England Musings #3

Originally sent 19 April 2005
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Hiya, again!

Hope this note finds all of you well! Figured it was about time to put down some of what was going on over here - if nothing else for my own forgetful memory. Hopefully, the notes are not coming off as too egocentric or anything like that - my intent is to inform those who are interested and complete a record of sorts for when I get old (you know, over thirty or so). If you don't want to receive such emails from me just drop me a note saying so or delete this message... I find it interesting to actually write these notes knowing they will be read by many of you - what must it be like to read them?

The attached picture collages have captions associated with them that I have put at the very bottom of this message (pictures described in clockwise fashion beginning with upper left corner) - please see below. This installment will be the 3rd general message that I have written down in the past three weeks of living here in England (yes, it will be three weeks by today, Tuesday, 19 April). However, some portions of it have been cut and pasted from shorter messages to various individuals in order to shorten the composition time... If for some reason you didn't get the two previous installments (and picture collage) and would like them, please let me know and I will send them to you.

I guess the last email was written on Friday, 12 April, prior to going on night watch. Well, night watch begun on Saturday afternoon, but not before I was able to get out in the morning on my first trip to the surrounding areas. Saturday morning I took my first ride on the local mass transit system - in this case a train similar to typical subways, however, much of this train rides above the ground except in downtown Newcastle & downtown Gateshead. In any case I hopped on the "Metro" here at the Jarrow station and rode east to South Shields (something like five miles maybe). Public transit is used very heavily here I would say. There is also an extensive bus system within the area (a very large area actually) and then additional train and bus service outside of Newcastle and surrounding towns, pretty much with service all over the island from what I can tell. I have come to find that the Metro service is very handy for getting around, maybe a bit on the spendy side (something like $6.40 for a day pass, location-to-location tickets are also available for less) but certainly a great way to get around. The bus service is probably just as handy if not more so as there are many more bus stops and routes then what the Metro has to offer - but as far as I am concerned the Metro is a good way to travel for my intentions (and less complicated!).

South Shields was, I had heard, a bit more of a pleasant place then here in Jarrow. The couple hours spent there on Saturday certainly proved to show that there were some very nice parts to South Shields. The Metro station there is located in the downtown shopping area that can quickly give way to the coast (sandy beach in many areas there) down roads to the north and the east. I ventured down past a great park/garden area on the north side of town and to the mouth of the River Tyne. The view there looks out over the mouth of the river (obviously) and to the area of North Shields and Tynemouth. There on the north mouth of the river stands an old fortification (and later WWII gun battery) - something which was very intriguing.

So, night watch begun Saturday afternoon. My first eight hours were a rest period while my partner performed evening rounds beginning at around 1600 hours - as I was to perform night rounds for the 2330 - 0700 period. As it happened, the partner for the nights was Linjohn, whom I room with here in the flat. The four rounds of the ship each night went fine and would take up about half the watch period - the other half of the time I spent emailing, surfing the web for England/Europe travel deals or reading. Thankfully, I was able to sleep for numerous hours each afternoon during my rest period so that the nights were not too bad. Of course, I slept after returning to the flat each morning as well. This occurred for four days in a row - well, almost. On Tuesday, the last night duty day, I had the opportunity to attend BBC's recording of Songs of Praise. The head fitter/mechanic subbed for my normal rest period that night, and, as it worked out, my night watch on Tuesday was covered by the sub for my partner that night, so I managed to get half a nights rest that night and didn't even have to do a round...

Anyway, BBC (you know British Broadcasting Corporation - did you know that in the UK if you own a TV you must also have a TV license just to watch channels received by normal TV antenna - the license fee is reportedly over $200 a year and supposedly all goes to BBC) - starting again - BBC puts on this Songs of Praise numerous times each year and this night they were doing a recoding for a show on May 1st and for a show in the Fall (two show recordings in one night). So, this recording was held at the recently completed Sage at Gateshead (west of here by a few miles and a beautiful performing arts hall) in a smaller hall that was packed with 2,000 folks from the area. All in all eight songs were recorded from the audience (of which choir members made up a large portion, all seated in the center front) and four additional songs from two nationally acclaimed children's choirs. One of the other Mercy Ships people commenting on the night at the Songs of Praise remarked that "it was if the angels were singing with us" - I think they were because it was certainly a wonderful night of singing - mind you that I am not a big singer and so I would think this may be saying something... I hope to maybe tape the show on May 1st and see if any good shots of other Mercy Ships folks or myself made the cut - most of us were all in the back under the darkly lit awning. A good night out at the Sage anyway!

