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How did the Purton slideshow come together? I started making slideshows a couple of years ago, being well inspired by Barry Beckham, whom I call the father of the AV slideshow. One day I was listening to Lisa Gerrard's and Patrick Cassidy's Immortal Memory CD, when two tracks caught my imagination. The first track was the orchestral introduction to "The Song of Amergin" which had this brilliant nautical sound like a fog horn followed by dramatic washing sounds of the sea, with a real gutsy orchestral backing giving an overall impression of sadness. The forth track called "Elegy" reminded me of mermaids calling to ships through the fog (I think it was a film I saw as a young lad) which Lisa Gerrard voice does brilliantly. So the ingredients were coming together with my memories of the destruction of the monuments to the mining industry at Overseal, the destruction of the monuments to the lives of the ordinary people of Donisthorp and the destruction of the monuments to the lives of the Purton Shipbuilders. Elegy really fired up my imagination with images forming of the Purton Hulks somehow frozen in time to the sad calls of mermaids, and a frozen vandalised cemetery, so one weekend in November 2005 when the weather forecast was cold below freezing both Linda and I set off for Purton. When we woke up in our hotel a 7 o'clock in the morning it was freezing and foggy, and we drove of to the hamlet of Purton. It was so foggy that I was going to abandon the picture shoot, but we reluctantly agreed to take the camera and have just one quick look. What a good idea it was not to abandon, as everything was frozen solid, and the fog was just sufficient to start the images forming of ships lost in the fog, fog horns and the sad calls of mermaids calling to the ships, Elegy had started to play gently in my mind and the feeling of sadness I get when I see the destruction of our Legacy was just so intense that I had this completely clear vision of how the slideshow was going capture the spirit and atmosphere of the Purton Hulks. I snapped away virtually on automatic pilot, I was clearly in an altered state of mind almost felt like those long dead ship builders were guiding my hands and eyes to take precisely the images, memories and feeling they wanted to convey on their behalf. All I needed now was my vandalised cemetery. I did not want to used Donisthorp, as all that was left here was neatly mown grass and a nice fashionable rose bed, which was not what I wanted. I needed some ware where the vandalism is still taking place, and what better place then right here at home in Birmingham. Warstone Cemetery sits in the jewellery quarter of Birmingham, and was created during the Victorian period to deal with e problem of the living dying of the dead. St Phillips grave yard in Birmingham City centre was bursting at the seams, with well over 80,000 people buried in a 1 1/2 acre site so another site was required. Warstone has all of the things you would find in a Victorian cemetery, draped urns, broken columns, and weeping cherubs, unfortunately it has suffered immense vandalism in recent years, so was the ideal place. We took the photographs the following weekend in November to the Purton trip, the rest of the day spent Photoshopping, Pictures to EXE and Adobe Audition, which I used to joined the two tracks together. The rest of the story lies within the Purton slideshow A couple of questions I am often asked are:- You mention the destruction of the mining industry along with vandalism of Cemetery's and the Purton Hulks, why is there no reference to mining in the slideshow? We have it with in our power to stop destroying out heritage and the Purton hulks now, all we have to do, is to stop. The mining industry has already gone. All of the images in the Purton slideshow are Black and White with he exception of one slide, why? It was the right thing to do. Do you have any relics or souvenirs from the Purton site yourself? I would dearly love to have just one nail from this site, but no. Would you like to see the boats at Purton preserved? No I would like to see the boats rest in peace and let nature take its course. I would like to preserve the memories of the people associated with these boats as this is our Legacy, so my wife Linda is undertaking a study of the river severn form source to sea so that we can all learn from our Legacy from the past. Has anyone else researched the Purton Hulks? Fortunately Yes, Paul Barnett has been studying the hulks for a number of years, and is now the foremost authority on them. Paul has painstakingly managed to identify and name over 80 of them and uncovered some fascinating storeys associated with the working lives of these wonderful monuments. Paul does a number of tours of the Purton site and some very interesting lectures, for date please see Paul Barnett's pages
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