia, Sir Cosmo asked Miss Francatelli to write out £5 cheques to each of the seamen who were in the lifeboat. This led to allegations of bribery.

However, the British inquiry stated that the nature of the Duff-Gordons’ departure from Titanic was “within the acceptable bounds of civilised behaviour”. Also on display is a photograph of the occupants of Lifeboat No 1 taken on board Carpathia. Miss Francatelli, who later married and lived until1967, is pictured standing between Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon. There's more on the apron, the Duff-Gordons and Miss Francatelli on our main website.

Most of the Titanic’s crew from the Liverpool area were lost in the sinking. On display are personal items linked to local crew members who died. A Bible, pipes and smoking accessories belonged to junior second engineer John Henry Hesketh, a 33-year-old single man from Kirkdale, Liverpool.

A poignant letter was written by a young girl called May Louise McMurray to her dad William McMurray, a bedroom steward from the city’s Kensington district. You can see the letter here.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

I love studying photographs, drawings and plans of the mighty Dreadnought battleships that dominated navies about 100 years ago. I admire the high-quality engineering which combined with great design to produce beautiful fighting machines gleaming from end-to-end with polished brass and steel armour plating.

However, submarine technology advanced during the First World War when undersea warfare became a reality and, along with the development of bomber and fighter aircraft, marked the beginning of the end of battleships.

Dreadnoughts and other huge warships bristling with guns that marked the arms race in Edwardian Europe were sitting ducks to much smaller war machines swooping from the skies or lurking beneath the waves.

Upon the declaration of war in 1914 Britain had around 50 submarines while her allies the French had more than 70. The Imperial German Navy, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, had between 30 and 40 diesel and petrol-powered U-boats.

By the end of the war the UK had 137 submarines in service with another 78 being built, having lost 54 subs during hostilities. The German Navy had more than 170 operational U-boats which were surrendered to the Allies.

In the First World War submarines were slow, fragile and only capable of staying under water for about two hours at a stretch. Early submarines had five or six torpedo tubes and deck-mounted guns, making them also dangerous on the surface.

Around 5,000 ships were sunk during the First World War by U-boats. The most famous was the Cunard liner Lusitania, torpedoed off Ireland in 1915 with the loss of 1,200 lives. There are a number of exhibits from the Lusitania in the Merseyside Maritime Museum exhibition Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress.

The most famous victim of a U-boat was probably British general Lord Kitchener, whose face graced the recruiting poster with the slogan “Your Country Needs You”. He died on a mission to Russia in 1916 when the cruiser HMS Hampshire hit a mine laid by the U-75 off the Orkney Islands.

The Maritime Museum’s display Liverpool: World Gateway has two models of ships linked to submarine warfare in the Great War, as it was also known. One is a superbly-detailed model of the cargo liner Malancha, (shown here) built in 1918 for the Brocklebank Line. It has two quick-firing guns mounted near the ship’s stern as protection against submarines.

The other is the Johnson Line’s cargo liner Barnesmore of 1905. After being sold and renamed Whitehall, she was torpedoed and sunk in the North Atlantic in 1917.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have long been fascinated by artists’ preoccupations with all aspects of love in works at the Walker Art Gallery. Radio Merseyside asked me to talk about some of my favourites so I took a walk around the gallery with presenter Claire Hamilton for a Valentine's Day feature.

Creative artists often smoulder with passions that spill out on to their canvases or through their chisels. They can choose equally passionate subjects, being drawn to affairs of the heart in all its forms.

I have been intrigued by Henry Holiday's 'Dante and Beatrice' (pictured) since I was a child. My father took great pleasure in telling how he walked over the Santa Trinità Bridge in Florence, seen in the painting. Poet Dante loved Beatrice from afar and it remained a platonic love - he married someone else. Here Beatrice cuts him in the street following some misunderstanding, although her two girl companions look knowingly at Dante who dramatically clutches his heart.  

Over on the other side of the room is Rossetti's famous symbol-strewn picture 'Dante's Dream'. Love leads Dante to Beatrice's death bed. Flowers, depicting purity and virginity, are scattered about - a flickering lamp depicts Death.

Next we are on our way to the Tudors and the era of courtly love but pause at 'The Betrothal' from Rembrandt's studio. This well-dressed couple do not really look very happy. It is a gloomy canvas full of sombre hues - not the ideal engagement present. Perhaps this was an arranged, dynastic marriage. He gazes at her with some semblance of affection, she looks out at us as if to cry 'Help!'

Standing by the massive portrait of 'Henry VIII', we muse on the romantic tastes of this most kingly of kings. Standing at about 6 ft 2 inches, he was hugely successful with the ladies and famously made a habit of getting married. Henry certainly took huge risks in breaking with Rome so he could marry Anne Boleyn before moving on to four other wives. Holbein, who did the original version of this painting, captures the king in his awe-inspiring majesty.

Next to it hangs 'Portrait of a Man of the Delves Family' painted by an unknown British Tudor artist 40 years later. This courtly gentleman in orange tights stands in a Garden of Love holding hands with his late wife (her face symbolically covered with leafy fronds). Armour piled at Delves' feet indicates that not only was he proficient in the art of love and had good legs but he could fight as well.

We end with 'TheTinted Venus' by John Gibson, a flesh-tinted marble goddess denounced by the Victorians as "a naked impudent English woman". Pygmalion-like, Gibson loved his statue so much that he refused to part from it for years.

Environment can help nurture talent and I think this is particularly true of Liverpool with its amazing architecture and maritime setting.

One of the great vanished buildings of the city was the Custom House (pictured below) which stood partly on the site of the new Liverpool One development. Bombed in the Second World War, this great sandstone pile was cleared in the post war rush to modernity.

Liverpool has always had more than its fair share of talented people who were either born here or settled for various reasons. For centuries Liverpool was little more than a village dominated by a castle. The 1660s and 70s saw big changes as the discovery and settlement of the Americas opened up different overseas markets.

At the same time a new breed of business people started arriving in the town. Some came from London to start again after the devastation caused by the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of the following year. Others were from the local area - all were keen to exploit new opportunities. Soon Liverpool was the fastest-growing port in the country after London, overtaking its local rival Chester in 1699.

Imports of luxuries such as sugar, tobacco, cotton and spices transformed the small fishing village into a thriving port with worldwide links.

Three remarkable watches on display in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum illustrate how talented people settled and thrived in Liverpool. Two were made by Thomas Aspinwall around 1607 and 1620 and the third by his son Samuel Aspinwall about 1660. The Aspinwalls were the earliest recorded watchmakers in one of the first centres for the craft outside London.

By the late 19th century Liverpool’s port provided direct employment for 60,000 people – about one-in-five of the male working population. Work on the docks was dangerous and men were recruited on a mainly casual basis. The system offered workers the chance to earn high wages but it also brought uncertainty and poverty. Commercial clerks kept business in Liverpool moving. By 1906 they made an amazing 750,000 entries at the Custom House each year – all delivered by hand.

Other exhibits include the huge metal key to Heywood’s Bank from about 1800. The bank building still stands in Brunswick Street.

Bryant & May’s Lifeboat Matches were among specialist products produced in Liverpool to serve the maritime industry. They were specially produced in watertight Bakelite containers to be included in the emergency kit of ships’ lifeboats.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

Des Newton, who has died after a long illness aged 67, was one of the world’s leading ship bottlers and I, Stephen Guy, admired him for his astonishing dexterity and well as his cheerful personality.

Des made ship models with amazing skill and precision and it was a delight watching his hands daintily getting things to work.  He could also talk at great length about the history of ship bottling, dealing with the most difficult questions effortlessly. I asked him how seafarers kept the bottle steady as sailing ships pitched and tossed on rough seas. He immediately produced an ancient photograph illustrating the answer – they rested the bottle on a stick.
Des, who also made ship models for the Royal family, was one of the best-known personalities at the Merseyside Maritime Museum where he had a ship bottling and model workshop for 20 years.

He was born in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, the son of a seafarer. After his apprenticeship, Des became a welder working on submarines in the Vickers shipyard. He later became a professional entertainer and musician learning his trade on the nightclub circuit.

This was time well spent because anyone seeing Des demonstrating his ship bottling skills knew they were in the presence of a great entertainer. He always jokingly referred to himself as a Glass Receptacle Miniature Artefact Inserter.

Des - who lived in Bootle, Liverpool - appeared on television several times, most notably on Blue Peter and the panel game What’s My Line?

He supported Merseyside Maritime Museum at many exhibitions and events and this led to him demonstrating his skills at maritime festivals around the country. Even after retirement in 2004, Des was still in demand demonstrating his knowledge and skills on cruise ships as well as back at the Maritime Museum where he held his last workshop in September 2008.
Des was passionate about lifeboats and was a former crew member of the Barrow lifeboat and a RNLI life governor. He raised thousands of pounds towards the purchase of a lifeboat through running the annual Southport Model Lifeboat Rally.

Des made a model of the Royal Yacht and presented it to the Queen when she visited Merseyside on board the Britannia in 1993.

There's more on the world's smallest ship in a bottle, created by Des in 1990, and on making ships in bottles in general on this website.

The metal rings in the huge walls took on a menacing aspect when my father pointed to them with the chilling words: “The slaves were chained to those before being sold”. This was the Goree warehouse near the Liverpool waterfront. I was little more than a toddler when we would explore its colonnades with the sinister rings. Later I learnt that the rings were probably for tying up horses rather than people and that comparatively few enslaved Africans came to Liverpool.

However, Liverpool was the European capital of the slave trade from the 1780s to British abolition in 1807. Mersey ships transported nearly 1.5 million Africans into slavery – more than 10% of all known slaves transported by Europeans to the Americas and Caribbean.

Liverpool was not involved in early English slaving. Merchants from London and Bristol were the first to be involved but from the 1740s Liverpool had overtaken them. Liverpool merchants were sharp and successfully undercut their rivals’ costs, reduced turnaround times and increased the flexibility of operations.

Trade goods on display at the International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, include horseshoe-shaped pieces of metal known as manillas. They were used as a source of metal for casting in Africa and also as currency, particularly on the Niger delta.

Colourful trade beads, like those shown here, were imported mainly from Venice, Prague and Silesia (Germany) and were much in demand for necklaces and bracelets. Among those displayed is a string of agate beads recovered from the wreck of a ship which sank off the Isles of Scilly.

Preparing a ship for a slave voyage was complex and expensive. Vessels had to be equipped and loaded with goods carefully chosen to appeal to African traders. Ships were usually fitted out by a single merchant on behalf of the owners – fellow merchants, bankers, politicians, landowners and other investors. The average cost of sending out a ship in 1790 was the colossal sum of about £10,000 – roughly £550,000 in today’s money.

Goods to buy enslaved Africans were selected to appeal to particular African traders. The trade was conducted formally at forts on the African coast run by Europeans. There were two such forts on the island of Goree, south of Cape Verde, West Africa. It gave its name to the huge vanished Liverpool warehouse still commemorated by a stretch of road called Goree which runs parallel to The Strand.

Elsewhere captains negotiated directly with Africans and generally had to pay customs and dues for trading rights. There's more on the history of slave trading on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have always enjoyed looking out for famous people going about their everyday lives. Among my coups were screen goddess Bette Davis sightseeing in Liverpool’s Castle Street and Brief Encounter star Trevor Howard wolfing down beans on toast in a Southport café.

Liverpool has always been a great place to people spot – particularly in the days of the great liners.

Sea travel has undergone enormous changes in the past 50 years with the rise of cheap air travel across the globe. Liverpool was, until the 1960s, a major port for transatlantic liners. At that time I was starting work as a junior reporter, but veterans would regale me with stories of meeting film stars as they came down the gangplank.

National newspaper journalists were based in Liverpool so they could meet and interview leading showbiz personalities, politicians, business chiefs and other people in the news as they disembarked at the Princes Stage.

With the growth of air travel, the passenger liner was replaced by the jet airliner and the sea cruise liner. During this period traditional ferries were replaced by multi-deck car ferries, high-speed vessels and hovercraft. For most people travel by sea became much more a matter of choice than necessity. While luxury and style were still available on many ships, the trend was towards cheaper and more accessible transport for all.

One of the ships which fell victim of the growth of air travel was the 13,345-ton cargo liner Media, the first ship to be built for Cunard after the Second World War. She was built by John Brown & Co of Clydebank and began her maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York in August 1947. Both Media and her near-sister Parthia struggled to compete with the growing competition of aircraft in the Atlantic passenger trade in the late 1950s. They were sold in 1961.

A fine 1:64 model of Media by Bassett Lowke Ltd (shown here) is on display in the Art and The Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum. It was given by the Liverpool, North Wales and Irish region of the GMB union in 2005.

