After a rather delicious break touring the world in the VW Campervan for a few weeks, Susan & I are back home and back to the exciting world of the Titanic Quarter and all things Dock…

And what a great homecoming!  The first day ‘back to work’ was Saturday – when Karen and the team had done a great job organising another Meet The Neighbours get-together – one of the busiest yet, with some fantastic chats with lovely, lovely people who braved the rainy morning to be part of the TQ community.  And as a special bribe (as you can see in the pic) there was some extremely fine luxury hot chocolate on offer…

Then on the Dock Walk on Sunday, we were joined by visitors from Polish Mission Church, a Polish-speaking church community based in Lisburn, who were celebrating their 5-year birthday.  The Dock is now coming up on its 2-year birthday – where will be be in 5 years…?

And just to prove that I didn’t forget y’all on holiday – there were visits to boats to remind us of the Dock, and steam boilers to remind us of Titanic (in a miniature form…)

And into the bargain, my holiday reading was the new book about Bruce Ismay, which I devoured from cover to cover… obsessed much?!

Picture if you will the sight of a 36-year-old man reduced to the state of a child on Christmas morning by the excitement of walking into a half-finished building and seeing a load of scaffolding and plasterboard walls.  For that, dear reader, is what has become of your esteemed correspondent.  As if getting to see inside the new Metropolitan College last week wasn’t enough, this week the Dock Chaplains were part of a hard-hat tour group given an in-depth walk through the new Titanic Belfast visitor centre.

Just to set the excitement of this event in context, and hopefully make me look not-quite-so-weird, the emergence of Titanic Belfast from hole in the ground, to skeleton, to cladding-padded outline, to stunning visitor centre has been one of the big stories constantly turning its pages behind the scenes, just out of shot, throughout my time in the TQ.  How’s this for a before and after – 2010:

And 2011:

And so to finally get inside and under the skin of this fabulous project – yes I was excited!  So is it time for another Dock movie, I hear you ask?  Complete with overblown musical soundtrack to convey the drama of the situation?  Well…

So!  What a perfect, perfect way to draw a line under this little chapter of Dock life before Sus and I head off on holiday tomorrow.  Yet another door open.  As we sat down for a coffee in the Premier Inn afterwards, we were reflecting just how many doors have been opened to the Dock in this past year. The Met and Titanic Belfast are just the start.  The Premier Inn has opened its doors and welcomed us week by week.  The Walking Tours have led to all sorts of open doors – I have to admit I love having a pocketful of keys for the Drawing Offices, the slipways and the Pump House when I’m on tour duty.  And TQ Ltd have been incredible, opening the doors so that we can run deckchair cafes and Meet The Neighbours.

Which leads to one more reason for my light heart as we leave on holiday.  This time last year, everything in Dock-World ground to a halt for the couple of weeks that I was away.  This year, you’ll hardly notice I’m gone!  Meet The Neighbours events are still happening as usual (the next one’s on Saturday at 11am), the Dock Walks continue every Sunday at 3:33 in the Streat, emails to the Dock will get a response, there’ll be all sorts of news on the blog (no pressure Co!), even the Dock Management Team is meeting in my absence, confident that there’s plenty to be done!  It’s a new world, and a good world.  Profoundly, wonderfully, I am not All By Myself in this adventure any more.  Doors are opening and friendships are sparking into life.  God is working.  The Dock is on the move!

A little pang of sadness today as I led my Titanic Walking Tour group around the sights of the TQ…  y’see Susan and I are about to take off in Harvey the Campervan for a couple of weeks for our summer break, which means no more Titanic Walking Tours for the next wee while.  And, saddo that I am, I’m going to miss them!

Time then to deluge you with some more photos – not of gleaming new bits of the Titanic Quarter this time, but the lovely old crumbly bits we get to explore on the Titanic Walking Tours.  If any of you reading this blog haven’t been down to the TQ for a walking tour yet, shame on you!! – and hopefully these pics will whet your appetite…

First up, a few pictures of some of the highlights of the tour – the Drawing Rooms and the Thompson Dry Dock:

There have been rainy days… big tour groups… small groups… locals and a huge variety of visitors… and days when the storm clouds threatened in the distance – but never actually broke!

