12 November 2010

And very windy!

A LONG AWAITED AND MUCH NEEDED UPDATE

Yes indeed, as refular visitors to this site will already know, work pressures have meant that I haven't had the time to add to this site during the summer and early autumn months, but that doesn't mean I haven't been giving the whole history topic and attention at all.

I'm glad to say that, amidst the hustle and bustle of running the company (InterCash, as a lot of you already know) I've been steadily accumulating a lot of fascinating old images, and over the next few weeks I shall be putting them together in several new galleries, but please be patient, as that's quite time consuming, especially as I have to play around with most of them to restore them to a decent quality.

Meanwhile, I should like to thank all of you who have corresponded over the last six months or so, especially those who have submitted ideas, pictures and links to all manner of superb material, all of which will be put to good use throughout the long, dark and frankly miserable winter nights ahead.

It's also very pleasing to see the number of teachers and students who are now making use of this site as a teaching and research resource, and those numbers are now growing, as we have been mailing our details to local education establishments, to let them know how and where to find us.

As you all know, this site was set up as a result of my own passion for history in general and for the history of my home city in particular, and I have to admit that in creating and adding to it I have learned a lot more myself - far more than I thought was actually out there to be learned, if I'm honest!

I've discovered little back alleyways I didn't know existed, rediscovered several places I had forgotten about, and unearthed all manner of fascinating details about people I had previously only known about in a vague sense and people I had no idea had played important roles in our past.

If I could take a month away from work (fat chance of that) I still wouldn't be able to get everything into this site that is now in my "to do" pile, but I reckon I'll get there eventually, though I also need to give some attention to the various index pages and the overall way in which the index system of this site is put together, as it had more or less outgrown the existing layout way back in the spring of this year.

Again, I thank you all for your patience and forebearance - I promise you it will be rewarded quite soon now - and I think I can promise some exciting changes and additions by Christmas, with far more to come early in 2011. I just wish I had a magic wand to wave over it all right now!

And to all those teachers and students who will be finding us for the first time over the coming weeks, I'd like to extend a warm welcome and my thanks for your interest and, I hope, your support in the future. And, like everybody else, if you stumble across any typos, errors or non-working links (the bane of every webmasters existence) do please e-mail me the URL of the page in question, together with the details.

I'm keen for this site to be interactive in the old-fashioned way - that is, your input is invaluable, and I love to hear from you, whichever part of the country, or the world, you happen to be in. Thanks mainly to the Royal Navy, Portsmouth has reached out to, and influenced, a great part of the globe, and I know it has at least a tiny corner of millions of hearts as its spiritual home.

Also, the up and coming generation(s) have so much to gain from a knowledge of the past in general, and our city has played a big role in much of that, and if only one young person should go on to become a historian, either amateur or professional, as a result of visiting these pages, then all the effort will have been worthwhile.

So, thanks again everyone, and I'll be back here soon, as I start the next round of additions and updates.

The photograph above is just one of the fantastic new images I've turned up over the past few months, and the original in my files is in fantastic high definition, especially when you consider the original was taken back in the 1890s, and then painstakingly hand tinted. I'll be posting a larger version soon, but anyone visiting North End can buy a laser-printed copy in A3 size, printed on high quality paper and mounted on card, for only 85p.

The detail in the full-sized version is amazing, with almost every word on the various signs and hoardings clearly readable, which has to make this one of my favourite old photographs ever.

Meanwhile, for those of you who like the factual details, the photograph shows Portsmouth Harbour during the last years of Queen Victoria's reign, as viewed from the Gosport side, where you can see one of the original chain-driven "floating bridges" that operated between here and Old Portsmouth, on the slipway adjacent to the Still and West pub, where, as a small boy, I used to stand and watch them discharging their cargo of cars and lorries most weekends. The service finally ended in 1959.

One interesting feature is the wooden ship of the line morred in the harbour. On the original page where I first found this print, this was identified as HMS Victory (perhaps not unnaturally), but I believe this is actually HMS Windsor Castle, also, at different times, known as HMS Victoria and finally HMS Duke of Wellington.

Her actual history is a bit confused, and the Wikipedia entry contains several factual errors (I believe), but I am currently hunting down the full details and will include a feature page when I am certain I have all the facts. What I do know for certain is that she was finally commissioned in 1858, after many delays and a curious "lengthening" process, which also saw her fitted with steam-powered screw engines, and that at the time of her commissioning she was the largest warship afloat.

However, just three years later HMS Warrior took to the high seas, rendering her and just about every other warship afloat obsolete, so that she ended her days as a floating quarters for members of the RN Reserve in Portsmouth Harbour, being broken up for scrap in the early 1900s (again, actual details are vague, and the year of her demise is variously given as either 1904 or 1909).

She (Windsor Castle/Wellington) was actually about three times the size of HMS Victory, and her prow is much higher, as shown in the picture below and visible in the print above. Where Victory was morred at this time I am still trying to determine, but I think it was somewhere nearer the upper harbour. Anyone who can help, please e-mail me.