Wednesday was a day off for Linjohn and I, and so we went out for a good chunk of the day. We traveled to Tynemouth and visited the old fortification and WWII gun battery (see picture collage!). In fact, this site overlooking the mouth of the Tyne from the north has been a location for more than just one specific purpose. According to the little pamphlet that provides the written story of the place (Tynemouth Priory and Castle) the headland here has been utilized for centuries. It notes that a early Christian monastery was built here in the early seventh century - and burnt in 800 by raiding Danes. From 1085 to 1529 it appears to have served as a Benedictine Priory (thus the name and some of the church-like buildings). The adjacent fortifications and castle is believed to have existed prior to, but at least by 1296. The religious functions ended around 1529 at which time the entire site (priory and castle/fortifications) were used as a national defensive site. Anyway, there is more history to it including WWII gun battery and so I could go on, but, will choose to stop here - I think you get the idea - the place is old and has extensive history! Much older than anything I am accustomed to seeing in Alaska, much less the US! It appears, according to a quick scan of this pamphlet, that some of the presently visible castle, priory, and fortification (that you can see in the pictures) dates back to the 1200's, with some of it certainly newer then that. Fairly intriguing to think of the many people that have inhabited the grounds. One final interesting point is that many of the grave headstones present there date back to late 1700's and 1800's and are very much inside some of the visible foundations of the priory - I don't know why the graves were placed there (well, apparently in 1700's and 1800's the priory served again as a church, however, why would graves be located in such proximity and location?).

Saturday I was able to get out to downtown Newcaslte and walk around the city quite a bit, including a visit to what is called the Discovery Museum - a wonderful (and free!) museum that tells the tale of Newcaslte from the beginning. Settlements at Newcastle date back to something like 5000 BC according to the scholars. The Romans established a presence here following there invasion of England at Kent in 43 AD. By 122 AD the Romans were concerned with invasion from the North and so Hadrian, Emperor of Rome, ordered construction of what is now known as Hadrian's Wall. It is a stone wall that extended for 80 miles across northern England with an eastern end to the east of Newcastle - it was estimated at six meters high and three meters wide! The Roman's also took a significant interest in the strategic location of what is now Newcaslte due to the geography of this place. Defenses were erected in Newcastle during Roman times (around the time of the wall construction if not prior to) and a Roman bridge was constructed across the River Tyne (which may have been why the defenses were erected - doesn't appear that Newcastle defense is as important as a nearby fortification). Most recently, back to mid 1800's the area boomed with regards to coal mining and shipbuilding, activities that slumped in the 1920's and 1930's. However, with WWII the shipbuilding industry picked back up and continued strong until 1960's. By the early 1970's 50 percent of the service sector was unemployed. Today, some of the area remains economically depressed as many folks do not have jobs or the jobs are just not consistent. However, it appears that the area is economically healthy in areas other than industry and the downtown and river side is spattered with contemporary buildings and reconstructive works. Anyway, I won't try and continue with Newcastle history - suffice to say that the museum provided a very complete overview of the city's very intriguingly checkered past - there is a lot to learn here with regard to the history of the area.

Later Saturday I ventured over to the coast to the town of Whitley Bay and visited the downtown area and beach. I did end up doing many laps around the area trying to find my way back to the Metro station. That was one constant this past weekend - getting lost, or at least disoriented. I even had a good map of the area, which, in classic male stubbornness, I chose not to look at most of the time and so making the tour of the area even greater then expected. In my defense I would at least note that the streets here are poorly marked and have little apparent reason behind how they are laid out! Getting turned around - ok, lost - does seem to be a great way to see an area though.

