2 - Portsmouth Jetty

Emma: So I am looking at a grey warship. Do we know what ship that is?  

Phil: No. 

Emma: No, so it's a naval ship, bullet grey, and it's sitting over by the historic docks. And I believe that down there is Portsmouth Jetty. Am I correct? 

Anne: Yes. 

Emma: Right. Okay, so we know that Doyle drew his inspiration from Portsmouth. He named certain characters after people he met, after street names, and he met inspirational people in his life who – through the Portsmouth Literary and Scientific Society – who shared their adventures in the Far East. And again, the stories found their way into Doyle's stories. So, what's really exciting is the opening chapter in in Doyle's first novel, A Study in Scarlet, his first Sherlock story, and he introduces Watson. What does he say? 

Phil: Yeah. So, he says: “I was dispatched accordingly in the troopship Orontes, and landed a month later on Portsmouth Jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal government to spend the next nine months in attempting to improve it. I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air - or as free as an income of eleven Shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances I naturally gravitated to London, that great Cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.” [A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle] 

Anne: That’s the Isle of Wight car ferry, isn’t it? 

Emma: Yes, that’s the Isle of Wight Car Ferry, yes, and we're letting it go past – it’s quite noisy, isn’t it? 

Anne: Very.  

Emma: It's quite a self-important vessel [laughter].  

Anne: Well because the harbour... this isn't that big an area, when you think about it, because it's not a huge ship.  

Phil: That's somebody's car alarm going off.  

Emma: Ah, yes.  

Phil: I mean, usually here, that normally happens, you'll have car alarms going off as as it goes past it, yes.  That's what's making that noise. 

Anne: Somebody hasn't put their handbrake on. 

Phil: Something like that [Laughter]. 

Emma: This is the things they don't tell you when you when they sell you a luxury apartment by the water.  

Phil: No, exactly. God, I'd hate to live here.  

Anne: Yeah, it's like they didn't used to tell people about the night clubs, you know, parties on the Common. 

Phil: Exactly, yeah... [Fades out].