Exhibits in the Life at Sea gallery include cocktail “swizzle sticks” from Canadian Pacific passenger liners in the 1950s. A small red plastic holdall was bought on the Southern Cross sailing from Southampton to Cape Town in 1961. Less glamorous but no less evocative is a sea sickness bag from a modern passenger ferry.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

When I was growing up in Liverpool in the 1950s and 60s it was quite a common sight to see exotic animals including a large ferocious monkey that was kept chained up in a garage. Brightly-coloured parrots squawked and screeched in many homes and even businesses – one used to throw bits of fruit at customers in our local plumber’s.

Animals were brought in through Liverpool by traders and sailors to sell or keep as pets. There were less legal restrictions in those days.

Liverpool’s success was built on trade and the huge variety of goods passing through its docks illustrates the origins of its wealth.

In the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a display (pictured) dominated by an image of the domed Custom House destroyed by enemy action in 1941. There is a cast-iron road sign for Custom House Lane dating from about 1920.

A small handcart of the standard Mersey Docks and Harbour Board pattern dates from around 1965. The letters PLS indicate that it was once used to trundle baggage around the Princes Landing Stage where the big transatlantic liners docked.

Luxury goods usually bring big profits and from 1600 there was a growing demand for tobacco, sugar and cotton in particular. The first tobacco arrived in Liverpool in 1648 and by the 1660s its ships were regularly sailing to Virginia, then a North American British colony, for cargoes. Imports rose from 200,000 lbs in 1670 to an estimated six million pounds weight in 1750, the trade growing rapidly as part of the triangular slave trade between Liverpool, West Africa and the New World.

Beginning with imports from Barbados in the West Indies in the 1660s, the trade in raw cane sugar was another of Liverpool’s most important trading relationships. Sixteen thousand tons was imported in 1785 as plantation sugar became another key component in Liverpool’s slave trading role. Until 1805 all sugar imports came from the West Indies but later in the 19th century other supplies came from Asia, USA and South America.

Raw cotton was shipped to Liverpool from America, Egypt, Brazil, Asia and the West Indies. By 1900 the city handled about 75% of British imports. Finished cotton goods from Lancashire and Manchester mills were shipped through Liverpool as exports to markets across the British Empire and the rest of the world.

Today about 60% of the world’s cotton is still traded under Liverpool rules.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I've always believed that practice makes perfect and I'm sure time spent making things at sea for pleasure made countless crew members very happy. I particularly enjoy looking at scrimshaw work evoking the sailing ship era with depictions of graceful ships set on strange seascapes or anchored off exotic shores. I love those spouting whales.

The crews of sailing ships turned their seafaring skills to making many different kinds of gifts and ornaments. Work on board sailing ships was physically hard and often very dangerous. Team work was vital for keeping the ship on course and afloat in all weather conditions.

Any crew member who did not "know the ropes" or could not work aloft was of little use. The able (or experienced) seaman had the pick of berths and food. They expected the lower grades to sweep decks and tar rigging.

"Idlers" were the cook, steward and carpenter who, except on small ships, worked daylight hours. The seaman on watch was always occupied, except at night or on Sundays, setting or furling (rolling up) sails, at the wheel, washing and holystoning (scrubbing) decks, replacing or repairing sails and rigging.

Seafarers on sailing ships often used their working tools and skills during their brief periods of leisure. They used knives and other tools to make gifts and ornaments out of wood, bone, rope, canvas, twine and similar materials. The skills and materials used in producing these items were distinctively those of the sailing ship seaman. The products concerned are among the most appealing relics of life under sail.

In the Life at Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there are examples of what were produced, including remarkable scrimshaw work on horns. They are pieces of art that originated on sailing vessels but became a popular pastime among many sailors. Traditionally, teeth and bones from whales were engraved with decorative images. The outline of the engraving was emphasised using black ink, tar, soot and lampblack.

Another exhibit is a painted toolbox lid from about 1898. It shows a three-masted sailing ship called the Hugh and Mary in full sail passing a lighthouse and two steam ships. The image is flanked by pictures of two saucy young women.

For many seafarers handicrafts became a lifelong hobby. There are examples of the work of Arthur "Jo" Dashwood-Howard (he's shown here and you can see his work on our main site) who perfected the craft of ships in bottles. He left seafaring in 1936 but continued his interest in the sea right up to his death in 1998.

You may remember that my post from last week concerned the Athenia, a passenger ship that was controversially sunk by a German U-boat in the first hours of World War II. Antiques Roadshow on Sunday featured an SOS Marconigram (basically a telegram) sent from the sinking ship at 22.10 on 3 September 1939. There was also a shore to ship message notifying ships of the outbreak of war. If you missed the programme you can catch it on the BBC iplayer - the Marconigram feature begins at 41 mins 19 secs.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback - Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website(£1.50 p&p UK).

There’s a lot to be said for having old heads on young shoulders but I think the terrible tragedy of the Athenia underlines the error of giving major responsibilities to inexperienced individuals.

Scores of innocent people died when a young U-boat submarine captain sent a passenger ship to the bottom. The Second World War was just eight hours old when 26-year-old Kapitauleutnant Fritz-Julius Lemp sank the 13,581-ton liner Athenia with the loss of 112 lives.

Outrage was caused on both sides of the Atlantic by the sinking. The Athenia, operated by the Donaldson Atlantic Line, sailed from Liverpool for Montreal on 2 September 1939. She was torpedoed, without warning, by the U-30 at 7.39 pm the following day about 250 miles north west of Ireland. Of her 1,103 passengers and 315 crew, 93 passengers – including 22 Americans – and 19 crew members were lost.

Britain had declared war on Germany just eight hours earlier and the Battle of the Atlantic had begun (our main site has more on the campaign).

Lemp wrongly assumed from the Athenia’s lone, zig-zag course that she was an armed auxiliary cruiser. He then attacked and sank her, an unarmed passenger ship, contrary to both international law and the strict instructions of U-boat Command. Lemp also broke a pre-war international agreement by not offering help to survivors. When the U-30 arrived back in Germany, Lemp and his crew were sworn to absolute secrecy.

However, the sub arrived in port with victory pennants flying on her conning tower - one showed 14,000 tons, representing the Athenia. Lemp was ordered to falsify his war diary, re-writing two complete pages so there was no mention of the Athenia sinking.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a display of illustrations about the Athenia including photographs of survivors of the tragedy. News cuttings from the time reflect the horror caused by the sinking. One headline screams: “The Monster Strikes Again!”, referring to the Lusitania sinking by a U-boat in 1915 (more on the Lusitania on our main site).

In 1939 the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) was not strong enough to risk a major battle with the Royal Navy, still the largest navy in the world. Instead, Germany aimed to defeat Britain by ruthlessly attacking her merchant ships and those of other countries that supported her. This long and bitter campaign was fought worldwide but was at its most relentless in the north Atlantic. The Germans used submarines, mines, surface warships, armed merchant ships and aircraft. Winston Churchill later wrote: “The only thing that ever really frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril.”

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Let me say from the start that I have never been a great one for celebrating New Year. To me there seems to be a lot of phoney emotion around at this time and for quite a few people it’s just an excuse to drink too much. However, it is a good time for families and friends to get together.

New Year and the festive season can be lonely times for seafarers who find themselves in distant countries far away from their loved ones and friends.

Today ships spend little time in port because of the swift turnarounds introduced more than 30 years ago with the arrival of containers carrying cargoes. Few seafarers have opportunities to sample port life. In the past, however, ships often spent several says or even weeks in port. For many mariners, life in port – especially overseas – was one of the main attractions of going to sea and made up for whatever privations there were on board ship.

All seafarers look forward to reaching their destination, particularly after a long and stormy voyage. Ports all over the world - including Liverpool - had sleazy sailor town districts near the waterfront. Many seafarers headed straight for these areas.

Sometimes life in port turned out to be even more dangerous than life at sea. In the early 1800s, press gangs wandered the streets of British ports forcibly recruiting seamen for the Royal Navy. In the 1900s crimps made money by delivering drunken or drugged seamen to ships in need of hands.

From the early 19th century, sailors’ charities saved many mariners from the clutches of the land sharks by providing them with safe havens in port – work which is still carried out today. For example, the Mersey Mission to Seamen has been operating since 1865 (more on them on the Port Cities website).

Floating churches, seamen’s missions and sailor’s homes were established in ports all over the world.

A display at Merseyside Maritime Museum has exhibits reflecting life in port. There is a sailor’s trophy from the 1950s – a red head-dress worn by the waitresses at the Moulin Rouge Club in Recife, Brazil. These were much-favoured trophies among seafarers visiting the club.

There are membership and introduction cards from sailor town clubs around the world in the 1950s.

An amusing decorative earthenware plaque from about 1780 (shown here) depicts Jack on a Cruise while ashore. The smartly-dressed sailor sports a plumed hat, striped trousers and a sword as he swaggers in the wake of a pretty girl dressed to the nines and carrying a furled parasol.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

Christmas is, for me, best spent at home but to many people a festive cruise is their idea of bliss. You don’t have to mess about with Christmas trees or decorations, bother about cooking or the washing up. On second thoughts I might try it …

Holidaymakers enjoy sea cruises in warmer climes to escape the cold weather and among the presents they take home are souvenirs from the ship’s gift shop. Cruises recently sailed from Liverpool on a regular basis for the first time in many years visiting such locations as the Canary Islands, Portugal, Spain, Norway, the western Mediterranean, France and Ireland.

There is a souvenir shop display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum featuring some of the items sold on British ships from 1900 up to the present day. They range from cigarette lighters and dolls to books and toys.

On display are playing cards, small construction kits of the original Queen Mary, pens, china and other metal smokers’ paraphernalia includes ships’ crested ashtrays and cigarette cases along with tea spoons. A handkerchief shows the Empress of France while a table mat depicting White Star Cunard’s Britannic dates from the 1950s.

A Norah Wellings sailor boy doll carries the name Lancastria on his cap. The luxury liner completed many cruises before becoming a troopship in the Second World War. She was sunk in 1940 with terrible loss of life.

Bringing the tradition up-to-date, there are souvenirs from Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 (QM2) – billed as the largest, tallest and widest passenger vessel ever built when she made her maiden voyage from Southampton in January 2004. She lost this distinction to Royal Caribbean International's Freedom of the Seas in 2006. QM2's facilities include 15 restaurants and bars, five swimming pools, a casino, a ballroom, a theatre, and a planetarium. The latter is said to have been inspired by the Planetarium in World Museum Liverpool.

For 100 years there have been books of comparisons produced to emphasise the huge size of the liners. The first one appeared in 1907 to celebrate the maiden voyages of the Mauretania and her doomed sister Lusitania (more on the Lusitania on our main site).

The idea was revived in 1936 for the original Queen Mary. The most recent version shows the Queen Mary 2 in imaginary situations. She is seen on the Mersey waterfront where she is as high as the huge Port of Liverpool Building.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Regular childhood trips on the Mersey ferries gave me my first taste of the sea even though we didn’t go further than New Brighton. I have never sailed on the high seas apart from in an ocean-going yacht around the Canary Islands - the Isle of Man and Irish ferries are more my style.

The Mersey ferry is perhaps the most famous ferry service in the world – deservedly so because of the dramatic maritime setting of river estuary, open sea and Liverpool waterfront.

The song Ferry ‘cross the Mersey is known all over the globe and is played on the Mersey ferries as they ply their triangular route between Liverpool, Seacombe and Birkenhead.

We have to go back to the 1150s for the start of the Mersey ferries when the monks at Birkenhead Priory would row passengers across the estuary for a small fare. At that time it was a wild and desolate area when the Priory was the biggest building for miles around – there was no castle or tower at Liverpool. This was 50 years before King John granted Liverpool’s charter in 1207. Even then the population never exceeded 500 until the 16th century.

A painting at Merseyside Maritime Museum dates from the era when steam was just beginning to make an impression although sail still held sway in the maritime world. The Rock Ferry (shown here) was painted by leading marine artist Samuel Walters about 1834 (other Walters paintings can be seen on our main site). It gives an insight into the type of craft in use before the advent of steam. Relying upon sails and oars, crossing the Mersey was often unpredictable. The ferry boat in the painting is the James, built in 1826 by Mottershead and Hayes of Liverpool. Walters shows the return trip to Liverpool laden with passengers along with fresh fruit and vegetables from the Wirral.

In the past there were up to 10 ferries between Liverpool and the Wirral – Rock Ferry, Eastham, New Ferry, Tranmere, Birkenhead, Woodside, Egremont, Seacombe, New Brighton and Monks Ferry. There was also a ferry terminal at Garston, Liverpool.

Also on display is a designer’s prototype model of the paddle steamer Alliance of about 1854, showing the dramatic change in ferry boat design in just 30 years. She was later built in Glasgow and served as a ferry on the River Clyde. Unusually, the model has identical stern and bow, each housing a small paddle wheel, with four funnels arranged in a square.

On our main site there are a number of ferry related features including a 1945 photograph of the Royal Daffodil II, a 1959 photograph of the Pier Head and ferry, and an information sheet providing a brief history of the Mersey Ferries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I believe that style and elegance go in and out of fashion and we tend to think people in the past had more poise and élan than now. In my opinion we are currently not in a very stylish age but things are changing. Land transport may still be largely utilitarian but once again lovely ships sail the seas.

