At Wessex Film and Sound Archive you can see and hear history, from late Victorian times to the present day, through moving images and sound recordings. The Archive contains over 36,000 film and sound recordings relating to Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire, including film and tapes of local TV and radio.
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A New dinghy for the Mary Rose expedition
It's high tide at Portsmouth Harbour as members of the Mary Rose expedition examine their latest acquisitions in this short film from Ilse McKee
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Overview
We begin in the upper reaches of Portsmouth Harbour with a boat crossing choppy water with warships in the distance. Members of the Mary Rose expedition team examine a new Atlas Copco compressor which will be used on dives to the wreck site. An inflatable dinghy is also seen. We then relocate to a shingle beach where we see Gabby and Thomas McKee splashing about in the water.
The Atlas Copco compressor seen in this film played a major part in the expedition to raise the Mary Rose. It enabled the removal of the silt that covered the wreck, which was discovered by Alexander McKee and his team, lying in the approaches to Portsmouth Harbour. Ilse McKee, who made this film, records that her husband, Alexander, who made the Mary Rose his life's work, wrote to the Warner Brothers film studios in Hollywood, telling them about the project. They gave the McKees a movie camera in order to record significant moments in the project's early history. Many of these films are now held at the Wessex Film & Sound Archive.
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