Jesus-in-a-bottle - Michelle Lovric

I’m spending most of spring in Venice this year. For the first six weeks I carried the usual A6 spiral-bound notebook everywhere. I kept adding lines and stanzas to a long poem I was building inside it. Occasionally I thought of tearing out the pages to type them up for my poem larder. But I never quite did.

Instead, I left the notebook in my local supermarket and the staff were adamant that a cleaner must have thrown it out. 

I feel very edited.

Was the poem good? I can’t tell you. But the cleaner saved me the agonies of transcribing my terrible handwriting it, cutting the poem, rebuilding it, making it squirm into a fashionable form.  I never put that poem through a workshop, never heard the embarrassed silence when I finished reading it. I was never subtly or openly questioned for daring to create it or present it. I never had to struggle to justify its length or the extravagance of its language. I never had to hear someone suggest that I put it aside to work on something more lucrative.

On the whole, I am better off without that poem. Terminally edited, it cannot harm me anymore. Thank you to the cleaner at the supermarket. All power to his or her hardworking elbow.

 

It has been a spring like this. My plan was to spend time in the archives of the Scuola Dalmata, researching one Giovanni Lovric, perhaps even finding a connection between myself and this writer from Sinj who was in Venice in the 1770s. It was hard to get an answer from the scuola but they were obviously on my wavelength because the very morning I was choosing scholarly attire to front up in person, I finally received an email to say that they too are closed for restoration. (Picture of the Scuola Dalmata from Wikimedia Commons).

My two current novels for adults and children are also closed for restoration and I’d been hoping to find refreshment in Giovanni’s story. Instead, I have resorted to imagining him. I suspect the imagined Giovanni Lovric is having much more fun than his real inspiration, locked in the archives. For a start, he has a ferocious girlfriend with a bear who drinks beetroot beer.

I too have been closed for restoration after a couple of surgeries, with more to come. Some parts of me will never be restored. But I have found solace in a new collection of folk-art objects. 

I found these first two below at the mercatino in Venice’s Campo San Maurizio. As often happens, I then started to see them all over the place. And I have now acquired two more for my collection. (Picture by Déirdre Kelly, my fellow Companion of The Guild of St George).

 

By collecting, you learn: language, culture, folklore, faith.

So I have learned that people used to refer to a bottle like this as a ‘Bottiglia Mistica’ (‘Mystical Bottle’) or a bottle containing ‘Arma Christi’ (‘Christ’s Weapons’). It might also be called a ‘Bottiglia della Passione di Cristo’ or ‘Bottiglia della/di Pazienza’. A ‘pazienza’, I have read somewhere, can be a nun’s robe. And the bottles are sometimes described as ‘lavoro conventuale o monastico’ – convent or monastery work or ‘Klosterarbeit’ in German, where many of the bottles are for sale. So, like many articles now considered or sold as religious folk art, the bottles could have been put together by nuns or monks. (I have a collection of Christmas decorations hand-painted by Italian nuns and studded with coloured foil from chocolate wrappings). The description could also, of course, refer to the patience required to set up these little scenes, building them to be folded flat, inserting them in the bottle and then erecting them with threads pulled through the neck. 

I have also seen them called ‘Calvary Bottles’. Or ‘Impossible Bottles’ – though this title was also applied to the ships in bottles created by Venetian glass masters like Francesco Biondi in the early 19th century. I particularly like ‘God-in-a-Bottle’. And ‘Jesus-in-a-Bottle.’ (It sounds like a profane exclamation, doesn’t it? As in, ‘Jesus-in-a-bottle! I left my notebook in the supermarket and the cleaner threw it out!’)

The Bottles of Passion share many elements, most of which place them as folk-art objects. They use mixed media and sometimes found objects: carved wood, pre-made Victorian chromolithographs, fabric, bone, printed paper, even bread and rice. The bottles are often recycled: once used for common foodstuffs and even alcohol. Most date to the late 19th century or early 20th century when glass bottles became cheaply and commonly available.

They all show some combination of the symbols of Christ’s Passion:

  

- the whip and the whipping post

- the reed sceptre

- the crown of thorns

- the cross

- the dice with which the soldiers played for His robe

- the hammer that drove the nails into Christ’s hands and feet

- the ladder

- the shroud

- the cock that crowed

- the spear of Destiny

 - the sponge held up to His lips

- the pincers that removed the nails

 - the holy grail or chalice

- the sign INRI (Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum: Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews)

Some bottles add angels, Mary and Mary Magdalen. One of mine has three Christs, or two particularly holy-looking thieves. (Picture at right by Deirdre Kelly)

These Instruments of Passion, inside a bottle, might be believed to create a spiritual tool-kit that can be used to defeat Satan. Some were sold at religious shrines, such as that of the Black Madonna of Liesse in France. Some were filled with holy water – a portable blessing.

