National Museums Liverpool Blog - Friday, July 17, 2009

Jazz at the Walker - free on Sunday afternoons

I think we are all used to the concept of free museums and galleries and there’s nothing that my family likes better than a bit of free art and culture. The words ‘free entry’ are music to my husband’s ears. He doesn’t like to pay for anything that he doesn’t have to and is, by his own admission, ‘tighter than Rambo’s headband’ which I think is fair enough in these frugal times. I have just been looking at the possibility of a summer visit to Cadbury’s World which will cost just short of £40 for the two adults and one paying child, so we may well be hunting down free museums and galleries instead. Not that we won't fork out for special occasions - but there's a long summer holiday ahead that's a lot of days to keep little people entertained!

The one thing that we don’t begrudge paying for is live music. Whether it’s a local band or blockbuster tour, there’s generally a cost associated and I am more than happy to put my hand in my pocket - particularly for struggling musicians and bands starting out. Anyway this weekend we are lucky to have not just one, but two bands playing for free on William Brown Street. At World Museum on Saturday 18th July (1.30pm and 3pm) there will be live music in the atrium from The Nile Band as part of the Arabic Weekender. Then on Sunday up the road in the art gallery there will be another of our Jazz at the Walker sessions. This week it is the turn of the Tony Judge Quartet from 12.30-3pm. (And by the way, if you’re a jazz lover then don’t miss a special guest session on Sunday 2 August featuring The Downtown Dixieland Jazz Band).

So it looks like it will be a weekend of entertainment on the cheap for me – topped off on Saturday by a trip to see some of my colleagues (including at least two blog writers who shall remain nameless) dangling from the Liver Building for the ‘Liverpool Rocks’ abseiling event. If you want to know which ones they are, turn up at 3pm and just think Rambo’s headband – therein lies a visual clue.

Hello there

Thank you to everybody who voted for the International Slavery Museum in The National Lottery Good Causes Awards. We find out if we have made it through to the final on 3 August so watch this space. If we do make it through to the live TV show then I'll have to get my suit down to Johnson's, dig out my Homer Simpson tie and practice my TV smile!

Talking of smiles (now that is a good link) I saw the most famous in the world recently whilst I was on a weekend break to Paris. We spent nearly a whole day in the Louvre and 'tried' to get a close look at Leonardo Da Vinci's 'Mona Lisa' or 'La Gioconda' (an alternative title as the sitter is probably the wife of an Italian merchant called Francesco del Giocondo). As you can see from the picture the Mona Lisa draws crowds of visitors most museums can only dream of. It really is a sight to behold although there is hardly any room to stand and admire the picture as people are busy barging past. As a museum professional I am almost as interested in the behavior of the visitor as much as the collections themselves though. Don't expect to be able to stand in front of her and act like an art connoisseur but still worth the effort if you ever visit.

The Louvre really is an enormous place and deserves days rather a day to see it. I suggest setting your sights on seeing a couple of galleries or even just several specific objects. It will still take you a while to get there! We also visited the sumptuous apartments of Napoleon III tucked away in their own wing and the Egyptian collections. I think the same goes though when you visit one of our venues here in Liverpool. You will never be able to see everything in one day so think about what interests you the most and start from there. You will undoubtedly pass something else which catches your eye. I loved visiting museums before I worked in them so I still have to fight the urge of spending all afternoon wandering the galleries at the World Museum Liverpool or Maritime Museum after a meeting!

Whilst in Paris we also went to visit the apartment of Le Corbusier, one of the most important figures in modern architecture and design. Something of which I am particularly interested. Another seamless link here is that Le Corbusier, like Da Vinci, used the proportions of the human body to improve both the function and appearance of architecture. Le Corbusier called his system the Modulor whereas Da Vinci's produced a famous version of the Vitruvian Man. You might not know his name or that Da Vinci drew him but think of the multi-limbed man in the square and the circle! 