Ships often feature beautiful artworks from the majestic figureheads of the sailing era to stunning displays on great liners.

A painting by Norman Wilkinson is perhaps the most famous artwork on a ship. The Approach to Plymouth Harbour hung above the mantelpiece in the First Class smoking room on the Titanic. It has been represented in many films and TV documentaries about the disaster. Thomas Andrews, the Titanic’s designer and a hero of the tragedy, was last seen staring fixedly at the painting, awaiting his fate. Shortly afterwards Titanic plunged beneath the waves, taking Andrews and about 1,500 people to their deaths.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are a number of artworks which once graced famous ships.

There is one of a pair of glass panels removed from the officers’ wardroom on the doomed Lusitania, sunk by a German U-boat submarine in 1915.The pretty oval panel has a flower design and subtle tones and shades. It was removed by a joiner in Liverpool because the other one of the pair was cracked.

There are six stunning decorative glass panels from the Mauretania II, built at Cammell Laird’s in 1939. They were rescued when the ship was broken up in 1965. The panels were originally displayed in the Cabin Class (1st Class) restaurant. Each image – based on the signs of the zodiac – represents a specific date in the history of Mauretania II. One is shown here.

There is a large, intricately-painted mural from a lesser-known ship, the Blue Funnel line’s Ixion. John Mansbridge painted the panel in 1951 for the officers’ lounge. When Liverpool Blue Funnel founders Alfred and Philip Holt began naming their ships, they chose names taken from the Odyssey and Iliad.

Homer’s heroes provided inspiration for their own epic adventures as shipowners – their ships were among the most advanced of their time. Other mythical figures are depicted in the mural including Mrs Lawrence Holt, who launched Ixion, as Britannia with her husband as Neptune.

The Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2 (2004) has many exquisite artworks including massive polished bronze reliefs, murals and tapestries.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

The idea of a fleet of small ships being mustered to support the Normandy landings in the Second World War is something I find very inspirational.

It was part of an audacious plan to hoodwink Hitler’s forces but it paid off handsomely. I also think this element of surprise is very British and the D-Day landings rank with other victories over the centuries.

They were workhorses of the sea, but 362 coasters played a vital role in Operation Neptune – the landings in northern France which heralded the end of the war.

The Battle of Normandy was launched on 6 June 1944 when the Allies landed on the beaches of German-occupied France.

Once they had a foothold and had forced the Germans back, substantial Allied contingents poured through the beachhead and joined the battle to liberate Europe.

One of the little ships involved was the 577-ton Clara Monks, a sturdy Liverpool-owned steam coaster dating from 1920.

She was part of convoy ETC.16 which left Southend on 23 June 1944, arriving the following day at Seine Bay, east of Cherbourg, with crucial supplies.

There were a total of 24 merchant ships in the convoy, with two escort ships. Small coasters were perfect for maintaining the continuous flow of supplies of ammunition, cased petrol and general stores from more than 20 Allied ports to the Normandy beaches.

There is a model of the single-funnelled Clara Monks in the Life at Sea gallery in Merseyside Maritime Museum which captures the robust construction of the original ship.

She had a long and varied career carrying diverse cargoes around the west coast of England for John S Monks of Liverpool, one of the major coastal companies of the day. After the war the Clara Monks carried goods between Le Havre and the Channel Islands and Liverpool before being scrapped in 1959.

A photograph shows her at sea with members of the crew on the monkey island (the roof of the wheelhouse).

Two similar ships are featured in the display – the Cornish Trader, also of 1920, and the Slievenamon.

A plan of the Cornish Trader shows the layout of crew accommodation as well as cargo holds. There is a page from the cargo book of the Slievenamon dating from 1922, the year of the Irish uprising, when her cargoes included coal, stout – and IRA prisoners.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have always been intrigued by Frederic, Lord Leighton, who is very much an unfathomable figure to me.

A couple of years ago I visited his former London residence, the Leighton House Museum, off London’s Kensington High Street, and was mesmerised.

This amazing villa in Holland Park Road has a room that reminded me of beautiful tiled palaces I had visited in Morocco. In the entrance a photograph shows Leighton gazing at a statue of a naked youth. All around there are hints of what his contemporary Oscar Wilde called “strange sins” – dark corners and sumptuous furniture set in gloomy rooms.

Despite this, bachelor Leighton lived a life that was squeaky clean – it must have been because Queen Victoria ennobled him. Any whiff of scandal and the Royals cast you into outer darkness in those days.

Leighton was the first painter to be given a peerage, in the New Year Honours List of 1896 just days before his death.

When distressed friends and colleagues went over his house they found Clytie – his final great painting – standing unfinished in Leighton’s huge studio.

Now this stunning work is on display at the Lady Lever Art Gallery for a year. This is because Leighton House Museum is closed for a £1.3 million refurbishment until the end of 2009.

Clytie was placed at the head of Leighton’s coffin before being removed to the Royal Academy, where Leighton was president. The painting depicts a heartbroken nymph who, abandoned by her lover Apollo, spends nine days in a wild and isolated place imploring his return and watching him drive his chariot across the sky. 

Clytie joins several other Leighton paintings in the Lady Lever collections including his massive masterwork The Daphnephoria (more of his work can be seen in the Leighton featured artist section). Sharp-eyed visitors will see a tiny study for Clytie nearby in the main hall.

Our picture shows skilled members of the National Museums Liverpool handling team hanging the picture using specialist equipment.

Clytie was acquired by Leighton House this year. Supported by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund and The Art Fund, the UK’s leading independent art charity.

A young Merchant Navy officer lived opposite us and for months his mother would wait with growing anticipation for him to return home on leave. There was always a big party when Gordon arrived – so packed that they took the downstairs doors away to make more space. The following morning empty beer bottles were placed neatly around the front gate – and at intervals all the way to the bus stop.

The downside of going to sea can be that seafarers leave home, family and friends for weeks or months at a time. In the days of sail they could be away for several years and no-one would know whether they were alive or dead.

While many mariners and their families are often able to cope with this occupational hazard, others cannot. Long voyages and lack of contact made family life especially difficult for the crews of sailing ships. Sailors on steam and motor ships usually benefitted from shorter voyages and faster communication. Occasionally, captain’s wives and children accompanied them.

Today seafarers stay in regular touch and close family can even accompany them on some ships. The arrival of mobile ‘phones, texting and e-mails in recent years means that mariners can communicate with home in many parts of the world and even on the high seas with cheap satellite links.

On the other hand, many seafarers have found leaving the sea to be a painful experience. The longer someone is at sea the harder it may be to leave or “swallow the anchor”. My late cousin Ken Guy was a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy and experienced major challenges after he left. He was so used to people obeying his commands that he had few interpersonal skills.

Marriage and parenthood often marked the beginning of the end of a seagoing career. For many the experience was made worse because jobs were hard to find ashore.

In the Life at Sea gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a display called Family Life.There are photographs sent by Mrs Alice Solomon from Sierra Leone to her husband who served as a clerk on the Volta Palm in the early 1950s (one is shown here).

A creamware jug inscribed The Greenwich Pensioner was possibly made in Liverpool between 1780 and 1800. Two retired sailors, one with a wooden leg and the other with a hook for a hand, are seen sitting outside an inn.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

In the 1950s it was very easy to pick up army and navy surplus and I had a friend who was ace at recycling equipment into working gizmos. One that amazed me was a private telephone line between two of our houses. Looking back I’m convinced he used parts of a Huffduff to make these contraptions.

When the United States entered the war in December 1941, the German U-boat submarine offensive entered a new phase which led to the underwater menaces losing the initiative and then the battle.

First the Americans had to learn a hard lesson. U-boat captains were ordered to move to the US east coast and immediately created mayhem. Within weeks the huge losses of ships and supplies suffered by the Americans threatened the whole Allied war effort.

It was six months before the United States finally introduced its own coastal convoy system. This quickly ended what the U-boat crews called their “American turkey shoot” which had cost 149 ships, including many vital oil tankers, totalling well over two million tons.

From mid-1942 more British, Canadian and American naval escorts became available. Some 150 corvettes were in service along with new sloops and frigates. However, many Atlantic escorts were diverted at this time to support Arctic convoys and the Allied landings in north Africa. The escorts themselves were much better equipped than their predecessors.

Examples of equipment and weapons used to beat the U-boats are on display in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery. A large blue metal box with dials and knobs was known among crews as a Huffduff – a HF/DF or High Frequency Direction Finder. These were used alongside radar and the improved Asdic equipment to more efficiently detect U-boats.

A small bomb (pictured) was one of 24 which bristled in an anti-submarine mortar appropriately known as a Hedgehog. These were all fired at once and plunged into the sea over a wide area, with great effect.

At the end of May 1943 there was an uneasy underwater peace when all U-boats were withdrawn from the north Atlantic convoy routes for six months. U-boat command had decided to regroup and concentrate on developing new submarines and weapons. Although still a menace to Allied shipping, especially in British and European coastal waters until the very last days of the war, the U-boats were never to regain the upper hand in the Atlantic.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

If anyone deserved a medal it was Captain Arthur Henry Rostron – a man I have always admired because he kept cool and saved hundreds of lives in the Titanic disaster. Recently I went to have a look at his house in Crosby, Liverpool, not far from where the Titanic captain Edward Smith lived. It’s strange to think that these two major players in one of the greatest sea dramas were near-neighbours.

The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 continues to fascinate people and Captain Rostron of the Cunard liner Carpathia is remembered as the shining hero of the rescue operation. The Titanic hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage to America and sent out frantic distress signals as she began to sink. More than 1,500 people were to die in the icy waters.

Harold Cottam, the wireless operator on the Carpathia, left his headset on while dressing for bed - in those days there wasn’t 24-hour radio cover. He heard the distress signal and alerted the captain who immediately ordered Carpathia to race towards Titanic. Capt Rostron showed great skill and courage in moving his ship so quickly through vast ice fields to rescue all 712 survivors.  It took more than three hours to reach Titanic but Rostron made good use of the time. A list of 23 orders was successfully implemented by the crew to prepare Carpathia for taking on survivors. These included getting accommodation, food, drink and blankets ready and ordering his medical crew to stand by. Rostron, a devout Christian, was seen praying quietly.

Six of Capt Rostron’s awards are on display at Merseyside Maritime Museum, loaned by members of his family. There is a huge inscribed silver loving cup presented personally to him by a heroine of the disaster, ‘The Unsinkable’ Molly Brown, on behalf of Titanic survivors.  A stunning gold medal of the US Congress was presented by President William Howard Taft in the name of the American people. There are also gold medals from the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society and the Life Saving and Benevolent Society of New York, a US Cross of Honor and a bronze medal presented to the captain, officers and crew of Carpathia by the survivors.

Capt Rostron is pictured here relaxed and smiling after the task of picking up survivors was complete. He is seen standing between Mr and Mrs Ogden who took photos of Titanic’s lifeboats approaching Carpathia.

There's more on the Titanic and related objects in our collection on our main site.  

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Lord Hastings is one of those larger-than-life characters I would have liked to have met – he had a very colourful career and seems, for his time, to have been rather a good egg.

I was amazed when I discovered how he literally had a hand in his wife’s funeral.

The massive wooden figurehead depicting Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings, looks straight ahead with features nobly bland as befitting a governor-general of India. Lord Hastings (1754 – 1826), is depicted wearing a magnificent uniform with gold epaulettes, gleaming medal and foaming cravat. The figurehead, now at Merseyside Maritime Museum, once graced the bows of HMS Hastings named after this soldier who was born into the Irish aristocracy.

The 74-gun warship was built in Calcutta for the East India Company in 1818  and acquired by the  British Navy the following year. At this time Lord Hastings was enjoying a brilliant career helping to carve out the burgeoning British Empire by extending territories in India and the Far East.

HMS Hastings’ figurehead is typical of the type found on British naval ships in the early 19th century. It was probably English-made and fitted on her arrival here in 1819.

The warship travelled many thousands of miles as she plied the seas between Europe, the Mediterranean and East Indies. Eventually she came to Liverpool as a coastal defence vessel in 1857 before becoming a Royal Naval Reserve training ship in the port. After ending her days as a coal hulk in the south of England, she was broken up in 1886.

And what of the Lord Hastings who gave his name to the dependable warship? He was governor general of India from 1813 to 1823, a period marked with many military victories against peoples opposing British rule. However, things later turned sour with mud-slinging against Lord Hastings over financial issues. He resigned and left India exhausted by his labours.

Far from having enriched himself as governor-general, when he arrived back in England he had to seek employment. He became the popular governor of Malta and died at sea off Naples in 1826.

Lord Hastings married when he was 50 and fathered five children. On his death, he left a bizarre request - his right hand was cut off and preserved until the death of his wife, when it was placed in her coffin.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

I have always wondered about my reactions if I was shipwrecked but thankfully this is one particular challenge that hasn’t come along yet. I don’t think any of us could say with any accuracy how we would behave in that sort of situation.

