It took much more than the “lick of paint” that so annoyed Sybil Fawlty in the famous episode featuring the unwisely jovial Irish builder – but here M33 is, fully open to the public. Go on board, and you get the sights and sounds of a ship alive. You see the crew’s quarters, just as if they’d just left them. The tiny officer’s wardroom, with a wind-up gramophone playing a hit of the day. Food stores, with a selection of WWI tinned food. The shells in racks. Machine guns in position on deck. Then go down to the former engine room for a stunning audio-visual presentation about the Gallipoli campaign – they call it immersive, and it really is: as the shells burst and the guns roar, M33 shudders as if in sympathy with her fallen comrades from the disaster of Gallipoli.
HMS M33 – reborn!
25 August 2015
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About Rob
Rob is a TV producer, reporter and camera operator with 30 years’ experience at the BBC, Channel 4 and ITN, in news, factual and documentary production. He is a four times award winner, whose awards include a coveted Royal Television Society award for his work on Channel 4 News. His association with The Maritime Foundation goes back to 1995, when he won the first Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for a series of reports that led to a major documentary on the loss of the bulk carrier Derbyshire.