STOP PRESS. Bangor West Ladies Probus
Lagan Legacy’s Research Administrator will be presenting a heritage talk to the lady members of Probus in Bangor West.
Probus is one of the many groups and organisations that regularly call on the Legacy team for presentations. This is a vital part of our work, and is a valuable way of both spreading our message and discovering new interviewees for our files. We can be quite certain most all of the ladies in Bangor West will know, or know of, someone with maritime heritage connections.
Bangor West Ladies Probus talk as presented by Charlie Warmington:
The Greatest Story Never Told.
I've called my talk "The Greatest Story Never Told". I'll explain why in a moment.
I come from a positively medical background. Some of you may remember the television advertisements - "Dactor, dactor...." about the over enthusiastic hypochondriac who was forever ringing up his GP. Well, my late father was the original "dactor dactor": a doctor of medicine, and a PHD doctorate to boot. He married a nurse, my mother. My brother is a consultant radiologist wedded to a radiographer. I'm called "Charlie" after one of dad's patients. Perhaps due to this rarefied medical upbringing I embarked on a totally unrelated career - journalism.
Amongst several other subjects, I'm currently specialising in ships, and once dallied with the idea of going to sea.
My careers master in school discovered this short lived nautical tendency. With good evidence, he hadn't much faith in my ambition. "What do you want to be when you grow up Warmington?" he asked me "A deck hand on a submarine!?"
One thing was for sure - I'd had enough of medical matters at home. Other children collected fossils, I collected kidney stones from dad's patients. Other kids had tadpoles in jam jars. My brother had his own tonsils in a bottle of formaldehyde on his bedroom bookcase. My only medical attribute was I was a hypochondriac - but a sick one!
So I got offside and became a media person - starting in features, and then as a news and current affairs journalist. Dad said - at least get yourself a university degree first! All I could do was write and draw - in those days they didn't offer journalism in University so prior to writing for newspapers I studied architecture.
We shared a family joke - a doctor buries his mistakes, and an architect plants trees around his mistakes!
But what does a journalist do with his mistakes?
I soon discovered the answer - he gets sued?
And we're getting round to the title of my talk. "The greatest story never told."
You see, I'm currently awaiting a solicitor's letter from the singer Dianna Ross about a mistake I made recently in one of our newspapers. I wrote that Dianna Ross was like a ship! In fact, I said she was like the Titanic.
This is called "libel"! A very handy way to get sued. It's also the reasoning behind the title of my talk - Diana Ross was one of the Supremes. But there were two others. Unless you're a real fan - you won't know their names.
Just like the Titanic! There were two others - the Olympic and the Britannic - as big, as fast, as luxurious - as Supreme - but most people only ever remember the Titanic.
My "Greatest Story Never Told" begins here! But only begins.
Because there were over 2,000 other ships built in Belfast over the past three centuries - many of them with immensely tragic, heroic, colourful, unique, historic, stories to tell.
Most of them and their names forgotten.
There's more - much more - to the "greatest story never told" - Harland and Wolff built the Titanic, but there've been a dozen other shipbuilders along the Lagan whose vessels broke maritime records, made history, changed the world and were outstandingly innovative.
Then there was Thomas Andrews who designed, and went down with, the Titanic. But on occasions there were thirty or forty thousand other men toiling in Lagan land. And up to a hundred thousand in other industries supplying the shipyards.
And many women too.
The Titanic weighed over 50,000 tons. Since shipbuilding began in Belfast about a hundred million tons of brand new vessels, updates, repairs, modifications and conversions have floated down the Lagan and off into maritime history.
That's the weight of a small country!
There were also aircraft, trains, tanks, landing craft, guns and munitions, cranes, bridges and steel-structured buildings - all this and more was built on Lagan land.
During the 60s, when the Beatles were twisting and shouting - Belfast's shipyard men were even building guitars! And griddles, kitchen utensils, furniture, garden tools - you name it, they could make it.
I've got an original Harland and Wolff built brass ashtray in my office! It was the only one in the world till someone interrupted me in a previous talk and told me about his!