My own thought on this is that the stations of the cross are a journey, and that these little bottles provided the comfort of a portable shrine for those undertaking their own pilgrimages in hazardous times or places.

It is also said that these bottles forfended against particular superstitions about places where waters and roads meet, as it was thought that evil spirits lurked there in wait for the innocent traveller; such places also presented risks in the form of cross-currents, ambush or the possibility of taking the wrong way, physically or metaphorically.

Some times things go the right way. 

To those of you who kindly kept up with the Oceandiva saga in my various posts here at the History Girls, the threat has gone away. Five years after we first discovered the ambition of Europe’s biggest party boat to come to the Thames, the owners have announced they were fed up with the ‘regulatory system’ in the UK and were consciously uncoupling from London and happily going back to EU waters. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my tireless, hilarious colleagues in the campaign, the odd bunch of Londoners who sacrificed so much time and energy to keep the Thames more safe, less commodified and less greenwashed. There's plenty more for us to do. The Oceandiva has proved to be only symptomatic of problems that need addressing on the River Thames. 

More detail about this on the River Residents Group website.

What else am I thinking about? One thing is the anniversary of the terror attack on my London village on June 3rd 2017, when eight young people were killed and another 48 injured by three terrorists using large kitchen knives. For many days afterwards, residents were locked up inside their homes or excluded from them by a police cordon around our neighbourhood, which had become a crime scene.

I’ve been thinking about my friends and neighbours who were caught up in the attack or who witnessed it. I worry that the memorializing of the attack has not always happened in ways that are appropriate or disinterested. Indeed, it sometimes feels appropriated. I wonder to what extent we community members will be included in memorials this year, if at all. We're going to try something do-it-yourself, but heartfelt, I hope, instead. I am not going to say more. The point is, to do it away from publicity and photo-shoots. 

And there is one more thing that concerns some of us: just a few hundred paces from the attacks, a kitchen shop has put up a huge display of knives that are not protected by a case. It gives me a shiver each time I pass. Over many  months, my neighbours and I have protested to the shop, to their landlords at Borough Yards and to the police. But the display is still there, still far too easily accessible to anyone with violent intentions or to someone whose judgement is blurred by the beer with which the area is awash, this being the most intensive conglomeration in Southwark of premises that sell alcohol. It is sobering that, as the seventh anniversary of the attack approaches, we still can’t find anyone to care enough about the potential danger of this knife display to do something about it. 

Instead, there are plans to close a road or two, potentially marooning hundreds of residents, but no desire, it seems, to remove the bars' pavement licences that narrow the streets, causing serious bottlenecks for hundreds of thousands of people crammed into the narrow canyon-like streets of the Borough Market. The topography eerily recalls the photos of Itaewon, in Seoul, where 160 died in a crowd crush of 100,000 visitors in October 2022. In Borough Market, in fact, the crowds can be 50 percent larger than Itaewon. And they have nowhere to go if something were to go wrong. 

Meanwhile, the fight against over-tourism goes on in Venice, with NoGrandiNavi unleashing a picturesque new protest against the latest moves to excavate the lagoon in order to speed the return of the monster ships to the Stazione Marittima in Venice. A demonstration took place at nearby Zattere, and I was there with some colleagues from our Thames River Residents Group to cheer them on. A few weeks earlier, several artist activists had crafted the banners you see below and created a marine creature to protect the lagoon - seen arriving below. 

You can hear NGN's Marta Sottoriva eloquently explaining the new battle and the locals' reaction to the tourist access tax in the first episode of BBC Radio 4's The Tourist Trap, an investigation into over-tourism all over the world. (You can listen again on BBC RADIO SOUNDS).

Banners created by artists for the demonstration

It took three boats to transport the symbolic creature 

Above, some if the River Residents Group contingent in Venice last weekend.

NoGrandiNavi website (donation page)

Michelle Lovric's website

River Residents Group websitewebsite 

The wrong ship in the wrong place at the wrong time – Michelle Lovric

This beautiful photograph is by my colleague David Winston, of whom I’ve written previously. It’s part of his recent London exhibition, Mood Indigo.