Le Corbusiers apartment was not particularly large or in any way luxurious as one might expect from someone of his standing but it was truly functional and built around his own needs. It made me think of just how much space we actually need to use in our own homes. The apartment also contained many pieces of furniture and design features we now take for granted – such as its open plan feeling where the living and dining areas are integrated. I could go on but I might become a bit of an anorak.

Closer to home, the Walker Art Gallery has a new exhibition called New Radicals: From Sickert to Freud which features some fine examples of Modernist art for those of you who have a Modernist streak in you.

Au revoir for now.

Sarah and Louise enjoy a rest in the Big Art gallery!

Here's a photo of a double celebration in the volunteers team. On the left is Sarah, who you may remember received her first v50 certificate for completing 50 hours as a volunteer in March. Sarah has just achieved her second v50 - bringing her total to more than 100 hours now.

With Sarah is another Big Art volunteer, Louise, who has just received her first v50 certificate. After all those hours of hard work with the younger (and therefore more energetic) visitors to the Walker Art Gallery, I'm sure you'll agree that they deserve a sit down!

The v50 certificates are awarded as part of National Museums Liverpool's dedicated youth volunteering programme aimed specifically at 16-25 year olds, funded by v, the youth volunteering charity.

If you would like to find out more about youth volunteering at National Museums Liverpool please email our youth volunteer officer Claire Olson.

Louise told us:
 
"I have enjoyed helping the children in Big Art to appreciate and be inspired by art through fun art activities. I have gained many skills and it has been a great opportunity."

As a child I spent a time living in Riyadh, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. We moved out in the mid 1980s when Britain was still dealing with the fallout of a recession. There couldn’t have been a greater contrast between a northern pit town reeling from miners' strike and the opulence of this beautiful city. Fountains, chandeliers, marbled floors, lavish buildings and startling architecture set against the evocative backdrop of red sand dunes and desert plains. I’d never seen anything like it. It’s such a fascinating city full of wonderful contrasts - Bedouins with camels, princes and palaces, souks and luxurious shopping malls, unimaginable wealth and the observance of sober traditions.

Perhaps it is because of this that I have always found Arabic artwork to be uplifting and inspirational, the patterns and intricacies, the traditional craftsmanship and the mathematical precision. Whenever I visit V&A Museum I always love to visit the Islamic Middle East gallery and soak up the atmosphere – there’s something incredibly calming and yet awe-inspiring about the immense rich tapestries and the subtle colours. I’m really thrilled that the inaugural Jameel Prize  - a new prize for contemporary artists and designers inspired by the Islamic traditions of craft and design - is bringing such beautiful work into the spotlight.  The winning piece 1001 Pages (2008) by Iranian born Afruz Amighi is absolutely stunning.    

Halima Cassell's work is on display at the Walker

If you haven’t experienced any Arabic artwork then I urge you to come along to the Arabic Weekender which is being hosted by the Bluecoat and other venues across the city. At World Museum there are displays, talks, music and craft activities while at the Walker we have ‘The Art of Halima Cassell’. Halima was born in Pakistan in 1975, brought up in Manchester and is now living in Blackburn, Lancashire. Her ceramic work has been inspired by traditional forms of Islamic art and architecture but ‘juxtaposes established styles with a more modernist approach’. I have strong memories of Riyadh’s King Khaled International Airport and for some reason these beautiful creations remind me of the architecture. When you take the intricate and complex forms of traditional Islamic art and turn them into three dimensional structures something really special happens. Halima Cassell will be talking about her work at the Walker on Friday 17 July (tomorrow) at 1pm.

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.

Anglo Saxon enthusiasts Linda and Sonnie Raee

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.

Planetarium Operator, John Moran, gives us his thoughts on one of the most important anniversaries of the year...

On 20 July 2009 we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of arguably the most momentous occasion in history, the moon landing by the crew of Apollo 11.

The lunar module on the moon's surface. Image courtesy of NASA.

