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Reviews28
lestermay's rating
No wonder this documentary short won an Oscar, a first for Scotland. Beautifully scripted, beautifully filmed, this documentary records a bygone time, a time when sailors worldwide knew what 'Clyde Built' meant. From design to cutting the first steel, from construction to launching and on to fitting out, we see how a ship is made by man with all the marvel of his might - and brain, and creativity as well. The film has touches of humour, too, for these tough men on Clydeside were able to laugh while they constructed what they hoped would be a happy ship, often a beautiful ship too.
This film provides a wonderful record of shipbuilding and will be of interest to sailors and those in the shipping industry, to those who had a father who built ships and to many a Scot and Glaswegian.
It was a real privilege to join my last ship at Yarrow Shipbuilders, in Scotstoun, on the Clyde, in September 1985. She wasn't a ship with a name then, for she was known to all as yard number 1029, but she was to become the frigate HMS Brave - a truly beautiful ship, a very happy ship. This film brings happy memories and let me thank, indeed salute, those whose skilled work enabled Seaward to go the Great Ships.
This film provides a wonderful record of shipbuilding and will be of interest to sailors and those in the shipping industry, to those who had a father who built ships and to many a Scot and Glaswegian.
It was a real privilege to join my last ship at Yarrow Shipbuilders, in Scotstoun, on the Clyde, in September 1985. She wasn't a ship with a name then, for she was known to all as yard number 1029, but she was to become the frigate HMS Brave - a truly beautiful ship, a very happy ship. This film brings happy memories and let me thank, indeed salute, those whose skilled work enabled Seaward to go the Great Ships.
I watched this film on BBC TV where it was titled "Around the World by Zeppelin" - and an excellent documentary it indeed is.
Contemporary black and white film of the German airship LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" (1928), with her 20 passengers and 40 crew, embark on a 21-day voyage to be the first airship to circumnavigate the globe. From Lakehurst Naval Air Station, near New York, and back, across the Atlantic Ocean, over England and Berlin, over the Soviet Union and Siberia, over the Pacific Ocean to Tokyo and on to Los Angeles and across the middle of the United States.
At around 70 mph it's a sedate journey, except when the weather is bad. It's an adventure and, the only woman on board is Grace, Lady Hay Drummond-Hay, who becomes the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air. It is her diary and reports that give the narrative, and her love interest the weaves in and out of this story of the history of the airship and aviation.
As well as real live footage of the airship - taken from her and taken of her - interwoven is contemporary footage of the late 1920s to help illustrate the female journalist's words.
A great liner is seen in the opening frames, the three-funnelled 54,282-grt United States Lines "Leviathan" - ironically, formerly the German liner "Vaterland" (1913), briefly the largest liner in the world, but handed over to the US as war reparations in 1919.
Towards the end of the film, the "Graf Zeppelin" passes over Honda Point, off California, where lie the wrecks of seven US Navy four-stack destroyers that were lost, with just 23 sailors lives, on 8 September 1923 in the greatest peacetime disaster for the USN. The ships, part of Destroyer Squadron Eleven, were lost in the Honda Point Disaster owing to navigational errors at night. A photograph, with the ships' names is posted online, but one is identifiable in the film, the USS Woodbury (DD 309 - the number clear still on her bow, as she lies on her port side) and that close to her is USS Fuller. It is a sorry sight. The ships were not salvaged until some years after the disaster.
Shortly before arrived in Los Angeles, off Monterey County, the airship sees and passes directly over the American inter-coastal Luckenbach Lines' two-funnelled steamship "Edward Luckenbach", where passengers are seen playing deck games abaft the after funnel.
There are many other twists and sights to see in this exciting and historic documentary, including various early aircraft but I am not competent to identify them. What happened to the young stowaway, one wonders - did he become the film star he wanted to be?
