SE10 - The Cutty Sark

Hello people,

Today I have come to SE10, Greenwich. It’s no exaggeration to say I’m standing in one of the most famous places in the world. Whichever country you are in, or even if you’re travelling across sea, or through space, you set your watch according to Greenwich Mean Time. Before GMT was invented, the world lived by Paris Flamboyant Time. PFT was hugely impractical, lunch breaks would last for days, and time would stop whenever somebody fell in love, this annoyed the British as this made it impossible to know when last orders at the bar was. So we invented GMT, and it was internationally adopted at the International Meridian Conference of 1884. Another reason GMT is so important is that ships traveling all over the world rely on it to calculate their longitude while out at sea; ships like the Cutty Sark.

The Cutty Sark was a British Clipper Ship built in the Clyde in 1869. In her day she was the fastest ship in the world. She used to bring tea from China back to the UK to be sold, it’s estimated that in total, the Cutty Sark sailed the same distance as travelling to the moon and back twice. The ship is a museum now, where you can learn all about how it was built, where it travelled, and the people who sailed in her.

People love the Cutty Sark, mostly because people love tea. My Nan Bet lived for 77 years on a diet of nothing but milky tea with 2 sugars, rich tea biscuits, and occasionally, a nice slice of ham. And she was not unique - we in Britain consume 65 million cups of tea each day. Which probably explains why the Cutty Sark is loved by so many people, and why there was such sadness when in 2007 the ship was damaged by fire while undergoing conservation.

The fire was explained as an accident, but I’ve always suspected foul play. It seemed to me that some very influential people stood to gain an awful lot by the disappearance of the Cutty Sark. With it gone, it would free up space to build some 1 bedroom apartments, or maybe even a Tesco Express, right in the middle of some prime real estate. My suspicions were confirmed when there was another - this time less successful - fire in 2014. I’ve gone to the police with my suspicions, but they weren’t interested. I asked all the staff at the Tesco’s Express on Trafalgar Road if they were arsonist. They either denied it or had the security guard escort me from the premises. It seemed my investigation was destined to be fruitless. That was until last Saturday, whilst walking though Hays Galleria by London Bridge, I stopped off to have a pint in the Horniman Pub, and – it being a nice day – took my pint outside to sit by the Thames, and that’s when I saw it. The thing that stood to gain the most from the Cutty Sark’s disappearance, the HMS Belfast, another museum ship in SE London. With the Cutty gone, there would be no competition left.

I now had a lead, but I needed proof. I wrote a letter to the Curator of the HMS Belfast, a Mr A Sailor, pretending to be a journalist from the Maritime Journal. I told him I wanted to interview him for the magazine and asked him to meet me in the cabin quarters on the top deck of the Cutty Sark at noon on the 22nd of November. I hoped that by tricking him into returning to the scene of the crime, and confronting him there, he may slip up and confess to arson. I sat waiting in the cabin quarters for him to arrive. Eventually a man with a peg leg joined me in the room. He wore an eye patch, had a hook for a hand, a parrot resting on his shoulder, and was sucking on a pipe. Something told me, that this was my guy. I stood up and said.

“Are you Mr Sailor?”

“Ay” he replied “I guess you be the talented young writer from the magazine?”

“You won’t find any talented writers in here Mr Sailor.” I responded, “But what you will find, is a reckoning.”

“Shiver me timbers!” He yelled, “What is this, a trick?”

“No trick, just justice.”

“Blister me barnacles!”

“I know you set fire to the Cutty Sark, you resent the fact that it gets so many visitors. You thought with it gone. All big boat loving tourist would come to the HMS Belfast instead.”

“Crucify me cabin boys!”

“You had the perfect motive. And thanks to the pipe you smoke, you had the perfect means to carry a lit flame aboard the ship without creating suspicion.”

“Dangle me dinghy’s!”

“Do you deny it?”

“Ay, I deny it” he said, “I’d never harm a steadfast boat like the Cutty Sark. I’m a lover of large vessels such as this one.”

I sniggered.

“Plus I welcome the competition from the Cutty Sark. it keeps me on my toes, smooth waters never made a skilled sailor. And as for me pipe, tis just an E-Pipe, no flames needed. Just a stylish way to ingest poison.”

I was deflated. “So it wasn’t you?”

“No laddie” he replied. “You were wrong about me. But you’re not wrong in your suspicions. I too suspect foul play.”

“But from where?” I asked.

He removed the pipe from his mouth and pointed it towards a middle aged woman in a red duffel coat taking a photo of the ships sails on her i-pad mini. I looked at her and my blood ran cold.

“You bitch” I said. She looked surprised. Then she walked over to me, and hit me round the head with her i-pad mini. As she walked off Mr Sailor said.

“No, not her, look beyond boy.”

I looked up again, and that’s when I saw it.

“The National Maritime Museum, of course! With the Cutty Sark gone, they would get all the tourists for themselves!”

“Ay, tis a bunch of scurvy dogs that run that museum for sure.”

I shook his hand, and we departed friends. As I left the cutty Sark I made a vow to find out who in the National Maritime Museum started the Cutty Sark fire in 2007. Obviously I won’t find out who did it today, I’ve already gone way over my word count. And not in the next few weeks as I’ve already planned all the places I want to visit over December. But soon, early February at the latest. But I promise dear readers, I will find justice. This ship just got real.

The Cutty Sark is 145 years old today, and she’s still looking good, so why not give her a visit http://www.rmg.co.uk/cuttysark