We are marking this occasion at World Museum Liverpool with the launch (no pun intended) of a brand new show in the Planetarium about the moon called 'Magnificent Desolation'. The title of this new show was taken from the words of Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, one of the Apollo 11 astronauts, as he set foot on the moon after Neil Armstrong. When he surveyed the landscape he described it as "magnificent desolation".

The rocket they used to push them to the moon is still the most powerful rocket ever created. It was the 363ft, three stage, Saturn V, 95% of which was filled with fuel and would be jettisoned once the fuel had burned up. It was also the most advanced machine of its time.  

When I think about what it must have been like for these men I can't help but wonder where they got their courage from. They were sitting atop the biggest firework of all time travelling at a speed of 25,000 mph and although men had been into space quite a few times at that point, the testing of rockets had been rushed to say the least. We can assume that because it was a 'bragging rights' competition between America and Russia that was fuelling (again no pun intended) this space race, there must have been a lot of corners cut just to get it ready. Also this mission was going a lot further than most; 238,857 miles to be exact, so these guys were going to be spending about three days just getting to the moon. That is a long time to spend twiddling your thumbs and imagining what could go wrong. 

Once the command module reached lunar orbit (piloted by the often forgotten Michael Collins) Armstrong and Aldrin would then make their way down in the lunar module called Eagle. This was probably the most unlikely looking flying machine of all time. It was so flimsy that it couldn't be flown anywhere else but in the vacuum of space because a fierce wind on Earth would have probably blown it apart; however, weather is not an issue in space. In fact, whilst practicing flying a machine similar to the lunar module here on Earth, Neil Armstrong came close to losing his life when he lost control and had to eject. Because there is only one sixth of Earth's gravity trying to pull you down on the moon, the lunar module would be much easier to control and manoeuvre. 

Mission control had picked out what they thought to be the perfect landing spot in the Sea of Tranquillity. However, when Armstrong and Aldrin headed for this spot they realized that it was nothing more than a huge crater filled with rocks and boulders. This is where Armstrong’s cool, unflappable mind came into its own. He had to fly around and find a suitable landing site or the whole mission would be a failure. So with the fuel gauge reading only twelve seconds of fuel left, alarms going off on the instrument panel and mission control telling him to abort, the message the world had been holding its breath for came back: "Houston, Tranquillity base here, the Eagle has landed".  

Later, leaving behind their back-packs, tools, boots and other needless weight - so they could bring back some moon rock - they successfully blasted off and met up with the waiting command module. After safely making their way back through the Earth's atmosphere and making a perfect slash-down in the ocean, the celebrations could begin.  

Imagine what the feeling must have been like for these guys knowing that you had just written your name into the history books for all time. I guess this is how they were able to overcome their fears; the national celebrations, the ticker-tape parades and the endless affection that was going to be felt by the whole world.

They truly must have felt over the moon (and that pun was definitely intended!)

Guests at the New Radicals private view

New Radicals From Sickert to Freud opened this weekend at the Walker Art Gallery. The photograph above was taken at the private view where guests had the opportunity to view the fascinating exhibition, drawn entirely from the gallery’s own collection, for the first time.

I have been reading a biography of Walter Sickert in preparation for this exhibition and it has given me a small insight into the art world of the time. I haven’t got very far through the book yet, but I have been struck by what an exciting time it must have been for Sickert as a young and promising artist, particularly one with connections. From early in his career he worked under the close guidance of Whistler whose work and artistic philosophy he greatly admired as well as holidaying in France with Degas, which often included chance meetings with other great names such as Gauguin. Such holidays influenced Bathers, Dieppe, one of my favourite paintings in the Walker's collection, and also included in this show.

These connections of Sickert's had a huge impact on his work and ensured he was a significant figure in the transition from Impressionism to Modernism, one of the themes of the exhibition.

The exhibition runs until 20 September 2009.

Whistler: The Gentle Art of Making Etches is on at the Lady Lever Art Gallery until 20 September 2009.

SS America. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo

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).

