Yes, it’s finally happening: the ultimate bastion of Christian broadcasting, beloved fixture of Sunday afternoons accompanied by tea and crumpets – Songs Of Praise is coming to the Titanic Quarter…

Tomorrow I’m due to meet a film crew in the TQ to record a piece for a special Titanic Songs of Praise to be broadcast close to the Centenary.  Don’t know yet exactly what shape the interview is going to take, so stay posted and I’ll update you all in due course…!

Now, should I shave or go stubbly?  Where’s my smartest shirt?  Have I got any zits that need dealt with?  This stuff is important – my Aunties will be very distressed if I don’t look presentable!

And just to make the event extra-special and extra-Docky, having seen Eleanor’s Story on the Dock website, the film crew spent today recording a new interview with Eleanor – what a star!  Becoming a TV personality at the age of – well, I shouldn’t say should I?  (But it’s more than 94 and less than 96).

And it looks like we’re going to be able to film some footage within Titanic Belfast – which reminds me to post the link – here – to a superb selection of photos by Donal McCann of the construction process of Titanic Belfast over recent months – check it out!

Aw, what a fab time at the Kennedy Centre this morning – the kids were class!  Almost made me miss youth work… (almost).

So as y’may know, the idea was to commemorate the arrival of the Titanic into the Thompson Dock at the start of February 1912 with a full-scale tug-of-war down the length of the shopping mall.  The part of the capstan was played with great relish by Glenn Ross and his mates – men whose pints you would try very hard not to spill:

And on the other end of the rope, the part of the Titanic was played, in ever-increasing numbers (representing the 3 propellers, 5 years from design to completion, 15000 builders, 20 lifeboats, 2200 passengers, and any other Titanicy number we could think of) by a fantastic bunch of kids from nearby Primary Schools – who knew their Titanic facts and figures to a hugely impressive degree!

The Mayor got in on the act, the choir from the Belfast Met sang, the strongmen pulled, the kids pulled back, chaos ensued, and (hopefully) a great time was had as we celebrated another milestone in Belfast’s Titanic story.

And it is a big milestone: amazing to think that the only authentic surviving footage of Titanic was filmed during the days of its arrival and berthing in the Thompson Dock.  That dock we walk beside every Sunday on the Dock Walk is the exact same location as these flickery black-and-white images; the riveted gate in the background is the same one we see today.  Gives you a shiver of history, doesn’t it?

And oh what agony, after spending a day away from the TQ, to see on Twitter (thanks Mark Simpson!) that I missed the arrival of the huge new Titanic sign for the visitor centre – clocking in at 15 tons to match the weight of Titanic’s anchor.  Just goes to show – you can’t miss a minute in the TQ these days!

A little reminder to be at the Kennedy Centre in West Belfast tomorrow for the celebration of a big Titanic anniversary: the week she entered the Thompson Dock, the massive concrete Graving Dock that still lies perfectly-preserved at the far end of the Titanic Quarter.

For those of you who haven’t visited the dock on a Titanic Walking Tour or a Dock Walk (for shame!), the Thompson Dock is the best place to get a sense of Titanic’s massive scale.  As it was the largest dry dock in the world in 1912, the Olympic Class liners were designed to fit within inches, filling it from side-to-side and end-to-end, and, even when the water was pumped out of the dock so that the ship rested on the keel blocks, filling the sky above like a skyscraper.   The ships were brought in when they were almost complete, but needed to be out of the water for some final finishing touches in the last few months of the build process.  Today you can stand at the capstan at the head of the dock and vividly imagine the Titanic towering above you as the men at the bottom of the dock fitted the propellers, painted underneath the ship, and made the final checks before departure.

And this week marks the hundred-year anniversary of Titanic’s arrival in the dock, hauled in by the 5 capstans, turning with immense power driven by the steam engines in the Pump House.  So to mark the event in style, we’re playing tug-of-war along the length of the Kennedy Centre mall.  Glenn Ross, Northern Ireland’s strongest man, along with a few of his mates, will play the part of the capstan, hauling the ship along the length of the Dock.  And on the other end of the rope, the part of the Titanic will be played by local schoolchildren, resisting the pulling power of the capstan as best they can!

