Who Has Control?

A question any one of the four adults in the party might have been asking with reference to our four-year old twin grandchildren. The occasion was Remembrance Sunday 2012, the place was the Historic Dockyard Chatham. In fact the twins, although very young, behaved impeccably. Let’s face it a tour of a WW2 Destroyer, 1960s submarine and Victorian warship, are not on every child’s wishlist and we wondered if they would get bored and fidgety; instead they thoroughly enjoyed scrambling over HMS Cavalier, the Destroyer, and were in buoyant mood. This lifted our spirits at what was a very sad time. We had flown over to say our goodbyes to my seriously ill father, who passed away just two weeks later. of course we combined the trip with a quality time spent with the twins and their parents.

In the event the Dockyard proved a fascinating place and we didn’t manage to cover everything that day. There was also a temporary exhibition called ‘Whirrs, Cogs and Thingumybobs’ which I've written about elsewhere.

Here we are aboard HMS Cavalier, a Royal Navy C-class destroyer of WW2.

The Bridge, where they took turns to issue orders, and the room where the helmsman received orders from the Bridge.









Below, Office and the Operations Office (later the Ops Room) full of interesting knobs and dials.

And aboard the Victorian warship HMS Gannet. This was fun and the twins are happy to have joint control. It appears to be the wheel that positions the guns.

And in the radio room of the RNLI lifeboat Edward Bridges (1974). Everyone can relax, the twins have control of the situation again.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt image was a 1948 B-36 cockpit, with far more dials, knobs and levers than any of the above. Why not visit to see what other contributors made of it.

Look, What Can You See?

Guess who this is looking out of the window with her daddy? I've no memory of it of course, because it’s about sixty four years ago. Dad was around thirty one or two, but looks older somehow. Perhaps it’s the bow tie; not something I saw him wear very often in his life. He was clearly trying to get me to focus on something, rather than look at the photographer, and I appear a little bemused.

It’s a shame that light got into the camera and I’ve been unable to enhance this any more to sharpen up the image, which is tiny anyway. I seem to be wearing my best frock (with a good hem to let down as I grew) and baby shoes with buttons. I’m not sure what the top garment is; perhaps a knitted bolero or something similar with short sleeves. On the window ledge is a biscuit barrel. We always had one and it usually contained a mixture of Rich Tea biscuits, Custard Creams and pink wafers. In later years Mum told me she had to stop re-filling it, as Dad was eating too many with his evening cocoa!

I’d probably just learned to walk and was still a bit shaky on my feet; in any case Dad is making sure I don't fall and his arms are encircling me. I may not have a memory of it but it’s how I like to think of my father. He was a very tactile, protective and loving man. He also showed me many things in my life. He had an artist’s eye for detail and encouraged me to observe things before trying to draw or paint them. “Look, what can you see?”  but sadly I didn’t inherit his artistic talents.

For more windows and small children looking out, visit this week’s Sepia Saturday, where our prompt image is young Prince Charles looking out of Buckingham Palace on the occasion of his mother’s coronation.

Make Do and Make Believe

Children have the ability, which sometimes as adults we lack, to imagine everyday objects into an adventure. As a parent and teacher I have witnessed chairs and tables being utilised to make dens, cars and boats. I have recollections of my own childhood, using my mother’s ‘clothes horse’ with sheets draped over, to make a tent, into which I would gather my favourite toys; teddies, dolls and books. On seaside holidays the sand could be shaped into anything we wished, not just a fairy castle or mermaid’s tail.

Am I being a mermaid here in 1955?  

My own children in the mid 1980s whilst visiting their grandparents, used cushions, chairs and a tennis racquet to fashion a car (or motor-boat) that would take them and a family of dolls of on a trip somewhere.

We built a ship upon the stairs

All made of the back-bedroom chairs,

And filled it full of sofa-pillows.

to go sailing on the billows.                 

Robert Louis Stevenson; A Good Play

By 2010 our twin grandchildrenwere sailing away in a sand boat, with beach spades for oars.

When I am in my ship I see

The other ships go sailing by.

A sailor leans and calls to me

As his ship goes sailing by.

Across the sea he leans to me,

Above the wind I hear him cry:

“Is this the way to Round-the-World?”

He calls as he goes by.

      A.A. Milne: Nursery Chairs

Where shall we adventure today that we’re afloat,

Wary of the weather and steering by a star?

Shall it be to Africa, a-steering of the boat,

To Providence, or Babylon, or off to Malabar?

Robert Louis Stevenson: Pirate Story

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt is ‘Chldren Riding a make-Believe Horse’. They have used some objects (probably with adult help) to fashion a vaguely horse-like shape. I hope they didn’t try to feed their horse as he has a sharp muzzle! The little girl has a whip made of grass, but she seems to be unwittingly tickling her brother’s nose with the end of it.

City of Vancouver Archives. Public Domain