There were hundreds of different trades, crafts, and specialities involved in making Belfast the ship building capital of the world. We've counted over two hundred and we're still counting. They had their own train service, taxis, buses, restaurants and canteens, hospital, telephone communications - and all we remember in Belfast, very occasionally - is one ship....... that sank!
One of the important notions in journalism used to be the "w"s.
"Get your "w"s right," I was told, "and you've got your story right!" "So what are the "w"s?" they asked me on my first day on the news desk.
"Words," I suggested naively.
This concept was too advanced. Sadly "w" didn't stand for words, it stood for who, where, what, when, why and how.
There isn't a "w" in how, but that's journalism, and John Prescott's most likely a wee darling!
Amusingly, it was a spelling mistake, and a maritime one at that, which almost ended my journalistic career before it started.
One of my first assignments was to report from a Leander Class Frigate as she steamed into Belfast Lough. At five in the morning, at 15 knots, as the vast vessel loomed on the horizon, it dawned on me that I was hurtling through huge waves in a small but powerful Royal Navy launch - ten miles out in a rough sea. But how was I going to get on board a mighty warship with my big, old fashioned, heavy tape machine hanging off my shoulder? The answer was blowing in the wind at the side of the ship - a rope ladder! Actually, it looked more like string!
Extremely queasily, I climbed on board the Frigate, a whistle blew - yes, I was whistled aboard - and the Captain was standing strictly to attention beneath his cap and a ton of medals and braid.
Ashen faced and sea sick, I tried not to collapse at his feet, on his spotless deck.
He held an ancient brass telescope under the arm which wasn't saluting me. I hadn't been here before and didn't know the protocol. The only naval terminology I knew was "Kiss me Hardy"
A salute returned would severely disturb what little was left of my uncertain centre of gravity! The Captain leaned over and whispered in my ear - "You'll be wanting sick bay!" A small white tablet later - whatever was in it I was cured in an instant - and I was able to tour the magnificent vessel, and report live on their ship-to-shore radio for our local news.
It was the next day that my career teetered on the edge.
I'd written a letter when I'd got back to my desk, typed and addressed, thanking the Captain and his crew for their help. Taking it from my out-tray to bring to the post-room I very fortunately checked the spelling. I'd been told to send it to the Captain c/o Her Majesty's Ships. I'd in fact written the address - "Her Majesty's Shits"!
I'd got all my ‘w's wrong - my who, where and what.
Though this was a regular occurance in my profession. Blorious Glunders we endearingly call them. My favourites became a death notice for a much loved parish priest whose demise was deeply regretted by his father, his mother, three sisters and two brothels. And there was a wedding report where the bride's dress was lined with durex!
Yes, these "w"s are important, and make a very useful approach to "the greatest story never told".
We'll get the who, the where and the what out of way quickly because you've all got some brochures which I hope you'll take home and read, learn and inwardly digest. These three "w"s are all in there. They're The Lagan Boat Company (NI Ltd.) who single handedly do the most wonderful, and awesome, Lagan tours of our remaining maritime heritage on their all weather motor launch - the MV Joyce Too.
Some years ago the boat Company noticed that we have a city with probably the most unique nautical history in the world - all being ignored except for the Titanic. And she remembered by name only!
Her birthplace to all intents and purposes was untended, uncared for and disintegrating.
Also, the men who worked down there in Lagan land, many still alive, mostly forgotten, and as they're launched one by one towards that great shipyard in the sky - they take their memories and their unique craftsmanship with them.
So the Lagan Boat Company decided to nurture as much of this as they were able. Lagan Legacy was born - the company's brainchild. Lagan Legacy is a charitable organisation backed by Lottery Heritage Fund, Laganside Corporation, Belfast City Council, and Ulster Garden Villages to mention but a few.
Lagan Legacy's main focus was, and is, central to its name - keeping our maritime legacy alive. In schools, community groups, ethnic minorities, in the media, exhibitions - by whatever means.
And two years ago Lagan Legacy embarked on another major project - called Oceans in Mind. This is all in the brochures. Oceans in Mind is facing the overpowering challenge of collecting the "living history" - the men, the women, their relatives, friends and loved ones - recording their voices, filming, writing, copying their notebooks and diaries - the work is diverse, dispersed, disused - and frankly - dying off as I speak!
