Please Remain Seated

Hythe’s Pier Railway

As with yesterday’s adventure, today saw me visiting another intriguing landmark featured on the wonderful Atlas Obscura; along the pier pictured above, located in the small town of Hythe, runs the world’s ‘oldest operational public pier railway’. Once again, I’ll leave you with the words of Atlas Obscura to explain its history:

Once driven by hand, the rickety carriages of this 2,100-foot-long pier railroad are currently pulled by two miniature electric locomotives, which began their relentless rattlings along the wooden boardwalk in 1922.
Though endearing, these dinky narrow-gauge trains have a dark side to their history. They were built for a World War I mustard gas factory in 1917, then moved to the Hythe Pier when the war ended.
The pier, the country’s seventh longest, was built in 1881. Unlike many pleasure piers beloved of the British seaside scene, it still has a very practical purpose as the embarkation point for a short ferry service to Southampton. It protrudes over the muddy estuary shallows into deeper waters, allowing the boat to berth in all tidal conditions.
The railway was added to the precarious Victorian structure in 1909 as a convenient way to transport passengers and luggage to the ferry without the need to trudge along the long, exposed, and windswept pier.
Today, the Hythe Pier Railway delights tourists with a ride above the gently lapping waves of the estuary while continuing to serve the numerous villagers who routinely use this quaint railway and ferry service as part of their daily commute to the city.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hythe-pier-railway

Portuguese Fireplace

In the heart of The New Forest, at the side of a forty-mile-per-hour road, lies a fireplace (pictured above). I found out about this peculiar memorial through the brilliant Atlas Obscura, a website that documents the ‘hidden wonders’ of the world (and which I highly recommend visiting to discover all manner of interesting things, wherever you are in the world), and couldn’t resist going to have a look in person. The page on the Atlas Obscura website does a pretty great job of explaining the memorial’s significance, so I’ll hand over to them:

During the beginning of World War I, Canada supplied timber for the Allies in Britain. But by 1916, its logging industry was unable to keep up with the increasing demands. Britain had a problem: it needed to start using its own trees, but all the local foresters were fighting in the war.
Over the next several years, the Canadian Forestry Corps sent 1,500 men and equipment overseas to the New Forest lumber camp, which encompassed about five acres of land. In 1917, as the demand continued to climb, the Portuguese government started sending laborers to help out with the efforts.
The stone fireplace in New Forest National Park is located between the village of Emery Down and the Bolderwood Deer Sanctuary. It marks the site where the foresters lived in a small village of huts and memorializes the efforts of the Canadian Forestry Corps and Portuguese Army.
A plaque explains its significance: “The Forestry Commission have retained the fireplace from the cookhouse as a memorial to the men who lived and worked here and acknowledge the financial assistance of the Portuguese government in its renovation.”
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/portuguese-fireplace

The Old Railway Track

Books and Beaches

After a multi-month hiatus, today I finally started reading again for pleasure. My book of choice? The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, a collection of interconnected tales inspired by O’Brien’s experience as a soldier in the Vietnam War. I first heard about the book just under a year ago through watching Ken Burns & Lynn Novick’s incredible Vietnam War documentary series, which features O’Brien as an interviewee, and have been wanting to give it a read ever since. Having received a copy for Christmas, it has been sat (as so many books have) on my desk waiting for me to finally find the time to read it. And, from what I’ve read so far, it appears to have been well worth the wait. One of my goals for the summer is to read (at least) one book every week, so I’ll be sure to incorporate that into the blog somehow and let you know my full thoughts when I’ve finished the book.

Despite spending a large part of my morning cooped up inside reading, I felt that it would be irresponsible not to make the most of the beautiful weather and so headed down to the beach in the afternoon, book in hand. It ultimately turned out to be a little too busy for my liking as far as reading was concerned, so I instead ended up taking a relaxing stroll, basking in the enduring majesty of the ocean.

The Mayflower Memorial

Just a few short steps away from Southampton’s central shopping and leisure hubs lies a towering memorial (pictured above) to a remarkable, yet somewhat uncelebrated, moment in the city’s history. On 15 August 1620, it was from the port of Southampton that the Mayflower, the ship that famously transported the first Pilgrims to that area of land we now call the United States of America, set sail for the new world. Or at least, it attempted to. The Mayflower left Southampton accompanied by another, smaller ship known as the Speedwell, which carried Puritans who had been living in Holland. However, shortly after departing, the Speedwell began to leak, requiring the ships to pause their journey at Dartmouth in order for vital repairs to be made. The problem seemingly fixed, the vessels continued on their way. That is, until the Speedwell began leaking once again, forcing the ships to turn around and stop at Plymouth. Just under a month after leaving Southampton, the Speedwell was abandoned, its passengers either boarding the Mayflower or returning to Holland, and the Pilgrims finally departed the shores of England for a successful journey to, in the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald, ‘[the] fresh, green breast of the new world’.

