Liverpool Maritime Museum

Our second day in Liverpool was spent at the Maritime Museum.

The first floor was entitled “Lusitania – life, loss legacy.” I expected to come away a lot wiser about the sinking of this ship in 1915. I already knew it had happened. I came away no wiser. The one thing I did learn was that, contrary to what I’d believed, the Lusitania was not the first passenger ship sunk by U-boats in the First World War. That was about all I did learn. Much of the floor seemed confused in layout, drawing no coherent story.

I did learn that homosexuals were generally treated far better at sea, in a time when it was still illegal to be homosexual on land. Most sailors’ attitude was, & probably still is, that everyone needs to unite to fight the common enemy, the sea, & provided they did that, anyone’s sexual preferences were their own – maybe we all ought to accept the need to unite in our common enemy, the adversities sent by life, & take a similar attitude to people in all their variety & differences

The other thing I was struck by is the vast emptiness of so much of the oceans. At one point the tale of one sailor’s life was told. His ship had been sunk mid-Atlantic during the Second World War. He remained on a life-raft for nearly two months until his raft finally was found. By then his fellow sailors were all dead & he was just 5 stone in weight. He’d survived on raw fish he’d managed to catch.

I was held up at one point by a photograph of a sailor in the Second World War. It was his name that caught my eye. It was the same as my father’s. My father spent that war in service with the Royal Navy. I looked carefully, but no it wasn’t my dad.

The second floor was devoted to the tale of the Titanic, most of which I already knew. We couldn’t help thinking Liverpool’s claim to the ship was tenuous to say the least. She was built in Belfast. The weather was too bad for her to stop at Liverpool on her way to Southampton where her maiden voyage was to set off from.  She was commissioned by the White Star line, originally a Liverpool firm, but by this time the company had been taken over by an American company.

As it was half term for many children in this country last week, there were several children in the museum. I was pleased to hear one child observe to her parent how many more people from third class were lost compared to those from first. Undoubtedly that was the case & a reflection of just how class-ridden & inequitable a society it was in the early 20^th century.

As we made our way back to the lifts, we passed a series of posters for cruises. It had never struck me before that before the age of steam, & more reliable & less sickening transport became available, the idea of cruising for the sake of it was not a concept that existed. It wasn’t until Victorian times, with mass migrations – often to penal colonies such as Australia - & some of those people becoming rich that the idea of cruising really arose. Now there were people who wanted to visit family & friends in Britain. What is more they were people of sufficient means to expect a certain style of living & comfort. Then cruising for pleasure started to take off, with luxury liners such as the Titanic. These days, the whole idea of holidaying on a cruise, not going to places for reasons other than pleasure has become popular, and along with that the idea of cruising as we know it today.

By the time we’d gone round two floors we were too tired to take any more in. We decided to abandon the other two floors of the museum for another time & go back to the hotel for a nap & to catch up on some our missed sleep.