Tower Bridge – derrickjknight

Back Through The Barrier

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Today I scanned the final batch of colour negatives from Norman’s 70th birthday boat trip on 6th April 2002.

Some of these are from the start of the journey soon after we left Westminster Pier and people settled down to eat.

The Post Office Tower and St Paul’s Cathedral are each visible beyond Tower Bridge.

Norman mingled with his guests on the upper deck.

Yesterday I featured our arrival at the Thames Barrier, a short distance beyond which was the turning point from which we returned to the pier.

Passing back through the flood barrier gave us unique views of three of the capital’s iconic structures. Even for me it is surprising to establish that it is the barrier that at 35 years old is the most senior. The first buildings in Canary Wharf were completed in 1991, and the Millennium Dome just about managed to open on the last day of 1999. The politics.co.uk website opens its lengthy page on the Dome with:

‘The Millennium Dome was the centrepiece of British celebrations for the dawning of the year 2000.

Built on the site of the Meridian Line in north Greenwich – symbolising time – the Dome was, at the time of construction, the biggest dome in the world, occupying 300 acres of a formerly contaminated derelict gasworks. The former gasworks had been derelict for more than two decades and was the largest undeveloped site on the River Thames.

The Dome originally contained a theme park-cum-scientific exhibition entitled the ‘Millennium Experience’. This was a series of themed ‘zones’ representing concepts such as ‘money’ or ‘the body’, supported by live theatrical events throughout the day. The Millennium Experience closed on December 31 2000, and the Dome has since been sold to be converted into a 26,000 capacity entertainment and sports arena.’

There is much more about the controversy and financial mismanagement of what was, at the time, termed a ‘White Elephant’ on the highlighted website.

This afternoon Becky and Ian joined us for their Christmas visit which began with a meal at Lal Quilla. Service was as friendly and efficient as ever, and the food excellent. My choice of main course was king prawn Ceylon. Kingfisher and Diet Coke were the drinks consumed.

Paddling Along The Thames Part One

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Norman 6.4.02

Given his abiding interest in Paddle Steamers, it was only to be expected that my friend Norman should celebrate his 70th birthday,

by hiring the Viscount to give all his friends a boat trip to remember. In the second of these images, Norman greets the guests as they embark. Today I scanned this batch of colour negatives from 6th April 2002.

We were offered a waterborne view of The Houses of Parliament and Big Ben. The last of these images contains the queue of people walking along Westminster Bridge to visit the coffin of Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, whose body was lying in state. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about

‘Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon (4 August 1900 – 30 March 2002) was the wife of King George VI and the mother of Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. She was Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions from her husband’s accession in 1936 until his death in 1952, after which she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother,^[2] to avoid confusion with her daughter. She was the last Empress of India.

Born into a family of British nobility, she came to prominence in 1923 when she married the Duke of York, the second son of King George V and Queen Mary. The couple and their daughters embodied traditional ideas of family and public service.^[3] She undertook a variety of public engagements and became known for her consistently cheerful countenance.^[4]

In 1936, her husband unexpectedly became king when his brother, Edward VIII, abdicated in order to marry the American divorcée Wallis Simpson. Elizabeth then became queen. She accompanied her husband on diplomatic tours to France and North America before the start of the Second World War. During the war, her seemingly indomitable spirit provided moral support to the British public. In recognition of her role as an asset to British interests, Adolf Hitler described her as “the most dangerous woman in Europe”.^[5] After the war, her husband’s health deteriorated and she was widowed at the age of 51. Her elder daughter, aged 25, became the new queen.

From the death of Queen Mary in 1953 Elizabeth was viewed as the matriarch of the British royal family. In her later years, she was a consistently popular member of the family, even when other members were suffering from low levels of public approval.^[6] She continued an active public life until just a few months before her death at the age of 101, seven weeks after the death of her younger daughter, Princess Margaret.’

As we steamed under that bridge guests were already happily mingling.

St Paul’s Cathedral stood proud along the embankment. It was in this place of worship that Norman had been ordained some years before.

Blackfriar's Railway Bridge

Soon we arrived at Blackfriar’s Railway Bridge,

beyond which we reached the recently reopened Millennium Bridge, known by Londoners as the Wobbly Bridge, and beyond this Southwark Bridge.

