WAVERLEY RECONSTRUCTED

One of the highlights of my forthcoming 'Shipyard' show in Bath will be a genuine reconstruction of part of the damaged bow of the paddle steamer Waverley.

As you will know, this venerable old ship was saved from the knackers' yard and now plods around the British coast reminding people what it was like in the good old days (ie the 1950s) when people (who then were all very young and happy) took day trips, ate sandwiches and got pissed in the ship's well furnished bar.

Well, business has not been good recently, despite the Waverley having had a sumptuous rebuild courtesy of the Heritage Lottery Fund (the tax on poor people to pay for jolly good restoration schemes).  It seems there are just not so many people around these days who have such fond memories of days out chugging down the Clyde.

The rebuild brought the ship up to current safety standards, with new emergency escapes on the deck.  It replaced the old boilers with a new one (rendering one of the old two funnels useless), and it returned the thing back to its original paint scheme from the 1940s, using a technique called 'scumbling' which imitates wood grain on metal.  Anyhow, the ship didn't carry this paint scheme for long in its early days, but heritageisers always like things in 'original' condition.  Even this new scumbling is now beginning to look tired. 

In other words, the ship itself is becoming a bit of a poor imitation of what it actually was.

This was why I decided to capture a piece of the actual bow of the ship that had been cut away after it was pranged.  I saw this fragment lying discarded and recorded it thoroughly in order to reconstruct it for posterity.  This genuine reconstruction in MDF and acrylic paint is a piece of our national heritage and is frankly priceless.  I doubt if any of the visitors to the show will be able to meet the tag I put on it.