Accidental Meeting

A few weeks back we have been out to visit the Naval Heritage Centre in Plymouth for their open day. It was a visit full of exciting discoveries and wonder as their collections are quite beautifull and interesting, all concerning naval history and the life of ships and people who were involved with the navy. The greatest attraction was a visit to HMS Courageous, which allowed me to complete one of my dreams- to see how a submarine looks from the inside (the answer is, of course, ‘awesome!’).
But that was not all. Among the objects put up for a display was a small clipping of a document with an illustration by C. W Bracken. Bracken was one of our students in the years 1887-1888. In our collection is a book by him, ‘A History of Plymouth and Her Neighbours’. The book was first published in 1931 so it is far from a proper material to study, even with the additional last chapter that was added after the war and carried over into new editions. Still, it was funny to see that at one point, even respectable professionals thought that the area of Plymouth was colonized by Egyptians, I’m not even joking: ‘(Plymouth)…had its origins not from the ubiquitous Phoenicians on their tin-seeking expeditions, not from immigrants from the adjacent continent, but from Egypt…’
Egipt or not, we were quite surprised with W.C Bracken hanging innocently on the wall of the Naval Heritage Centre, like it was waiting for us to see it. We would love to have a copy in in our collection.