Wednesday 6th January
Jeremy Batch
All Shipshape and Blackwall-fashion
As you sail past the O2 “Dome” or fly over it on the cable-car, look to the opposite bank and you will see the site of the largest private dock in Europe, the birthplaces of the hydraulic crane and the modern lighthouse, the yards where “bad buoys were made good” and HMS Warrior was launched, and the wharf where Brunel’s first steamship had her engine installed. You will be passing the departure point of fleets (great and small) which set-up the first permanent English-speaking colony in the New World, established the most powerful multinational corporation that has ever existed, and towed the floating harbours that made the D-Day landings possible. Here the Cutty Sark unloaded tea and wool, and here many of her sisters were built. What is the connection between the local Majestic Wine Warehouse and Captain James Cook’s first ship? Jeremy will explain all of this in his usual entertaining style.