Contemporary black and white film of the German airship LZ 127 "Graf Zeppelin" (1928), with her 20 passengers and 40 crew, embark on a 21-day voyage to be the first airship to circumnavigate the globe. From Lakehurst Naval Air Station, near New York, and back, across the Atlantic Ocean, over England and Berlin, over the Soviet Union and Siberia, over the Pacific Ocean to Tokyo and on to Los Angeles and across the middle of the United States.
At around 70 mph it's a sedate journey, except when the weather is bad. It's an adventure and, the only woman on board is Grace, Lady Hay Drummond-Hay, who becomes the first woman to circumnavigate the globe by air. It is her diary and reports that give the narrative, and her love interest the weaves in and out of this story of the history of the airship and aviation.
As well as real live footage of the airship - taken from her and taken of her - interwoven is contemporary footage of the late 1920s to help illustrate the female journalist's words.
A great liner is seen in the opening frames, the three-funnelled 54,282-grt United States Lines "Leviathan" - ironically, formerly the German liner "Vaterland" (1913), briefly the largest liner in the world, but handed over to the US as war reparations in 1919.
Towards the end of the film, the "Graf Zeppelin" passes over Honda Point, off California, where lie the wrecks of seven US Navy four-stack destroyers that were lost, with just 23 sailors lives, on 8 September 1923 in the greatest peacetime disaster for the USN. The ships, part of Destroyer Squadron Eleven, were lost in the Honda Point Disaster owing to navigational errors at night. A photograph, with the ships' names is posted online, but one is identifiable in the film, the USS Woodbury (DD 309 - the number clear still on her bow, as she lies on her port side) and that close to her is USS Fuller. It is a sorry sight. The ships were not salvaged until some years after the disaster.
Shortly before arrived in Los Angeles, off Monterey County, the airship sees and passes directly over the American inter-coastal Luckenbach Lines' two-funnelled steamship "Edward Luckenbach", where passengers are seen playing deck games abaft the after funnel.
There are many other twists and sights to see in this exciting and historic documentary, including various early aircraft but I am not competent to identify them. What happened to the young stowaway, one wonders - did he become the film star he wanted to be?
The BBC is to be congratulated on the production of this outstanding four-part television series, transmitted on BBC2 in late January and early February 2010.
So interwoven with, and so central to, the history of the of the United Kingdom and British Empire is the Royal Navy - the English Navy, later the British Navy - that this series is a history of Britain and Empire and wider still.
This series has certainly succeeded in its aim of showing how the Royal Navy forged the modern world. This is no idle claim from a silly old, but proud, matelot but a fact that, even today, the islands that comprise the United Kingdom, and her 14 overseas territories, forget at their peril.
The story starts just before the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and ends with the Armistice at the end of the Great War in 1918. We see how the English Civil War actually benefited the Navy yet it was the Royal Navy that helped secure the restoration of the monarchy.
Beautifully shot and skilfully captained by presenter Dan Snow, a former Sea Cadet himself, we see how it was the Royal Navy that set the standard for the British civil service (and one that was copied in many countries), caused the founding of the Bank of England and the establishment of income tax. It was because of concern about a weak Royal Navy that the British Crown lost its powers to Parliament. It was the Royal Navy, and HM Dockyards, that became the greatest industrial organisation of its time, having an impact on farming (to feed the sailors) and on industry to provide materials in large scale to build and maintain the fleet - and to improve the design, such as with copper-bottomed sailing vessels.
As a result British ships and British naval officers and naval ratings (sailors) became the world standard and the envy of other powers. The ships were many and their stations were the seven seas, protecting British trade - and all nations' trade on many an occasion - against piracy and bad men and it was a bulwark against any enemy with eyes on the British Isles.
The French failure to defeat the Royal Navy was a cause of the French Revolution. The final defeat of France at sea, by Nelson in 1805, made possible their final defeat at Waterloo by Wellington and that was followed by a century of "Pax Britannica", when the Royal Navy policed the seas and underpinned the British Empire. The Royal Navy played a leading and honourable part in the abolition of slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century.
