This edited article about tea-clippers originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 705 published on 19 July 1975.

The Cutty Sark by John S Smith

Protesting creaks came from the Ariel’s three masts as the wind billowed the sails and whistled through the rigging of the tea clipper tied up at the jetty in China’s Foochow harbour in 1866.

In his cabin, the skipper looked up from his charts and turned to his mate. “Are we ready to sail?” he asked.

The mate nodded. “Cargo’s all stowed,” he said. “What do you reckon of the other clippers, sir?”

“They’re fine vessels,” mused the skipper. “But we’ll show ‘em a clean pair of heels, all the way to England.”

Opening the door of his cabin, the skipper stepped on to the deck to look at his competitors. There were four other sailing ships, either tied up at the jetty or anchored midstream. All were waiting for the right moment to set sail for England and each wanted to get there first.

These were tea clippers, fine vessels of the mid-nineteenth century with sleek lines for fast speed. If their freight space was small, this did not matter for the cargo they carried was worth a good deal in London. But it had to be got there quickly to fetch the best price and to keep its quality. Consequently, there was always keen competition among the clipper captains to be the first to arrive in London.

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This edited article about diving originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 704 published on 12 July 1975.

Diver and sharks filmed underwater

Fright paralysed Lotte Hass. For a moment, she hung suspended in the warm tropical waters, staring in disbelief at the amazing creature which was swimming towards her.

It was like nothing she had ever seen before, for it is not everyone’s lot to come face to face with a manta ray. And this one had huge flippers which gave it a wingspan of over fifteen feet. Its features were frighteningly equipped with two large lobes which it used to shovel food into its mouth.

Lotte felt particularly defenceless in her skin-diving suit and face mask because all she had for her protection was a harpoon.

But she had been asked to swim close to the creature for a film about underwater life being made by her husband, Hans Hass, whose films have been shown on television in Britain. He had assured her that the manta ate nothing but tiny marine creatures called plankton, and had no teeth at all.

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This edited article about Fife originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 703 published on 5 July 1975.

A picture history of Malcom’s reign showing Margaret’s escape by boat; their marriage in Dunfermline Abbey; Malcom’s refusal to do hommage to William Rufus and the endless carnage and bloodshed in Northumberland. Pictures by Dan Escott

The people of Fife do not live in a county. They live in a kingdom. Their land of heather-hills, cornfields, and coal mines stretching far into the North Sea has always been called the Kingdom of Fife.

Why does this eastern area of Scotland claim this proud title? The coalminers, fishermen and weavers of Fife will tell you it dates back to the days when Fife was a feudal kingdom ruled by its own Pictish king.

Fife lost its king before the Conqueror came to Britain. There was much confusion over the rules of succession, which ended with a Scottish chief named Kenneth MacAlpin becoming ruler of the Scots and the Picts.

Centuries later, of course, the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united under one monarch.

Dunfermline, the chief city of Fife, was the seat of medieval kings in Scotland. The palace there was a royal residence from the time of Queen Margaret in the eleventh century until the sixteenth century.

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This edited article about underwater exploration originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 701 published on 21 June 1975.

Salvage divers by Andrew Howat

Wearing rubber suits and breathing apparatus, two men dived deep into the water off Grand Bahama in the warm West Indies. Propelling themselves by their flippers, they went farther and farther into the green depths to find themselves amid a myriad of strange plants and fishes.

The two explorers in this underwater world were John J. Gruener and R. Neal Watson of the U.S.A., who made a record descent of 437 feet (133 metres) on 14th October, 1968.

Men using chambers to withstand the pressure of the water have gone deeper than this. But they lack the mobility of skin divers like Gruener and Watson. By studying old wreck sites, sunken harbours and inundated cities, these specialised divers are helping historians and archaeologists to gain valuable knowledge about the past.

Divers are specially trained for this work, for clumsy, unskilled probing could ruin a valuable wreck site and destroy something of vital importance. This is because most ships do not remain intact underwater. The wood in them rots away and the metal parts become covered in weed and develop a solid, hardened “skin”.

Each descent brings a surprise, for who knows what the divers will find as they probe the mysteries of the ocean?

This edited article about Poon Lim originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 700 published on 14 June 1975.

All was calm aboard the S.S. Ben Lomond as it steamed through the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean near the equator on 23rd November, 1942, during the Second World War.

Suddenly, the peace of the ship was shattered as an enemy torpedo pierced the ship’s hull and exploded with a loud clap like thunder.

As water rushed through the hole torn in the metal hull, the ship listed to one side. Hurriedly, the crew took to their lifeboats. Among them was Second Steward Poon Lim who flung himself into the ocean and swam strongly towards a raft and scrambled on to it.

Strong currents carried him away from the sinking ship and the other survivors in their boats, and soon he was alone on the vast ocean.

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This edited article about the Orkney Isles originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 697 published on 24 May 1975.

Viking raiders left Norway for the Orkney Isles

In a large room, deeply carpeted, two men in naval uniform stood in front of a wall-chart of the North Sea. The older man, a stick in his hand, traced a line slowly from the German naval base at Kiel across to a group of islands off the north coast of Scotland – the Orkney Isles.

The year was 1939, With Lieutenant Prien, commander of U-boat U47, Admiral Doenitz, Flag Officer (Submarines) of the German Navy, was planning the impossible – an attack on Scapa Flow, the largest expanse of water at the southern end of the Orkneys.

Scapa Flow is almost surrounded by small islands, and for two world wars ships of the British Home Fleet were based there.

The reasons for choosing Scapa as a naval base were these: firstly, the route from the Atlantic to Germany must pass either through the English Channel, or between North Scotland and Norway. Battleships at Scapa Flow could easily sail to intercept any enemy ships using this last passage.

