Festival Of Britain In 1951

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 16, Issue 16, 6 November 1950, Page 3

Festival Of Britain In 1951

The Festival of Britain, 1951, will be brought to most Britons outside London by two great travelling exhibitions by land and sea. In the Bidston Dock on Merseyside I saw the progress which has been made in converting the festival ship, the 16,000-ton Campania, into the biggest floating show since Noah’s Ark. Ten thousand people a day will be able to see the exhibition, which will be carried in the Campania to Plymouth, Cardiff, Belfast, the Clyde, Dundee, Newcastle, Hull, Avonmouth and Merseyside. She will tour for six months, and the cost of converting and running the ship will be £500,000. H.M.S. Campania has been lent to the festival authorities for two years and has been brought out of retirement from Gareloch, Scotland. The structural alterations are being carried out in such a way that she could revert to service in a very short time should that be necessary. While a festival ship, the Campania will be manned by a Merchant Navy crew and will fly the Red Ensign. Cammell Laird, the famous Merseyside shipbuilders, are carrying out the conversion.

Visitors will also see British engines from one of the earliest “beam” steam engines of 1820 to the latest type of aircraft'jets. They will be able to inspect the cockpit of one of the latest types of flying boats. There wil be models of ships and railways and map showing the great railway systems. developed by British initiative overseas. The Company’s radar system will be shown working by means of a repeat screen in the. hangar. The main emphasis will be on the maritime aspect of Britain’s progress and the gallery display will represent in miniature the story told in the Dome of Discovery on Thames Bank.

The upper lines of the Campania Will be changed by six temporary light steel masts. They will support the huge canvas awning covering an area for demonstration and sports displays and for the cafe if it is wet. Yachts and motor boats will be exhibited on the flight deck too.

At night the Campania will ( be floodlit from stem to stern and searchlights will form a great triangle of light above her. The words “Festival of Britain” and the festival symbol—Britannia’s head on the compass points—raised on the ship’s sides will be illuminated. Great Steel Box The exhibition, which will be 3 miniature reproduction of the main exhibition at Thames Bank will be housed in a hangar 100 yards long and 24 feet high. This great steel box is now in the hands of scores of steelmen, welders and carpenters. The steelmen are putting in wide galleries which will zigzag through the Length of the hangar and house many of the exhibits. The carpenters are putting in floors and one of their problems is to overcome the large camber on the ship's decks, which are 17 inches lower at the sides than in the middle.

In planning the hangar exhibition, the designers’ object has been to exploit the tremendous height and length of the ship’s hollow interior. The final effect will be of great loftiness, like the interior of a cathedral. The background lighting will be subdued. This will be broken by sparkling shafts of gold and red light and white spotlights which will pick out particular exhibits. The main exhibition in the hangar will illustrate the theme of Britain’s wealth and power derived from her riches in raw materials; the exploitation of these raw material's and their distribution. Among the many exhibits will be sectional model of a coalmine.