The image shows a shoal of Venetian ferries, known as vaporetti, gliding down the Grand Canal with minimal wake, humble stature and self-effacing lines. The vaporetti know their place – it is to serve Venice: not to dominate her, not to reduce her to a backdrop, not to repurpose her as a place to maximize alcohol sales and not to do so at the cost of residents’ peaceful enjoyment of their homes nor at possible risk to human and marine life.

Everyone’s the same on a vaporetto. A vaporetto doesn’t care if you’re an influencer or a celebrity. And even if you are one of the latter, please note that Venetian courtesy still dictates that you give up your seat to an elderly person or a mother and baby.

The vaporetto is the right vessel in the right place. Just as the Grand Canal is the perfect waterway, protected from the commodification of greedy new skyscrapers and only occasionally subject to tasteless advertising on shrouded scaffolds while her ancient facades are restored.

If only the Thames were so lucky. London’s greatest public realm, our river has suffered successive attempts at commodification, like the Garden Bridge and the River Park. Now we have (arguably) grotesque sky-grabs along the Thames, with buildings like 72 Upper Ground agglomerating ungainly masses from small footprints. Residential communities are drained by successive campaigns against what is happening to the Thames, which has become, as journalist Rowan Moore describes in the linked article, ‘a gold-diggers’ gulch, a miles-long mine of real-estate value.’

Riparian development is controlled by land-based authorities, but the river is ruled by the Port of London Authority (PLA), operating on a 1909 charter and funded by the dues it extracts from its client-vessels and its River Works licences.

When something goes wrong on the river, however, it is not the PLA but the publicly funded emergency services that must deal with it, as well as the RNLI, a charity.

Sadly, things do go wrong on the Thames, especially given the swift 23ft tide and the intertwining of industrial, commuter and traffic on a river that snakes as much as it flows.

And when things do go wrong, they can go tragically wrong.

Most Londoners know about the 1989 Marchioness disaster, in which, at approximately 1.46am, the 262ft Bowbelle dredger ran down an 85.5 ft party boat near Southwark Bridge. The Marchioness sank in minutes. There were 51 casualties, most of them young. In subsequent hearings, safety, crew training and lookouts on both vessels were judged inadequate.

Grieving families and friends still gather in remembrance of the dead on the anniversary. Southwark Cathedral hosts a permanent memorial to those lost. The Marchioness has remained a household name for nearly thirty-five years.

But few people know about the Marine Accident Branch’s 2015 publication on the Marchioness disaster. Additional possible factors named in the report included: disco music so loud that the captain couldn’t hear the radio warnings about the Bowbelle; hydrodynamic interaction, by which two boats are drawn together, losing steerability, especially in shallow, winding waterways.

And even fewer people know about the river’s worst disaster so far, that of the Princess Alice. And that, historians have theorized, is because most of those who died were poor. They were ordinary Londoners, lacking celebrity except, briefly, for the hideous manner of their deaths.

Swan Lane Pier (background) circa 1850, engraving by John Wood,  Yale Center for British Art, Wikimedia Commons.

The PSS Princess Alice, a paddle steamer, left Swan Lane Pier – by the northern foot of London Bridge – in glorious sunshine on September 3^rd, 1878. A long, low vessel, she bore a crowd of around 800 Londoners on a pleasure excursion to the Rosherville Pleasure Gardens at Northfleet, Gravesend and Sheerness. The Princess Alice’s owners, the London Steam Company, operated a kind of hop-on hop-off system with its other ships so no one knows how many passengers joined the vessel that evening for the ‘moonlight trip’ home.

Entertainment continued all the way back, with the band playing on deck. The sun had set and the moon was rising around 7.30pm when, near Gallions Reach, the Princess Alice (219ft) was rammed in the starboard side by the SS Bywell Castle, a cargo ship (254 ft).

The moment of impact – a chromolithographic cigarette card from around 1911.

In less than four minutes, the Princess Alice broke into three and sank. Her deck passengers were pitched into water horribly enriched by gallons of raw sewage. Those below decks were entombed inside the doomed vessel.

Nick Higham’s The Mercenary River explains how Joseph Bazalgette, for the Metropolitan Board of Works, had in the previous decades diverted the sewage of London to the eastern reaches of the city. In a vivid chapter, ‘Volcanoes of Filth’, Higham recounts how cost considerations stopped the sewage outfalls being sited far enough from the metropolis. At the time of the tragedy, two grand pumping stations churned out London’s waste twice a day at Barking and Crossness. The Princess Alice had come to grief at Tripcock Point, too close in time and place to the evening’s discharge of millions of gallons of untreated waste – not just human but also oil, petroleum and the liquids drained from abattoirs and factories.

