Lovers' Roost in 1908. And the Deadly Mining of a Cargo Boat.

The Postcard

A Living Picture Series postcard that was posted in Tilbury, Essex on Wednesday the 26th. August 1908 to:

Mrs. Ed Carrington,
48, King Stephen Road,
Colchester,
Essex.

The pencilled message on the divided back of the card was as follows:

"S.S. Gem.
Tues. Evening.
We have just finished
loading, and will leave
here tomorrow about
9 or 10 am.
Tell Mrs. Francis.
Ted".

The S.S. Gem

Although he did not know it when he wrote the card, Ted had only 6 years and 4 months to live.

After shelling Hartlepool, Whitby and Scarborough on the 16th. December 1914, German battle-cruisers laid the world’s largest and densest minefield, between Cayton Bay and Filey Brigg. The bombardment of the coastal towns was carried out partly as a cover for the minelaying close to the shore.

The mines, anchored to the seabed and floating out of view just below the surface, claimed 11 British vessels within 10 days. Among those ships was the iron steamer the S.S. Gem, a cargo boat built in 1887 by J. Fullerton in Paisley.

The S.S. Gem was carrying salt-ash from Mostyn in North Wales to Newcastle. In those days it was cheaper to sail a boat hundreds of miles around the country than transport it 200 miles overland.

The Sinking of the S.S. Gem

In choppy waters on Christmas Day the 25th. December 1914, a huge explosion destroyed the 464-ton, 53-metre iron steamer, tearing it in two and devastating the village that most of its crew hailed from. Nine of the 10 men who died, out of a crew of 12, were from Cushendall, a tight-knit, Gaelic-speaking village on the Antrim coast of what is now Northern Ireland.

Villagers had to wait a nerve-wracking week to find out who had died and who had survived. Three men reported lost at sea had been delayed in Belfast, so never boarded the ill-fated ship and eventually turned up safely.

The Tower Hill Memorial

Sadly Ted was one of the men who drowned in the tragedy. The name of Able Seaman Ted Williams is recorded on the Tower Hill Memorial. This stands on the south side of the gardens of Trinity Square, London, close to the Tower of London. It commemorates the men of the Merchant Navy and Fishing Fleets who have no grave but the sea.

More than 50,700 Commonwealth merchant seamen lost their lives in the two world wars. The Tower Hill Memorial commemorates more than 35,800 casualties who have no known grave.

Discovery of the Wreck of the S.S. Gem

In August 1980. Scarborough Sub Aqua Club was recording
wrecks lost in the minefield when the two halves of the SS Gem were discovered, 150 metres apart.

Diver Pete Lassey noticed a small circular object protruding from a silt seabed 40 metres down, near Filey Brigg. It turned out to be the top of the SS Gem’s large compass binnacle, whose mechanism and glass had survived the trauma intact.

Finding it was one thing, bringing it to the surface another, because Including its brass pedestal, the binnacle weighed 18kg and was buried upright in dark mud which clouded the water at the slightest movement.

They recovered the Victorian relic after a week of intensive diving. It was cleaned and found a new home among the vast horde of items recovered from the seabed by the club.

On the centenary of the sinking, the compass binnacle was given to the people of Cushendall, and it is now housed at the Red Bay lifeboat station near Cushendall.

The excellent website www.dannybouy.co.uk has a photograph of the binnacle, along with much more information about the sinking.

Gilly Flower

So what else happened on the day that Ted posted the card?

Well, on the 26th. August 1908, Gilly Flower was born. Gilly was an English actress and model, best remembered as the elderly Miss Abitha Tibbs in the BBC sitcom 'Fawlty Towers'.

Gilly Flower played Miss Tibbs in all twelve episodes of the show, which was produced in two six-episode series separated by a three-and-a-half-year interval (September–October 1975 and February–March 1979, apart from the twelfth episode which was not shown until October 1979).

A native of London, Gilly Flower had her first film role in 1932 and, with the advent of television in Britain, she found a new outlet for her talents, appearing in such programmes as 'Z-Cars', 'Steptoe and Son' and 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin'.

Early in her career, Flower was also a model, and seven portrait photographs taken by Bassano, in which she is modelling hats from Kembray, may today be found in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

Gilly Flower's Death

Gilly died on the 17th. February 2001.

Taken on: February 22, 2019

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