Across the National Museums Liverpool website, we have loads of great games, e-cards, online-only exhibitions, videos, interactives and podcasts for you to enjoy. And we've just launched our new VIP Zone as a hub for all these cool features that really bring our collections and exhibitions to life.

You can watch a video of a Pharaoh talking about life in ancient Egypt or download a talk by curator Pauline Rushton and photographer Francesco Mellina about our Sound and Vision exhibition - photographs of Liverpool music and fashion from 1978-82.

This multi-media stuff gives people from around the world the chance to get a better experience of what we have in our venues, even if they can't come along in real life.

You can also find all our social networking sites in the VIP Zone. So if you want to follow the new Museum of Liverpool on Twitter or join the Walker Facebook group then you can find links to our social sites there too.

Here's one of the latest videos we've put online featuring George Holt, the former owner of Sudley House, in the dining room. He talks about dinner parties, his plans for improving the city of Liverpool and describes some of the paintings in the room.

John Lee's Sweetheart and Wives (1860) makes way for paintings returning from Stockholm

Regular visitors to the Walker Art Gallery may have missed some familiar faces from the Pre-Raphaelite room in recent months. Such is the enduring popularity of the Pre-Raphaelites that from time to time our works go travelling around the world on loan to other galleries. This time it was to an exhibition at Nationalmuseum Stockholm, but I’m happy to tell you they are now back where they belong.

You may well be seeing even more of one the returning works, Lorenzo and Isabella, as it is featured in the new BBC drama Desperate Romantics.

There's less than a day to go now so I thought I'd take the opportunity to remind you to please vote for the International Slavery Museum in the National Lottery Awards before noon tomorrow.

There are lots of reasons to vote for this fantastic and groundbreaking venue, many of which were outlined by the head of the museum Richard Benjamin in his latest blog post. You only have to look at a few of the comment cards from the museum's visitors to see how the incredibly moving and poignant stories told within the galleries have affected people.

Further proof of the museum's importance and value is the standard of international speakers that it attracts. For example, US civil rights activist Diane Nash will be giving this year's Slavery Remembrance Day memorial lecture on Friday 21 August.

If you can't wait until then, Benjamin Nicholas Lawrance, the assistant professor of African history from the University of California, Davis will be giving a free lecture in the museum this Monday, 13 July, at 12 noon. Entitled 'All we want is make us free?' the lecture will look at the voyage of Amistad's children through the worlds of the illegal slave trade. Here is his synopsis of what he will be talking about:

"In Steven Spielberg's 1997 dramatization of the infamous US Supreme Court trial of the occupants of the Spanish-Cuban slave ship Amistad, Cinqué, the African leader of the survivors, in a trance-like state, stands up, faces the judge, and begins chanting "Give us, us free!" It is a powerful and deeply persuasive testament to man's inhumanity to man and an unmistakable and universalizing call to correct past injustice.

It is also a complete and utter fabrication. Not only was Cinqué (a European rendering of the Mende Singbe Pieh) imprisoned in New Haven and thus not present in the courtroom, but the utterance itself is a corruption of the penultimate line of a letter penned by Ka-Le, one of four child captives from the Amistad, to former President John Quincy Adams. Film critics and historians have rightly rounded on the spurious ethnic formulations deployed with such great dramatic effect in the prison.  As if to anticipate an onslaught of criticism, Steven Spielberg claimed to be telling "everyone's story."  Notwithstanding the absence of "African agency," as Robert Harms points out, it is quite "unfortunate that the Africanness of the Amistad captives is shown largely through untranslated utterances and stereotyped inter-tribal conflict."

But a second, and I would venture more deleterious silencing is also enjoined in this scene, that of the voices of the four African child captives aboard the slave ship, and of Ka-le in particular. A number of kidnapped children were on board the Tecora when it sailed from Sierra Leone in 1838-9. After arriving in Cuba, where many of the slaves were sold, a group were boarded on the Amistad and set sail for another port town. Included in this group were at least five children, and the ship's crew included at least one. The status of these five children featured prominently in the trial of the Amistad captives. Among other matters, there were separate habeas corpus hearings for the three girls involved, and a separate ruling regarding ownership of the ship's cabin boy and slave, Antonio. Four African children returned to West Africa aboard the Gentleman in the Fall of 1841. And one of these, a girl called Mar-gru, subsequently returned to the U.S. and graduate from Oberlin College.