In the minutes after impact, a few male passengers from the Princess Alice were able to climb up the Bywell’s ropes or use the life-buoys, chicken-coops and chairs thrown down to them. But, like the captain of the Bowbelle in 1989, the Bywell’s master chose not to stay long on the scene to help rescue victims. Instead, he steamed away. In the dark, in the foetid water, around 650 drowned. Few women made it to shore alive. Impeded by their long skirts, women were also far less likely than the male passengers to know how to swim. At the moment the Bywell struck, many women were below decks, tending to their children. The young fared badly too. Among the dead and missing were 95 children of twelve and under as well as 30 babies aged 15 months or less. A diver investigating the wreck a few days later found bodies packed, vertical, near the doors through which they were probably trying to escape.

Of the Princess Alice’s passengers, just 130 survived. More than a dozen of those died soon after, possibly from ingesting the foul water.

William Heysham Overend: “The Great Disaster on the Thames, recovering Bodies from the Wreck of the Princess Alice”. Illustrated London News. Wikimedia Commons.

As the news seeped out, Londoners made the grim pilgrimage to Woolwich to claim their dead, who were now being washed up at different points along the Thames. The mourners were accompanied by journalists, newspaper artists (whose work you see here) and tragedy tourists, some of whom – in a queasy pre-echo of today’s clamorous social media – felt obliged to inundate the newspapers and the coroner’s post-box with ‘helpful’ letters about the best way to manage the gruesome situation.

Only gradually was a ghost passenger list compiled, never to this day completed. We know now that it included 46 out of 51 members of the Clerkenwell Mission Bible Class and eight pupils from the Queen’s College Institution for Young Ladies. The professions of the dead sketched their social classes: zinc plate worker, coach trimmer, caulker, commercial traveller, servant, nursemaid, tobacconist, greengrocer, ironmonger’s porter, pipe maker, sweet-seller, shoemaker, draper’s assistant, rising to solicitor’s clerk, organist and the mistress of Limehouse Industrial School.

Identifying the dead in Woolwich Dockyard, from "The Disaster on the Thames", Illustrated London News, 14 September 1878. Wikimedia Commons.

The police found an ingenious way to spare relatives the pain of inspecting hundreds of corpses – in deteriorating condition – when searching for their loved ones. Trinkets and valuables were put in numbered glass-topped cigar-boxes.  Shawls and other items were hung up, also with the same numbers. Clothes taken from bodies were boiled and then sewn together so they could not be scattered. Only relatives who recognised the possessions would be taken to view and identify the body with the corresponding number.

Relics of the dead exposed for identification at Woolwich dockyard following the sinking of the Princess Alice" 

from "The Disaster on the River". Illustrated London News, 21 September 1878. Wikimedia Commons.

Many of the drowned were buried as ‘unknown’. Ten were later exhumed at the expense of their families. But most of the anonymous dead remained unclaimed, listed only by the colour of their hair and sometimes their height. Among them were 18 children, including infants.

Perhaps eighty people were never recovered from the river. Family historian Colin Aylsbury has put online a list of the dead, the saved and the missing here. And this Facebook page serves as a meeting place for people who are descended from Princess Alice victims, crew, survivors and the Lightermen who collected the corpses from the Thames.

“The great disaster on the Thames burial of the unknown dead at the Woolwich Cemetery, East Wickham after the sinking of the Princess Alice" from The Illustrated London News, 21 September 1878. Wikimedia Commons.

Although it’s largely forgotten now, for some months personal accounts, funerals and scandals kept the Princess Alice tragedy in the press and in the courts. The captain of the Princess Alice had died in the accident, and with him the truth about the last minutes of his vessel. Various court cases blamed first the Bywell Castle and later the Princess Alice, for wrong steers and misleading signalling. There were accusations of drunkenness against the Bywell’s crew. Some said that the cargo vessel’s engine had not been cut, thus failing to prevent its propellor from injuring flailing victims. Some Lightermen, who collected the bodies for five shillings apiece, were denounced for rifling their valuables or piling them up so that the dead were further disfigured; there were stories of alcohol-fuelled fights over corpses. The Lighterman also earned by rowing sightseers out to the wreck. 