Full fathom five they lie, shipwrecks of all types scattered over the floors of the world’s oceans and seas along with the bones of countless seafarers and passengers. Each is testimony to disasters, accidents and mishaps caused by age-old dangers such as foul weather, fire, war, collision, bad navigation, stupidity or simply bad luck.

The safety of everyone on board a ship depends on good navigation - knowing where you are and where you are going. This is a simple truth that has been disregarded on innumerable occasions.

Before 1850 bad navigation alone caused the loss or damage of many British ships. Captains and other senior officers often had inadequate navigational skills and equipment. There were no clear rules to prevent collisions. After 1850, however, masters and mates had to be trained and examined in navigation. Methods and equipment were improved. By the 20th century ships became much safer due to radio, radar and other electronic equipment. Today most ships depend on satellite navigation systems.

In the past seafarers also faced hazards from pirates and privateers. Pirates such as the legendary Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Anne Bonny and Captain Kidd stole or took control of ships from their lawful crews. Privateers operated in times of war up to the 1850s. They were armed merchant ships which attacked enemy merchant vessels. There's more on privateering on our main site.

Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery has a display which focuses on navigation and safety at sea. A lifelike portrait of a sea captain, painted in oils about 1900 by WH Walton, captures the character of the veteran ship’s master.

There is a telescope which belonged to Captain A W “Hellfire” Sinclair who came to Liverpool in the 1850s at the start of his seafaring career. Sinclair was the hard-driving captain of packet ships operated by the famous Black Ball Line.

A jug, possibly made in Liverpool around 1780, tells the sad tale of man overboard. The black-and-white image shows men in a rowing boat throwing a rope to a man in the sea.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Looking at this masterly portrait, I have to admit a certain liking for Captain Hugh Crow.

He was very much a man of his time and did what he did efficiently and well despite condemnation in his own day and now. Of course he was wrong in his actions and, with all his charm, personified the end of an evil era.

Captain Crow stands wearing his top hat and clutching a cutlass, sporting a billowing white linen shirt and blue trousers with matching necktie – a man at ease in retirement. At his feet are other relics of his prime - a pistol and a megaphone used for enforcing orders on a sailing ship ploughing across the ocean.These are subtle clues to the former occupation of this distinguished-looking man in a finely-observed watercolour portrait painted by A R Burt in 1820. 

Captain Crow was the last of the slavers.

The picture is among exhibits at the International Slavery Museum in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building.

Crow (1765 – 1829) is best known as the captain of Kitty’s Amelia, the last British slave ship cleared for sailing from Liverpool in July 1807 just before the trade was outlawed. Crow was master on six other slaving voyages. On retiring from the sea he wrote his memoirs – an engaging, rare first-hand account. He remained a staunch supporter of the slave trade.

Crow claimed he treated both the crew and enslaved Africans on his ships comparatively well. However, like other ships’ masters, it was in his interests to keep the captives healthy so they would fetch a better price. The voyage of the Kitty’s Amelia was eventful – she caught fire and they also rescued the crew of another ship that had been wrecked.

Another exhibit is the original account book of the Liverpool slave ship Enterprize for a voyage in 1794-5. The accounts reveal that the ship’s carpenter Daniel Small was perhaps considered the most important person on the ship – he was paid £5 10s (£5.50) per month. He could save the wooden ship if she sprang a leak or was damaged. Surprisingly, the captain, William Young, was paid less - £5 a month. However, a captain was entitled to commission on slaves he sold plus one or two privilege slaves he could sell himself. This was probably worth up to an additional £200 per voyage.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Whenever I look at Merseyside Maritime Museum’s collection of miniature ship models I marvel at these wonders created without the aid of plans or drawings. I could manage plastic construction kits of HMS Hood and the Bismarck but when I see these beautiful sailings ships – some little more than and inch long – I’m amazed. They are the ship model equivalents of beautiful humming birds – tiny vessels built by French prisoners-of-war.

Many of these models have - comparatively speaking - as much detail as those at the other end of the spectrum in the museum’s collections, such as the 20 ft-long model of the Titanic.

The Pilkington Collection of French Prisoner-of-War Models illustrates a vanished art when prisoners used materials such as wood chips or shavings, bone and straw to create wonders of model building. This collection of 39 miniscule warships and boats is one of the museum’s outstanding treasures.

Little is known about the captives who honed their skills to create masterpieces which they could sell or barter to improve their poor food, illustrating that hunger is a great motivator. The talents of the model-makers indicate that they may have been trained as jewellers or watchmakers. The prisoners were held in Britain during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars which lasted between 1790 and 1815.

Many French prisoners were held in Liverpool as well as other places around Britain. There is no evidence that the models in the Pilkington collection were made in Liverpool. They were discovered in Dublin and brought to England on behalf of Sir George Pilkington in the early 20th century. The models were in poor condition and they were skilfully restored by renowned model-maker AW Kiddie, of Southport. He used hair from the heads of his wife and daughter to repair the rigging – a very unusual practice at that time. 

Kiddie (born 1844) had had an extraordinary life, serving three years on sailing ships when he was regularly beaten and flogged. He jumped ship and trained as an engineer which no doubt sharpened his eye for detail and trained his nimble fingers.

The collection was bequeathed to Liverpool Museum in 1921 by Lady Dame Mary Elizabeth Pilkington, of the St Helens-based glass-making family.

The models on display are built to different scales. Some are in miniature wooden glass cabinets, others under glass domes.They range from men o’war and other ships of the line bristling with cannons to two-masted brigs and rowing boats.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

 

I am particularly proud that Modern Liverpool 1907 (shown here) was acquired by Merseyside Maritime Museum last year as a result of my Maritime Tales column in the Liverpool Echo. The owner of this important oil painting rang me after I wrote about several historic views of Liverpool in our collections. He revealed that he had this large oil painting showing the city at the height of its Edwardian prosperity.

Ships of all sizes can be seen around the waterfront in this stunning aerial view of the bustling port. The city panorama was painted by Walter Richards as part of Liverpool’s 700th anniversary celebrations. There is a fascinating wealth of detail, particularly around the Pier Head, Prince’s Stage and nearby docks, some of which have long vanished.

A huge four-funnelled Cunard liner is moored alongside the Prince’s Stage. No name can be seen on the bows so it could be either the Mauretania or her doomed sister Lusitania, sunk by a German submarine in 1915. Many other ships can be seen, some from shipping lines identifiable by their funnels.

Three ferry boats, including a paddle steamer, are moored at the Pier Head while passengers come and go. In 1907 there were many more ferries than today, including services to New Brighton, Egremont, Rock Ferry, New Ferry, Seacombe, Birkenhead and Eastham. When the ferry service to Eastham ended in 1929, it marked the last use of paddle steamer ferries on the River Mersey.

Other ships depicted in the painting include tugs and tenders which assisted the big liners. Most of the vessels are steamers but there are a few sailing ships moored in the docks. Among the vanished docks depicted in Modern Liverpool 1907 is the George’s Dock standing between the Liver Building and the Port of Liverpool Building.

I recently went into the basement of the Cunard Building, which now stands on the site, to see a surviving section of the George’s Dock wall. I closely examined the huge sandstone blocks which are almost seamlessly mortared together. It was quite emotive for me because my Guy ancestors were living and working within sight of the dock when it was built. One was mariner Peter Guy, who was 35 in 1771. He worked as a tidesman – a customs officer who boarded merchant ships. For a time he was also employed as Liverpool’s postman or letter carrier – when only the rich and influential generally received letters.

Modern Liverpool 1907 is currently on show at the Walker Art Gallery in the 'Historic Liverpool Cityscapes' section of the Ben Johnson's Liverpool Cityscape 2008 and the World Panorama Series exhibition. The exhibition is open until 2 November.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Ruined castles have unique atmospheres with oodles of the “if these walls could speak” factor. I have always been attracted to these stone piles which have miraculously survived for centuries, relics of a vanished way of warfare. Liverpool once had a castle which dominated the town but it was swept away nearly 300 years ago.

Liverpool owes its existence to the River Mersey which was created about 8,000 years ago as global warming melted massive ice fields. This blanket of ice as high as St John’s Beacon covered the whole of Merseyside during the Ice Age. About 18,000 years ago the area was covered by an enormous glacier. Over many centuries the movement of ice and water changed the course of an earlier river valley. This also exposed the sandstone ridge upon which Liverpool was later built.

The warming process gradually created the River Mersey as sea levels rose. A small tidal creek on the north bank of the estuary also appeared. Eventually this became known as the Livered, or Muddy, Pool from which Liverpool took its name. This is the most likely explanation for the name of Liverpool, although its origins are lost in the mists of time and there is no documentary proof about the name.

A display in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum focuses on the river. A map shows the coastline of the British Isles about 10,000 years ago. Exhibits include part of a prehistoric oak tree from the Weaver Valley in Cheshire, dating from around 2500 BC. In many areas of the North West, prehistoric forests were flooded as the sea rose.

Among the first people to use the river regularly were the Benedictine monks from Birkenhead Priory, the remains of which still stand near the Cammell Laird shipyard. The monks offered food and shelter to travellers and ran the first ferry across the river.

For centuries the fledgling port was dominated by the castle built in 1235 by William Ferrers, Sheriff of Lancaster. Although it was small compared with the great castles in North Wales – being only about 180 feet in length – it was the largest and most important building in Liverpool for nearly 300 years. By 1559 it was described as an “utter ruin” and it was finally demolished in 1720. The exhibition includes this fabulous model of the castle which I am seen admiring.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

The Middle Ages may not be one of my favourite periods of history but aspects of life in those far-off times hold a certain fascination. There were battles among warring barons on English soil and if a battle axe or arrow didn’t get you then plague or disease might. Then, as now, there was always fishing.

Liverpool had a fleet of only around 20 ships in the Middle Ages after King John signed the letters patent (charter) establishing the borough in 1207. Voyages were made to Spain and France but most trade was with local ports on the Lancashire coast, Wales and Ireland.

A replica of King John’s charter is on display in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum marking Liverpool’s 800th anniversary last year.  It is only a small document but it has huge significance. John wanted Liverpool as an embarkation port for English troops and supplies needed to invade Ireland.

A new town of seven streets was laid out near the Pool, a creek which gave Liverpool its name. Many settlers came from nearby areas such as West Derby to live in the new borough. For some people it was a chance to start a new life free from the control of local lords. Only about 1,000 people lived in Liverpool in 1300 and the population remained that size until the1600s.

On display, and shown here, is a 19th century artist’s impression of Liverpool about 1350 showing the Tower and coastline in its original state before the town developed.

As a port, Liverpool was very much at risk from the spread of disease. An outbreak of the Black Death plague in 1361 wiped out whole families. Their bodies were buried in a mass grave at St Nicholas’s Parish Church which still stands in Chapel Street. The plague struck again in 1558 which wiped out a third of Liverpool’s population.

Fishing was one of early Liverpool’s main industries. Herring, the mainstay of the industry, were caught from small boats between September and November. Exhibits on display include medieval copper alloy barbed fishing hooks, whose design had changed little since the Roman period. Many of these have been found at Meols, on the Wirral, suggesting the importance of fishing to the local economy.There is a lead net sinker used to weight down fishing nets. Lead was readily available from north Wales.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

Some years ago a common sight at seaside resorts and elsewhere was old deactivated German sea mines that had been converted into charity collecting boxes. These round menacing floating mines had one or more slots cut in them and your penny clattered around inside after you shoved it in. German mines exacted a terrible toll in the early months of the Second World War when almost 400 British, allied and neutral ships were sunk and many more damaged.

Thousands of mines were laid around British coasts by U-boat submarines, destroyers, mine layers and aircraft. By early 1940, German mines and aircraft had also effectively closed the Port of London to ocean-going ships. This led to the diversion of most of the capital’s usual traffic to the comparatively safer west coast ports of Liverpool, Glasgow and the Bristol Channel.

Liverpool, the largest and most central of these ports, was Britain’s most important port throughout the rest of the war.At this period German aircraft and U-boats were also laying mines around many of Britain’s west coast ports, including Liverpool. Many ships were sunk or damaged in Liverpool Bay, causing large disruption to the port’s activities.

British boffins hit back at the mine threat by fitting the hulls of most large British ships with degaussing cable to neutralise the ship’s magnetism. This greatly reduced the threat from magnetic mines. On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum is a huge, seven-foot long German sea mine which almost breathes menace. It was designed as a magnetic mine for use against ships. These were dropped by aircraft using a parachute or by ships – it was one of Germany’s most secret weapons at the start of the war. The mines carried 1,536 lbs of high explosives. They were also dropped as bombs on Liverpool, London and other British cities, causing devastation.

An illustration from a wartime book shows how a magnetic mine works. The mine lies on the seabed waiting for a ship to pass. Impulses from the metal hull of the ship detonate the mine, causing a huge explosion. The oil tanker El Oso is seen sinking after passing over such a mine, laid by the U-30, in January 1940. She was the first to be sunk by German mines in Liverpool Bay during the war.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from the Mersey Shop website (£1.50 p&p UK).

