National Museums Liverpool Blog - Monday, February 20, 2012

Ben Sheeran, our head chef, shares this scrumptious recipe for moist low-fat chocolate cloud cake. Hmm! 

Chocolate cloud cake

Ingredients

Equipment

Method

Here's John Moran, Education Demonstrator at the Planetarium, to tell us what to look out for in the night sky this month.

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There are still plenty of easily observable planets for your viewing delight this month. I came out of my house at 7.30pm a few days ago and there were three bright planets which seemed to be set up for anyone who can’t see the whole of the sky. There was Venus in the east, Jupiter directly above and Mars in the west. It doesn’t get much better than that! 

If that’s not enough, then later on we have the appearance of the ringed beauty Saturn which follows behind Mars in the west a few hours later. Me and a few colleagues went up on the fifth floor balcony of the of the museum on Friday 3 February and everything looked perfect. I set up two telescopes to view all of these planets and as soon as I started getting lined up on Venus, the clouds came along and just blanketed everything out! 

But we hung around for an hour and a half and got small breaks in the clouds every now and then. We got to see the Galilean moons of Jupiter and Venus at two thirds crescent. But I’ve got to say the star of the show was the often overlooked moon; the craters looked spectacular through the six-inch Newtonian telescope we had, with interchangeable eye pieces. 

As always I’ve been making the most of the constellation Orion. There is a night times worth of celestial gems in this one region and you are never disappointed. The Orion nebula always makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck when I think of the countless Proto-planetary nebulae that are forming here. These are solar systems like our own that are in the process of forming. 

Imagine it, there could be some bloke just like me somewhere in the Orion nebula right now writing a blog, looking into the night sky in our direction and wondering what we look like. If that doesn’t fire your imagination then nothing will. 

You may remember in my last post that I had taken a model in great need of conservation to the Lady Lever Art Gallery for demonstration purposes. The model had several snapped yards and masts, and missing blocks. Many people remarked on the blackness of the thick dirt, and how complicated the broken and twisted rigging was, and were interested to know how I would go about treating the model. As the treatment of the model has now been completed, I would like to share some of the treatment processes.

The first challenge was to carefully clean the model. This was more difficult than usual as the model had many small crevices and great care had to be taken to avoid the already damaged rigging. This was undertaken using small cotton wool swabs. Once the model was cleaned to an appropriate level I could then begin the very difficult process of untangling the threads of the rigging, and working out where each broken or missing rope needed to go. Fortunately I have learnt the arrangements and purposes of rigging and so it was not as complicated as it first appeared. Once the spars and yard arms had been re-joined (using wood pins and adhesive), the rigging could be repaired.  Where possible, I saved the original thread, attaching it to new cotton thread at the breakages. In some areas the threads were too friable and needed to be replaced.

The silk flag also required conservation and so was removed. It was very stiff and bent, so I decided to re-humidify it using a sandwich of damp bloating paper, gortex, the flag, and then the same arrangement on the other side. This flattened the flag well. It was still very dirty and so after testing; I cleaned it by soaking in a solution of 5% tri-ammonium citrate (a chelating agent) in water. The silk itself was fragile, and to ensure that it was strong enough to place back onto the model I mounted it onto dyed silk crepeline.

The last problem to address on the model was the lead disease of the fittings on the baseboard. This was crumbling white corrosion product that I removed mechanically under a microscope, before coating with a protective coating. After making replica blocks for the anchor and reattaching the flag to the flag staff, the model was complete and now looks like an impressive ship of war. 

See a larger version of the image above on Flickr to see more detail.

Gemma Thorns

Update: 20/02/2012: See more photos of the model on our Flickr set of before and after conservation. 

Can you help us put a face to a Liverpool related Titanic passenger? Victor Giglio was a first class passenger on the ill-fated liner and we’d like to find more information and a photo of this victim of the disaster.

 Victor was valet to American multi-millionaire Ben Guggenheim and the two men deliberately dressed in evening clothes as the huge liner slowly sank. Ben, closely attended by Victor, was heard to say: “We’ve dressed up in our best and are prepared to go down like gentlemen.”

Ian Murphy, curator of maritime history, says: “There are about a dozen individuals and families called Giglio in the Merseyside area. Very little is known of Victor’s early life and we would like to find out more.

“So far our researches have drawn a blank but we are hoping there are descendents of Victor Giglio still in the area although he left as a small child. We know that he had several brothers who may have settled here and have relatives.”

Anyone who can help is asked to contact titanic@liverpoolmuseums.org.uk or ring 0151 478 4417.

The exhibition Titanic and Liverpool: the untold story opens at Merseyside Maritime Museum on 30 March 2012.

