King Henry VIII's Lost Warship: The Mary Rose

The Lost Warship of King Henry VIII: The Mary Rose

Mary Rose

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Rich: Hello, and welcome to Shipwrecks and Sea Dogs, tales of Mishaps, misfortune, and misadventure. I'm your host, rich Napolitano. Today I'm excited to welcome back to the podcast author and historian Richard Jones. Richard, thank you so much for being here. You're the author of many books. can you tell us a little bit about the books that you've written and the work that you do?

Richard Jones: Yeah, well, it's, it all started when I was in my, uh, early twenties and I'd been collecting things about shipwrecks for years, ever since I was a little boy. And I just thought, what I'm gonna do with all this information that I've collected? And I just decided to, uh, to start writing and, and I took a local history.

Shipwreck story and I spent six years researching it. And then I kind of lit the spark then in my life and it just, one book followed another, followed another, and I started putting up plaques for some of [00:01:00] these ships. Uh, some of the people involved. And now it's gone to, I'm about to release my 24th book next month, and I was on five episodes of Secrets of the Lost Line of series two, which was, which was really cool, and I've just put up my 19th plaque, uh, this one to a, uh, uh, a guy that was involved in the explosion at Halifax with the Mon Blanc, which, uh, you've actually covered. I, actually listened to, to that episode just before I opened my plaque on him to, uh, to actually, I got most of my facts and figures right when I did my speech.

So, uh, so yeah, it was quite interesting to, to. Link all these different people and to put actual memorial plaques up for the people I'm writing about It's, it's really, really humbling to, to read about these people and to give them a little bit of, uh, the town back to them.

Rich: Yeah, And in case anybody doesn't remember, Richard, you were on the episode about the Lulworth Hill, That's

the British

right. Show. That's, that was

Richard Jones: one I Put a couple [00:02:00] of plaques up for the, the two survivors. One from Hull and one from Bridlington, which is where I'm from.

Rich: That's what really got me interested in that side of the work that you do is, is commemorating these disasters and, uh, making sure that the people involved aren't forgotten. So I think that's, I think that's fabulous. that you do that.

Richard Jones: the book on the Lulworth Hill, still in its production stage, but I have. Managed to conduct quite a few interviews, and I've got some very, if if you remember, um, in that podcast there was the story of, um, the guy just before he died, he took his ring off and gave it to, to one of the actual survivors. of The guy who made it, I've actually held in my hand that ring a few months back and it's such a, an incredible experience to know that this has come all the way from the middle of the Atlantic.

It's It's the story that goes with, it's incredible and this is what inspires me to, to read more about these wrecks.

Rich: well I've read your book The 50 Greatest Shipwrecks twice actually. And, uh, [00:03:00] and, uh, included in that book is the story of the Mary Rose, and it's a very famous ship now, and, uh, maybe a little infamous, but that's what we'll be talking about today.

Its sinking, its eventual recovery and preservation. So let's start at the very beginning. When the Mary Rose was launched in 1511 what was going on at that time? In England? Uh, as far as, uh,

militarily, There

was a lot of,

Richard Jones: uh, of tension between the French and the English that that had been for many, many years. King Henry VIII had not been on the throne long, and he commissioned two nice big warships to, uh, to basically flex his muscles. Was an interesting fact that I found out, um, recently in those days it wasn't the Royal Navy, it was the English Navy, and it was known as the Navy Royal.

So it was only in the reign of King Charles ii, that it became the Royal Navy in the mid [00:04:00] 16 hundreds. So the Mary Rose was launched and she was an all singing, all dancing ship. Looking at the size of the ship now, it doesn't look very big, but in those days it was huge. It could fit hundreds and hundreds of people down there and over the next 24 years or so, the Mary Rose didn't really do a lot, to be honest.