This lovely old rusty Caisson gate at the back of the Thompson Dock is a pretty amazing piece of history: built at the same time as Titanic and Olympic, from the same hand-rivetted sheet metal, it’s been holding back the sea for the last hundred years, and only just recently started to let some water in as it approached its 100th birthday.  Not bad going…

(There are some really exciting plans to take the pressure off the gate by building a new one beyond it – which would allow visitors right down to the bottom of the dock for the first time in many years.  Can’t wait!)

Some of the personal history that emerges during tours is amazing.  The gents on the left were Australian visitors on a Walking Tour last weekend; they couldn’t believe their eyes when the tour entered the Pump House at the Dry Dock and they saw the 3 massive Victorian pumps down in the pump well.  If you look closely at the pic on the right, you’ll see that the pumps are stamped by the manufacturer, Gwynnes – it turned out that these guys were Gwynnes themselves, and knew that their great-grandfather had been a manufacturer of marine pumps before the family had emigrated to Australia.  They were able to confirm that the pumps were absolutely the original 1911 fittings, as the company had ceased trading soon afterwards – and were beyond delighted that some Gwynnes pumps still exist somewhere in the world!

A few more beauty shots around the Pump House…

So as you can maybe tell, I’ve been loving every moment of these Walking Tours.  I’m Chris Bennett, and I’m a Titanorak.  The rich, powerful story of this old ship has completely sucked me in; the excitement and passion I felt for the new TQ development at the start of my role as Chaplain to the Titanic Quarter is now completely matched by my love for the history and heritage of the area.  I think I sense God’s hand in both of them.  There’s something very profound about a city rediscovering its past, acknowledging the shoulders we stand on.  And to be able to do so while being surrounded by bright hope for tomorrow…wow.

Another big, big step forward in Dock-world today – my first visit inside the new TQ campus of the Belfast Metropolitan College.

I had a bit of a root around in my old folders and found a photo (on your left) of the building taken at the start of 2010 – back in the early days of The Dock. Compare and contrast with the pic on your right, taken a few days ago from exactly the same vantage point. It’s been a joy to watch the transformation and construction of this beautiful new building – so imagine my child-with-a-new-toy excitement when I got my first tour around the campus today…

The most striking thing about the campus is the shape – it’s actually a huge square with a massive space in the middle – which will be opened to the public as a nice bit of chillout space in the middle of the TQ, complete with pond and great views of the cranes.  You’ll also be able to avail yourself of some cooking from the catering college students, a haircut from the hairdressing students, and who knows what else…

The facilities are truly impressive – have a look at (respectively) the gym, the hairdressing/beautician stations, and even the spray-tan booth…

The architecture is gorgeous too – check out the view from the library, the impressive entrance lobby seen from above, and the clever lecture theatre/kitchen, in which catering students get to watch professional chefs in action…

Massive thanks to Susie for a brilliant and enthusiastic tour.  It’s that wonderful TQ story again – people who are excited to be here, full of hope and confidence about the opportunities and potential of these fantastic new spaces – hugely inspiring to be around.

And speaking of the fab people of the TQ – despite the fact that it was pelting rain all afternoon while I was exploring BMC, the clouds cleared bang on time (yesss!!) for the Arc BBQ, and another wonderful, friendly bunch of people gathered in the evening sun to eat a selection of beautifully “chargrilled” burgers and hotdogs at The Dock’s pop-up cafe.

Great day!

Enough of this complaining about our damp summer! The BBC says that we’re going to have “sunny intervals”, and I believe them!

So Thursday 25th marks the return of the Dock BBQ – meeting at the base of the Arc Apartments from 5-7pm for the finest burgers, hotdogs, salads and snacks that money can buy!  See you there!

(And if anyone is free to help out with a leaflet-drop around the TQ, we’ll be meeting up at The Kit at 5pm on Wednesday.  Squatting down to push leaflets under doors is really good for toning your thighs – fact!  No need for a gym in this job…)

Credit: BBQ sign photograph “BBQ Thisaway!” by Kevin Trotman, www.flickr.com/kt/