I’m really looking forward to it – and really honoured to be asked to rally the troops and run the event.  It’s one of those Titanic anniversaries (like the 62-second launch last May) when we can celebrate all that was heroic and admirable about the Belfast men that built these mighty ships.  Events later this year will obviously have a more sombre tone as we remember that fateful maiden voyage – but it’s important to mark the anniversaries where we can have fun as well!

The event starts at 11am on Tuesday 7th Feb in the Kennedy Centre mall.  See you there!

A turbulent week in the TQ…

As some of you may have gathered from blog posts and Facebook messages asking for help, the Titanic Quarter has sadly had one of its first instances of dealing with tragedy.  You might’ve noticed on the news the story of 20-year-old Joby Murphy, who fell from the Lagan bridge last Thursday.  Teams of police, divers, fire department, sonar operators and community search-and-rescue volunteers have been looking for him all week, and during the past few days the search moved to the area around the Titanic Quarter.

It’s at times like these that the Church is really called to step up to the mark – and hopefully, even though The Dock is a work-in-progress, we did our best!  Having heard that a warm, dry venue would be appreciated for the search teams and family to use as a ‘base of operations’, we were able to open our ‘Meet The Neighbours’ venue for a couple of days.  Huge thanks to TQ Ltd (who gave permission to use the unit, and helped us out when we blew the fuse by trying to boil too many kettles at once!), the Premier Inn (who allowed us to use their loos and kept us supplied with platefuls of sandwiches!) and to the wonderful, wonderful volunteers who made the tea, bought the biscuits and provided the vital welcome and conversation to make the shop unit a safe, welcoming, warm place to be.

Even in the midst of such a horrible situation, it was powerful to see the church at work.  A room with some tables and deckchairs, a Super Ser and a steady supply of tea and coffee may not sound like much, but it’s amazing the difference these things can make.

So it brought the focus of the Dock’s vision – to provide a shared space in the heart of the TQ – into even sharper relief.  These spaces are needed, in all our communities – sometimes we don’t realise how necessary they are until the unexpected happens.  You’ll know from my dark hintings over the last couple of weeks that there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes to see if The Dock might be able to provide such a space sooner rather than later – so that ‘Life in the Titanic Quarter’ can flourish even while we’re saving up for our beautiful old boat.  So watch this space…!

And hopefully it goes without saying – we’re all keeping Joby’s family in our prayers, as the search moves further up Belfast Lough in this coming week.

A meeting in the TQ this morning took an exciting turn when the chap I was meeting extended a last-minute invitation to join him at some fancy shebang being held at the Belfast Metropolitan College. Hoping (as always) for a free meal (in vain as it turned out), we blagged our way in to a room full of – goodness! Is that the First Minister and Deputy First Minister? And hello again, Lord Mayor! Naomi Long, how nice to see you! Yes, it was a room full of the great and the good – and me. Who still wasn’t really sure what it was all for…

All was revealed as we took our seats for the speeches. It was the launch of a long-planned project to open up the access links to Titanic Quarter – particularly, in this case, the foot/cycle path from Bridge End Station and East Belfast into the TQ. If you’ve ever got off the train at Bridge End and walked to the Odyssey, you’ll know that up until now it was an excitingly death-defying trek along the footpath beside the Sydenham Dual Carriageway, with a heart-warming view of trucks thundering past in clouds of exhaust fumes. But at one point, just after you’ve crossed the footbridge, you can look through the railings of a metal fence and see a tantalisingly-close glimpse of the TQ and the Harbour Road – before the footpath takes you away towards the four-lane highway of screaming traffic.

Well, the gate in that fence is now being opened – in fact it was opened, in the presence of all the dignitaries (and me) this morning, so that the path connecting the station to the Harbour Rd – the old route used by countless thousands of shipyard workers over the generations – could be walked-upon for the first time in 10 years. As well as connecting up the train station, the route also connects the TQ to the Connswater Greenway – so suddenly, with the opening of one little gate, the ways and means of getting to the see the sights and sites of this fabulous part of the city have multiplied.

A new path that’s also an old path; history and future combined in the same footprint; Good News for Belfast… it’s a typical Titanic Quarter story…

More details on the Beeb here

And I could also mention that this unexpected and star-studded start to the day wasn’t even the most exciting thing to happen today – but one thing at a time, my lovelies, one thing at a time…