My first flight in a helicopter was on a Royal Navy facility trip to the Ark Royal aircraft carrier in Liverpool Bay. It was an amazing experience with the deck opening up underneath as a huge lift transported us below. Most of all I remember the delicious meal they served.

In contrast, HMS Audacity was the Royal Navy’s first merchant aircraft carrier. Her role was to protect convoys crossing the Atlantic with vital supplies for Britain during the Second World War. Surprisingly, Audacity started life as a German passenger ship captured early in the war. In 1941 she was converted into a flat-top escort carrier, also known as a MAC ship. She could operate just four light Grumman Martlet aircraft from her short flight deck with no hanger.

There is a 1:300 scale model of the camouflaged Audacity in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery. She did not have a long life as she was sunk by a German U-boat submarine in December 1941 after just four escort passages.

The need to close the 400-mile ‘air gap’ in the mid-Atlantic led to the development of the MAC ships. Most were grain carriers or oil tankers fitted with a basic flight deck for three or four Swordfish bi-planes. The MAC ships not only provided air cover for convoys but also carried much-needed supplies of grain or oil for Britain. From mid-1943 at least one MAC ship sailed with every north Atlantic convoy.

They were joined by new purpose-built British and US naval aircraft carriers. US Liberator bombers closed the ‘air gap’ by late April 1943. At the same time, long-range British and American aircraft attacked U-boats in the Bay of Biscay near their French bases. Equipped with powerful searchlights for night operations, air-to-surface radar and increasingly effective weapons, these aircraft enjoyed many successes.

The fitting of highly-accurate centimetric radar on long-range aircraft was another major turning point in the anti-U-boat campaign. More U-boats were sunk by aircraft than by ships during the last two years of the war. The RAF Coastal Command played a decisive role in the Battle of the Atlantic. In all, it sank at least 155 U-boats in Atlantic waters.

Other exhibits include a green-coloured 100 lb air-dropped anti-submarine bomb from about 1941 – the earliest of its type used by the British.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from www.merseyshop.com (£1.50 p&p UK).

As a child I had some difficulty grasping how the huge metal ships on the Mersey stayed afloat. I could understand wooden ships floating – after all twigs and sticks thrown in our local brook never sank – but steel and iron? This was the big question nobody seemed to be able to answer – just as, how do planes stay in the air?

The notion of building a ship entirely of iron challenged many owners and shipyards in the 19th century: “Who ever heard of iron floating?” was a familiar cry. But float it did and within a few decades ships made entirely of wood were the exception rather than the norm.

Prior to the 19th century, for many centuries ships were built of wood. As Britain became a naval world power, ancient forests were cleared to build warships.

The Napoleonic wars between 1803 and 1815 marked the high point of Britain’s naval sea power under sail. They were followed by 100 years of comparative peace when new sea technologies came to the fore. Before the Napoleonic wars, merchant ships were relatively small. Although much of the globe had been explored, maritime trade hadn’t developed enough to support an industrial society.

The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain and saw the start of the factory system, created a demand for larger ships to carry more raw materials and manufactured goods. The material which made their construction possible was iron. At first the builders of iron ships tried to copy the trusted methods used in wooden ship production. Iron hulls were vulnerable to corrosion and marine growths, since no effective anti-fouling paints had yet been developed. As a result, ship builders compromised by constructing an iron framework covered with wooden planking.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are three models (shown here) showing cross-sections of hulls made from wood, iron and wood and iron alone. Copper sheathing remained the most effective barrier against barnacles and marine worms before the arrival of anti-fouling paints. From the 1870s steel, with its greater strength, began to offer overwhelming advantages over iron. Plate thickness and other metal parts of the hull and superstructure could be reduced by 25% with no loss of strength. This weight-saving resulted in greater speeds, fuel economy or cargo carrying capacity – whatever the needs of the owners.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from www.merseyshop.com (£1.50 p&p UK).

I confess to helping to raise awareness about the sinister origins of perhaps Liverpool’s best-known thoroughfare. Penny Lane – immortalised by The Beatles’ song – is probably named after notorious slave trader James Penny.

In 2006 there was a move – later withdrawn - to rename Liverpool streets named after people linked to the slave trade. I happened to mention to the local media that Penny Lane was one of them and the story went around the world.

Like other byways named after people, Penny or his family either owned land in the area or had strong associations with it. Penny is now remembered as one of the chief Liverpool apologists for the slave trade. He made 11 voyages as a captain in the trade and had his own shipping company called James Penny & Co. Penny was one of several Liverpool traders who spoke in favour of the slave trade at the Parliamentary enquiry which spent several years investigating the traffic. He claimed that the enslaved Africans on his ships were allowed to play games, dance and sing.

Penny told the enquiry: “If the weather is sultry and there appears the least perspiration on their skins when they come upon deck, there are two men attending with cloths to rub them perfectly dry and another to give them a little cordial.” But he showed his true colours when he clinically revealed details of how they were brutally accommodated below decks: “The average allowance of width to a slave is 14 and two-thirds inches.” When Penny returned to Liverpool, the town’s grateful Corporation (council) -dominated by slaving interests - made a presentation to him in 1792. The silver-plated oval epergne (table centrepiece) is on display in the new International Slavery Museum in MerseysideMaritimeMuseum.

Another display features a Liverpool city centre road named after well-known slave traders. Tarleton Street, off Church Street. Among the most infamous was Sir Banastre Tarleton MP, who was the son of former Mayor John Tarleton. Sir Banastre had a brilliant army career against the rebels in the American War of Independence. He was MP for Liverpool from 1790 to 1812 apart from a year’s break. This was from 1806 to 1807 when he was beaten at the polls by abolitionist William Roscoe who helped secure the abolition of the slave trade in 1807.

More on Liverpool streets associated with the slave trade can be found on our main site.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from www.merseyshop.com (£1.50 p&p UK).

This Saturday, 23 August, is Slavery Remembrance Day which I have been involved in since its inception in 1999. It is a very popular and moving occasion which involves commemorations including a church service, lecture, drama, music and dancing.

The transatlantic slave trade involved the notorious Middle Passage between Africa and the New World when many enslaved Africans died in horrific conditions on board ships. Journeys took five weeks or more and the slaves were held in cramped, airless spaces below decks. Food and water were limited, with no fresh provisions available.

An exhibit in the new International Slavery Museum, in the Merseyside Maritime Museum building, represents the journeys of three slave ships called the Brooks, the Bud and the Rose which all sailed out of Liverpool in 1788. It is based on a chilling document called “Printed dimensions and names of ships in Liverpool employed in the slave trade with the details of provisions and mortality rate etc 1788."

The Brooks (297 tons) sailed from the Gold Coast (now Ghana) to the West Indies with 609 slaves on board. The journey took 49 days and 19 Africans died on the voyage. The daily food ration was about 1.5 lbs of beans, 2 oz of bread, 8 oz of yams, 1 oz of dried fish and eight pints of water.There were 351 captive men on the Brooks, confined to a hold measuring about 46 ft by 25 ft. Women and children were held separately in similar conditions.

Disease, brutality and suicide led to between one quarter and one tenth of slaves dying during the Middle Passage voyage. Crew members also died.

The displays also feature exhibits linked to the Watt family who had plantations in Jamaica. As a boy, Richard Watt drove a one-horse carriage around Liverpool. He later went to Jamaica to seek his fortune and when he retired in 1772 he was a wealthy plantation owner. Displays include a fine builder’s model of the sailing ship Watt dating from 1797 along with a painting by William Jackson (shown here). Richard Watt bought Speke Hall, Liverpool, in 1795. His descendant Adelaide Watt was the last member of the family to live at the Hall, which is now cared for by the National Trust.

Next week we look at slave trader James Penny of Penny Lane. In the meantime there is more on the history of the slave ship in a fascinating lecture by Marcus Rediker, available to listen to on our main site. In it he talks about the Brooks and conditions on it and other slave ships.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from www.merseyshop.com (£1.50 p&p UK).

I live in West Derby - an ancient community, now part of Liverpool, with links to the famous White Star line. Near my house is beautiful Broughton Hall, now part of a school, where the company was set up over a game of billiards in 1869. White Star, owners of the Titanic, operated sailing ships before steam triumphed and dominated the seafaring world.

Ironically, the last sailing ships to be built were among the most beautiful ever constructed and marked the high point of the traditional shipbuilders’ powers. The last and largest sailing ship to be owned by White Star was the 318-ft long California, a deep-sea barque built by Harland & Wolff of Belfast in 1890. She belonged to the North Western Shipping Company whose principal shareholders also owned White Star. Possession of the White Star sailing ships was transferred to the new North Western Shipping Co in 1886.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a striking model of the 3,099-ton California, a steel-built four-master. She had relatively small cargo hatches which made freight handling slow but provided better protection from the heavy seas which frequently swept her decks. The California was sold when the North Western Shipping Co was dissolved in 1895. The ship passed through several German firms and was renamed Christel Vinnen in 1912. After the First World War she was allocated to Italy as part of war reparations. In April 1927 she became stranded near Panama and became a total loss.

Among the other last White Star sailing ships was another four-masted barque, the Gilcruix. Built in 1886, her crews included the 16-year-old John Masefield who was Poet Laureate from 1930 until his death in 1967. His wrote Sea Fever which starts with the immortal lines: 

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

Masefield’s voyage on the Gilcruix in 1894 was as an apprentice. It was his first voyage, sailing from Cardiff bound for Iquique, Chile. The ship had to negotiate the notorious Cape Horn and Masefield was so ill that he had to be hospitalised.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from www.merseyshop.com (£1.50 p&p UK).

Liverpool’s docklands used to be wafted by the aromas of the world before containerisation sealed them off hermetically, so to speak. I remember particularly the smells of spices, fruit and wood mixing together to create a feast for the nose.

Liverpool had the world’s first commercial wet dock and helped pioneer dockside warehouses, fire-proof dock buildings, hydraulic cargo handling and internally-linked dock systems which all eventually assisted in transforming the way cargoes were handled worldwide. The vast and innovative port was critical to Britain’s development in the 19th century and played a vital part in the growth of the British Empire.

Almost 300 acres of enclosed docks were built along seven miles of the Liverpool waterfront. Under engineers like Jesse Hartley and George Lyster the port played a key role in the development of dock technology.

In 1857, by creating the non-profit making Mersey Dock and Harbour Board  to oversee the docks’ growth, Liverpool also led the way in port management. By the late 19th century Liverpool’s port provided direct employment for 60,000 people – around one-in-five of the male working population. Its mariners, port officials, dockers and carters handled almost one third of Britain’s trade.

Work on the docks was dangerous and men were recruited on a mainly casual basis. It offered workers the chance to earn high wages but also brought insecurity and poverty. This period is examined in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

By 1900 one-seventh of the world’s shipping was registered in Liverpool. Ships owned by Liverpool companies travelled to all parts of the globe. They were the essential link between Britain, its trading partners and Empire.

Maritime exhibits include a sextant made by J W Ray & Co of Liverpool about 1910. The Liverpool area held a prominent position in the supply of clock components until the 20th century. As Liverpool grew, the skills needed for clock-making were also used to make navigational instruments for ships.

A Liverpool-made Dinky Toy from 1934 -1940 depicts the legendary liner Queen Mary, including the New York skyline, in its original box.

A James Watt medal for engineering was awarded to shipowner Alfred Holt by the Institute of Civil Engineers in 1878. Holt, founder of the Blue Funnel Line in 1865, earned recognition for his development of a compound steam engine.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from www.merseyshop.com (£1.50 p&p UK).

My Guy ancestors settled in Liverpool around 1700 as the port was expanding and I am proud that we have been involved in various ways throughout its changing fortunes.

British colonies in North America opened up new overseas markets with the result that Liverpool saw big changes from the 1660s. The town had been relatively unchanged for centuries. It was the growth in sea trade which turned Liverpool into a major world port.

New types of business people arrived in the fledgling metropolis. Some came from London after the devastation caused by the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire the following year while others were local. All were keen to exploit these new opportunities. The Guys, who were not in business, probably made the modest seven-mile journey from Melling.

Soon Liverpool was the fastest-growing port after London. The boom in importing luxuries such as tobacco, cotton and spices transformed the small fishing port into a thriving centre with worldwide links.

Stages of this exhilarating growth are examined in the Magical History Tour exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Sarah Clayton was among the women who were active in 18th century Liverpool business. She had interests in coal exports and property speculation and developed Clayton Square (now the Clayton Centre) in the 1760s and 70s.

In Britain the campaign to end the slave trade began in 1787 and Liverpool – Europe’s leading slave trade port - was bitterly divided. Slave trader Banastre Tarleton, the town’s bullish MP, attacked the anti-slavery petitions of the 1790s as “the work of deluded fanatics”. He thundered: “Should the Africa trade be abolished … weeds will grow in the streets of Liverpool.” Tarleton’s views were shared by the Liverpool merchants whose profits were under threat.

