25 Comments
Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

The difference with DeWadden is that it could be restored and displayed in its existing dry dock, avoiding the issues around deterioration. NML has received £20m from the Treasury for updating Albert Dock, but has chosen to spend the money, amongst other things, on a featureless box, sitting in the same dry dock, and pandering to the unquenchable requirement to highlight links to the slave trade.

NML undertook no public consultation on this and now we will lose DeWadden in favour of the slavery 'experience '.

Could The Post therefore nvestigate how a small group of unelected heritage civil servants have taken a decision to trash one of the few remaining historic ships - a decision which is, judging by the many referenced in the media to the loss of DeWadden, clearly against popular opinion?

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founding
Jul 29, 2023·edited Jul 30, 2023

It is interesting that we are being pressed to do more on slavery, given how we have led on this in the first place long before it became fashionable. I also dislike how our city's history and narrative is being forcibly rewritten for us. Slavery was indeed incredibly bad. A lot of it went on through our port. However, it is wrong to suggest it was the source of the city's wealth. Instead that was from goods, the trading of goods, the resultant insurance and banking industries, innovations of efficiency and entertainment, and of course logistics.

The city was also the leading force in the abolition of slavery.

Contrast then our focus - and being pushed to focus - more on this, versus a visit - say - to the Manchester Museum and Art Gallery. There, in the city (cottonopolis) which was a true driver of slavery, you will find a plethora of exhibits proudly displayed, with no context, that would suggest the era of British asset stripping the world nothing less than its golden hour.

Being much more used to our intelligent displays, my eyebrow was raised on more than one occasion on a recent visit.

On top of this, this once collection of millworks now gets to promote itself to government (and be promoted by government) somehow as the natural home of white collar work, while we are allowed to partially hold on to pharmaceutical manufacturing.

So, I agree. When Russia, China et al are pursuing modern slavery, enough of flogging ourselves over this. Especially if it comes at the expense of saving a real heritage asset.

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I agree with your comment, but I must point out that in today's China, not only anything remotely like slavery is not practiced, the living standard of the hundreds of millions of workers over there are comparably better than most of their western counterparts as cost-of-living crisis such as the one we are in are things of the pass in China. Elementary speaking, there is absolutely no need for any kind of forced labour let alone slavery when a country has an abundance of everything. I know these are facts as they are information gathered from friend and relatives currently living in China who come to visit me nearly every year, and speaking of tourists, there were nearly 170 million out-bound journeys having been made by Chinese tourist in 2022 alone. Not bad going considering most in the rest of the western world are tightening their belts.

Let's be honest, slavery has never been abolished, especially in in the west. It has simply been re-bottled and relabelled as 'career opportunities' by the political and corporate elites and sold to the unsuspecting masses millions of which having been forced into a hand-to-mouth existence.

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founding
Jul 30, 2023·edited Jul 30, 2023

I'd rather not swap the "slavery" of my unsuspecting career for hard labour or execution for saying the wrong thing, if it's all the same.

I do wonder how you'd positively frame an invasion and violent subjugation of Taiwan.

Or a government proudly being "friends" with an evil regime that's in the middle of an attempted freedom-crushing genocide.

Or what you'd call the treatment of the not at all oppressed Uighur people...

Congrats to the nation on being able to afford a new iPhone, though.

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Normally I would prefer not try to enlighten those that do not have comprehensive knowledge on contentious geopolitical matters. But as fellow reader of THE POST, I will make an exception in your case.

Taiwan is a place where I have a number of friends and relatives most of whom were born there and nearly all of them regularly cross the strait to the Chinese mainland to work, do business, to study, to shop and as tourists since they all shared the same language, dialects and cultural history just like all the other provinces in China. Reunification has been the desire of the vast majority but they are the ones that are being kept relatively silenced by their US-backed puppet government not unlike people in the two Koreas that have been kept apart by the divide-to-rule hegemonic tactics of those in Washington. A scenario similar to that of Hong Kong the outcome of which I must say, has undoubtedly incensed the foreign forces that have spent billions over the years in their failed attempt to turn the local population against the administration of the country to which the place rightfully belongs.

If your " Friends with an evil regime in the middle of an attempted freedom-crushing genocide" remark was to highlight Russia's conflict with Ukraine then you must follow the thread of well-documented facts from the beginning in order to find out which is the evil regime.

