Ship ahoy to starboard me hearties! Well here we are in Portsmouth getting a full on experience of the UK's main naval base, attached of course to a rather large town and associated urban areas scattered around the splendid natural harbour. If you didn't know, Portsmouth is indeed a large town on the south coast of England with an illustrious naval history facing the English Channel and somewhat sheltered from the direct open sea by the presence of the Isle of Wight, an island shoved into the estuary of Southampton Water and the River Itchen, and protecting both Portsmouth and Southampton, a great place for a bucket and space holiday in an old style English resort type of way.
If you're visiting Portsmouth it's worth knowing about the Park and Ride scheme. If you come in on the motorway spur which comes off the main M27, take the first exit and end up in a spacious park and ride car park from where you can catch the bus into town for £4 return. This saves you the hassle of finding a town centre car park and only takes seven minutes to the Hard, an intriguingly named bus terminus right next to the Warrior, train terminus and Gunwharf Quay, a large modern shopping mall which will take you to the seventh consumer heaven. Even better, a few paces will take you to the entrance to the Historic Naval Dockyard.
I’d already been to the Submarine museum so concentrated on the dockyard itself. What boundless pleasure I took from bypassing a queue of heartbreaking and discouraging length to go straight into the ticket office as a year ticket holder and breeze through after showing the member of staff your credit card or identity doc. Then have a Costa coffee or just take your pick of the attractions.
On the Tuesday I had the Jutland Exhibition on my ‘to do’ list. This tells the story of the massive First World War confrontation off Denmark between the Royal Navy commanded by Lord Kitchener, then the world's most powerful navy, and the German fleet which had been trying hard to catch up in the race to build as many Dreadnoughts as possible. There may be some dispute over who came out best, but the long and the short of it was that the British were able to tighten the blockade on Germany as a result, making it far more difficult for the enemy to source their supplies from overseas, and so help to starve their population into submission, a deciding factor in the war.
The exhibition includes a jolly academic with rock musician hair and glasses on hand to answer any questions, and ready to tell you all about members of his family directly involved in the British military. There are lots of photographs of massive battleships, a time line of the battle, various ship models and three films, two of which were not working at the time of visit.
The Nelson exhibition was a revelation and well worth the time. Currently as the statue bashing epidemic hits the western world and even Nelson’s Column has come under scrutiny, one has to seriously question the sanity of the idea a small number of enraged people motivated by ideology destroying statues of people who lived in a totally different time and mindset. By any standards Nelson was a collusus, even for his ability to serve in the King's fleet after losing an eye, an arm, and receiving a head wound in various battles, and still remain standing to command the kings fleet on HMS Victory. You just have to wonder that Englishmen of old were made of titanium steel compared with our generation. Just think, if Nelson had lost at Trafalgar we might all be speaking French and the Brittanic inheritance would have been lost to the world, although that would be a debatable point.
By any standards Nelson had an enormous place of affection in the hearts of the British people and must have been far more than the equivalent of our most popular celebrity in 2017. He surely would have been top of Google searches if the 18th century had such things. Display cases full of every form of memento, jugs, mugs, plates, statues, pictures and goodness knows what, all commemorating the image or exploits of Nelson as he bestrode the seven seas. And just how many households in the Britain of the time did not have their own Nelson item of memorabilia?
Painstaking efforts seem to have been made to recreate exactly what Nelson looked like for his portraits and busts. There's even a life like full size model which I have to say reminded me of Rod Stewart at a fancy dress party. Did anyone else see the likeness? Nelson of course is famous for his illicit relationship with another woman, the regaled Lady Hamilton, and much is made of this in the exhibition. There was even a woman dressed in the garments of the time impersonating Nelson’s spurned and heartbroken wife with a selection of epithets.
One thing that may not be so known about Nelson is that he had a strong Christian faith, and there is a small section in the Nelson museum devoted to this aspect of his life. Biblical and indeed Christian history is replete with imperfect men and women who had a great impact on history and mighty faith, yet who had very human flaws. We think of Noah, Abraham, King David, St Paul and even modern saints like Martin Luther King who all had appointments with failure and moral falls, so Nelson was just another whose greatness was touched with an Achilles heel. Here is the prayer he wrote before the Battle of Trafalgar:
‘May the Great God, whom I worship, Grant to my Country, and for the benefit of Europe in General, a great and Glorious Victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet. For myself individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, and may his blessing light upon my endeavours for serving My Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself, and the Just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen. Amen. Amen.’
I happened to be in Portsmouth the next day for the arrival of our new aircraft carrier minus the aircraft of course, the Queen Elizabeth, which arrived about 7am on the Wednesday for docking within sight of the historic dockyard. This huge carrier is an impressive sight but still well short of the size of American leviathans like the USS Gerald Ford, a mere minnow in comparison.
The harbour tour gave us a chance to see this new pride of the Royal Navy in all its glory as the young captain of the ferry gave us an upbeat commentary on the surrounding naval furniture, peppered with the most cringeworthy bucket of jokes and one liners dreamt up this side of Hadrian’s wall. The ferry does a circuit of the docks, north past the Queen Elizabeth, then east into the land of frigates and destroyers before touching the cross channel ferry port and retracing the route back to the quay. If you take the last trip of the day the boat lands you by the Spinnaker and Gunwharf shopping centre, as by the time you finish your trip the naval dockyard has closed for the night.
By the way if you think there's not much left of the Royal Navy this isn't the only base, and I have it on good authority that Portsmouth is very well defended, and not just by warships. So watch out if you're planning an invasion!
If you're feeling like breathing in some fresh Solent air then take a walk along the harbour front from Gunwharf Quay out towards the open sea. The walk is an uplifting mix of marina, industrial wharf, jolly sailor pubs, and ancient sea wall which twists its way towards Southsea. En route you pass youngsters enjoying a swim off the rocks below. Another group of lads squares up to one another in a bravado sort of way on the walkway while their girls lounge on the side. Inside the sea wall at ground level a statue of Nelson reminds us of the stern stuff that made old England. A plaque on the side of the plinth quotes the prayer uttered by Nelson before the battle of Trafalgar.
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