Last year photographer Lee Karen Stow launched her exhibition '42' Women of Sierra Leone at the International Slavery Museum, with the help of her former student Rebecca Kamara, who is one of the 42 women featured in the exhibition. At the opening events Rebecca spoke about how the photography workshops that Lee taught in Sierra Leone have inspired her to earn a living as a photographer. She has faced huge challenges, as she lives in a rural village and didn't even have any electricity at home until recently - something that photographers in the UK take for granted to charge camera batteries and run their computers!

Lee returned to Liverpool last week to add some new photos to her exhibition. Rebecca couldn't join her this time, but Lee visited her in Sierra Leone in September and took the photograph above, which should bring a smile to the face of anyone who met her last year. As you can see, Rebecca has built her own photo studio, with help from UK and US donations and support, but also through her own photography business and photographic sales. She has now also set up a women's photography group in the village.

Rebecca isn't the only one who has been busy. As well as updating the 42 exhibition, while she was in Liverpool Lee gave a talk about her latest projects. A chance meeting with a member of the Women's Boxing Team in Sierra Leone led to the 'Fighting for Gold' project. On her return to the UK she photographed women boxers in clubs across Yorkshire for the 'Girls in the ring' project, and even started boxing herself.

The contrasts in conditions for women boxers in the two countries is shocking. In Sierra Leone the Women's Boxing Team train at a gym with no running water, no showers and no free NHS to help with any injuries. They didn't even have their own gloves when they first started to train and had to borrow gloves from the male boxers.

Despite this, when women's boxing was included in the London 2012 Olympics for the first time they were determined to compete. Unfortunately this dream was not to be, so they have now set their sights on the 2016 Olympics instead. Portraits of some of these inspiring women are now included in the 42 exhibition, which is at the International Slavery Museum until 3 June 2012.

Amulets of different shapes were placed within the wrappings of ancient Egyptian mummies. From about 1500 BC an amulet in the shape of a heart was a popular addition to protect the mummy from harm. Here are a selection of stone and glazed composition heart amulets from World Museum's Egyptology collection for you on Valentine's Day.  

We are delighted that World Museum has been named as one of the top 20 museums shortlisted in the Sunday Telegraph's Family Friendly Museum Award. Thank you if you were one of the people who nominated the museum. 

World Museum, along with the other museums on the list has demonstrated to Telegraph readers that it has activities, events and displays that any family can enjoy and the basis for a great day out. 

The Sunday Telegraph said: "Liverpool's World Museum is full of historical things you can actually touch and has its own planetarium." 

If you'd like to get involved in the judging process, you can enter you and your family as mystery judges by emailing award@kidsinmuseums.org.uk. Visit www.telegraph.co.uk/museumawards for more information. 

Here's what Sunday Telegraph readers said of World Museum: 

"I love this museum because it’s not scared of being old-fashioned. There are objects in glass cases, even in the hands-on area. It’s always full of kids and adults touching and talking about amazing real things — fossils, skulls, crystals. The staff there are so knowledgeable and interesting, and always willing to join in conversations.” 

“Our seven year-old granddaughter loved the aquarium, planetarium, meteors, shadow puppets from Malaysia and dinosaur footprints. You come out and truthfully say, 'We’ve been all around the world!’ Thinking of taking 94-year-old Grandad next week.” 

This illustration is taken from the Inquires and Reputations presentation in the forthcoming Titanic and Liverpool: the untold story exhibition at Merseyside Maritime Museum. It was created by the artist Julia Quenzler who sketches real life court room scenes for the BBC and shows Bruce Ismay being questioned at the British inquiry into Titanic’s sinking. This part of the exhibition looks at accounts from crew and passengers given at the inquiry in 1912.

The aftermath of the sinking is a key theme in the exhibition. The world’s reaction and disbelief to news of Titanic‘s loss are highlighted in newspaper reports and film which will be on show in the exhibition. Often fickle and inaccurate press reports were released as families waited anxiously to hear if their loved ones had survived. In this part of the exhibition we tackle these difficult and emotional responses to events which lasted a mere 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Reputations were made or ruined during the immediate inquiries into the loss of Titanic - firstly held in America and later in London. Bruce Ismay, Chairman of the White Star Line received much of the blame for the disaster. American cartoons represented Ismay as a cruel businessman when in fact he had been left traumatised by the disaster. One of the telegrams to be displayed in the exhibition was sent from Captain Rostron of Carpathia (the rescue ship), dated 15th April 3.10pm. It described Ismay as ‘under opiate’ due to the loss of Titanic and many close friends and colleagues.

Titanic and Liverpool: the untold story opens at Merseyside Maritime Museum on 30 March 2012.