Saturday April 15, 2023
A warm day at sea today after a couple of cooler days. The crime specialist Diane James spoke about the English – Hay-on-Wye Tragedy of a century ago. In this case a lawyer Anderson that lived and practiced in this small English town, married and his wife became psychologically ill and was eventually committed to an asylum. With treatment she got better and returned home and died from what were defined as natural causes as she was in poor heath. The lawyer was keen on gardening and would purchase strychnine, arsenic and other such substances as the times and other notable newspapers of the time suggested recipes using these noxious products for killing weeds. He remarried and ultimately a rival lawyer and the town chemist and doctor eventually got together and Anderson was accused, tried and put to death for murdering his wife with this poison. From the way she told the story it certainly seems that he was innocent and she gave a good argument that would have exonerated him.
We then moved to the theatre to hear the fascinating interview of the Lebanon hostage – John McCarthy – who was released after five 1/2 years in a hostage swap, talking about his “re-entry” into his life in Britain and how he was able to adapt back, not only to his daily life, but he had to deal with the fame that accompanied what was a well orchestrated campaign by his fiancée and friends and family for his captivity, that made him a household name. Dr Stephen Payne, the designer of Queen Mary gave a very interesting account of the prior Queens – Mary then Elizabeth then QE2 and how those ships were used during the war as troop carriers, one carrying 16,000 troops during WW2 at a time in a ship built for 2,000-3,000 people. I travelled with my parents on the original Queen Elizabeth across the Atlantic in the 1950’s and interestingly enough, never traveling on QE2! His next talk will be on the design of the Queen Mary 2, which will be very interesting.
The evening show featured the Cunard Singers and Dancers doing a tribute to Sting which we had seen but is always fun. This particular group of the Cunard troupe, will get off in a week and disbanded, with a new set of dancers and singers starting in Southampton. We went to the show as it was a “double bill” with the Cunard troupe doing the first half and the outstanding singer ShellyAnne doing the second part. During her performance she shared that she had participated and won the £50,000 prize in the TV program “The Voice”.
The Theatre where we are every evening snd for key interviews.
Roger & Anne Travels 