It certainly didn't go on the vast long deployments that, say, HMS Victory went on when he went all the way over to the Caribbean and, and, and all the way through to the med like the other ships. However, it, it kept going in and out of Portsmouth and harassed the French and there was this toing and fro with the French for many years.

Now, during this time, there was a, as with any shape, a ship gets a bit old, goes into refit. There are modifications. Now, these modifications made to the Mary Rose over the years. There was a very interesting documentary about 10 [00:05:00] years ago, I think it was now, and. Analysts have said that the Mary Rose is original design is so very different to the Mary Rose at 1545.

There'd been a lot of things added on, not so much down below decks, but above the decks. And this had in effect, made a very, uh, unstable and quite top heavy. Now it was July the 19th 1545 when the Mary Rose was called upon to, uh, to attack the French fleet. The French had come back round to the Isle of Wight, and there were, lower anchored off the, uh, the eastern side of the Isle of White just waiting to, uh, to draw the British out.

Sorry, the English are, We weren't, we weren't British yet, obviously, and, uh, the ship sailed, not a problem. And then all of a sudden there was a, tipping over of the Mary Rose. And it righted itself. And then it tipped again and it did this [00:06:00] a couple of times. Everything seemed fine, but the, uh, the waters of the Solent, which is the area in between the island, White and Portsmouth, very busy shipping land these days.

It wasn't massively choppy or anything like that, but the Mary Rose healed over and this time she did come back up. Water flooded into the open gun ports 'cause obviously. Everyone was getting ready to, uh, to start, start A uh, a huge battle was gonna be a massive fight at some point in the next few hours, and the Mayor simply rolled over and sank in front of the king himself.

Henry VIII was actually at South Sea Castle, there's a very famous engraving called the Coudary engraving, and it pictures the Mary Rose sticking out of the, uh, the sea just the mast with a, with a solitary guy waving like this. And, uh, and the king's there on his horse, literally a few hundred yards, probably only a mile away from the actual wreck of the Mary Rose.

So he actually watched [00:07:00] this huge disaster, unfurl. Now, the tragic thing about the Mary Rose sink is the fact that because it was ready for battle, the entire ship was covered over in netting to stop the boarders. So if the French decided to, uh, to board the Mary Rose. they'd get a shock of the life because they'd just land on the nets and they'd get stabbed and shot and whatever other thing, and they'd be thrown back overboard.

Now because of that, then it became a, uh, an inevitable cage for all the people that were on the Mary Rose. Now, no one knows exactly how many were on board. Some say anything between 450 to 700 people. Now you can imagine that many people all tracked by all this netting. You have got literally seconds, maybe a minute to get out of the Mary Rose and to get to safety.

You are not gonna go through the gun ports because one of them looking up into the sky. The other one's now filling with water.

So the water's flowing [00:08:00] in. You can't get up, you can't get out. The only people to survive are those that are actually in the rigging and on the outside of these boarding nets. that is the, the main, we didn't realize just how. Accurate. The Cowdray engraving was by this image of this one, what looks like a stick man waving for somebody to, to help him attached to the mast.

And that's the tragic part of it, because there was only about 30 odd survivors, something like that, out of around, up to 700 people. And it was an incredibly sad event because there, was no battle in the end, the French. Stayed there for a little bit and then turned and went back home. The massive battle just didn't happen and the Mary Rose went down basically because of a, uh, a design flaw.

Rich: And that's what's interesting, I think to, to people like us that look into these things is that there wasn't any apparent issue. The, the [00:09:00] weather wasn't that bad and the ship itself didn't have any obvious problems. It had been redesigned, but it was redesigned many years before that.

So it had been in service for 34 years at the time that it sank. What are some of the maybe more predominant theories about what caused the, the ship to heal over like that?

Richard Jones: It could have literally just been because it was so top heavy, it healed over and at some point, maybe some of the cannons decided to move to one side, which destabilized it even further. And unfortunately, the evidence we've got nowadays. We can't a hundred percent for sure know what the true cause of it was.