It's a race against time to gather our sea going history while it's still walking, breathing and talking, so that it'll be available for generations to come.
Because there is one absolutely unquestionable and unforgivable fact - much of this generation today has had it's immense maritime heritage with held from it.
A few miles up the Lough are the slipways, the dry docks, the quays and rusting machinery - and we can't get in. It's all on a long finger, in a future grand plan - as it has been for the past decade at least, and as it will be for the next. Fortunately, things are getting better, and the Titanic's little sister, the Nomadic, is now back in Belfast. And there's Lagan Legacy's enormous dutch barge with her cargo of culture.
But until now, and these are very humble beginnings, what a gap in this generation's understanding of where it came from!
Have you seen the gaps and empty flat spaces where our maritime buildings used to be?
Darwin's theory of evolution was called the Origin of the Species.
Belfast's will be The Origin of the Spaces.
A great deal of the planning is to be very much applauded. The new Titanic Quarter has immense possibilities for a new and revitalised city, with all the advantages that will come with that. Their's is not to devise museums, though thankfully, they are.
But there's a baby that someone is throwing out with the bathwater.
Some baby!
A hundred million tons of baby - The greatest story never told! Lagan Legacy has several hundred hours of voices, interviews, and recorded stories. There are many thousands more hours out there - with and without an "h" - But every few days there's one less to record.
I smile at the pyramids because Belfast's history is still alive. It's not a pointy pile of rock! It's people.
You can't stuff an old shipyard worker, and put him in a glass box in a museum, with a label on it! But that's no reason to make do with a wooden box with an epitaph on it! That way, their greatest story will remain - never told.
Surely they deserve much more than that.
I'll use up the remaining "w"s, and a few more besides, to tell you a little more of that story.
(1)We'll begin with "w" for a Welder. He's called John and he's proud to have welded together the masts of the Canberra. Masts were his speciality. He has a collection of old books and diaries in a plastic bag under a bed. Just one page from one diary has a working drawing of a mast, with a look out platform attached. In careful handwriting on the drawing are the words - "Lookout cage. Ship 401. Completed for fifty shillings."
Ship 401 was the Titanic.
John was apprenticed to the men who made the original crows nest, the scene for that amazing moment in Cameron's film "Titanic".
The moment the iceberg was spotted.
Isn't it poignant that the original lookout cage, or the crow's nest, cost less to build than a single cinema ticket for the film Titanic. And John talks about the men who welded that crow's nest together.
(2)Then there's "w" for Wit!
The Lagan was once awash with wit - and there are enough amusing stories to exhaust a month of "w"s.
My favourite witticism also comes from the welders. It was the traditional duty of an apprentice welder to spend his first days in the yard collecting leftovers. The off cuts. The bits of metal that weren't needed. So the apprentice collected these scraps from every corner of the ship under construction, put them in a barrow - to be wheeled away to be melted down.
New to the job, having spent an hour filling his barrow, the apprentice discovered he was unable to move the barrow. It was too full of metal scraps. He emptied some out. It was still too heavy to lift. He emptied more. Too heavy
When he'd almost completely emptied the barrow he discovered that while he was below deck looking for pieces, they'd welded it to the deck.
Apparently you could be having a conversation with a colleague - turn to leave - and find yourself "strangely paralysed" - they'd welded your hobnailed boots to the deck at their metal heels.
(3)Then there's "w" for women.
We've interviewed women shipyard tracers, we have shipyard nurses awaiting, and lady pipe engineers. Without doubt, the most interesting woman relating to the Lagan's maritime heritage was Violet Jessopp whose links with Belfast unravelled incredulously throughout her life on, and as you'll hear, in, the ocean.
She was a stewardess aboard the Olympic - built by Harland and Wolff - when it was involved in two collisions.
The collisions didn't vex her maritime vocation..........she joined the Titanic!
Violet holding an abandoned baby made it to the rescue ship Carparthia - built by Harland and Wolff. Then she served as a nurse with the British Red Cross during the First World War. In the Aegean Sea in 1916 her ship was sunk; she was sucked underwater and suffered a fractured skull on the vessel's keel. She survived and lived, until a heart attack succeeded where the oceans failed, when Violet was 84.