We see, in the final episode, how the Royal Navy was at the forefront of technical innovation, with the shift from sail to steam, with the now preserved ironclad HMS Warrior (1860) changing for ever the way of naval warfare. The introduction of submarines in 1901 - "a damned un-English weapon" - and the introduction of naval aviation in 1909 were achieved in the face of opposition from the old guard. The new Dreadnought class of battleships, in 1906, made every other battleship in the world obsolete. After a century of relative peace, the Royal Navy was just about ready for war in 1914 and played a significant part in the defeat of the Kaiser's forces.
This is a story of 340 years of a force that grew into the largest Navy in the world. The Royal Navy has not lost a significant battle for over 300 years and it set the standard for many of the world's navies today, as witnessed still in their uniforms, routines, ships and manners. The English language is peppered with words and phrases that began at sea with the Royal Navy or were used by landlubbers so proud of this truly great armed service.
This is television documentary at its very best and the series will soon, hopefully, be released on DVD to a worldwide audience. For the Royal Navy is not just part of the story of the United Kingdom or the British Empire, it is an important part of the world's story in this past half millennium.
So interwoven with, and so central to, the history of the of the United Kingdom and British Empire is the Royal Navy - the English Navy, later the British Navy - that this series is a history of Britain and Empire and wider still.
This series has certainly succeeded in its aim of showing how the Royal Navy forged the modern world. This is no idle claim from a silly old, but proud, matelot but a fact that, even today, the islands that comprise the United Kingdom, and her 14 overseas territories, forget at their peril.
The story starts just before the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 and ends with the Armistice at the end of the Great War in 1918. We see how the English Civil War actually benefited the Navy yet it was the Royal Navy that helped secure the restoration of the monarchy.
Beautifully shot and skilfully captained by presenter Dan Snow, a former Sea Cadet himself, we see how it was the Royal Navy that set the standard for the British civil service (and one that was copied in many countries), caused the founding of the Bank of England and the establishment of income tax. It was because of concern about a weak Royal Navy that the British Crown lost its powers to Parliament. It was the Royal Navy, and HM Dockyards, that became the greatest industrial organisation of its time, having an impact on farming (to feed the sailors) and on industry to provide materials in large scale to build and maintain the fleet - and to improve the design, such as with copper-bottomed sailing vessels.
As a result British ships and British naval officers and naval ratings (sailors) became the world standard and the envy of other powers. The ships were many and their stations were the seven seas, protecting British trade - and all nations' trade on many an occasion - against piracy and bad men and it was a bulwark against any enemy with eyes on the British Isles.
The French failure to defeat the Royal Navy was a cause of the French Revolution. The final defeat of France at sea, by Nelson in 1805, made possible their final defeat at Waterloo by Wellington and that was followed by a century of "Pax Britannica", when the Royal Navy policed the seas and underpinned the British Empire. The Royal Navy played a leading and honourable part in the abolition of slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century.
We see, in the final episode, how the Royal Navy was at the forefront of technical innovation, with the shift from sail to steam, with the now preserved ironclad HMS Warrior (1860) changing for ever the way of naval warfare. The introduction of submarines in 1901 - "a damned un-English weapon" - and the introduction of naval aviation in 1909 were achieved in the face of opposition from the old guard. The new Dreadnought class of battleships, in 1906, made every other battleship in the world obsolete. After a century of relative peace, the Royal Navy was just about ready for war in 1914 and played a significant part in the defeat of the Kaiser's forces.
This is a story of 340 years of a force that grew into the largest Navy in the world. The Royal Navy has not lost a significant battle for over 300 years and it set the standard for many of the world's navies today, as witnessed still in their uniforms, routines, ships and manners. The English language is peppered with words and phrases that began at sea with the Royal Navy or were used by landlubbers so proud of this truly great armed service.
This is television documentary at its very best and the series will soon, hopefully, be released on DVD to a worldwide audience. For the Royal Navy is not just part of the story of the United Kingdom or the British Empire, it is an important part of the world's story in this past half millennium.