Needless to say, the propaganda at the time may have said, well, we, sank the Mary Rose. It was a great Victory for the French. Who knows? It's it's, it is one of those mysteries that we can theorize as much as we want, but the truth of it is we, we probably will never know about, [00:10:00] but all the evidence points to it.

Um, being a design flaw top heavy and most likely everything crashing to one side when the point of no return had had been given.

Rich: the ship carried up to, what about 90 guns? I believe. , Did it have a full set of guns at the time?

Richard Jones: It had quite a lot of guns at the time. Yeah. Again, we don't know for sure just how many of there were. However, there was a considerable amount found on the wreck because although the wreck was found in the seventies, it had been previously found in the 18 hundreds and canons have been raised.

Rich: So let's talk about that a little bit. After it sank, were there any immediate efforts to try to recover the ship?

Richard Jones: Yeah, definitely. They wanted it recovered straight away. Unfortunately, 1545 is not exactly. A glorious year for salvage expeditions. And so it was more a case of they, they managed to, I don't know how, but they managed to send people down there, [00:11:00] attach lines, but all they did was snap the masks off and the Mary Rose just basically sat there.

The idea was they would, um, they attach lines underneath the ship, tighten the ropes. The tide would come in, so it'd raise the ship, the float the, uh. The ship over to the shore until it run the ground. Tide would go out, the ropes would tighten, repeat the process. That is pretty how, pretty much how much the vasa was raised, uh, in the 1950s.

Now, unfortunately, they just didn't manage to do it at all. It, it was a cast aside as a bad job job and the entire ship, the only thing they managed to do was know roughly where he went down. But by this point, the Mary Rose was completely on its side. Now we fast forward possibly around 300 years, and a fisherman snags his nets on an unknown obstacle.

Divers go down because now we're in the Age of the [00:12:00] Diver. We've got these great big screw on helmets and things like that and, and air tanks and diving bells. And it's, it's the, the glorious years of when diving was first really coming about. And, uh, and a couple of guys called the Dean Brothers came along and they went down there and they were quite shocked to find what they thought was a very old warship.

It was still not identified as the Mary Rose and and they thought, right, hang on a minute. There's quite a lot of interesting artifacts here. And the first thing they managed to find was, uh, some of the cannon, which back in those days, I mean great big canon, the, the metal they were made outta It, it would be a lot of money.

It would, it would fetch a nice price. Now, not all these cannons were melted down. In fact, one of them is currently in the Tower of London. Slightly off topic. There was, uh, a terrorist attack at the Tower of London in the 1970s and where that bomb was placed, there is a plaque on the floor because, uh, [00:13:00] unfortunately a guy died Right next to where that plaque is in the Tower of London is the Mary Rose's cannon.

So anybody listening to this who is actually going to the Tower of London soon, look for that plaque very, around that area is the only Mary Rose Cannon on display that That was recovered by the Dean Brothers. The rest of 'em, I believe they were all melted down. I don't think there's any still around that weren't.

And then it was a case of, right, we've got what we can from the wreck and that was it. It was lost again.

Rich: So that brings us to the 20th century in, uh, about the mid 20th century is when. The, modern efforts began to try to raise her. What did they do to, at first to, discover it and what were the recovery efforts?

Richard Jones: So it all started with a historian called Alexander McKee. And And he was already getting quite renowned as a, uh, as a military and naval historian. He published a number of books, a couple of ones he'd wrote about, it, read about the Royal Ark [00:14:00] Sinking. He'd written about Death Raft of the Medusa, which was a, an absolutely horrendous story again, uh, you know, that went down in history and, uh, and he thought, right, I'm gonna search for the history that's in the Solent. And he launched what he called Project Solent Ships. And the idea was there were three wrecks on his radar. There was HMS invincible that sank in the um, 1760s, I think it was The Royal George, which went down in 1783 and the Mary Rose 1545. Now, at the time, there was no real evidence of where any of these wrecks were.