Some of the scandals are recounted in this eight-page pamphlet below, from Wikimedia Commons. It describes its contents as follows: ‘An Authentic Narrative by a Survivor, not hitherto published. Heartrending Details - Facts not made public - Noble efforts to save life - Robbing the Dead - Particulars as to lost, saved, and missing - Plan of the Locality. Sketches by an eye-witness. Beautiful Poem, specially written on the event, now first published. Memorial for all time of this fearful calamity.’

 

 

The coroner concluded that the Princess Alice was not properly or efficiently manned, lacked adequate life-saving equipment and was probably overloaded with passengers. There were also claims that the Princess Alice’s design had sealed her fate. Her length was 28 times her draught, rendering her riskily top-heavy. Nevertheless, the vessel had been passed by the Board of Trade in 1878 to carry maximum of 936 passengers between London and Gravesend in smooth conditions.

 

Josiah Robert Wells, "The Saloon Steam-Boat Princess Alice" from “The Great Disaster on the Thames”, The Illustrated London News, 14 September 1878. Wikimedia Commons.

Joan Lock’s excellent book, The Princess Alice Disaster, compares the Princess Alice accident with the Marchioness tragedy of 1989. She concludes ‘… there were some echoes down the years: the rapid sinking of the smaller vessel; accusations on both sides of a failure to keep a proper lookout; inebriation of one of the captains … and some victims being trapped in the lower saloons.’ The author also looks at how the Marchioness incident differed from the Princess Alice tragedy. ‘One marked difference,’ she points out, ‘… was the type of passenger. Those on the Princess Alice had been mostly mixed-aged family groups and were largely upper working class, whilst those on the Marchioness were in their twenties, educated, artistic and professional, or aspiring to be.’ As Joan Lock explains, the media's depictions of the victims and their families in some cases added to their suffering. 

Where Venice has its vaporetti, and London has its Clippers, today’s Thames also hosts a fleet of around 60 leisure boats, most of which offer beautiful days or evenings on the river at reasonable costs. Certainly, there’s a problem with thundering music, bellowing DJs and shouting passengers. However, the 1200 complaints registered in the last year focussed on just a very small number of vessels. The vast majority cause harm to no one and give pleasure to thousands.

But the Thames horizon may be about to change, with the arrival of a massive new ‘floating events space’.

These days, passenger vessels on the Thames are certified by the Maritime & Coastguard Agency (MCA), which is now being asked to approve an extremely long, low vessel – longer than a Boeing 747 – for 1000 - 1500 passengers. Described by its owners as a ‘super-yacht’, it’s called the Oceandiva, a portmanteau name that carries a substantial weight of expectation.

Image from the Oceandiva website.

Last summer the Oceandiva consortium applied for a 2.30/3am liquor licence and also bought control of two old Thameside piers – Butler’s Wharf (below) and West India Pier.

Butler’s Wharf, designated in some Oceandiva’s publicity as its ‘main residence’, is surrounded by around 5000 residents; close by are two communities of boat-dwellers including dozens of children. Diagonally across the river is the Tower of London, where 100 people live.

Meanwhile, tiny West India Pier (above) was abandoned and derelict for years, during which time a community of around 700 residents grew up around the site, which is served by a single narrow street. Now West India Pier is slated for transformation into a high-voltage charging, telecoms and servicing station.

In the two riparian communities, the shock is palpable.

Elsewhere, Londoners have been frank, if not brutal, when it comes to their opinions of the ‘super-yacht’s size, design and its designs on the city’s public realm. ‘I've seen better looking coal barges,’ observed one reader of the Daily Mail. Another said, ‘That ship would give me the creeps. Cold, dark, uninviting, and creepy.’ Others expressed fears that London’s emergency services lack adequate capacity to deal with an Oceandiva-sized emergency: ‘It's another Marchioness waiting to happen.’

Meanwhile, no one (except perhaps the Oceandiva consortium) knows exactly when the vessel will arrive on the Thames. Last week, the consortium withdrew their liquor licence application, citing construction/certification delays, but stating that they will re-apply in the near future.

The sudden withdrawal of the liquor licence application cancels out the 1000 objections that were made within the deadline last October.

I conclude with a final picture of the Princess Alice’s last moments, this time from Harper's Weekly October 12, 1878. (Wikimedia Commons). One hundred and eleven years before the Marchioness, this picture encapsulates the danger of a busy, narrow river where, even at night, industrial vessels compete for space with pleasure craft, where the sinuous nature of the river plays hide-and-seek with sightlines and also, incidentally, increases the danger of hydrodynamic interaction. Recent news about river sewage releases does not give comfort when we contemplate the possibility of a large-scale incident on the Thames, which has been, incidentally, the site of all three of the most recent London terror attacks.