This extract from Wikepedia’s entry on the Millennium Bridge explains how it acquired its epithet:

‘The Millennium Bridge, officially known as the London Millennium Footbridge, is a steel suspension bridge for pedestrians crossing the River Thames in London, linking Bankside with the City of London. It is located between Southwark Bridge and Blackfriars Railway Bridge. It is owned and maintained by Bridge House Estates, a charitable trust overseen by the City of London Corporation. Construction began in 1998, and it initially opened in June 2000.

Londoners nicknamed the bridge the “Wobbly Bridge” after pedestrians felt unexpected swaying motion. The bridge was closed later on opening day, and after two days of limited access, it was closed for almost two years while modifications were made to eliminate the motion. It reopened in 2002.’

Beyond Southwark Bridge lies the famous Tower Bridge, near which is moored H.M.S. Belfast.

Wikipedia tells us this about the museum ship:

‘HMS Belfast is a Town-class light cruiser that was built for the Royal Navy, currently permanently moored as a museum ship on the River Thames in London, England, operated by the Imperial War Museum.

Construction of Belfast, the first ship in the Royal Navy to be named after the capital city of Northern Ireland and one of ten Town-class cruisers, began in December 1936. She was launched on St Patrick’s Day 1938. Commissioned in early August 1939 shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, Belfast was initially part of the British naval blockade against Germany. In November 1939, Belfast struck a German mine and spent more than two years undergoing extensive repairs. Belfast returned to action in November 1942 with improved firepower, radar equipment, and armour. Belfast saw action escorting Arctic convoys to the Soviet Union during 1943 and in December 1943 played an important role in the Battle of North Cape, assisting in the destruction of the German warship Scharnhorst. In June 1944, Belfast took part in Operation Overlord supporting the Normandy landings. In June 1945, Belfast was redeployed to the Far East to join the British Pacific Fleet, arriving shortly before the end of the Second World War. Belfast saw further combat action in 1950–52 during the Korean War and underwent an extensive modernisation between 1956 and 1959. A number of further overseas commissions followed before Belfast entered reserve in 1963.

In 1967, efforts were initiated to avert Belfast‘s expected scrapping and to preserve her as a museum ship. A joint committee of the Imperial War Museum, the National Maritime Museum, and the Ministry of Defence were established and then reported in June 1968 that preservation was practical. In 1971, the government decided against preservation, prompting the formation of the private HMS Belfast Trust to campaign for her preservation. The efforts of the Trust were successful, and the government transferred the ship to the Trust in July 1971. Brought to London, she was moored on the River Thames near Tower Bridge in the Pool of London. Opened to the public in October 1971, Belfast became a branch of the Imperial War Museum in 1978. A popular tourist attraction, Belfast receives over a quarter of a million visitors per year.^[8] As a branch of a national museum and part of the National Historic Fleet, Belfast is supported by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, admissions income, and the museum’s commercial activities. The ship was closed to visitors following an accident in November 2011 and re-opened on 18 May 2012.’

Tower of London and St Paul's

Beyond Tower Bridge, St Paul’s still dominates the horizon.

Soon we passed another paddle steamer, the Dixie Queen, a luxury party boat; and the Tower of London.

I would have been very remiss had I not photographed Oliver’s Wharf and made a print for my grandson Oliver. The Victorian Web has this to say about this building on Wapping High Street:

‘Oliver’s Wharf. F. & H. Francis. 1869-70. Wapping, London E1. Built for George Oliver “in the Tudor gothic style, this wharf handled general cargo but had special facilities for tea” (Craig et al. 45). Bought for redevelopment in 1972, it was the first warehouse in Wapping, and one of the first of all the old warehouses, to be converted into housing, yielding twenty-three very expensive luxury flats. It has been described as “the most architecturally sophisticated warehouse” in its street (Williamson et al. 228).

I made many images of this event, and will continue the story in due course.

This evening we dined on Mr Pink’s fish and chips with pickled onions and gherkins.

Contrasting Skies

In January 1964 I took four colour slide photographs of birds being fed at the Tower of London. The best of these has been lost. I had used it to produce a calendar for Mum a year or so later. Sadly, of the twelve pictures selected for that present, this is the only one that has sunk without trace. Two others are just not good enough for my eye which is far more discerning now than it was then. If you have just one or two of something in a collection, maybe you are more likely to retain what would be better thrown away. If you have thousands amassed over fifty years, you don’t mind creating a few gaps. These two are now in the bin.