So I think the Royal George was known about because it was at an Anchorage, the Invincible wasn't gonna be found for another few more years. But the Mary Rose massively, took his interest and he started doing an active search in the late 1960's. Now, fast forward to the early seventies, he was using all kinds of, you know, new technology and he was using a, a sonar that kind of penetrated the [00:15:00] seabed a little bit.

Now his keen eye saw a little mark on his sonar reading and it, basically looked like a w. And you and me looking at that, would, would not have a clue what we were looking at because it just looks like all the other squiggles that are on a piece paper. But his sharp eye, he looked at that and said That right there, we need to look at that.

And so it went down there, the di you know, several, several of the divers went down, started pulling away at the mud and they found wooden and timbers. Now it didn't, it wasn't a direct identification straight away. But over the coming months and years, they either were pulling more and more of this mud part, and they got confirmation very, very soon that this was indeed the Mary Rose.

Now, Alexander McKee was overjoyed. He'd found Henry VII's, warship Wreck, and he says, right, let's, um, let's raise all these artifacts and will preserve them while we've still got the [00:16:00] chance.

Rich: Now that must have been a pretty monumental effort. I was reading about how they did it with, they, they dug tunnels under divers, went down and dug tunnels. I think six tunnels under the Mary Rose and, , then they used some cables to, to run through the tunnels to lift it up. Have you seen anything about that or the, the photos or any footage of that?

Richard Jones: at first they, the idea was to bring the artifacts up, but there were such amazing artifacts. McKee turned around and said, I don't want to just raise this. I want to raise everything. And people might have thought it was absolutely crazy, but it found this, it, it's, it's, it already started the ball rolling and very soon a lot of people would get in on his side and saying, do you know what this is?

This is actually quite a good idea. We will put an area around Portsmouth off limits so we can put the Mary Rose in there. Can this be done? And like you [00:17:00] say, you know, the tunnels were dug. And these great big massive cables were actually drilled into the wood of the Mary Rose in order to, uh, help lift it up and, um, and suspend it very, very slightly off the sea bed. Now the thing with the Mary Rose is it, the entire ship was on its side. But imagine a, you get these children's cutaway books. Where you can see the inside of the workings of a ship as if you've just sliced it straight down the middle. That is how the mirrors looked. The entire side of the ship had completely rotted away, being eaten by sea creatures, dragged over by netting from fishermen, currents, you name it, that has damaged the Mary Rose. What was left was the same currents were piling mud on top of it. That is what preserved the wreck. So now after several years, we we're into the late 1970s. McKee and his team are dug away all this mud and it had, they'd have to come back season [00:18:00] after season after season. They get the cables around there, they get the, they get it all hooked on and it says Right October the 10th, 1982 is going to be the day. We will raise it. It's gonna be live on tv, et cetera, et cetera. This was going to be the biggest archeological excavation underwater ever, and it was we raise the wreck. They put this massive cradle underneath it and then they gently lowered the wreck back onto this cradle. And it was specifically designed so the Mary Rose it fit nice and snugged and it wouldn't be damaged.

Now they didn't need to have the, uh, the bolts through the Mary Rose anymore. They didn't need any of that because what they did, the cradle with the Mary Rose in, would get another piece of the cradle anchored to it, and that is how it would be raised. So it'd be in effect in its own little cage Now. At this point, there was a, a couple of issues, I think it was with the weather, and things like that, they had to delay [00:19:00] it 24 hours.

So it was the 11th of October, 1982. And all these different people came along from all over the world. Millions watched it live on TV and all these yachts and everything, all it sounded, the sirens and everything. And then. Those immortal words onto, I can still hear it now 'cause it's been broadcast so many times.