Since the disbandment of the Soviet Union, with the country's almost inexhaustible resources and technological advancement developed during the cold war, Russia has turned itself into a country engaged mainly in global trade especially in energy supplies to Europe and during the following three decades the entire economy of Europe has been growing exponentially and their previous dependency on the US lessening by the day. To stop losing their grip on the Europeans altogether, it became obvious to Washington an excuse must be found in order to destroy the increasingly cosy relationship between Europe and Russia. After years of trying by nurturing the neo Nazi element in Ukraine they managed to overthrow the pro-Russia government via the 'colour revolution in 2014 (remember the then US secretary of state travelled 6000 mile to Ukraine just to hand out cookies to the AZOV militia in Kiev's Maidan Square?) and began eight years of a virtual genocide of Russian nationals and Russian speaking people in Ukraine the majority of which have been in the country for generations. With daily bombing and attacks carried out by the neo Nazi forces no less than 14000 of those people were killed and many more injured and/or displaced with thousand of propertied they owned destroyed in the process and most western media tried their best to play down these events at the time.

After several warnings from the Kremlin and the Ukraine administration reneged TWO agreements they signed with Russia in Minsk and with Washington continued to fan the flame of conflict, the Russians finally said enough is enough. The Americans knew only too well, with their NATO connection, not only the Europe-Russia tie would be severed through the conflict, those what can only be said as self-harming sanctions the European were forced to imposed will make the entire European continent an economic scapegoat. Most of the world can see very clearly this US-instigated 'war' has nothing to do with freedom and democracy etc., it is all about Washington's attempt to preserve their dominance over 'lesser' nations and longer the war goes on the more profit their MIC and other US corporations will make.

An evil entity indeed.

The Uyghur people in Xinjiang have been living with the local Chinese people in peace and harmony for many centuries. Until that is, the population in some parts of the province was infiltrated by members from a number of terrorist groups from central Asia that were trained, funded and armed by Washington since the first Afghan war to fight in later wars they started in their usual regime-change campaigns in central Asia and the Middle East. For several years after the Iraq war, at times there have been on average 200 terrorist attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in Chinese cities per day. It was with help from the indigenous Uyghur people the government was able to track down nearly every one of those imported terrorists, their origins and backers traced. These are the 'oppressed' people the anti-China brigade have been trying to portrait as innocent victims. Media reports have showed, some anti-China organisation have even hired actors to make fake documentaries in an attempt to make the genocide accusation stick.

As for people getting punished for saying the wrong thing, you should ask Julian Assange.

All the above can be verified through records in the media domain.

P S Of course they can all afford IPhones. After all the best one are made there.

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founding
Jul 30, 2023·edited Jul 30, 2023

Talk about showing yourself up.

Also, re your bio, don't you mean you've been writing letters to the Echo and Post, rather than writing in them? Or are you claiming to be affiliated with them?

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Changing the subject won't help, and it is not worth bursting a blood vessel for.

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

Not to mention the Wincham, the Egremont, rusting next to the bar lightship, or the daffodil..

The greatest port city in the world for a hundred years can’t manage to keep one historic vessel, despite millions of tourists every year.

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Sadly the advice of "don't bother" preserving historic ships is good sense .

The cost of preserving floating vessels is as the article states is enormous..

A few times a year the Echo visits the London berth of the former Mersey ferry Royal Iris built 1951. Each time the vessel sinks a little further into the Thames and the cry goes out for its salvation.

"Why can't some wealthy Liverpool person save her?". The vessel HAS been visited by such people who have baulked at the cost of doing so, like tipping their fortune into the Mersey or Thames.

Insurance, towage fees (three tugs would be needed for the 1000 mile coastwise journey) which would take a fortnight, with no guarantee the dilapidated ship would stay afloat en route.

Then there was the IOM Steam Packet vessel Manxman of 1955 which ended her days in Sunderland after valiant but doomed attempts to raise funds to save her which weren't forthcoming The Sunderland dock owner which provided her final berth delayed the end until his firm could no longer afford to hold on and ordered her removal for scrap.

Even in the USA there are rumblings about the liners Queen Mary (1936) at Long Beach , California and the United States (1952) whose owners are in financial trouble. The SS United States is rusting away without much even cosmetic attention.

The old Queen Mary was at one stage owned by the Disney Corporation was losing money due to maintenance costs.

Even the wealthy folk of Dubai have been sounding horns about costs of the QE2:(1968).

There is only one partial success, albeit in unmaintained existence of the former Sealink ferry Duke Of Lancaster,(1956) beached near Mostyn (since 1979) which was bought to circumvent Sunday trading laws. Being run aground "saved" her but the business ventures failed and is just a rusting hulk tolerated by those unwilling to fund her scrapping.