In this lecture I would like to reconsider historical evidence from the famous trial of the men and women found on board the Cuban-Spanish ship La Amistad. Documents from this unlikely and well-trodden source provide a rare window into the historical contexts of child smuggling in the nineteenth century. They also serve as a vehicle for helping historians navigate the complicated legal terrain of child slaves lives."

The Doorway - etching and drypoint, 1879-1880 by James McNeill Whistler. © The Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

Venice divides opinion. It can be far too busy and commercial, but if you are like me you will forgive such a truly beautiful place anything.

It would seem Whistler also appreciated the lure of Venice. There are four etchings of a Venetian doorway in the exhibition Whistler: The Gentle Art of Making Etchings at the Lady Lever Art Gallery. They are of the same scene but with small alterations. Hung together they convey a determination by Whistler to perfectly capture the charm of the place.

The artist found much of the inspiration for his etchings in the major European cities of the time including Liverpool. The exhibition features a lovely etching of Speke Hall from 1870.

The exhibition, organised by the Hunterian Museum & Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, runs until 20 September 2009.

If you’re heading into town for Beatles Day on 10th July stop off at The Beat Goes On to see its fantastic array of Beatles memorabilia - but don’t neglect the Walker Art Gallery. The Walker may not stand out as major landmark on the Beatles trail but it is actually a rather interesting (and not insignificant) footnote in the Beatles' story.

When Paul McCartney’s exhibition of paintings at the Walker was planned, he recalled how he and John would spend 'many a pleasant afternoon’ in the gallery. It’s difficult to get your head round - the young two mates swaggering through the galleries, fooling about, mulling over the paintings. Boy, would I have loved to have been a fly on the wall, listening to what they said about the pictures - I have a suspicion they may have had a few things to say about the nudes, for one!

John Lennon on a visit to the Walker Art Gallery .. come on, work with me here!

In fairness to John it makes perfect sense that they spent time in the Walker. Art was a recurring theme that ran throughout his life and here was this highly-acclaimed gallery right on the doorstep. John was at art school after all and he had a talent for sketching that he later shared in his books, 'In His Own Write' and 'A Spaniard In the Works'.

Another major artistic link in the chain was of course Stuart Sutcliffe. Stuart was John’s best friend and they were at college together. Such was Stu’s talent that he exhibited a painting at the Walker in 1959 and artworks by Stu remain in the gallery's collection. The way history tells it, Stu used the money from the sale of his painting to buy a guitar. When he set off to Hamburg with the band he met photographer Astrid Kirchherr and her boyfriend Klauss Voorman. The couple had a big influence on the style of the boys giving them their trademark ‘mop tops’ (and coincidentally Klauss went on to design the Revolver album cover). Stu and Astrid became an item and the young artist swiftly returned to his true calling of painting. Sadly he died prematurely of a brain haemorrhage before he could fulfil his potenital. He is buried locally in Huyton.

Despite Stu’s passing, art continued to play a decisive role in John Lennon’s life. It was in an art gallery (the Indica) that John met Yoko Ono, herself a credible and well-established avant-garde artist. It’s clear that Yoko stimulated John creatively and intellectually. John had loved and admired Stu but he may well have felt inadequate in his shadow. Yoko on other hand  gave him the confidence to take himself seriously in artistic terms and validated his ideas outside the field of music. I sometimes wonder if it the loss of Stu that later propelled John into such an all-consuming and intense relationship with an artist. All I can say for sure is that art had a pivotal role to play in the lives of John, Stu and even Paul – and I’d like to think that the Walker played some small part in that.