I mean, this was, I, it was actually on, uh, the day after my second birthday, so I don't remember it. But it's very significant in the fact that this was the biggest Tudor archeological excavation ever. that found out more about TDA history in this one site than any other site in the world. And as it came up, the first little pieces of wood to come up through the, uh, through the sea, The guy said, here is the wreck of the Mary Rose. It has come to the surface and cannons were fired off. Prince Charles, the Prince of Wales, and now our king, he was there at the crane. The [00:20:00] crane was tug more and they only had the crane for a, year, a day or two more. So time was of the essence, and at this point, Alexander McKee wasn't seen.

He was sort of pushed back into the crowds because there was so many people involved. That everyone kind of wanted to be at the front, and Charles turned around and said, where's Alexander McKee? He should be stood here next to me. someone went and got him and he stood next to King Charles. And it's, it is, I always say when I I, when I do my talks about the Mary Rose, I say, king Henry VIII watched it sink.

King Charles II watched it come back up and 437 years later, Mary Rose come to the surface. It was still dripping wet and the entire thing just suddenly went clunk and bounced

And everyone held their breath. It was it, like I say, it was still live on television and everyone just sort of stopped what they were doing because one of the legs of this cradle, it was all attached together by these four [00:21:00] legs just suddenly, um, came apart and it was held on by these three, three legs.

They sent the Army divers over and said, right, you know, what's the story? Is this safe to proceed? they came back and said, yep, get it on a barge, and you, let's get this thing done. And the Mary Rose was gently loaded onto a bar in its cradle, and everyone could now breathe a sigh of relief because the Mary Rose was now completely safe.

She wasn't gonna go back under. And it was cause for celebration because the Mary Rose was now entering Portsmouth Harbour still, still obviously on its side. It was still in its cradle, for the first time in 437 years. And it was a, a massive, massive thing. Not for maritime history, but also for Portsmouth because the Mary Rose was from there and she was placed in this dry dock and she hasn't left that dry dock since.

And needless to say, there's been a lot of work going on in the last 40 odd [00:22:00] years.

Rich: I think that's what's exciting about history is when these kind of relics and artifacts are uncovered. Like you said, it was the first time in over 400 years. That it had been seen above surface. And uh, it's, it must have been such a source of national pride to see it coming up. And there it is. We can actually see it now.

Richard Jones: I mean, I've, I've written about the Mary Rose. In three different books now, and each time I write about it and I speak about it, somebody always comes up to me and says, I remember that it was brilliant. I was stood on my balcony at home and I watched it happen and, and I can imagine like a carnival atmosphere because yes, it was a huge disaster at the time, but it went from disaster to archeological excavation to to this great achievement of bringing this history to life.

Because like said, we have learned so much about this, this [00:23:00] ship and this era by this one wreck and it was a time for celebration. It was an engineering marvel when it was raised. So it definitely eyes to, some of the things, but yeah, it's, uh, a very interesting wreck. One of the ones that I initially really heard about as a kid, to be honest,

I actually wrote to Alexander McKee as well when I was 12, and I got reply back saying that he died just weeks before, and I thought, oh, no way.

So, yeah, he died in 1991, and I must have literally just sent him the three weeks, three weeks after.

Rich: That's a shame.

Richard Jones: So I still still got that letter today in me's file.

Rich: You mentioned all the artifacts that were on board and certainly you can, uh, you can go on the Mary Rose Museum website even if you're not local, to uh, see all the artifacts that, that are there. But what are some of the more notable things that were brought up from the wreck.

Richard Jones: So the Mary Rose was placed in its dry dock, [00:24:00] and unfortunately we didn't really get to see it for about 30 years. Because it was, it was sprayed with a water soluble wax called polyethylene glycol. And this basically replaced all the impurities and the water and everything within the timber and replaced it with this wax, and it hardened the wood. Now, the Mary Rose. Eventually they brought it back upright And saw that, it's exactly how it should be, just with, without half, its uh, half its side gone and they've still gone back to the wreck site and they've brought up other things since. Now all the artifacts that you speak about preservation, carried on, cracked on straight away.

