Day 5 - With This Ring I Thee Wed

Today marks the auspicious occasion 50 years ago when Mother and Father were married. Of course they weren't a Mother and a Father then just two crazy kids with wild ideas, a gorgeous frock and a fancy suit. But we're all glad they did cause this blog and blogger would cease to exist if it was not so.

Also glad to get the news from home also that 2's surgery had gone well - get well soon sis.


This morning I headed down to the Historic Dockyard in Portsmouth. A bit too early as it didn't open til 10am so I grabbed a coffee and listened to the owner complaining to the Cadbury rep how business had declined since the Co-Op opened down the road.

Entry to the Dockyards was almost 20 squids but you can use it for a year - handy if you live local but I would imagine most people are tourists visiting. There were many exhibitions but I was most interested in the HMS Victory and HMS Warrior.

First up was a guided tour of HMS Victory. Launched in 1759 it was Lord Nelson's Flagship in the Battle of Trafalgar and indeed the ship that he died on during that battle. It was interesting to walk around and get a feeling to be on a ship of that era and the space that 800 men had to work and live in. Imagining that John Small would have been serving in the Navy during a similar time (though earlier than that particular battle).


After checking out some of the other exhibitions I wandered onto the HMS Warrior. A massive ship that was the largest of its time when launched in 1860 - within 10 years however it was almost obsolete due to changes from might to speed being more important. It was refitted for various purposes many times and then at the end of its Navy life could not even be sold for scrap. In the 1980's the ship had been an abandoned wreck for more than 50 years but was then fully restored to become the museum ship it is today.

After this I went back to the Portsmouth Museum and made a visit to the Search Room. I was looking for information on the marriage of Keith Morris' Grandparents (on his mother's side) Alexander Thompson and Emma Elizabeth Cox who were married in Portsmouth 1858.

I managed to discover where they were married and the street that the lived in on the day. They were married in St Mary's Church - pictured here today - the 21st of January. They were married on the 23rd of January in 1958. The church was built in medieval times - and then rebuilt by Thomas Ellis Owen in 1843 retaining some of the medieval features. In 1887 it was rebuilt to the church that now stands there today to give more room for its growing congregation.

At the time Alexsander and Emma lived in Wiltshire Street. Well I presume after the wedding they both lived there. I wandered down to check out the street hoping to find some lovely period houses but unfortunately now its a parking lot and a lot of council tower blocks.

This information and visiting these places seemed like a nice thing to do on our parents anniversary and knowing that theirs was only two days away was also a nice feeling. I'm sure though that Emma's dress was a tad nicer than this one I snapped in a bridal shop along the way. I guess taste is changing all the time...