Michelle Lovric’s website

OTHER LINKS

River Residents Group website

Petition · The Ocean Diva party boat will ruin the most historic part of the Thames · Change.org

Petition · No OceanDiva · Change.org

Princess Alice Memorial, Woolwich Cemetery: https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2985013

Royal Museums Greenwich: https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/blog/library-archive/drowning-sewage-sinking-princess-alice

Art in the Docks commissioned a moving collaboration between artist Christopher Mike and sculptor Vincenzo Muratore to commemorate those lost on the Princess Alice. You can see images here.

 

 

 

Feed the Crows and Stop the Monstrosity - Michelle Lovric

A close friend had come with me to the Battersea Decorative Antique Fair. She was just a few stands ahead when I heard her calling my name urgently. She was standing with one of my favourite antique dealers, Nikki Page, who sources beautiful and unusual things.

‘Look!’ said my friend, pointing to what was undoubtedly the most exquisite and interesting item for sale at that particular fair. In a nanosecond, I already knew where I would put it. I'd already decided what colour to paint the wall behind it. But, even as I hurried towards it, Nikki was putting a red ‘sold’ spot underneath it.

Then my friend, seeing the catastrophe that was my face, laughed. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I told her it was going home with you. The red dot is yours.’ 

Here below is the item in closer focus: a huge metal coat-of-arms painted in lovely colours.

 

I justified buying it because, little as I know about heraldry, I knew the Salmon of Wisdom when I saw it. That was a gift of research on my Irish novel, The True & Splendid History of the Harristown Sisters. As for the seal, I have written about one seen in Venice in recent years, even proposing it as a mascot for the city. Seals feature also in my children’s novel, The Mourning Emporium.

I knew that there was a lot more to learn about this coat of arms, but there was also a lot of life to be lived that summer, including finishing another book, launching a second one, scripting a play about the London Bridge terror attack and moving into a new apartment (well, new to me - dating to 1609) in Venice, where this ‘stemma’ was now going to live. I had to put researching my crest on the back-burner for a while. 

Instead, the research came to me – in the form of two apothecaries, that is, members of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries in London. Drs Roy and Celia Palmer are also close friends and neighbours in London. Knowing my interest in medical history, they’d asked me to lead a cohort from the Society on a tour of Venice with a focus on the role of apothecaries and barber-surgeons through the centuries.

As members of one of London’s historic livery companies, Roy and Celia took a great interest in my fish-and-seal crest. Shamefaced, I explained that the necessary research had not yet been done. With a twinkle, Roy said, ‘Leave that to me’. He took some photographs.

And, in a remarkably short time, I learned more about my crest than I could ever hope to discover on my own. My source: Andrew Wallington-Smith, who's enjoyed  a distinguished career in the Royal Navy. He is also a dedicated and knowledgeable Liveryman in the City of London and an expert on heraldry and stained glass. Andrew told me that he was ‘brought up on the Scottish historical fiction of Nigel Tranter and history very much motivates me.’

Thanks to Andrew, I can tell you that my Venetian crest bears the arms of the Lords Rowallan. And the motto, missing from my crest, is 'DEUS PASCIT CORVOS', which I translate as 'Feed the Crows'.

Source: 1939 edition of Burke’s Peerage (also features in the 2001 version)

The line has been:

Archibald Corbett, Lord Rowallan (1911); died 1933

(s) Thomas Corbett, Second Lord Rowallan; served as Chief Scout and later as Governor of Tasmania

(s) Arthur Corbett, 3rd Lord Rowallan; whose marriage to April Ashley annulled on the grounds that she was a man

(s) John Corbett, Fourth Lord Rowallan

Andrew wrote to me: ‘Archibald Cameron Corbett was the son of a Glasgow (hence the salmon & ring) merchant & philanthropist; he was a politician (MP for Glasgow Tradeston) and philanthropist; born 1856, he matriculated his arms in 1882; he married Alice Polson an only daughter; In Fox-Davies’ Armorial Families of 1905 he is shown as follows:'

excerpt from The Armorial Families: a Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-Armour 

by A.C. Fox-Davies; Edinburgh, 1905

Alice Polson was an heraldic heiress herself, so the original crest bore an 'escutcheon of pretence' - a smaller shield placed on top of a larger one. But then Archibald Corbett was made a Baron in 1911 - as Baron Rowallan of Rowallan (having bought Rowallan Castle in 1901) - he acquired the coronet. On his son succeeding in 1933, the escutcheon of pretence became a quartering. That is the way my crest is designed, so it must date from that year or afterwards. Ancient as it looks, the object is less than a hundred years old. 