This is the one that, with a considerable amount of retouching, survived for my posterity collection. It is feeding time for the gulls and pigeons that no doubt still gather to snap up the offerings of those generous souls giving up their lunch hours to line the railings and toss bread for the birds as yesterday’s Ibsley woman tossed carrots for the ponies. I fondly speculate that I still occasionally photograph descendants of these very avian symbols of London and The River Thames. Well, I am given to the occasional romantic thought. The woman nearest the camera was a daily visitor. The lost picture contains her outstretched arm and shower of airborne crumbs glinting in the low winter sunshine. I see it still.

A perhaps less romantic observation is that the dockers whose cranes, so prevalent in 1964, no longer line the shores, are long gone from the scene. Five years after this photograph was taken London Docks were finally closed to shipping and sold to the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, who set about redeveloping them for residential purposes. Further vast improvements to the area were, of course, undertaken for the 2012 London Olympics.

Today’s weather did not improve in the afternoon, although the storms were not as violent as they had been yesterday. We drove Flo through rain, hailstones, and darkening skies, to blink through drops running down the car windows at the home in Downton we hope to buy. In mid-afternoon it seemed like nightfall to the east whilst a golden sun pierced clouds to the west. I could even see small patches of blue sky in Jackie’s wing mirror.

This dramatic contrast was even more apparent on the beach at Milford on Sea. We went on there for Flo to give Scooby a run around on the coastal footpaths, as the choppy waves crashed on the granite rocks below the cliffs. Turner would have painted the nearer clouds to our right as the sun slowly subsided in a clear blue sky. A young man stood contemplating the scene. At the same time the lighthouse light warning of The Needles, on our left, flashed away, clearly visible against a patch of open sky beneath the untinged blanket of cloud. You will need to zoom in on the picture to see what we could see. I found it amazing that looking out across the same stretch of water, simply by changing one’s angle of view, one was seeing such differently hued cloudscapes.

Scooby trotted up and down for a bit, whilst Flo gave me the benefit of her artistic direction. It was cold, so we didn’t stay outside long enough for Jackie to get into her programme on the car radio. We then showed Flo the town and shopped in the Old Milton Tesco.

This evening Jackie fed us on succulent sausage casserole with the usual array of vegetables. I drank a glass of Trottwood 2011 shiraz, whilst Jackie’s preference was for Hoegaarden,

As If Preserved In Amber

In August 1963 I was working in marine insurance for the Committee of Lloyd’s . As I always went for a wander during my lunch hour, I imagine that the second slide in my posterity collection was taken during one of those walks. I am hard put to determine the vantage point from which I looked out across the Tower of London landscape. Lloyd’s building itself would have been somewhere near the correct position, but I worked in the old ‘room’ which would not have been a tall enough structure.

I am going to plump for The Monument, the full title of which is Monument to the Great Fire of London. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. Situated at the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill, 62 metres from the site of the outbreak of the fire in Pudding Lane on 2nd September 1666, it is the same length in height. The observation point at the top is reached by a narrow winding staircase of 311 steps. My younger colleagues and I would challenge each other in a timed race up to the top. I managed it once, but doubt that could have been the day I took the photograph. I think there would have been some camera shake.

The foreground and middle distance of my picture hasn’t changed much in the intervening fifty years, The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, and HMS Belfast have stood firm. The massed cranes that lined the far distance have done their job and moved on. Had I the skill I might be fascinated to superimpose today’s skyline on this historical record.

The colour of the slide itself has deteriorated into an overall deep pink. Applying iPhoto I have regained a little colour and eradicated numerous age spots. This and another picture of Tower Bridge are the second and third of my posterity collection. Each needed a considerable amount of restoration work. As if preserved in amber, a microscopic insect is embedded in the clouds a little below the top left hand corner of the second picture. I hadn’t the heart to eject it with the myriad of other little specks on the scanned image.

The Tower Bridge photo focusses on the River Thames itself, and shows the working barges which were much more in evidence in those days. I possibly stood on London Bridge to capture this one.

After a day on the computer we dined on scrumptious cottage pie and vegetables followed by rice pudding with a dollop of jam. Just the thing for sinus pain. I finished the chianti and Jackie had a glass of Roc Saint Vincent sauvignon blanc 2012.

P.S. I am indebted to Jackie for pointing out that the London Bridge I stood on was sold to Robert P. McCulloch of Arizona in 1967. The replacement was opened to traffic in 1973. Whether or not I took this photograph from the old bridge, I certainly stood on it. There is of course an urban myth that states that Mr.McCulloch thought he was buying the Tower Bridge I photographed. He strenuously denied it.