Nelson & His World

The story of the seamen who accompanied Nelson's coffin at his funeral is well-known: the men reputedly took hold of the the ensign after the ceremony and tore small strips as souvenirs.

This link is to the sale of one of these fragments. The accompanying text elaborates on the story a little. The flag was apparently taken from the sailors by a Captain Clyne, who then distributed the fragments to the sailors. I had not heard of Captain Clyne's intervention. Is the story new to anyone else?


http://www.frasersautographs.com/fraser ... 562/PF1956

Before anyone's mouse gets anywhere near the 'add to basket' button, it might be worth reading this thread again:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=848

He managed to fit a whole flag under his waistcoat? Obviously I'm not an expert, but wouldn't that have been a bit tricky?

Goodness me! Thanks for posting,Kester! I had completely forgotten that earlier thread! Am I standing in the foothills of the Alzheimers?

Probably not, just in the mountains of Forgetfulness. Not to worry, it affects all of us – at least I think it does!

I just looked back at a Sotheby's auction catalogue from 2005. They sold a piece of the "torn flag" - which I assume was genuine - for £140,000. But it was nearly 3ft square and included all 3 colours and a corner of the Union flag.

That puts this tiny fragment, of questionable provenance, into context.

An interesting spin on this is that back in 2005 the Sea Cadets embarked on a project to try and locate all known fragments of the "torn flag" and see how much of the flag could be reconstructed - graphically of course, not actually!!

The project was mentioned in an article in the Daily Telegraph. So I contacted one of the SC officers involved and shared with him all the information I had at that point.

If there are fake pieces out there it would have made the project pretty much impossible/meaningless. And indeed I assume it just fizzled out as I never heard anything more of it.

MB