In contrast, many of Liverpool’s citizens actively supported abolition. The most notable was William Roscoe, who defeated Tarleton to become the town’s representative in Parliament. He spoke in favour of abolition during the debate which ended British involvement in the slave trade in 1807. Liverpool’s prosperity did not collapse as many had feared. On display are several Roscoe items including a token with the inscription “Roscoe for Ever 1804” supporting his election campaign.

Abolition encouraged merchants to explore new opportunities offered by the industrial revolution. From the 1830s Liverpool became probably the biggest emigration port in world history.

More about Liverpool’s growth next week.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo. A paperback – Mersey Maritime Tales (£3.99) – is available from the museum, newsagents, bookshops or from www.merseyshop.com (£1.50 p&p UK).

My colourful new paperback Mersey Maritime Tales – True Stories of Shipwrecks, Heroism

and Human Endeavour is out now price just £3.99. Although I say it myself, it’s a great read with amazing stories packed with all sorts of entertaining and inspiring things.

It’s available at Merseyside Maritime Museum as well as newsagents and bookshops in the Liverpool and north Wales areas. In addition you can order it through www.merseyshop.com or by calling 0845 143 0001 (plus £1.50 P&P UK).

Here’s an extract from my Foreword to the 92-page book containing 40 Tales plus a cargo of Did You Know facts and figures:

People tell me: ‘You are clever, knowing all those stories with so many dates and facts’. However, the Tales owe their existence to the outstanding displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum.

There is an amazing array of exhibits which prove a constant inspiration to me. The museum houses some of the finest ship models as well as the rarest historical objects. For example, the 20 ft long original builder’s model of the Titanic is probably the most popular single exhibit among the many thousands of objects on display.

Next to it in the Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress gallery is an apron worn by a passenger, possibly the only item of clothing worn on the night of the disaster in a public collection.

This gallery alone has inspired several Tales, the Titanic story continues to fascinate succeeding generations of visitors.

I have to confess there is a trick in writing the Tales. I write four at a time and the drafts are checked for factual errors by Merseyside Maritime Museum curators and other staff. The Tales are done as part of my job as press officer for National Museums Liverpool.

I was a newspaper reporter for many years and am a proficient writer in Pitman’s shorthand. I can write down large amounts of information in a relatively short time using those peculiar phonetic symbols and short-forms. This particular skill is very handy in preparing the Tales. Sometimes I have an idea in my head before I make my monthly visit to the museum to do Tales research. More often than not it is quick flashes of inspiration which will see the birth of a Tale.

Many of the Tales involve my own research and in this area the Internet has opened whole new areas to countless people, myself included.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I like my food – good traditional English grub boiled, grilled, roasted or fried. If there’s one thing that puts me off it’s tainted food: the awful aroma and taste of the processed ready-meal or tinned scouse, to name just two.

German propaganda films of the Second World War depict the crews of U-boat submarines as swashbuckling marauders trawling the vast oceans for enemy ships to attack and destroy. In reality, the lives of the 40,000 men who served in the U-boat fleet bore little relation to this glamorous image which their activities inspired in the German public mind. The U-boats were cramped, smelly, unhygienic and also almost unbearably claustrophobic.

A typical U-boat bow (front) compartment measuring just 12 feet across, housed some 25 men, several 22 ft torpedoes and equipment. Each bunk bed was used by two or three people on a shift system.

The diet of U-boat crews was mainly tinned food. But, fresh or tinned, it always “tasted of U-boat – diesel oil with a flavour of mould,” according to Heinz Schaeffer, commander of U977.

A German war photographer on board U96 in 1941 wrote: “The heat. The stench of oil.  Lead in my skull from the engine fumes. I feel like Jonah inside some huge shellfish sheathed in armour.”

Included in the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery is an exhibition model of the notorious U99 (shown here) which sank 40 British and Allied merchant ships (about 250,000 tons) in under nine months’ active service from July 1940. She was under the command of Otto Kretschmer, one of Germany’s most successful U-boat aces. U99’s luck, however, ran out on 17 March 1941 when she was sunk south west of the Faroe Islands between Iceland and north Scotland by the destroyer HMS Walker. Kretschmer and most of the crew were rescued and became prisoners-of-war.

U-boat medals on display include an Iron Cross second class 1939-45, which was awarded to large numbers of U-boat men, and a U-boat patrol badge. 

Towards the end of 1940 Admiral Karl Donitz, Officer Commanding U-boats, introduced the wolf pack system of using several U-boats to attack a convoy at night on the surface. A detailed model shows a wolf pack gathering beneath the waves for a surface attack on an Allied convoy in the north Atlantic at night.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

I have been up the towers of Liverpool’s Liver Building several times to witness the breathtaking views across land and sea. Recently I learnt that this world-famous edifice once housed offices and personnel vital to the convoy system in the Second World War.

Liverpool was the most important convoy port in Britain during the war when groups of merchant ships, escorted by the Royal Navy, maintained a lifeline of supplies across the Atlantic. The Royal Navy was desperately short of ships suitable for convoy escort work at the outbreak of war. All it had were 24 old destroyers, a handful of sloops and a few anti-submarine trawlers.

In September 1940, 50 old American destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy in return for the use of British naval and air bases in the western Atlantic. Despite this, that winter there were only enough escorts to provide two for each convoy. The Admiralty had to draft in 70 trawlers from the fishing fleets. The original convoys consisted of between 30 and 40 merchant ships sailing in lines or columns. In the later war years, the convoys became much larger, often exceeding 70 ships.

Most ocean-going ships travelled to and from Britain via her western coastal waters. From October 1939, defence of these waters came under the naval operational control of Western Approaches Command based in Plymouth. This HQ was moved to Liverpool, the most central west coast port, in February 1941. It developed into a vast organisation responsible for the day-to-day direction of Britain’s entire north Atlantic campaign.

In Liverpool the Naval Control Service Officer (NCSO) was based on the first floor of the Royal Liver Building at the Pier Head. This officer was responsible for the routing of ships individually or in convoy.

Displays at the Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Battle of the Atlantic gallery include a photo of a July 1941 convoy pre-sailing conference in the Liver Building (shown here). These meetings were also attended by ships’ masters and their chief engineers, the convoy commodore and representatives of the sea and air escorts.

Also on display are remarkably-detailed coloured sketches showing some of the ships which made up convoys.These drawings are believed to have been begun during the convoys themselves by the commodore, Rear Admiral Hugh Hext Rogers. He probably completed them soon afterwards. They show side views of the ships with each one named.

Next week we look at life on board the U-boats which hounded the convoys.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

With eyes bulging and sweat pouring down their faces, submariners crouch fearfully as depth charges explode around them. The sub lurches and shudders, then – in a foaming, noisy climax - water comes pouring in.

This is the popular cinema and TV view of depth charges doing their deadly work against unseen enemies. I find such scenes gripping and unsettling in their intensity – particularly because I hate confined, crowded spaces.

Until 1942 the depth charge was the only weapon that could be used against a submerged submarine. It consisted of a steel drum filled with 200 lbs (90 kilos) of high explosive set to detonate at different depths of water.

In 1939 the standard equipment for small warships was a trap from which charges were rolled over the stern and two mortars, or throwers, which fired them 120 ft on either beam (side of the ship). Soon more traps and throwers were added. Depth charges were dropped in various patterns to give the best chances of success. Eventually heavy weights were fixed to half the charges, causing them to sink faster and explode deeper.

The Battle of the Atlantic gallery at Merseyside Maritime Museum includes a coloured diagram showing a cross section of a Mark VII depth charge. It worked on the principle that water pressure increased with water depth. The depth at which the charge exploded was controlled by an adjustable inlet valve at one end. After filling a bellows chamber, the water drove the detonator against the primer causing it to explode and set off the main charge.

A exploding depth charge could destroy a U-boat 25 ft away and damage one at a distance of 50 ft. Even explosions that didn’t hit their targets could cause trauma, similar to shell shock, among U-boat crews.

Depth charges were used in conjunction with ASDIC, later known as sonar, which had been fitted in many of the Royal Navy’s smaller warships in 1939. It was a secret apparatus for locating submerged submarines using sound waves. The device consisted of an electronic sound transmitter and receiver, housed in a metal dome beneath the ship’s hull, near the bow. The gallery has a life-sized reconstruction of an ASDIC hut on a British destroyer at the start of the war.  It features original equipment and a recording of the pinging sounds that bounced back when the sound waves hit a submarine.

After 1942, new weapons such as the forward-throwing Hedgehog and Squid anti-submarine mortars were introduced against U-boats.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Seafarers from all over the world were a familiar sight on the streets of Liverpool and I always enjoyed watching the different personalities and characters. Some would head for local markets while others would congregate around the dock road area. It was the advent of container ships which concentrated activity at the Freeport and changed this way of life for mariners for ever.

Porters who handled luggage from the liners at the Prince’s Stage wore uniforms. The mix was further enhanced when a Royal Navy warship docked and the crew were ‘on the town’ in their bellbottom trousers and broad collars.

The worldwide success of British steamships in Victorian times greatly boosted seafaring jobs in the UK. It also provided most seafarers with greater continuity of work because steamships, unlike sailing vessels, could undertake reliable, scheduled services between ports.

This led to greater job security and company loyalty among mariners. Despite this, by the 1890s ship owners were finding it increasingly difficult – because of the low wages and poor conditions afloat – to staff their ships with good-quality British ratings. They therefore began to employ growing numbers of foreign seafarers on their ocean-going ships. From 1890, the Brocklebank shipping company hired lascars from Singapore and Malaya as deck, engine room and saloon crews. Chinese crews were a feature of the Blue Funnel Line.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there are displays about the working lives of seafarers. A lascar crew is pictured on the Brocklebank ship Pindari in 1891.

Kroo deckhands from Freetown, Sierra Leone, are pictured on the Palm Line’s Kamasi Palm in 1954. Krooboys, as they were called, were employed to handle cargo between coastal ports in West Africa. A Chinese certificate of merit was awarded to Chinese crew members by Blue Funnel during the Second World War.

The spectacular growth in the number and size of passenger steamers in the late 19th century created thousands of new seafaring jobs. These ranged from engine room staff to stewards, stewardesses and other hotel-style staff providing services for passengers.

Photographs on display include this one showing stewardesses in starched aprons and caps pictured on White Star Line’s Teutonic in 1889.

Three women who worked as a hairdresser, shop assistant and stenographer are seen on the Empress of France in 1956.

A fascinating model depicts the No 3 boiler room on the Aquitania of 1913. A total of 304 firemen, trimmers and greasers worked in the four boiler rooms on this luxury liner.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

I spend a lot of time at the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Albert Dock, in the course of my work but only recently discovered the dock’s role in the Second World War as a corvette base.

Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, at the outbreak of war ordered the building of corvettes – lightly armed warships to escort vital supply convoys crossing the Atlantic. These corvettes – named after flowers – were based on whale catchers and were small and cheap to build.  First coming into service in April 1940, they bore the brunt of British and Canadian naval escort work in the Battle of the Atlantic. Nearly 300 corvettes were built and they sank 38 U-boat submarines with the loss of just 25 of their own number.

Liverpool-born Nicholas Monsarrat, author of best-selling 1951 novel The Cruel Sea, served as a young Lieutenant in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) on the Liverpool-based corvette HMS Campanula. He used his memories from this period as material for The Cruel Sea and his wartime book HM Corvette (1942). In The Cruel Sea he described how the crew of a corvette “looked as if they had been through a tidal wave, emerging in tatters at the end of it” after 22 days at sea.

The RNVR - 6,000-strong in 1939 – was the Royal Navy’s second line of reserves. Unlike the Royal Navy Reserve (RNR), it consisted of volunteers with no professional sea experience or training who learnt their new roles remarkably quickly.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a display featuring Nicholas Monsarrat’s wartime medals, both full-sized and miniature groups. A photograph shows Monsarrat, wearing a duffle coat and holding binoculars, on the bridge of the Campanula based at the Albert Dock.

In command of Campanula at this time was Lt Commander Richard Case RNR. Born and educated in Liverpool, Case was a professional sea officer with Coast Lines before the war. After serving on Campanula, he took charge of the Londonderry-based frigate Rother which he guided safely through some of the fiercest convoy battles of the war. On display are his steel helmet and woollen mittens which evoke those critical days on Atlantic and Arctic escort duties.

There is a 1:96 scale waterline model of one of the corvettes which did not come back. HMS Picotee (shown here), based in Greenock, was torpedoed and sunk by the U-568 while escorting a convoy off southern Ireland. More than 60 crew were lost.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

 

Few things can rival the bliss of enjoying a pint of tea first thing in the morning – real tea, not tea bags, so you get the full taste of the brew.

The recent disastrous fire which badly damaged the legendary Cutty Sark has highlighted the role played by tea clippers in maritime history.