Despite having lived in the area my entire life, it was only in the past year that I became aware of the city’s fascinating connection to this crucial moment in world history. In hindsight, I probably should have twigged a little earlier given the city’s most popular theatre is called The Mayflower, but it just goes to show how even the most notable stories of the past can be hidden right beneath our noses.

A Wander Through Lymington

Today I went to Lymington in search of a part-time job and some large white burger baps. Whilst there, I took a brief stroll down to the quay to take in the scenery and enjoy a bit of peace and quiet. Following a highly unproductive morning filled with far too much time on YouTube watching interviews with Elton John and Taron Egerton, the tranquillity proved to be just what I needed to clear my Crocodile Rockin’ mind.

(I’m sorry. That was the best Elton pun I could muster.)

A Wander Through Christchurch

During a walk though Christchurch with my good friend George today, we took some time to appreciate the magnificence of the imposing Christchurch Priory. It’s incredible to think that this building has been looming over the surrounding area for approximately 900 years, providing a backdrop to the lives of many thousands of people.

John Hansard Gallery

Whilst in Southampton today I took a short detour and escaped the rain inside the John Hansard Gallery, a small, free-to-enter contemporary art museum in the city centre. I was somewhat pressed for time so only had a brief look round, but I was particularly intrigued by the above piece. The Gallery’s current exhibition is focused on ‘[exploring] the practices of women artists, designers and writers of the 1920s and 30s through the work of contemporary artists’ and so, with both this and the work’s title in mind, I thought the striking juxtaposition within the image created a powerful visual representation of the damaging nature of stereotypical gender expectations. But, of course, it’s modern art, so it could be about something else entirely; perhaps the suffocating pressures of Brexit on the candy floss industry? Obviously I’m joking (candy floss is booming!), but it’s certainly a thought-provoking image and I’m not sure what more you could want from a piece of contemporary art. While only a relatively small museum, there were quite a few video installations which I didn’t have the time to sit down and view, so I think a return trip will certainly be in order.

The Summer of Exploration: A Mission Statement

Hello and welcome to Please Remain Seated! My name is Harry (which, let’s be honest, if you’re reading this you most likely already knew) and for the past few months I’ve been locked away within the confines of my bedroom studying for my A-Level exams. But the truth is, I’ve been locking myself away for far longer than that. We’re living in an age of over-stimulation, wherein technological advances have transformed our lives into an endless media buffet with anything we’ve ever wanted to experience delivered to us at the click of a button. And as a result it seems that we spend a large portion of our time living vicariously through screens instead of actually living. At least, I know I certainly do. We no longer have to leave the comfort of our homes to be satisfactorily entertained, we have the entire world at our fingertips, and so a lot of the time we just… don’t. But I’ve grown tired of this lifestyle. I don’t just want to keep staring at screens; I want to do stuff.

It’s for this reason that I’ve decided to declare this summer ‘The Summer of Exploration’. For the next three months, I’m making it my mission to go out and find as many interesting things and places as I possibly can, both in my local area and, hopefully, beyond, and to document my experiences here on this blog. Many of these may ultimately be rather mundane in nature but the emphasis here is simply on exploring; getting out into the world and enjoying everything it has to offer instead of scrolling through social media, dreaming of a better life that, for some strange reason, seems just out of reach. My goal is to undertake one act of ‘exploration’, to one extent or another, every day, something I feel I’m unlikely to achieve (sometimes it rains and you genuinely just want to stay in and watch Netflix!) but will be aiming for nonetheless. I’m intending for almost all of these acts of ‘exploration’ to involve the world beyond the walls of this building I call ‘home’, however they may occasionally be things such as learning a new skill or some sort of creative project if that feels appropriate at the time. As for the blog itself, I’m intending for this to be a primarily photographic project, with many of the posts simply consisting of an image and short caption, although I’m also planning to write longer posts from time to time.

So, why did I feel it was necessary to create a blog in order to do this? Well, the answer is two-fold. Its primary function is purely to hold myself to account, giving me motivation to actually do all the things that I’d like to do this summer. However, I’m also hoping that through this project I may be able to inspire just one or two other people to do the same; to turn away from the screen and explore the plethora of interesting things that lie right on our doorsteps yet we so often neglect. So, with all that said, I hope you’ll keep this blog bookmarked and check back to follow me on my adventures throughout the summer. Let’s go explore.