"True Love"

This morning we explored Old Hull. The small sculpture you see here was commissioned in 2002 to memorialise a tragic story from the days of Hull's involvement in the whaling trade in the 1800s. 

The long version of this tragic story is :-
Young Inuits, Memiadluk, 17, and his 15-year-old wife Uckaluk,  visited England in 1847 on onboard the Hull whaling vessel Truelove to raise awareness of the dire conditions in their homeland. 
The captain of the whaling vessel, Captain Parker, saw at first-hand the negative impact Europeans were having on Inuit communities who had no immunity to the diseases they encountered, so wanted to publicise their plight In 1847 Captain Parker decided to bring the young Inuit couple back to Hull from the Davis Straits to publicise their plight and try and raise funds.
The couple attended talks in Hull, Manchester and York during the winter and "their appearance, manners and clothes aroused great interest", before returning to their homeland onboard Truelove.
 Sadly, Uckaluk died on the return journey as a result of a measles outbreak.

PS And continuing yesterday's Spurn Point exploration, we found the old Spurn Lightship in Hull Marina .  Built in 1927, decommissioned in 1975, and restored in 1983 as a museum- extra.