This week, I drew a big metaphorical tick on the Nelson bucket list: I visited the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral to see his tomb.
I made an off-the-cuff video of my trip. It was posted on my Instagram and can be seen below. If you don’t have Instagram, I think you can still click on the link and watch it as a guest. It was a surreal experience, as you will see.
The other big item on my Nelson to-do list is visit HMS Victory. I genuinely think I’m the only person in the country who hasn’t been on it. My reasons have been relatively sound: it has been undergoing years of reparation work and is covered in rather unbecoming scaffolding.
The ship is now estimated to be completed in 2035 (!). I endeavour to see it before then. The cost of the reparation is around £45m and is done, rather oddly, with the intention of preserving the ship for, in the words of one its restoration team, the next ‘fifty or even a hundred years’. At a cost of £45m, I hope they get a touch longer out of it.
The Victory has been re-modelled so often – most recently with French wood – that it has become the naval equivalent of Trigger’s broom (Google it, non-British readers). What makes the journey to Nelson’s tomb in St Paul’s so satisfying is that you are looking at the real deal. The tomb was originally intended for Cardinal Wolsey – three centuries before – until he fell out with Henry XIII (easily done, by all accounts).
If you haven’t been to St Paul’s, don’t miss it the next time you’re in London. Believe me, you won’t be fighting off the crowds…
TTFN,
Ryan
Nelson The Sailor 