The keel that cracked her skull in 1916 belonged to the Britannic!
Her fourth frenzy, forged on the Lagan.
A greatest woman's-story never told.
(ARMS!) Eat your heart out Kate Winslett!
(4)But where "w"s Really come into the picture - the Lagan was best known internationally for it's Wisdom.
In terms of maritime know-how, Belfast was the unquestionable world leader. The "Belfast bottom" became known, and used, worldwide. It was a patented hull shape - the most efficient for ploughing through the oceans - devised and designed exclusively on the Lagan.
The Lagan built Magdalena was the first air-conditioned passenger ship. Which incidentally, sank on her maiden voyage. As did the Brecknoshire in 1916 - the Titanic wasn't the only one!
The SS Mullough arrived in Australia from Belfast in 1855 so far ahead of her time they took off her funnel and propeller, turned off her steam boilers, and used her as a sailing ship for three years.
The Thompson pump house - disintegrating half a mile away from here - could pump the dry dock dry in the early 1900s in 40 minutes. That's an Olympic sized swimming pool every sixty seconds. They thought it couldn't be done. Belfast cracked it!
They said the Sea Quest was impossible. Belfast built her, launched her, and when she discovered North Sea Oil and Gas - the first to find it - Britain's balance of payments changed overnight.
And the "w"s for wisdom could go on for ever.
(5)My final "w" is the why. WHY bother about our heritage?
The people who tell Lagan Legacy the stories I've been outlining are passing on our past.
They're making our past our presence!
This is where we meet what we are.
I recently watched former senior foreman rigger George McAllister splicing a rope as part of a University of Ulster student interactive project. A hundred students then talked with him for half an hour. They loved him. He loved them! Their newly discovered pride in our history became a pride in our present, in George's presence. Both sides of the age gap have much to share. It gives new life and horizons to both. Our heritage is our self esteem. That is why it is so profoundly important.
Let me end by telling you about my past, and how it profoundly changes my present. It's the reason behind my belief in, and devotion to, heritage. My grandfather, a Jew, was gassed in the holocaust. The "remains" of his family don't talk. So I've nothing more to relate to. I don't have an easily accessible heritage.
Yet every little detail I uncover is like a nugget of gold. I discovered recently that his first name was Leopold. That was a gift from above. I had a name to go on. I would love to know his birthday. His job. His birthplace. I'll never find out. But each little bit activates something powerful inside me.
This is why heritage can be so important to anyone.
Mum escaped the direct effects of the holocaust - to Belfast from Vienna with her brother Fred. All they had when they got here was a name tag on their coat collars. A little suitcase, and as their train left Vienna station, my granny ran along side, and shouted to mum - "don't let go of Fred's hand"
I wrote mum these verses for last year's mother's day.
Mother, as I walk the places,
Where Belfast' ships first showed their faces,
I have thought about the past-
When you first came to Belfast.
Many ships tied up each day,
Bringing folk from far away.
One unique and like no other,
Gifted Ulster with my mother!
Somewhere on the Lagan side,
Resting on the Lagan tide,
Moored a ship with you on board,
Safe from Hitler's rampant hoard.
Every day on every quay,
My mind's eye looks out to sea.
You and Fred, arriving here-
On which vessel? At which pier?
I can see you standing there,
What a lonely frightened pair.
Each with labels, hand in hand,
Strangers both in stranger land.
That's the ship I'd like to find,
As I work my daily grind.
Lost in hindsight. Come to light!
That's the ship I want to write!
If I knew her skipper's name,
Anyone who sailed the same.
Shake their hand, shed a tear,
Thanking those who brought you here.
Ships are all the "w"s - wondrous, welcoming, weather-beaten, workhorses wandering the waves. Warships, warriors. They can be wicked, they can be warm - they can be wrecks!
They are workmanship at sea. They have the greatest stories, often never told.
Belfast made the best ones.
Belfast can tell the best ones.
By remembering our maritime history we're remembering who we are.