Designed to carry China tea quickly and efficiently, the glamorous era of these fast, slender sailing ships only lasted between 1850 and 1870 but the clippers left an indelible mark on the history of seafaring.

Pioneered by the Americans, the first true clipper was the Rainbow launched in 1845. She completed the journey from New York to Canton in 102 days – clipping more than two weeks off the previous record for that trip.

This may have been how the ships got their name although the word clipper was originally applied to a fast horse, so this may have been the origin.

American and British ships competed to be fastest in the tea trade and this is how international races started from 1852 when British Challenger beat the US clipper Challenge.

New ports opening in China to feed the tea trade fuelled the races. A winning ship’s cargo of tea could earn a premium of sixpence (two and a half pence) per pound weight.

The most famous clipper race was in 1866 when 10 clippers set out for London from Foochow. They were so equally matched that they were often in sight of each other as they sped across the Indian Ocean, around the Cape of Good Hope and north across the Atlantic.

The race was declared a dead heat between Taeping and Ariel – one of the most famous clippers - which both came into the Thames estuary neck-and-neck.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a superb model of a typical tea clipper from about 1865, showing the cross section of the hull. The 1:48 scale model depicts a 186 ft-long three-masted wooden ship, with metal fastenings, similar in size and construction to the Ariel built in Greenock.

By the 1860s iron was increasingly being used to strengthen wooden ships so that they could be built to greater lengths.

There is a painting of the Maiden Queen by an unknown Chinese artist. Owned by T & J Brocklebank and employed in the tea trade, she is shown off the coast of China.

A number of Chinese artists worked in Far Eastern ports producing ship portraits for European captains.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

I was taken aback recently to learn that one of my relatives still has a teddy at the age of 19. He takes comfort having it near as have countless other people – including our own royal family. However, it didn’t appeal to me after the age of about three.

Countless thousands of children have travelled on passenger ships but very little has been recorded about their experiences unless by adults.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a collection of material linked to a young girl who sailed across the Atlantic with her mother and brother during the First World War. She was Nancy Mildon, aged eight, who sailed on the Cunard liner Alaunia from New York to Plymouth in July 1916. Nancy and her family were returning to England after spending six years in Canada. The crossing was frightening because of the threat of attacks by German U-boats.

Nancy had her toy lion Fido to hug for comfort during the voyage. She called him Fido because at first she thought he was a toy dog. Nancy (later Mrs Hall) kept Fido until she was almost 90 years old, when she gave him to the museum. During the voyage, Nancy was upset when her mother lent Fido to passenger Ruth Merrington who wrote an ode starting:

A British lion watch do keep
O’er a little bunk
Where I tried to sleep.
He rolled his eyes and he wagged his tail
When spooky sounds my cheek did pale.

Family photos (including this one) record Nancy on the voyage – one with her sailor-suited brother and other child passengers and crew members.

From an earlier era is The Big Ship (Great Eastern) Alphabet. The front cover shows Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s huge ship with its churning paddle wheels. Other illustrations on display show a children’s race on board the Andes in the 1930s. There are two from the 1950s - playroom on a passenger liner and bedtime stories on the Ivernia.

Many souvenirs could be bought - one is a “take to pieces” model of the Queen Mary dating from 1936.

A sailor boy doll dressed in bell-bottomed trousers wears a cap carrying the name Lancastria. This pre-war souvenir is a poignant reminder that many children were among up to 5,000 people who died when the liner was sunk by the Germans off France, in June 1940. It was the worst-ever loss of life on a British ship. 

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Sea air gives me an appetite and it has to be really rough to put me off my food. I fondly remember the old Isle of Man ferry which always sounded the dinner gong immediately after casting off from Douglas, so there were no excuses for wavering.

The welcome return of cruise liners to Liverpool’s waterfront puts into focus Britain’s historical association with sea travel as the world’s greatest maritime nation. As an island, Britain has always depended heavily on sea travel. Until the invention of aircraft, for example, everyone travelling to and from Britain had to do so by ship.

Until the late 19th century sea travel was often unpleasant and hazardous. It was usually undertaken only when absolutely necessary.

At the Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a hilarious coloured engraving of 1818 by G Humphrey called “An interesting scene on board an East Indiaman showing the effects of a heavy lurch after dinner”. Passengers on board a sailing ship attempt to eat at a table as the ship lurches from side to side, scattering food and drink.

Few sailing ships had more than the most basic facilities for passengers, who were largely left to fend for themselves. Early steam ships were usually able to provide reliable, scheduled services regardless of the weather. By the end of the 19th century the age of the floating palaces had arrived, providing comfortable accommodation for passengers.

Although today competing with aircraft and Channel Tunnel trains, ships still carry millions of people to and from Britain every year. Ferries can compete with aircraft because they carry large numbers of road vehicles as well as foot passengers. They can also compete with Channel Tunnel trains because they transport more vehicles and people to a wider range of destinations. Roll-on, roll-off car ferries were widely introduced on routes to and from Britain in the mid-1960s.

In the past holiday cruises were often seen as being for the very old or very wealthy. In recent years, however, they have become less expensive and they are experiencing a boom. People of all ages enjoy cruising because the ships provide the facilities of floating hotels and holiday resorts while moving from place to place. Among the other attractions are sunshine, fresh sea air, excellent food and exotic locations.

Other exhibits include a publicity model of the passenger / vehicle ferry Stena Hengist dating from about 1990. She was operated by Stena Sealink Ltd on the English Channel routes between 1990 and 1993.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

My late uncle Alfred Guy would tell stories of armies of rats moving between ships and warehouses when he served as a policeman at Liverpool’s docks in the 1930s. It was always in the dead of night when the vermin surged past him looking for holds full of grain or piles of food-filled sacks.

Seafarers have always dreaded illness and disease breaking out on board ship and in the past scourges like scurvy could decimate crews made vulnerable by poor food. Vessels were infested with vermin such as rats and cockroaches which could bring infections that spread like wildfire in the days before immunisation and antibiotics. There were tales of derelicts – ships found drifting months and even years after all the crew members had died from disease.

Before the Second World War mariners were particularly vulnerable to illness. This was due largely to their unhealthy diet and bad conditions on board. Other reasons were the poor health of new recruits and the exposure of many crews to highly-infectious diseases, especially on voyages to tropical countries. Although the situation has improved greatly since the 1940s, merchant seafaring is still a relatively unhealthy occupation.

More than 200 years ago slave ships were particularly unhealthy. Over one fifth of seamen on Liverpool and Bristol slave ships in the late 18th century died due to illness on the voyage.

Between 1918 and 1939 merchant seamen were three times more likely to die of TB than the average British male.

The Seamen’s Hospital Society was established in 1821 and incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1833. Today it is a UK charity which helps people currently or previously employed in the Merchant Navy or fishing fleets and their dependents. From 1821 to 1870 the Society ran Seaman’s Infirmaries on former warships before moving ashore as the Dreadnought Seamen’s Hospital, Greenwich, named after its last floating home. Today the hospital continues as the Dreadnought Unit at University College Hospitals London.

Merseyside Maritime Museum has a display focusing on disease and illness at sea. There are examples of surgical tools used on vessels. From 1894, all foreign-going British ships carrying more than 100 people were required to carry a qualified surgeon.

A large wooden medicine chest for seafarers contains glass medicine bottles, pestle and mortar and scales. It dates from 1854 which was the year British ships were required to carry medical equipment and stores for the treatment of illness and injury.

This photograph shows apprentices dhobying (washing their clothes) on the Brocklebank Line’s Malakand about 1910.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

I remember the Prince’s Landing Stage at Liverpool as a constantly busy place when I was a boy in the 1950s – and the Empress of France was one of the monarchs of the sea attended by hundreds of passengers and crew.

This magnificent liner started as a Duchess before serving as a troopship in the Second World War and – after sinking a German U-boat and shooting down an enemy plane – was created an Empress.

The 20,448-ton Duchess of Bedford, of the Canadian Pacific Line, was a popular ship on the Liverpool to Canada run and she was renamed Empress of France in 1947.

She was a floating world of contrasts when first built in 1928. In those days the Duchess of Bedford could carry up to 1,570 passengers. It could take an army of some 70 waiters, 80 stewards and stewardesses, six chefs and 50 kitchen staff just to feed them. The crew numbered 510 in all, including the deck and engine room staff.

Conditions for crew members were basic, with no recreational facilities or dining rooms. Kitchen staff ate on the worktops and shared accommodation with up to 19 others in steel bunks. They had to travel light because each only had an 18-inch square locker for all their belongings.

However, for her passengers she set new standards of comfort when she began life as one of four Duchesses sailing out of Liverpool.

The Duchess of Bedford had hot and cold running water for all 580 cabin class, 480 tourist class and 510 third class passengers. This was at a time when many British homes had only a cold tap and did not have constant hot running water.

Requisitioned as a troopship, she carried a mammoth 179,000 personnel and covered more than 400,000 miles during her war service.

The Duchess of Bedford was sailing from Liverpool to Boston in August 1942 when she spotted a U-boat and sank the submarine by gunfire. She was later used in the north Africa landings in November 1943 when she shot down an enemy aircraft.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a large model of the liner when she was the Empress of France, shown in her post-war livery.

Resuming her Liverpool – Quebec – Montreal sailings in September 1948, she did 310 round voyages across the north Atlantic before her final crossing in 1960.

A photograph shows the 582-ft long Empress leaving Liverpool for the last time, heading for Newport, Monmouthshire, where she was scrapped.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Image courtesy of the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo.

Danger lurks everywhere and it is essential to keep vigilant at all times. This painful lesson was literally driven home to me recently when I was knocked off my bicycle – flying 10 ft into the air, fortunately without serious injury.

Birkenhead-born Leslie Morton, aged 18, has a unique place in history for using his eyes. He was the lookout who first spotted the torpedo which sank the Lusitania as she headed for Liverpool on 7 May 1915. It was just after lunchtime on a bright, sunny day and the sea was calm when the German submarine U-20 launched its deadly attack.

As the great ship passed the lighthouse at the Old Head of Kinsale, southern Ireland, Leslie was stationed on the bow of the liner. Suddenly, he spotted thin lines of foam racing towards the ship and shouted: “Torpedoes coming in on the starboard”.  A large explosion shook the Cunard vessel as the torpedo blew a large hole in her right side. The Lusitania began to sink very rapidly at the bow and within 18 minutes she was on the bottom of the Irish Sea. A total of 1,195 people died in the tragedy.

Lusitania is featured in a permanent exhibition at the Merseyside Maritime Museum called Titanic, Lusitania and the Forgotten Empress – the latter being the Empress of Ireland which sank in Canada in 1914. There is a section devoted to Leslie Morton and his brother Clifford, who was nearly 19 at the time of the disaster (they were not twins). 

Both brothers saved many lives and Leslie was later considered to be the “outstanding hero of the Lusitania disaster”.

They joined the crew of the Lusitania as ordinary seamen in New York. The brothers were among eight crew from the Liverpool sailing ship Naiad who jumped ship to join Lusitania. All planned to join the Royal Navy once they returned to England. The Morton brothers were the only ones to survive the sinking.

On display is the silver Board of Trade Gallantry Medal awarded to Leslie Morton for saving lives at sea.

Kapitan-lieutenant Walter Schwieger was the captain of the U-boat which sank the Lusitania. He was very successful, sinking three ships in two days before scuppering the Lusitania.

The sinking of the Lusitania sparked riots and attacks on businesses run by people of German descent in Liverpool and elsewhere. My late father, George Guy, as a four-year-old clearly remembered a mob attacking Yagg’s shop in Everton.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

I’m told duffle coats are coming back into fashion – as they were when I was at school in the 1960s – but little did I realise that they came to the fore on the convoys of the Second World War. The convoys which brought vital supplies across the Atlantic to Britain were constantly threatened by German submarines bent on sinking as many ships as possible.

Once at sea, merchant seafarers were always involved in the daily routine of watches (two and four-hour working shifts). Off-duty time was mostly spent sleeping, playing cards or on other similar pastimes

Whenever a convoy was under attack it took great discipline and nerve to remain at your post. Engine room staff lived closer to death than those on deck, since the engine room was a prime target for U-boat torpedoes and was often a difficult place from which to escape.

Iron ore cargo ships, once torpedoed, were often known to sink literally like stones. The crews of oil tankers knew that they could be burnt alive if their ship was attacked.

In 1942, 8,400 British and Commonwealth merchant seafarers lost their lives in the Atlantic. Nearly a third of the crews died on British ships that were sunk. Government reports said that morale within the merchant navy remained remarkably high. Most of the people involved, however, felt they were just doing their jobs, like millions of others.

Among exhibits on display at the Merseyside Maritime Museum are tiny models of the warships which escorted the convoys. These miniature waterline models, scale 1:1200, show how small Royal Navy ships were compared to capital ships. There are models of the destroyers Montgomery and Vanoc (both built1918) and Fame (1934), sloop Pelican (1939), corvette Abelia (1943) and frigate Allington Castle (1944). By way of comparison, there is a same scale model of one of the Royal Navy’s largest capital ships of the war, the battleship King George V.

