Our November 2016 meeting

This was a change to the original topic for that evening as our speaker had withdrawn. Fortunately Helena was happy to step in at short notice and she gave an excellent talk about why the dazzle ships had first been introduced in World War I, showing pictures of how they had been designed and how models were made to test their suitability.

Most of the work on the original dazzle ships was carried out by women and, in fact, in the picture of those making the model boats there was only one man.

To commemorate the Dazzle boats HMS President, a survivor of WWI berthed in London was covered with a vinyl skin which has since been removed. The Mersey Ferry, Snowdrop, was painted in Liverpool, and as far as she is aware the ferry company intend to keep the dazzle painting. The Edmund Gardner, a historic pilot vessel, was also painted in Liverpool. The one in Leith was a lightship, MV Fingal, originally stationed in Oban, which had been purchased by the Royal Yacht Britannia Trust to convert into a boutique hotel. They agreed to allow it to be used meantime as a dazzle ship – to be known as Every Woman to commemorate the largely untold story of the women involved in the original dazzle ships. Ciara Phillips, the artist, also incorporated the morse code which reads “Every woman a signal tower” to commemorate all the women involved in other areas of war work.