Stardate: 18 April 2019 - By Jove it's Maundy Thursday!

And on this day, the reigning English monarch washes the feet of beggars as an act of humility before Good Friday.  At least this was the case in centuries past - these days a group of impoverished people are set before the Queen and she chucks sixpences at them.  Or so I am told.

I chose this snippet of information to introduce today's post because we spent the day at the splendid Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in Hampshire and in seeking a post title could think of nothing that rhymes with Portsmouth nor even a worthy alliteration. So Maundy Thursday it is, by Jove!

Our journey started at Waterloo Station, where, as is our custom with any public transport involving some distance, we arrived with a mere hour and a half to spare. So we parked ourselves at an upstairs cafe with fairly ordinary beverages and a stale muffin, and watched the hordes of commuters from London's outer reaches spill out from their trains.

 
I found it fascinating for about five minutes but Geoffy loved it.  He's a bit of a train nerd and used to pride himself on being able to recite every train station on every train line in the Sydney metropolitan area.  I have suggested he could win himself a brass mug on Tom Gleeson's Hard Quiz with this knowledge but he has so far resisted. 






We had a very pleasant journey on our South Western Railways train through Surrey and Hampshire, arriving in Portsmouth around 11 am.  It was quite warm and we have nothing summery in our travel wardrobes, so we were rather steamy. 

We spotted this beauty as soon as we disembarked from the train and agreed that yes, Admiral Nelson' ship HMS Victory was truly a thing to behold.  Except that it wasn't HMS Victory, a fact we did not establish till several hours later.  This vessel is HMS Warrior, a mid-19th century warship. 







I was very keen to see the wreck of the Mary Rose, the pride of Henry the Eighth's Tudor fleet. It was sunk during a battle with the French in Portsmouth Harbour in 1545, with the loss of over 400 men.  Only 35 survived.  This was mostly because the top deck was covered with heavy-duty rope webbing to stop enemy sailors boarding.  But the webbing also stopped the Mary Rose crew from leaping off the ship as it sank.

And this is what was disinterred from the seabed in 1983.  This part of the ship was embedded in mud and silt and was preserved underwater for over 400 years due to the lack of oxygen..  The other side rotted away.

But heaps of artifacts have been retrieved and make a fabulous display in the Mary Rose museum.  An item common to all crew members, whether officer or sailor, was a lice comb. There were hundreds of them.  And they look just like present day ones!  Except these ones were also for fleas.


Handing over to Geoff now.  He is still pointing and sniggering about my total lack of knowledge of the phonetic alphabet - he tested me during our train journey.  Well I can't help it if I wasn't an Air Commodore! 
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The thing that surprised me about the Mary Rose's sinking is that it seems so mundane.  The prevailing theory is that it heeled over unexpectedly while turning, due to a sudden wind gust, sending the gun ports under water.  This in itself wouldn't have been fatal, except the ports were open, resulting in the water pouring in.  It sank almost immediately.  Wouldn't this possibility be foreseeable, and so preventable?  Easy to say with almost 500 years hindsight I guess.

My highlight of the exhibition was the daily rations.  The only items provided to the crew every single day were biscuits and beer, to be specific a gallon per man.  Meat most days and vegetables hardly ever.  If you're going to suffer the hard life that they did, you may as well be constantly as full as a doctor's wallet.  Anyway, a great experience and well worth the trip.

Other things at Portsmouth - everything naval you could imagine, the big ticket item being Nelson's HMS Victory.  You know, the one where he won the battle of Trafalgar.  Oh and died too.

Beautifully restored, and apparently still on the official inventory of the Royal Navy.  I reckon a posting to the Victory would be a pretty cushy gig, as you wouldn't actually need to know how to sail.  You would have to be able to tolerate tourists though.  

 Finally, we came across this recreation of a ship's ornament from the Elizabethan period.

Not quite sure about the item on the right; can't remember what it was.

An excellent day out.  The train trip was great too.  Comfortable and reliable and highly recommended.  Who says the only thing the Poms can do is good beer and fish and chips and mushy peas?