We got up early this morning and looked out to a very grey and foggy Halifax. We were due to go on one of the excursions this morning; to the Titanic cemeteries. It might seem strange to come on holiday and spend half a day looking at grave stones, but there were 300+ victims of the Titanic disaster whose bodies, a lot of them unidentified, were brought to Halifax.
We visited three cemeteries in total; a Jewish one, a Catholic one and an inter-denominational one. They looked a bit like war graves with the identical headstones laid out in serried rows. Some of them had names on them, but a lot of them just had “Died 15th April 1912” followed by a number. This was the number they were allocated when they were pulled from the water. Some of them had been identified many years later and their names had then been added to their headstone. All of the graves had flowers put on them; there had been a memorial service in the cemeteries on 15th April 2012 and roses had been put on every single grave, showing how much the Titanic disaster continues to affect the people of Halifax a century later.
In the cases where the bodies were known and claimed by relatives, larger and more elaborate head stones were in evidence, with touching epitaphs. One of them was the grave of John Law Hume, who had been one of the heroic bandsmen. There was a gorgeous floral tribute with a violin set into it and his photograph at the base of the tribute. It had the words “He played on as the ship went down” and a note was left from a Yvonne Hume, obviously a descendant. It was really lovely.
After our visit to the cemeteries we returned to the Balmoral for lunch then went back ashore again; our purpose was to explore the Maritime Museum. This museum contained all sorts of nautical stuff; not only about the Titanic but lots of other ships as well, from both the merchant and the Royal Canadian Navy. There were full scale models of the ships as well as artefacts from them and it was all very interesting. We spent a good hour and a half in the museum, which was fairly crowded, mainly because of tour parties. We still managed to see everything we wanted to see, however, including part of the Titanic grand staircase and an intact Titanic deck chair, the only one in the world.
When we came out of the museum we went to find the post office to get some stamps to post our cards back to England. They had some special Titanic commemorative stamps which were massive, about 1” wide by 3” long. They took up a lot of space on the back of the postcards! We found a bar nearby and went in and ordered a beer each which we enjoyed while writing out the postcards. Then we posted them and decided to make our way back to the Balmoral.
We got back on board around 4.30pm. I’d already made up my mind that I was going to give dinner a miss tonight so we had a nap as we’d had a fairly busy day. At least it was smart-casual again so it didn’t involve getting my hair put up; I was able to get ready fairly quickly.
While Trevor went to the Ballindalloch restaurant I just went along to the Morning Light pub for a drink, before going up to the restaurant around 7.45pm. I was just in time to have some cheese and biscuits, as well as coffee and an after-dinner liqueur.
The entertainment in the Neptune Lounge later on was a variety show, featuring snippets from all the main cabaret acts that we’d seen this cruise. It was excellent as usual. Then it was up to the Lido lounge for the quiz and the late night cabaret, which was called “Boys’ Night Out” and starred all the male singers and dancers from the Balmoral show company. It was brilliant, as well as being really funny.
Then it was off to bed again after a fairly full day. We had one final day at sea to look forward to before our arrival in New York.