As with most Liverpool heritage the money that created it no longer exists in the city, and "floating hotels/ nightclubs and restaurants ALWAYS go bust.

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

There's also the pathos of Brunel's Great Eastern, the ship which laid the first Transatlantic telegraph cable, ending up beached at Rock Ferry and the hull being painted as an advertising hoarding for Lewis's (if anyone knows where I can get a print of this please let me know!)

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

It’s incredible these vessels were lost to us and others such as Bronington and Royal Iris are allowed to rot so much that it’s prohibitively expensive to save them. But look at LCT 7074. Completely neglected and left to sink here but transported to Portsmouth restored to an amazing unique exhibit (take look on Google). Hamburg is a very similar maritime city to Liverpool (their maritime museum is very similar to ours) - they have several old vessels including cargo ships that are in the water and are busy tourist attractions. The answer of course is always money.

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

Portsmouth it is a Naval Port, ergo any Government will - near enough - fall over itself in order to ensure that there is space for further exhibits, and that the cost of repairing & exhibiting them is made available, a lot of the other ports are simply "Maritime Ports" and therefore not considered "as worthy" of having such attention and fuss lavished upon them. Witness the plights of the Onyx, Plymouth, the Landing Craft which eventually became Clubship Landfall, the Planet, and last but not least the Royal Iris, not even the Regal prefix (or its Merseybeat Heritage) was enough to save her.

To be fair, I see the City Council (& LCR) as being in a no win situation, they intervene to fund these vessels and you immediately get the "unofficial opposition" kicking off over something which they see as further proof of the Council's "Skewed Priorities" where no matter what they do and however well meanning, it may have been intended to be at the planning stage, it will eventually be used as yet another example of the Council wasting money

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author

Absolutely Baz- really difficult for anyone to win here

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

I’ve often remarked about Hamburg and the restoration of Germany’s main seaport city compared to the slow inexorable decline of Liverpool post WW2.

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

There are many parallels ( and I love both cities) Ports like Hamburg Antwerp Rotterdam etc have more prominence as they are gateways to a much larger hinterland.

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author

I actually read that about LCT 7074! Didn't have enough room in the piece but yes, a wonderful story of restoration

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FYI: Your reference to U-534.

The staff at the exhibit were nothing less than OUTSTANDING when I was writing a Novel about U-534s final voyage.

"The Spear of Destiny" is now in its 2nd Edition and continuing to sell modestly. Contact me if you'd like to purchade a signed copy!

regards

Paul McDermott

07954 411613

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

“you’re trying to defy the laws of physics” - I read this in the voice of Scotty from Star Trek.

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Jul 29, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

Thanks for a thoughtful piece, Abi.

The older our country gets, the more historical artefacts it has and the greater the cost of maintaining them.

I sometimes think about how careless our Victorian ancestors were with buildings, ships, landscapes etc with the care we lavish on their leavings to keep them exactly as they left them.

Should we be more like them and replace the old hulks with the best of our modern society?

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author

Totally agree Mick- it's really difficult isn't it? On the one hand we want to preserve our history, but if it's going to cost the same as, say, much needed affordable housing, then what is the better option? It's tricky

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Jul 30, 2023Liked by Abi Whistance

Nice piece Abi. Think everyone else has said what needs to be said. Thank you though, a lot of food for thought. Xx

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author

Thanks Carolyn!

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oops! SB--> "purchase"

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This discussion puts me in mind of a philosophical conundrum I first encountered as an undergraduate. Theseus, the mythical Greek founder of Athens, rescued the children of Athens from King Minos after slaying the minotaur and then escaped onto a ship going to Delos. Each year, the Athenians commemorated this by taking the ship on a pilgrimage to Delos to honour Apollo. Plutarch explains the problem: “The ship wherein Theseus and the youth of Athens returned from Crete had thirty oars, and was preserved by the Athenians..., for they took away the old planks as they decayed, putting in new and stronger timber in their places, insomuch that this ship became a standing example among the philosophers, for the logical question of things that grow; one side holding that the ship remained the same, and the other contending that it was not the same.” (Plutarch, Life of Theseus 23.1). Answers on a postcard, please, to the Maritime Museum 😊

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author

There are so many that I just couldn't fit in here, I think I did stumble across Trinity! Maybe we'll do a follow up/another deep dive at a later date (mind the pun)

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