National Museums Liverpool Blog - Thursday, April 23, 2009

I'm never quite sure how to mark St George’s Day. I’m a vegetarian and perhaps predisposed to feel some sympathy for the dragon – a creature which is celebrated rather than vilified in Chinese mythology. I suppose slaying a dragon is really quite an achievement and this painting by James Campbell certainly depicts just how small and feeble a man might look in the mouth of the dragon’s lair. The kids are also big fans of ‘Jane and the Dragon’ in which the feisty and flame-haired squire (or knight apprentice) Jane befriends rather than beheads the dragon. So on behalf of dragon lovers everywhere, I thought I might give some other Liverpool Georges a look in. Here’s my Top 5 of Liverpool Georges:

1. George Harrison - recently given his own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Go and see his suit and other Beatles memorabilia in The Beat Goes On exhibition.  

2. St George’s Hall – the spectacular neighbour of the Walker Art Gallery and World Museum is now open to visitors and has its own heritage centre.

3. George Melly - This colourful character is the focus of an equally colourful exhibition of Maggi Hambling’s paintings at the Walker. George was also a regular childhood visitor to Sudley House.

4. George Stubbs – Liverpool’s most famous painter and Britain’s greatest painter of animals.

5. George Holt - Founder of the Lamport and Holt shipping line and fabulous art collector. You can his paintings in situ at his former family home, Sudley House.

You too could add your handwriting to a community layer of the Liverpool Map

People should get along to BBC Radio Merseyside this Friday 24 April between 10am and 5pm, for another opportunity to make their mark on the Liverpool Map.

After the success of last week’s Handwriting Session at Merseyside Maritime Museum, you can still put your handwriting forward for inclusion in the Map, which will go on display in the new Museum of Liverpool when it opens in 2010!

Come along ready to put pen to paper with your memories of favourite places in or associated with Liverpool, or you can copy out extracts of the Liverpool Saga; a poem written by the people of Merseyside to celebrate the city’s 800th birthday in 2007.

For more information on the Liverpool Map, see last week’s blog, or visit the website.

Men at work in the Museum of Liverpool

The latest batch of Museum of Liverpool construction snaps has been added to the museum's set on Flickr. They include this one of scaffolding against the interior of the north window (that's the Liver Building etc outside).

At this very second in time the museum's Twitter page has attracted a satisfactory yet surmountable 361 followers - not in the Stephen Fry league yet but give us time! If you've not checked it out yet have a look.

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.

HMS Conway anchor. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

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 cannot apologize for what has happened in the past - But I can do my best to never let it happen again.

It's always interesting and sometimes extremely moving to read the comment books and cards in our venues and get direct feedback from visitors. Some of the comments cards that I noticed in the International Slavery Museum this week for example have been extremely poignant and are a testament to the power of the incredible real life stories told within the museum's walls.

You can read a small selection in our visitor comment card set on Flickr.

Yesterday people were invited to Merseyside Maritime Museum to indulge in some creative writing with a difference. 

As part of The Liverpool Map project, we asked the public to come along and write about their favourite and most memorable places in Liverpool, with the opportunity to become part of a Liverpool legacy. 

The Liverpool Map has been researched and developed in conjunction with the people of Merseyside, and will go on display in the new Museum of Liverpool when it opens in 2010. 

International glasswork artists Inga Panels and Jeffrey Sarmiento will use pioneering techniques to create a large multi-layered glass monolith, and want the public to continue to be involved in its design.

The map will be a 3D structure featuring many layers of sheet glass fused into a solid block, each printed with a variety of images and designs showing Liverpool as a city defined by culture and heritage rather than lines on a map. One of these glass layers will be a community layer, including some of the handwriting captured in yesterday’s workshop.

Nell and baby John from Maghull take part in the handwriting workshop for the Liverpool Map

Ideas for favourite places included the Albert Dock, Greenbank Park, the former St Martin's Bank building on Water Street, and Bold Street with its local landmark St Luke's Church - or as locals call it the 'bombed out church'.

 

You can still put your handwriting forward for inclusion in the Liverpool Map, by visiting the Performance Space at BBC Radio Merseyside on Friday 24 April between 10am - 5pm.

 

Come along with ideas of your special places on Merseyside, or if you need further inspiration you can copy out extracts of the Liverpool Saga; an 800 line poem written by people from Merseyside to celebrate Liverpool's 800th Birthday in 2007. It includes some brilliant examples of special memories of places in and around Liverpool!

Photo by Ibrahim Rahmin and Ian Burns, from the Street Life exhibition

Liverpool street fashion has always been an inspiration for professional and budding photographers alike. In 2006 we held the Street Life exhibition at the National Conservation Centre, which celebrated the unique styles of the residents of Liverpool no matter what their age. Our current Fashion V Sport exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery has inspired Creative and Media Diploma students from Liverpool Community College to create some striking images that explore current fashion trends among young people today. These images have been brought together to form Street Fashion, an exhibition in two parts; photographs by Level 2 students are currently on display until 29 April and Level 3 students will show from 1-31 May.

Also inspired by Fashion V Sport is our style-spotting competition! We are offering fashionistas the chance to win a £50 voucher for All Saints, Nike or Urban Outfitters or you could win tickets to see Pink or  Blur.  To be in with a chance of winning, come along to the gallery on Saturday 18 April when style-spotters from the Radio City Ground Crew will be at the exhibition. If you dress to impress then they might choose you to be a winner…

The crew of a Norweigan tanker with their simian and canine crewmates.

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).

Press officer, Ed Casson, tells us about a fascinating soundtrack that has been created to accompany one of our most popular paintings...

'And When Did You Last See Your Father?', William Yeames

Aigburth-born Alison invited visitors to the Walker Art Gallery to give descriptions of the famous William Yeames painting 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?' While some people were happy to give brief explanations of what they saw, others spent up to an hour outlining each precise detail of the piece. Alison edited these together to create a soundtrack, which was then played in front of an imprecise line drawing of the painting at a Liverpool DaDafest exhibition.

This fascinating recording has now been added to the 'And When Did You Last See Your Father?' page on our website where you can also see the painting, which shows a Royalist house under occupation by Parliamentarians and a young boy being interrogated as to the whereabouts of the master of the house.

Alison – the arts manager for Liverpool DaDa (Disability and Deaf Arts) – has recorded an interview with Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour about the project, which will be broadcast later this year.

Better late than never I've put up last week's Museum of Liverpool progress snaps on Flickr. Everything is still progressing swimmingly. Last week's progress included cladding to the reveals of the end gables with corner pieces being fitted this week; pressure testing of pipework; installation of external drainage and services ducts; the suspended ceiling started to go in; concerte work on the north and south ramps, and concrete fire sealing works to structure/building cavities.

Update: Was so late with that last set that this week's have turned up as well - have just uploaded them. They include some nice shots of the interior so are well worth a look.