To Sail No More

We went to the museum this morning. The lecture was the fascinating story of a shipwreck and an amazing find of gold and bricks. The speaker was Ron Howell of the South West Marine Archaeological Society.
He has been a diver for over 50 years and dived many of the countries historic wreck sites, the main ones being the 'Gold' wreck and Bronze Age wrecks off Salcombe, Devon. The Bronze Age wrecks are now described as one of the most important maritime discoveries of the period.  This  talk alluded to the gold, but was mainly about a small ketch lost in 1912 and discovered in 2003 and a fascinating story of Victorian Maritime History leading to the War Memorial in Topsham in Devon. He described his talks as being about the excitement of the discovery of historic artefacts and treasure by a small team of divers. The ketch was called Lord Napier, and was delivering bricks from Exmouth to Kingsbridge when it sank, and the only clue was the letters OUTH, still visible on one brick, which indicated Exmouth, Dartmouth, Falmouth, etc. The two crew were rescued but both died in the First World War. The gold reminded me of the Detectorists. We have just watched the whole series through once more. My favourite TV programme of all time. I’ll be watching it all again soon. Afterwards we had lunch in a golden corner of the Visto Lounge.