This is the seventies, so these have been preserved now the best part of 50 years. What they did find was a lot of long bows and arrows, and there's been very few examples of such weapons throughout history. The Mary Rose did just give us a few, it gave us thousands of them because it was about to go into [00:25:00] battle.

And all these long bows were, were just there on the wreck for the taking. And so despite the fact the museum displayed several of them, there are so many of them behind closed doors. Whenever you see a museum, there is just as much not in the museum, in storage, ready for exhibitions, ready to see, to, for private viewings, things like that.

Because a museum with 10,000 longbows it will be a very interesting museum. So they've got to. we've got to limit how many of their longbows and, uh, and the actual arrows that they actually put out there. But the artifacts themselves. So I first went to see the Mary Rose when I was, I was 18, so it was in 1999 and it was a bank holiday, mayday Bank holiday.

And when I went to see it, could not see the Mary Rose wreck hardly at all because of the spraying. It was behind these glass panels. And it was just covered in all this goo and you, you could barely see a thing. You certainly couldn't get a good [00:26:00] photograph. Now the artifacts themselves had made this nice little museum and it and it, and it was, it was good.

It was exciting. It told the story, but then they closed both of them down because they got a massive grant from the National Lottery funding, which gives a lot of funding to heritage projects and things like that. And Mary Rose and the got a lot as well because, uh, that burned down in oh six, I think it was, or oh seven.

And they, they, got a lot of, um, a lot of funding as well to restore the, uh, the remains of that. And it went brilliantly because the next few years, they built a purpose built museum over the dry dock. They, they put a lot of attention to detail in even the, the markings of the people who built the ship. They've made those same markings on the outside of the museum to make it look like it's, it's, it's really good. The attention to these details. great.

And I was invited to be a plus one of a, uh, someone who worked for the society [00:27:00] and I was there for the actual Mary Rose Museum opening and and it was absolutely incredible because over the space of the next year, there was all these artifacts and there was a dog that they found.

They nicknamed him Hatch because he was found next to an open hatch. So there was a dog on board that found almost the entire skeleton. They've rebuilt him up and he's on display. Several of the people are on display. that did have a funeral for, uh, one, one body. I think they got an entire, uh, an entire body.

He's in pots with Cathedral, but all several other, like human remains and things like that, they've, placed them on display with. A what's the best way of putting it? That when they do facial reconstruction. So they've done that next to it to show what it may have looked like back in the day.

There is a medicine chest, and I heard somewhere that they, the fingerprints of the doctor was still on [00:28:00] the surgeon's medicine chest. There was a, a, game of backgammon. There was general day-to-day life on the Mary Rose. We're talking a pewter jug. We're talking. Metal plates that the sailors would eat off.

And it was incredible. Yeah, little ink pots thing, the things they pulled out of that mud were absolutely incredible because obviously the ship went over and all these artifacts that are still inside the ship. So while ever they were just taking the mud from the inside of the ship, They'd suck all this mud out with a giant va, like a vacuum cleaner.

And on the surface, there'd be an, there'd be like a little sieve. And the mud would go through the sve and it'd catch any stray artifacts. And the museum is absolutely full. And there were still cannons to bring up as well. These guns are on display in the museum, but the best part for me, the best part of the museum is of the three decks it now contains on the top deck, it's, you've got to go through a [00:29:00] kind of an airlock with these automatic doors.

You can stand in the same room as the Mary Rose and smell the wood, and it's such an incredible sensation.

Rich: I've only seen pictures from the Mary Rose Museum website but it looks magnificent it's a beautiful building first of all and just the sheer number of of items they have on display of and of course the ship itself it really looks amazing I I hope to visit it someday

Richard Jones: It definitely worth the visit. I mean, I've, I've been several times now. I, uh, and it's in the great surrounding as well because it's in Portsmouth historic Dockyard. So you've got the Mary Rose from the 15 hundreds. You've got the HMS Victory launched in the 17 hundreds. Took part, in the Battle of Trafalgar, still a commissioned warship.