Note: You can see the pictured Beatle suit as well as other garments and memorabilia in The Beat Goes On exhibition at World Museum until 1 November 2009.The photograph shows the suit in the Walker's Craft & Design gallery in a previous display.  

The 15 - 21 June 2009 was Refugee Week, a national event which encourages people to celebrate the positive contributions that refugees and asylum seekers make to the UK. Ann-marie McGoughey, our project worker for engaging refugees and asylum seekers, tells us how it went:

Detail of Simple Acts banner

This year, the Simple Acts campaign was launched to inspire people to use small, everyday actions to help change the perceptions of refugees and asylum seekers. Refugee Week organisers have developed a list of 20 simple actions, that anyone can do, such as 'smile', 'cook a dish from another country' or 'learn to say a few things in another language'. The full list can be seen on the Simple Acts website.

Here at National Museums Liverpool, we supported Refugee Week and the Simple Acts campaign, by delivering a series of events for staff and visitors. Events included a drawing workshop with artist Charlotte Brown, linked to the 20 Simple Acts. Participants chose their favourite act and drew a picture to represent it. Charlotte then joined all of the pictures together to create a Simple Acts banner, which measured over 9 metres in length! Staff also had the opportunity to contribute to this enormous piece of artwork during a lunchtime event at World Museum Liverpool.

We also had a number of events in the museum’s Treasure House Theatre, including African Beats workshops with Chaba. During these workshops, visitors learnt how to drum, sing and also tried African travelling dance. Also in the theatre during the week, we showed two films created by groups of young refugees and asylum seekers: Visitor & Samurai and Make Your Own Liverpool.

The week ended with a celebration event involving groups of primary school children and students from EMTAS (Ethnic Minority & Traveller Achievement Service). The pupils had been working with EMTAS in the run-up to Refugee Week and treated us all to a show of performances, films and artwork that they had created. The grand finale included a balloon release outside of World Museum Liverpool, during which the children released their positive messages for refugees and asylum seekers.

All in all, a very enjoyable week, with over 560 simple acts completed by National Museums Liverpool staff and visitors! I can't wait for next year!

The Beat Goes On at World Museum, celebrates a wealth of Liverpool music across the ages right from the 40s until today, and not one decade has gone by when a Liverpool act hasn’t topped the charts.

One thing’s for sure, the exhibition is packed with fascinating objects and memorabilia charting the city’s musical heritage to date, but talent is still emerging daily and tomorrow’s stars could one day find themselves becoming part of Liverpool’s history, adorning i-pod screens and the walls of new Museum of Liverpool alike.

Yes, there is the idea that you have to be in the right place at the right time, but sheer hard work and determination is often necessary for a band or artist to gain access to the ‘right place’ at the ‘right time’, and our city offers some great opportunities to get noticed by the decision makers in the business.

As the Guinness Book of Record’s ‘City of Pop’, Liverpool avidly supports its emerging talent to climb the ladder of musical success, and those on the city’s youth music scene will be pleased to hear that the annual Streetwaves competition - doing just that - is back again for 2009.

This year, the competition is offering two lucky acts the chance to play a 25 minute outdoor set at the legendary Mathew Street Festival! Acts aged 14 – 25 can apply to audition by Tuesday 14 July, so be quick and visit www.liverpool.gov.uk/culture for an application form...and good luck!

Following up on our own competition, we’re also pleased to see that some of the artists voted for on The Beat Goes On’s Myspace are coming on in leaps and bounds since they’ve been featured on the digital jukeboxes in the exhibition:

A firm favourite in the votes, Dave Tyrell is releasing his debut album on 1 August, and band Jessica’s Ghost has also released an album, The Winning Hand with various gig dates in the coming months including Heebie Jeebies and the Mathew Street Finge. GK & The Renegades have sadly gone their separate ways, although GK (Gavin Kaufman) has announced he will be launching solo projects, so we look forward to hearing more from him.

Type VII German u boat. Image courtesy Liverpool Daily Post and Echo.

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).