You Can’t Miss Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
I went to Portsmouth yesterday to look at the Historic Dockyard and in particular to see the Mary Rose.
I took the train from Waterloo to Portsmouth Harbour station and when you walk out of the station, you can’t exactly miss the dockyard.
You Can’t Miss Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
The ship is HMS Warrior.
I do have a couple of issues with South West Trains though.
I travelled First Glass and on trains like Virgin, East Coast and Greater Anglia, you get complimentary drinks. But not on South West Trains.
The Class 444 trains, seem to have an absence of litter bins in First Class. Perhaps First Class passengers throw everything on the floor.
The station also seems to have a lack of any sort of map. Not that I needed one, as I could see my destination from the station entrance.
Multi-Lingual Signs At The NRM
The Keep Off signs were in three languages.
Multi-Lingual Signs At The NRM
But then there seemed to be a lot of foreign visitors. I was talking to a couple of Germans by the two paintings in this post.
A guide told me, that some visitors had come all the way from New Zealand
Going North And Going South
These two paintings were on display in the Nation Railway Museum at York.
The artist was George Earl and the paintings are mentioned in his Wikipedia entry.
I found the paintings notable, as there were certainly Red Irish, English and Gordon Setters in the paintings. There could also have been Red and White Irish Setters too!
Green Arrow At York
I didn’t know any of the Class V2 were still in existence.
Green Arrow At York
But Green Arrow seemed to be in pretty good condition. I can remember them working out of Kings Cross in the early 1950s to places like Hull and Lincoln.
According to Wikipedia it might be scheduled to be returned to working condition. Although not as glamorous as the A4 Pacifics, it is the sole survivor of a class of locomotive, that proved influential in keeping the railways running during the Second World War.
In The Workshop
These are photos, I took in the workshop.
Flying Scotsman cuts a very sorry state in the back row.
There Were Crowds At York
To say the crowds at York were big would be an understatement,as you can see from the previous post.
These pictures were taken outside. Bear in mind that I timed my trip to get there as the museum opened.
But at least my only cost was getting to York, as the entry to the National Railway Museum was free.
Engineering Pornography At York
I went to the National Railway Museum today to see the Mallard 75 event or the Great Gathering as it is named by some.
Here are some pictures.
Sadly only three of the six iconic A4 Pacifics designed by Sir Nigel Gresley are still capable of steaming.
The Danish Design Museum
I spent an hour at the museum, looking at various things, but it didn’t give me any clues as to the furniture I need for my house. Strangely though, they had an exhibition of post war British fabrics. The one on the poster, was suspiciously like one that C chose for our flat in the Barbican.
It was one designed for Heals and in those days C bought the fabric from there for a lot of our curtains.
Fotografiska
Fotografiska is Stockholm’s photographic museum. I like photography so I walked there from the station at Slussen. I must admit, I was drawn there by the adverts for a Helmut Newton exhibition all over the city.
Unfortunately, the city built a motorway, between the museum and the cliff face behind, so there are no buses. One of the staff told me, that the city is redeveloping the area and hasn’t made up its mind about the transport in the area.
The various exhibits were fascinating, but the Helmut Newton exhibition also included some portraits of the famous, including a striking one of Margaret Thatcher, which is shown here. I also like this quote from Helmut Newton.
Nothing has been retouched, nothing electronically altered. I photographed what I saw.
It is a good rule for a photographer, that they shouldn’t break.
There was also a restaurant with views across the city on the top floor. If I’d had more time, I’d have had lunch!
The Vasa Museum
One of the reasons, I went to Stockholm was to see the Vasa.
I first heard about the ship in my teens, when it was raised from the floor of Stockholm Harbour. The techniques of raising the ship were also detailed in the Meccano Magazine.
It will be interesting to see how the Vasa compares with the Mary Rose.
I must have spent about three hours wandering around the museum and afterwards I felt a lot better, as the humidity in the museum was about 60% to keep the ship [preserved.
The Anonymous Widower 