Manky Monkey Motors

2.40 in the morning, April the 14th/15th, 1912. The SS Titanic, (steam ship, although it carried mail so was also referred to as RMS, Royal Mail Steamer), the largest man-made object on Earth at that time, strikes an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean & within 3 hours, sinks 3 miles to the sea bed with the loss of almost 1,500 lives. On it's maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, it was known as the Millionaire's Special as it carried some of the richest & most influential people of the age, but the crew & passengers came from all over the World.
A few days after the sinking, ships were sent out from Halifax, Nova Scotia, the nearest sea port, 700 miles away, to recover the bodies, floating in the sea, wearing their white life jackets, that had been reported by passing craft. Most had died of hypothermia after jumping into the icy waters wearing pyjamas or evening wear, leading the newspapers to report that they looked liked they'd simply fallen asleep. The salt water & cold aged the bodies -most were estimated to be 20 years or more older than they were later found to be.
To begin with, the recovery crews buried the most decomposed bodies at sea, stitched in canvas bags & weighted down with scrap metal. A public outcry stopped that practice though & the remainder of the 300 or so fatalities found were taken back to Halifax, where the local ice rink became a morgue for embalming & identification. The White Star Line paid for many to be transported home to relatives, while the rest were buried in 3 cemeteries, for different religions, in Halifax.
While I was on holiday in Canada recently I visited the Atlantic Museum in Halifax & the Fairview Lawn Cemetery. 100 years later it's still very moving & grimly fascinating. 

Ever heard the expression "Re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic", meaning appearing to do something while not actually fixing a problem?
This is one of those deckchairs. It has the company Star logo carved into the headrest. Recovered from the Atlantic after the sinking.

Part of a wall carving from the 1st class saloon. In sea faring tradition, many wooden pieces were carved by sailors into mementos or household objects for their families. The museum had several rolling pins, bread boards etc, made from wood from the Titanic.

A poster advertising the planned return voyage.

Some of the graves in Fairview Lawn Cemetery. I'd read a book on the sinking during my holiday. Felt odd to stand in front of the headstones & recognise the names & remember their stories.

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A passenger from Southsea, England.

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This unknown child has come to symbolise all the 53 children lost in the sinking, despite the famous "Women & children first" order.

A personal inscription from Bruce Ismay, President of the White Star line, for one of his staff.

The grave of Irishman Joseph Dawson. With the release of James Cameron's film, many fans believed this to be the resting place of fictional character Jack Dawson. It's still often covered in flowers, movie ticket stubs etc.

Strangely, Frederick Sawyer, a 3rd class passenger travelling from Southampton to Michigan, came from the village of Malshanger, about 5 miles from where I live.

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Just 5 years later in 1917, at the height of the First World War, Halifax became the centre of another seafaring disaster.
Being a large port, jutting out into the Atlantic, it was a very important Naval centre with hundreds of ships passing through, collecting troops, refuelling & forming fleets to head out to sea.
Crews had spent several days loading a French munitions ship, the Mont Blanc, with high explosives. They had to wear special cloth slippers over their boots to prevent sparks as they packed the shells on board. The decks were filled with drums of oil & fuel. On the morning of December the 6th a passing Norwegian ship, the SS Imo, collided with it, starting a fire. Knowing what was on board, the Mont Blanc's crew desperately steered the ship away from the rest of the fleet moored in the harbour, beaching her in front of the Richmond District of Halifax. 20 minutes later a devastating explosion ripped the ship apart & set off a chain reaction among the other vessels in the harbour. Until the atomic bombs of the Second World War, it was the biggest man-made explosion in the World. It was said to have been heard 3,000 miles away in Liverpool, England. Over 2,000 people were killed with a vast swathe of the city flattened in the blast. All the water was blown out of the harbour, creating a tidal wave across the remains of the town.
A single ship survived the blast. This one.

There are lots of photos of the aftermath in the Atlantic Museum. They show the blackened remains of buildings & look very like the images of the French trenches with every living thing destroyed. The diary of one child who survived tells how 35 members of his family were wiped out in an instant.
I'd read about this, but when you see the size of the harbour & how much of the city was destroyed, it brings home just how big the explosion must've been.
Bizarrely, the captain of the ship that collected most of the Titanic bodies, was killed fighting the fire on the munitions ship.

A sculpture on the modern Halifax boardwalk. The authorities tried to stop people climbing on it, but eventually gave up & installed child friendly rubber matting around it's base.

Not quite on the same magnitude as the Titanic, the children's TV series, Theodore the Tug Boat was filmed here. You can go for trips around the harbour in him.

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The Queen Mary 2 was in port. My parents holidayed on this a few years ago.

"Drunken Lamposts" sculpture.
One lies inebriated on the deck while his mate stands over him.

A third has a small flap open in it's base & is "urinating" into the harbour. Canadian humour.  :P

I wanted to see a Moose on my travels, but the nearest I got was watching the Halifax Mooseheads in action at the ice hockey stadium. They lost to the Acadians.
The closest Moose are actually 200 miles away, but as they're the size of a Shire Horse & weigh 2 tons, I couldn't bring one back in my hand luggage.

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Spot the Moose in the audience.

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Looks like you packed a lot in to your holiday!

 :) My sister & brother in law had drawn up an itinary of things to see. I was there for 2 1/2 weeks, so we ticked a lot off the list.

got yourself a bit of the old edumacation while you were there then

 :) Hated history when I was at school, but now I find it fascinating, especially when you see it in the flesh like that.

Really glad you had a great time!

Only just seen these. Very interesting. I know it sounds morbid but I like reading gravestone epitaphs - I particularly liked the one about how Englishmen die.

Good that you got to go to a Canadian hockey game. And they say the Americans like their ice hockey!  8)

Sounds like you had a really great time. What with this and the Dutch show, you are becoming a right little globetrotter.

JJ  :)

Planning another jaunt at the moment -a hotrod party in Bruges, Belgium in April.
Then Canada again in July/August & Holland again in November.

 :o See what happens when someone leaves the cage door open. Globe trotting monkeys everywhere. Never get them all back in again.  ::) ;D

Poke them with a stick.
I decided that now I'm past 50, I ought to start doing all the things I thought I had plenty of time to do. Getting out & seeing a bit of the World is on the list.

what about animal quarantine  ::)

Not a problem unless you go to India   ;)

That's what I decided when the kids grew up, and led to riding a bike and all sorts of experiences - including MMM!

what you telling us BG  ::)  that youve ,,experienced Mr Manky Monkey  himself  :o :o :o :o     :D :D :D

MMM - Manky Monkey Motors

Manky Monkey ...mmmmm!

Here's a story for the conspiracy theorists .

http://www.titanic-titanic.com/titanic_conspiracy_theory.shtml

And I also read somewhere that some of the top nobs who died were on their way to a meeting to decide whether to finance the American Federal Reserve, which was established in 1913. It was said that certain people were against the fed as it would be unconstitutional.