The world's oldest, not the world's oldest floating one, but still the world's oldest. Then we've got the 18 hundreds. We've got HMS Warrior 1860, You've got [00:30:00] the M 33, which was at Gallipoli 19 hundreds, and then literally just yards away. You've got HMS Queen Elizabeth, or HMS Prince of Wales alongside one of the new Royal Navy.

Well, then you, they're about eight years old now, new Royal Navy aircraft carriers, so you've got every century from 15 hundreds to the 20 hundreds, and it's, it's such a great thing to get most of that in one photograph.

Rich: that's amazing Especially for someone like for an American something that's that old is is just mind blowing I had the honor of seeing the USS Constitution A few months ago in Boston and uh and that was commissioned I believe in 1797 And uh you know just being aboard that ship was fantastic So I'm just thinking about what it would feel like to see something that was two 300 years older than that That's it's just mind blowing to me

Richard Jones: We

can still go on the Victory. I mean the, [00:31:00] the Victory and Warrior are both up in those museums. The Warriors a lot more head friendly. The, uh, the Victory not quite so much. It's, uh, the lower down below deck you get, you're pretty much crawling on your hands and knees. So if you're tall, you're not gonna have a good visit.

I always say that the higher up the ranks you are, the more headroom you get. I. Nelson's deck, you've got plenty of head room, then the captain's deck, and then as you get down to the Air Bs and the, uh, and the gunners, you're, uh, you, you, you got what shocked me was how many people.

were on these gun decks, and it's the same with the Mary Rose. You've got one long deck and there was 450 people crammed into in all in hammocks, and this is the, the years before stabilizers. I mean, I, I've been on a ferry when it's been rough weather. I can't imagine this wooden ship bouncing around and that's just trying to get outta the harbor.

And all these hammocks will be swaying from side to side. And needless to say, no showers on board. [00:32:00] You have no toilets on board. It's, it must have stunk, it must have been horrendous. No privacy. Nah, it's

Hats off to those who actually sailed those. But to be honest, they probably didn't have a choice.

Rich: they the uncomfortable conditions were made better by the gourmet food They were served

Richard Jones: oh, I think the, the weevils were definitely of the, uh, of the better standard.

Yeah.

Rich: lastly I wanted to discuss the common misconception that the Mary Rose sank on its maiden voyage I've read this online I've heard people say it where do you think this came from This misconception

Richard Jones: I have have no idea. Uh, I, it's only recently I've actually seen these, and it was actually the Mary Rose website debunking that theory that. That actually highlights, our thought, who's saying this? 'cause I've not heard this. Um, but yeah, the, the Mary Rose was 34 years old when she went down. She'd been a sea for years.

it, is, it is strange, but [00:33:00] people, people think Titanic went down on its maiden voyage. So therefore every ship may should have gone down on its maiden voyage. And, uh, but surprisingly enough the number of maiden voyage disasters is actually quite small. As the, the Titanic, the hands head toft, and Well, I've just been, I've just seen on the news yesterday, a, uh, a North Korean warship didn't actually get out of the launchpad before it sang, So that's currently on its side, uh, next to where it was built. So that's, uh, probably the shortest journey of a warship. The, the current record for the shortest journey is the Daphne, which launched and literally launched and then rolled straight over. So this might actually break that record. Wow. So, fingers crossed, nobody's been, uh, been killed or injured in it, but it's uh, I don't, I dunno if we'll actually find that out, to be honest.

Rich: I always figured it was be confusing it with the vasa somewhat similar circumstances It was

Richard Jones: That's true. Yeah. It, it didn't even get outta harbor, what? 1700 yards away?