There is the commissioning pennant of the destroyer Hesperus which was based in Liverpool for much of the war. A photo shows Hesperus entering the Gladstone Dock in December 1942, her bow crumpled after ramming and sinking the U-357.

An iconic duffle coat is of the type worn by Royal Naval and merchant seafarers on the Atlantic convoys throughout the war. Another iconic item is a Mae West lifejacket as worn by British and allied personnel during the war. It was named after the buxom Hollywood star who was a pin-up of the time.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

Several of my friends emigrated but now, with the arrival of cheap air travel, they quite frequently return on visits. One comes every year from New Zealand. In the past emigration usually meant, for those left behind, that you were unlikely to see loved ones again. It was a drastic step.

Liverpool was well-placed on the west coat of Britain to cater for the huge growth in the emigrant trade to the United States and Canada by the early 19th century. It became Britain’s most important international passenger port and probably the greatest emigrant port in world history, with some nine million people passing through in the period 1830 to 1930. Not until 1927, when transatlantic emigration was in decline, did Southampton finally surpass Liverpool for international passenger traffic.

From 1800 until the 1920s the busiest ocean travel route in the world was between the British Isles and North America. Most of the millions of passengers on this route were emigrants to the USA and Canada. Many came from as far away as Scandinavia and Russia to set off from Liverpool. From 1850 many emigrants also sailed to Australasia and other British colonies around the world.

As the 20th century dawned, however, more and more people became tourists and travelled the oceans for pleasure rather than need. The main short-sea routes to and from Britain are to Europe and Ireland. In recent years, business and pleasure have been the main reasons for travel.

Despite the successes of Cunard’s paddle steamer Britannia and other British steam packets in the 1840s, most passengers to and from Britain still travelled by sailing ship. This was because until the 1860s travel under sail, although slower, remained cheaper. By 1870 steamships were becoming larger and more powerful and were carrying many more passengers than ever before.

There are many displays at Merseyside Maritime Museum illustrating the era of sea passenger travel. There are displays about the passenger liners, how people lived on board, what they took with them and what they ate. The Britannia, a wooden paddle steamer, took 14 days to cross the Atlantic. The Queen Mary, five times as long and nearly 70 times larger in tonnage, took just four days.

Liverpool-based shipping companies had regular passenger services to every continent until the 1960s. Competition from air travel ended the era of the passenger liners but in the recent years there has been a huge growth in cruise holidays.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

This portrait of Sir Percy Bates is one of my favourites as it makes you want to know more about the man as he looks quizzically over his spectacles. The painting hangs in the Life at Sea gallery in the Merseyside Maritime Museum along with personal items and other memorabilia.

Cunard chairman Sir Percy (1879-1946) had the idea of building legendary liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. He was one of a long line of shipowners and shipping company bosses who had tremendous influence when British vessels led the world.

Sir Percy, a baronet, began his career with the family shipping firm of Edward Bates & Co. He joined Cunard in 1910 and was chairman from 1930 to 1946, a crucial period in the Liverpool-based company’s history when both the Queens were built and Cunard merged with rival White Star.

In December 1930, Sir Percy’s dream of two world-leading ships had begun to take shape when the Queen Mary’s keel was laid at John Brown’s Shipyard at Glasgow. Work was delayed because of the Depression before the Queen Mary was launched and sailed on her maiden voyage in May 1936. The Queen Elizabeth was completed in 1940 and both Queens became troopships in the Second World War. Queen Elizabeth did not enter normal passenger service until 1946. Sadly, Sir Percy died from a heart attack, aged 67, at this time.

Items on display include a beautiful illuminated scroll carrying the speech Sir Percy made at the launch of the Queen Elizabeth in 1938. A cigarette box is made from oak off the Cunard liner Aquitania. A gold medal produced to mark the launch of Queen Mary. Only four others were produced – for Edward VIII, Queen Mary, President and Mrs Franklin D Roosevelt. In contrast, a simple leather briefcase was used by Sir Percy when he was Cunard chairman.

Other leading shipping figures are featured. A photograph of members of the Liverpool Shipowners’ Association 1890-1 shows the top-hatted grandees standing proudly in rows.Alfred Holt (1829-1911), founder of the Blue Funnel Line, was also an engineer and designer of the compound engine. His work ensured the ultimate success of the long-distance steamer.

Sir Alfred Read (1871-1955) brought together a number of small companies to form Coast Lines in 1912. Until the Second World War, Coast Lines was the largest trading group between British ports, including Ireland.

Lord Kylsant (1863-1937) was chairman of the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company from 1903 to 1931.The group was broken up in 1931 after financial problems and irregularities for which Kylsant was convicted.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

I’m always fascinated by the ‘what ifs?’ of history and the sinking of the Titanic might never have happened if the rivets had been different.

Riveters played a vital role in shipbuilding when Britain’s shipyards boomed as the Empire expanded and the Royal Navy dominated the seas. Riveting was the only method of fastening together the plates and frames of early iron and steel ships. It was a very laborious process and accounted for much of the banging and clattering associated with traditional shipbuilding.

About three million rivets were used to hold Titanic together. Rivets recovered from the wreck were apparently made of poor quality iron. One theory about the sinking claims that the impact with the iceberg caused the heads of the rivets to break off and sections of Titanic to break up. Better quality rivets, it is argued, may have prevented the ship sinking.

The most effective way of making rivet holes was with an hydraulic punch. By the 1870s such machines were capable of punching up to 30 holes a minute in half-inch thick plates. When riveting was done by hand, large shipyards such as Cammell Laird’s employed more than 100 riveting squads, each with five men. They were:

• The heater, usually the youngest of the team, who softened the rivets in a portable forge before picking them up with long-handled tongs and throwing them to …
• The catcher who caught the rivets in a tin then, with short-handled tongs, placed the rivets in the holes where they were held by …
• The holder up whose 14 lb hammer kept the rivets in place while they were hammered by …
• The riveters who worked in pairs with hammers weighing between  three and five lbs to round over the ends of the rivets, thus fastening the plates together.

On display at Merseyside Maritime Museum is a riveting hearth and examples of plates riveted together.

The death-knell for riveting was sounded in 1920 when Cammell Laird launched the Fullagar, the world’s first all-welded steel ship. Welding was perhaps the greatest development in shipbuilding in the 20th century. The time-consuming and labour-intensive process of riveting was replaced by the stronger and more efficient method of welding steel plates. There was no need for overlapping plates or connecting flanges so less steel was used.

The speed of construction was greatly increased and automatic welding machines could be used. Today large sections of hull and superstructure can be built under cover so that final assembly is simplified.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

One of my favourite scenes in the classic film Around the World in 80 Days (1956) is when virtually everything that’ll burn is thrown into the furnaces to keep the ship going – with hilarious results. A real incident many years before may have inspired French author Jules Verne when he wrote the original story in 1873.

The paddle steamer Sirius was the first ship to cross the Atlantic by steam power alone. She achieved the feat in 18 days, arriving in New York on 22 April 1838. Setting out from London and stopping briefly at Cork, she battled against head winds on the stormy ocean crossing in a race to be the first to steam all the way across.

As Sirius neared Long Island and the end of her voyage, she had run out of coal and was burning her supplies for fuel. A great crowd gathered in New York harbour to cheer her in. Sirius arrived just eight hours before her much-larger rival, Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s Great Western, which had set out three days behind her.

Only 200 feet long, Sirius was built in Scotland for the coastal trade between Cork and London. Although she had sails, her steam-powered paddles were her main source of propulsion.

Early in the epic Atlantic crossing, her captain – the naval officer Lt Richard Roberts – had to persuade his crew not to turn back because of the bad weather. Sirius was carrying 40 passengers (29 man, 11 women) travelling in three classes. Cans of salmon, oysters and lobsters were among the provisions carried.

Both Sirius and Great Western suffered big financial losses, mainly because neither ship attracted many passengers for the return voyages to Britain. However, this trans-Atlantic steam race had sparked the imagination of the public and shipowners began to build steam packets to meet the demand. Steamers had conquered the mighty Atlantic, changing ocean travel forever.

At Merseyside Maritime Museum there is a fine oil painting of Sirius (shown). She is seen off New York with passengers and crew on deck, her helmsman at the wheel. There is also an exhibition model made by D Balfour and SH Phillips at the time of her 100th anniversary (1937). Sirius sank off Ballycotton, Ireland, in 1847 with the loss of 20 lives.

Until the mid-19th century sea travel was often unpleasant and hazardous. It was not usually undertaken lightly and only if absolutely necessary, such as for business reasons.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

A childhood game left me claustrophobic so I cannot abide crowds of people in enclosed, windowless spaces.

The popular Liverpool school playground activity in the 1950s involved a group of lads piling on top of you until you screamed for mercy. As a result, submarines are not for me.

Germany’s U-boats waged an underwater campaign against the transatlantic convoys bringing vital supplies to Britain during the Second World War.

But once the Allies had gained advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic there was no escape for the U-boats and it was only a matter of time before they were routed.

Although the Germans developed new U-boat weapons and equipment, they came too late. Renewal of the U-boat offensive was ended by Allied advances in Europe.

German naval commander Admiral Karl Donitz issued the ceasefire order on 4 May 1945. The U-boat crews were elite seafarers who were proud of their achievements. At the end of the war, more than 200 U-boats were scuttled by their crews so they would not fall into the hands of the Allies.

There is a display of U-boat exhibits at Merseyside Maritime Museum.  A U-boat issue grey leather jacket, made in Vienna, hangs next to a German-issue sweater with zip-up collar.

A pair of binoculars was taken from a captured U-boat commander. A Kriegsmarine ensign emblazoned with a swastika is believed to have come from a surrendered U-boat.

A wooden heart decorated with flowers has the humorous inscription in German: “The cunning of women is endless”. Kriegsmarine badges and personal effects were “liberated” from German naval barracks at Emden, north west Germany, by a British soldier.

A photo shows the crew of a U-boat standing with heads bowed as the sub docked at Wilhelmshaven naval base following the German ceasefire.

An aerial view reveals more than 60 surrendered U-boats at Lishally, near Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

A number of German submarines arrived in Liverpool and the surrendered U1023 is seen in the Mersey.

On display is the painted emblem from the conning tower of the U249, the first German submarine to surrender at sea to the Royal Navy at the end of the war. On 9 May 1945, following orders from German High Command, U249 surrendered to HMS Magpie and HMS Amethyst.

The emblem was the gift of Mrs P Symonds of Dorset in memory of her late husband, Capt George Symonds, in command of HMS Magpie at the time of the surrender.

Merseyside Maritime Museum is open seven days a week, admission free. A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.

I always think of Easter in terms of crowded church services, frolicking baby lambs, daffodils and chocolate eggs – it is not a festival which has any obvious seafaring links. Easter is traditionally a time for relaxation and leisure activities but for centuries seafarers would have seen little difference from one day to the next during the days of sail. Pursuits such as model-making and perhaps art work including scrimshaw had to be fitted in during quiet periods.

A cultural change blew in when steam supplanted sail on merchant ships criss-crossing the world as the British Empire reached its zenith. By the 1880s steam ships had largely taken over from sailing ships in the British merchant fleet.

Eventually the steamship era brought better conditions for most seafarers. Only the firemen and trimmers, who kept the ship’s furnaces supplied with coal, continued to work in particularly harsh and unhealthy conditions. Their salvation didn’t come until after the Second World War when oil replaced coal as fuel on most ships.

However, leisure facilities for seafarers on most ships were very limited before the 1950s. Officers and ratings relaxed by reading, writing letters home or playing cards, chess or similar games. Smoking was very popular but alcohol was strictly controlled.

On both passenger and cargo ships, crews often organised elaborate Crossing the Line ceremonies for their own and passengers’ amusement when ships passed over the equator. Boxing matches were also popular.

By the 1950s and 60s better facilities were gradually introduced. These included recreation rooms, film shows, deck tennis, bars and swimming pools. A large ship might also provide gym facilities and a separate TV lounge.

Exhibits in Merseyside Maritime Museum’s Life at Sea gallery include items used by Dorothy Scobie, of Liverpool, who joined Cunard White Star Line as a stewardess in 1939. After serving with the Royal Navy during the Second World War, she rejoined Cunard. From the 1950s until her retirement in the 1970s, Dorothy worked with Ellerman Lines and Belfast Ferries. On display is an embroidered scrapbook cover (shown) made by Dorothy while at sea during the 1950s plus three sketches made by one of her shipmates and kept in her scrap book.

A model of the Atlantic Conveyor, the well-known container ship built in 1985, gives an idea of the scale of this vast vessel. She has a crew of just 18 and the leisure facilities on board surpass anything available 50 years ago. These include an indoor swimming pool, sauna, cinema, sports room, TV and video/ DVD library room and even a conference room.

A new Maritime Tale by Stephen Guy appears every Saturday in the Liverpool Echo.