To understand Andrew’s forensics on the crest design – and to share it usefully, I had to learn that heraldry uses its own special colours, each with its own meaning:

Sable: black, signifying constancy or sometimes grief.

Argent: light metallic in either gold or silver, meaning sincerity and peace.

Azure: bright blue - loyalty and truth.

Gules: red - magnanimity and military strength.

So, here is a translation of my crest. First the central, quartered part:

The keys fessways (horizontal) downwards between two ravens in Sable: the keys indicate guardianship and dominion. In Scots ‘corbie’ means ‘crow/raven. In heraldry, crows and ravens tend to be used interchangeably. Crows signify watchfulness, talent for strategy in battle, divine providence and insight into other worlds. 

The blue quarters show a chevron between two bear’s heads in Argent, muzzled in Gules (red) The  bears symbolize cunning, strength and ferocity in the protection of one's kin. A bear can also indicated health or healing. 

The base of each blue quarter show a 'Cross Moline' (as in the cross of metal that holds a mill wheel).

The Moline is said to represent the mutual converse of human society. 

Above the central section, we see a crown, a branch of oak, and a raven: the crown is of course a symbol of seigneurial authority. In this case the orbs indicate the type known as the 'Ducal 1 Variation'.

 A sheaf or branch of oak leaves asserts that the harvest of one's hopes has been secured. 

The two creatures who hold up the crest are called 'supporters': dexter (at left) a Salmon Proper bearing in its mouth a jewelled ring; sinister (left) a Seal Proper. (Very proper, in my opinion - though the word 'Proper' in heraldry refers to a 'charge' in its natural colours and form.)

The salmon symbolizes eternity by its return to its birthplace to breed. In Celtic mythology, the 'Salmon of Wisdom' was said to be able to pass on its knowledge to those who eat its flesh. The salmon themselves acquired their cleverness from eating the red Hazelnuts of Wisdom that fell into sacred waters: the red spots on their bellies refer to this. In the case of the Lords Rowallan, it is likely that salmon could be found on their estate. A salmon is also part of the insignia of Archibald Cameron Corbett's native town of Glasgow. Further, a fish indicates selfless virtue, spiritual nourishment and unity with Christ.    

In the bosom of my own rude family, this crest is known as 'The Salmon of Wisdom and the Seal of WTF'.  That's because it's not really obvious what a seal is doing on the coat of arms. The seal (or sea-calf, sea-wolf or sea-bear) is an uncommon image in heraldry. Usually just the paws and head are shown, so the Rowallan seal is exceptional. In general animal symbolism, a seal can signify dauntless courage at sea. A pair of seals are the supporters of the crests of Madeira. Seals can also symbolise humour, good fortune and graceful, easy movement.  

So here are my Rowallans ... wise as salmon, supple as seals, protective as bears, watchful as ravens, endowed with good humour and good fortune. Their colours offer me constancy, sincerity, loyalty and truth.

The Rowallans are presently in Venice, but I could really do with their help in London. For, on a sadder note, I must report that the Thames is once more under threat from the Oceandiva, Europe's biggest party boat. That is the 'monstrosity' of the blog's title: 'monstrosity' is the word most often used to describe the Oceandiva in letters, petitions and online comments. At time of writing, this vessel appears to exist only in computer-generated images, which are the copyright of the consortium, but you can see them here.

The Oceandiva first tried to come to the Thames in 2019. That didn't work out for them. Thames campaigners were successful in stopping this Dutch boat, which takes up to 1500 partygoers, from setting up a bespoke pier at historic Swan Lane by London Bridge. In October 2020, the City of London's Planning and Transportation Committee unanimously voted to reject the proposal. 

But in March 2022, without notice to or consultation with those who opposed them before, the Oceandiva relaunched itself, this time as a 'yacht' (?) that will host parties, corporate jamborees and brand 'activation' events. The Oceandiva now claims that it can use a number of piers on the Thames. 

Even though the Oceandiva is bigger than many buildings and will impede World Heritage views, the Mayor of London's office recently told us that 'the Greater London Authority (GLA) does not have the power to grant or forbid access to the river for specific ships or boats'. That decision rests with the Marine Coastguard Agency (MCA) and the Port of London Authority (PLA). The PLA's 1909 charter gives it absolute power despite its limited accountability when it comes to its client-boats' impacts on river dwellers, both human and animal. 

