If you look up at the roof of Spalding Gentlemen’s Society museum you will see an old ship weather vane. For years this sat derelict in a store of the museum. In the mid-eighties one of the management committee members was a character called Captain Hall. He was a marvellous person who could be found every Tuesday and Friday in the local library reading the local newspaper. He had served on Russian convoys during WW2 where you would have to constantly shovel ice off the deck of the ship to stop it capsizing and would constantly chain smoke cigarettes as a means of coping with the conditions and constant fear of attack and being torpedoed. Towards the end of his sailing career he commanded what was the largest oil tanker of its day, but before the era of the super tankers.
As you can imagine he was a fascinating person to listen to. However, he was also mischievous when showing people around the museum by making up stories about various artefacts, his most popular would be to show visitors an oak screen hanging in the entrance foyer and state that it was Oliver Cromwell’s bedhead.
At every opportunity he would pipe up to other committee members, “When are we going to restore that wonderful ship of the line? That fine ship!” Eventually it was restored and ended up on the museum roof.
However, this was not where it was originally. One day Bob Whiston was walking by the newly demolished warehouse on the side of the River Welland when he spied poking out of the rubble a rather battered ship that had been the weather vane on top of the warehouse. He immediately rescued it and carried it off on his shoulder to the museum.
Thus this nineteenth century weather vane has survived.
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