Rich: yeah it [00:34:00] just it went out a couple hundred meters And sank in the uh in the harbor there But it was a beautiful ship They spent a lot of money on it It was the king's little baby project and it sank on its maiden voyage So maybe those are the circumstances that make people get the two confused

Richard Jones: I was actually privileged to, uh, to go see the Vasa twice in the space of six months. Both times I saw something different in the museum that I'd missed the first time, but they, they, they've got a, obviously all the, all the elegant paint work and the on the back where the carvings are all gone. But what they did have was a projection and it projected the colors onto the back of the ship so you could see, all, it's absolutely incredible.

And the Vasa is ne, I think they said it's 98% complete. So, because obviously it went down, the water was very cold, not a lot of things to eat the ship away, nothing to hook onto it and drag it to bits like the Mary [00:35:00] Rose in the middle of the so and so yeah, the Vasa was just went down almost as good as it as it came back up.

And it, it was absolutely brilliant and it was always one of my ambitions to see the Vasa as well. So, uh, you know, it's, it is great. And, and what also I found out was the, uh, the Mary Rose and the Vasa actually worked together with, a lot of their, um, publicity and the other sort of, I guess like when you get twin towns, these are like twin museums because, you know, they're ver they are very similar.

They're, uh, yeah, they're, they're what, 104 years apart I think it is. And and and yeah. It's, it's, just in in, in incredible ships.

Rich: Even the recovery efforts were similar done in similar ways. So they're both incredible stories, incredible ships. I hope to visit them both someday.

Hopefully

we see you. Yeah, you here.

If I do, I'll definitely, uh, get in touch with you for sure.

Oh, definitely. Yeah.

As we mentioned before, you have written quite a [00:36:00] number of books and you do some fantastic other work.

So where can, where can everyone find your, your books?

Richard Jones: So all my books are available on Amazon. That's also on my website, my Facebook page, Richard M. Jones you can order things directly from me so I can make personalized messages within the book, things like, that's quite popular at Christmas time. And, um, yeah, it's, uh, I also do requests on my Facebook page if people want a certain shipwreck covering or.

or. If, even if people want the history of their little town or village highlighting, you know, I, I, I put it on my page and, uh, share it around anything to do with history or especially shipwrecks, remembering forgotten disasters, you know, that that's, that's what I do in my spare time. It's it takes up most of my time to be honest, but it's, uh, it's what I do.

It's what I love doing.

Rich: you certainly seem like a busy guy. I, I follow you on Facebook and I, I read all of your posts about the, uh, just vast number [00:37:00] of things that you do in all the local communities commemorating the lost, putting up plaques, and even just other little interesting things. Uh, one that comes to mind that was a favorite of mine was the, uh.

The Bath Street that you found and the,

Yes,

and there was a

chip

shop. that was significant for. me Because it's right next to a restaurant where I started work when I was 15, Oh, wow. and I never knew that the significance of that little alleyway between the two buildings. Yeah. And I used to just take things to the bin down there. So that, that was basically the passage to the bins.

Richard Jones: And uh, and it's only when I were going through the National Archives, I'm like, wow, this, this has got a name as this passageway and it's because the baths were bombed in, in, in the second World War that, that. The word bath passage was never used anymore. And I dunno if it ever had a street sign or anything, but it does now.

And that's going in my, uh, my book about Wartime Bridlington.

Rich: Yeah.

and that's you were instrumental in getting that [00:38:00] signage put up, commemorating that historic place that is, should be remembered. I think that's fantastic.

Richard Jones: Oh, I love doing it. It's absolutely Seeing it, seeing it for the first time is, it's great because that's it. Now that's there until. until long after I'm gone, hopefully.

Rich: Well, Richard Jones, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to speak with you again. Uh, I really appreciate it. Thanks for being here today.

Richard Jones: Thank you very much for having me and keep up the great work with the podcast. It's, uh, it's always a pleasure to listen to, uh, to especially some of the reps that I've never heard of before, which, uh, which is great. So, yeah, cheers right, rich. Appreciate it.

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