Neither the MCA, which certifies vessels for British waters, nor the PLA take responsibility for party-boat noise or light pollution, for riotous behaviour by disembarking passengers in the early hours or for the effects of floating parties upon the Thames's many residential clusters, which include social housing, or upon the cultural institutions like the Globe and the Tower, both of which objected strongly to the Oceandiva the first time round. Nor do the the MCA and PLA appear to find any problem with the Thames being reduced to an advertising backdrop for luxury cars.

Loud noise and blue or flashing lights, as favoured by party boats, are injurious and unpleasant not just to us overdeveloped bipeds but also to fish, insects and birds. My Thames neighbours and I are delighted to spot seals near London Bridge these days. Seals on the metropolitan Thames, you ask? Really? Oh yes, indeed. Here are some beautiful pictures of them in Patricia Stoughton's excellent Ebb & Flow blog. 

But it is hard to imagine a seal surviving an encounter with the Oceandiva. 

About this latest manifestation, there are still many questions to be answered, including about what piers the mega-boat can actually use without disrupting public transport, about its much-vaunted green credentials, about the danger to bridges and other vessels, about emergency provisions: an Oceandiva-sized accident would be on a scale never before seen on the Thames. Last week's fire on a mega-yacht in Torquay closed down beaches and roads, left the Environmental Agency dealing with a fuel slick and unknown numbers of people affected by the billowing black smoke. The boat's ropes were burnt - it drifted off its mooring and lurched into a pier wall. That yacht was 25.9 metres long. The Oceandiva 'yacht' is 86 metres long, far wider and much, much taller. The Torquay yacht could host 8 guests; the Oceandiva 1500.

Please have a look at this website, and sign the petition. The historic Thames deserves better than to be commodified in this way. Imagine what imprecations Dickens or Shakespeare would have uttered if this mega-boat invaded their Thames with loud parties and brand launches of opulent carriages that most Londoners could never afford?  On the rare occasions when they've been given a chance, today's river denizens have had plenty to say about it. You can read their words on the website, on the petition and even here, one of the few publications where candid comments on the Oceandiva were briefly allowed. 

I've just published a short blog entitled 'Liquid Iniquity'  on Writers Rebel.

I'll finish with some of the aforementioned candid comments by Londoners ...

It’s disgusting that in the 21st century, with all our concerns for the environment, natural habitat and housing, that some company’s greed is allowed to supersede respect for nature - particularly the river wildlife including seals and for the thousands of residents who live along the river. It will gradually take business away from small river cruise companies and put more cash into the greedy hands of large companies who care more about wealth and status than they do the quality of life of residents and nature.

For the thousands who live along the Thames, we’ve all been woken late at night to the blaring horns, way over-amplified disco music, and DJs shouting on top of that for the entertainment of drunk party goers retching up their blue daiquiris into the Thames ... Now they want to build the river’s largest earsore.

This giant gaudy Dubai style monster ship has no place on the Thames. It would only ever be a noisy, unenvironmental, dominating, damaging money making machine. Leave the Thames alone!

The peace of the Thames is what’s got me through lockdown as unlike wealthy people I don’t have a car to drive out to the countryside. The Thames is our inner city sanctuary. The foreshore is covered in history, and seals swim up the Thames. This monstrosity doesn’t belong here.

This is absolutely horrifying, how could they even think of ruining this lovely historic part (or any part) of the Thames with such a monster. An absurd eyesore which will also be a string of accidents waiting to happen...a non-eco-friendly aberration which would completely ruin the historic setting and ambience of this part of London’s ancient river. Absolutely wrong, astonished the idea even got this far.

Please do add your own eloquence to the petition. It may not be too late. Our views are of demonstrably little interest to the PLA or the MCA. However, we're doing our best to make sure that our voices are heard in every other place where it could  possibly make a difference ... in the Highways and Environmental Health departments of the riparian communities threated by the Oceandiva, with Transport for London, with the River Thames All Party Parliamentary Group, with the authority that will licence the vessel to sell alcohol, but most of all in the court of public opinion, which must count for something, even on the Thames. 

We haven't given up on the Mayor's office, either. When it came to the Oceandiva's designs on Swan Lane Pier, the GLA's Stage One conclusion was that the project failed to comply with the London Plan, which seeks to promote sustainable, biodiverse and considerate development, while safeguarding the public realm for Londoners.

Surely the Mayor of London has some sway over the future of his city's largest and most historic public realm, the river. Doesn't he?

www.michellelovric.com