Secondly, tides and currents swirl dangerously through the channels which separate the little islands around the Flow, making those channels extremely dangerous for shipping, so providing a natural defence from attack from the sea.

Thus thought the Admiralty. Admiral Doenitz, however, thought otherwise.

“You will note, Lieutenant,” he rasped, “that on the east side of the Flow, between the Orkney mainland and the island of Burray, there are two channels through which you might pass. They are partly blocked by sunken ships; you will sail between them. That is all. Heil Hitler!”

On October 8, 1939, Lieutenant Prien’s submarine slipped quietly out of Kiel and into the North Sea. Five days later, as dawn broke, Prien could see a faint blue streak on the horizon. It was Orkney.

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This edited article about fog originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 695 published on 10 May 1975.

A scene in London fog, once known as a pea-souper

With very little warning, fog will settle over land or sea. At sea, ships have to reduce speed and run the risk of collision, and on land, rail and road transport is reduced to a crawl.

It has been estimated that one day of heavy fog in a city like London costs over one million pounds. This huge bill is made up of delays to transport, working time lost through people being late for work, charges for extra lighting, and damage to goods.

If fog could be done away with, the gain to a country’s health and wealth would be enormous.

A great deal of Britain’s fog begins far out in the Atlantic. There currents of air warmed by the Gulf Stream take up water moisture from the sea.

The water is in the form of vapour, rather like the steam produced by water boiling in a kettle. But unlike steam from a kettle, the water vapour is invisible.

When the stream of warm air carrying the water vapour meets a cold layer of air or passes over cold ground, the water vapour in the air condenses. This means that it turns into water again.

The same thing happens when steam from a kettle strikes against the comparatively cold wall of the kitchen and trickles down as water.

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This edited article about Humberside originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 693 published on 26 April 1975.

Wilberforce watching a slave-master mistreating his slaves on the dockside in Liverpool

by C L Doughty

Turmoil filled the mind of the boy who, in the sequestered calm of his study in an ancient public school, sat at his desk writing a letter.

In his mind’s eye, the writer envisaged negroes, their bodies gleaming with sweat, packed into the filthy holds of ships sailing from Africa to America.

He saw among them the sick and the dying, and he shuddered when he thought of the bodies of the dead being tossed mercilessly to the waves by the hard-faced crew. And he knew that those that survived the journey would be set to work on the plantations of the American south.

For these were slaves being shipped to the New World by ruthless traders. And the boy who had read about them, and was writing a plaintive plea to a newspaper for their release, was William Wilberforce. Writing from his school at Pocklington, Humberside, he ended his letter with, “Will no one do anything to stop this odious traffic in human flesh?”

No one, it seemed, was willing to do very much until the boy himself grew up to become an ardent campaigner for the abolition of slavery, a campaign which continued until his death. For three days before he died, Wilberforce had the satisfaction of knowing that a Parliamentary bill, which had resulted from his political efforts, was given a second reading in the House of Commons. And in due course, it became law.

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This edited article about the Vasa, Sweden’s sunken warship, originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 693 published on 26 April 1975.

The sinking of the Vasa by Andrew Howat

As 3 P.M. approached on August 10, 1628, a growing number of people were hurrying along the narrow winding streets of Stockholm, their wooden clogs clattering on the cobblestones as they made for the harbour. With more and more of them arriving by the minute, the crowd waiting near the Royal Castle, which fronted the harbour, soon grew to hundreds of spectators, all of them gazing wide-eyed and admiring in one direction – at the beautiful new warship “Vasa”, which was about to set sail on her maiden voyage.

The 1400-ton “Vasa” was a real showpiece, 165 ft long, with an unusually large sterncastle 50 ft high, a superstructure covered in brightly painted carvings and sixty-four large bronze cannon which sparkled and shone in the summer sun. Soaring up from “Vasa’s” decks were three masts hung with large sails and topped by pennons emblazoned with a yellow cross on a blue background, the national colours of Sweden.

Three o’clock struck and two signal guns boomed out across the water. An enthusiastic cheer rose from the crowd when “Vasa” was towed from her berth below the Castle walls and out towards the centre of the harbour. The light breeze bulged in her sails, her pennons streamed out and the warship began to gather speed.

Suddenly, “Vasa” heeled to port, but righted herself almost immediately. Then, a few seconds later, to the horror of all who saw it, two more gusts pushed the warship over into a heavier list and water began pouring through her lower gunports. Soon, “Vasa” was swamped and a few minutes later, she sank. All the stunned crowd could see now were the tops of “Vasa’s” masts and their bedraggied pennons poking out above the water: the rest of the ship, together with the bodies of fifty drowned sailors, had settled in 100 ft of water.

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This edited article about Sussex originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 691 published on 12 April 1975.

The great Anglo-American novelist, Henry James, outside Lamb House in Rye, with inset showing the famous garden room where he wrote, by Harry Green

During the sunny summer days of the late eighteenth century the folk of the little fishing village of Brighthelmstone in Sussex gaped in amazement at crowds of ladies, gentlemen, and children from London who were suddenly thronging their pebble beaches.

Why had all these wealthy people come to the quaint Sussex village built on a crumbling cliff ledge? Neighbours told each other it was something to do with a new doctor from Lewes who had taken a house on the seafront.

The doctor had written a book in which he prescribed sea air and sea bathing as a cure for many illnesses. It was rumoured that even the Prince Regent was anxious to try the new cure.

Then, in 1783, George, the Prince Regent, suddenly arrived in Brighthelmstone. Every summer day he walked along the Steyne promenade with a crowd of friends.

Prince George liked the seaside air. He liked it so much that he built a palace a few yards from the sea, decorated with Indian domes, hangings, and Chinese dragons. Here he gave great banquets for his London friends.

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