This past Sunday I was able to make it to church (my first time while here), however, just barely. As I exited the Metro walking in the direction that I remember the church map had shown (or at least I thought it had) it was clear that this was completely the wrong direction. Just as I resolved to going simply for a long walk that day instead of a church service I was picked up by a fellow Mercy Ship'r who had driven by and noted my erroneous direction. Like I said, getting disoriented was a very popular theme this weekend, however, it was good to be found in order to attend a great church service. Following church I walked to Gateshead (southern side of the River Tyne opposite Newcastle) and visited the Quayside (river side) as well as did a bit of grocery shopping. The Quayside is lined on either side with various buildings, old and new, modern and plain, and has a very nice sidewalk right down near the river.

As far as work goes, the remainder of last week was spent at work mainly helping out one of the welders with some simple jobs as well as performing the daily log a number of times in addition to starting a pipe removal job that was finally completed today. Monday and a portion of Tuesday was spent fighting rusted bolts and nuts on a length of approx. 8" inner diameter pipe and butterfly valves in a successful attempt to remove the pipe and valves from their location. A good portion of today (Tuesday) was spent with two other guys moving 16 spare cylinder heads into a recently completed storage space. The cylinder heads were for the main engines (sixteen of them is one complete set for any of the six large engines) and must weight somewhere in the range of 400 pounds (my estimate) with dimensions of 2 x 2.5 feet and a depth of 1.25 feet. Needless to say we didn't lift these, but used a series of chain hoists and some physical effort to jostle them around. Enough physical jostling and handling that I am looking very forward to retiring to bed...

The work day goes quickly and is primarily made up of various jobs as I described above. I enjoy the work and it does feel quite good to have a physical and visible results at the end of the day. In addition, the folks who I work with are very pleasant to work alongside and it makes for an enjoyable day - not that I would expect it to be any less. I am fairly inexperienced working with my hands and so have a lot to learn to be able to know what I am doing - however, I was hoping to get a chance to learn some hands on things like this.

Looking at the collage and the picture of the ship that I had previously sent it is apparent that the perspective given of the ship is deceiving. The length of the ship is 152m (close to 500 feet - I have seen varying length estimates though) and breadth is 23.1m (75 feet) with a gross tonnage of 16,071 tons (not sure if this is British or US, but guessing British tonnage) - not a large ship, but not small either. It is a ship that was built in Denmark in 1980 and has been with Mercy Ships the last six years being retrofitted - it was originally a train ferry. It is strange as many of the signs and labels on the ship are still in the language of the Danes people and so it is a bit tough to figure out some things, however, temporary English termed labels have been made for much of the ship.

The yard where the ship is currently alongside has a contract to complete much of the structural, metal, and cosmetic (including new cabins and the like) on the ship with the engine, galley, bridge, some exterior painting, and hospital equipment (as well as other electric items) being the portions of the ship that are left to the volunteers here working on the ship - I think I got that right, I am still figuring out who does what on the ship. So, maybe needless to say, the ship is not suitable for housing folks at this point in time, but when it is complete it should have room for around 480 people in addition to a deck dedicated as a hospital.

One of the thoughts that occurred during the late rounds while on night watch was the admiring of the work of this ministry in progress. Certainly the ship is 10 months out from setting sail, yet a look around and it is clear that the retrofitted ship is taking shape and from the humble beginnings of the cabins taking shape it is not too far a stretch to think of the work that the ship will be doing a year from now - that is, performing many medical operations and community development programs for people that are certainly in need of such aid. There are of course many different thoughts or perspectives that go through the mind in thinking through such a thing, however, one of the more physical aspects of being in this place with this organization is simply seeing such an organization at work with vision and purpose in mind. Over the past years of life I had given money to non-profits (Christian and non-Christian alike) but never really had a good feel for where that money went other than knowing the specific purpose or general intent of the organization or ministry. What I find here is a very real application of that financial giving being put to use in vivid physical ways that are very visible. The opportunity to view such a perspective is very exciting, I think, as it is clearly demonstrates the benefit that comes with the financial help that is provided to a ministry or organization.

Well, these messages are getting longer and longer. That wasn't intentional on my part - nor do I plan on continued lengthening of any forthcoming messages. It is simply just a comprisal of thoughts from the previous week - stuff that I found interesting and felt like writing on. Sorry that the length is such as it is - I don't intend to bore anyone - of course, maybe some of you won't even make it this far.

Signing off from England for now - hope this note finds you all in good health and spirits.

Cheers!
love,
matt