Bountiful remakes
QUESTION What became of the replica Bounty, an exact copy of HMS Bounty built for the 1935 film Mutiny On The Bounty? CAPTAIN Bligh’s famous vessel was originally a Whitby collier named Bertha. As with Captain Cook’s vessel, Endeavour, another ex-Whitby collier, she didn’t have a squarer i gged mizzen mast and was therefore neither ship nor barque.
In the 1935 film, Clark Gable starred as Fletcher Christian with Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh.
His Bounty was built up on the frames of an old American lumber schooner named Lily, extended outwards to achieve the shape of a Whitby collier, planked up and fitted out as the Bounty.
Another replica was used in the film in which Trevor Howard played Bligh and Marlon Brando was Christian.
This was constructed traditionally in 1962 by the renowned Smith and Rhuland shipyard of Nova Scotia and was markedly larger than the original as well as being a threemasted full-rigger, with a different configuration to her bowsprit.
A third replica was used in the 1980 film Bounty, with Anthony Hopkins as Bligh and Mel Gibson as Christian.
It had the same dimensions and cat rig as the original but was constructed i n steel, clad with wooden planks for visual effect. It was built in 1978 by the Whangarei Engineering and Construction Company of New Zealand.
Some doubt the fate of the first film vessel but it’s generally accepted that, through neglect, she sank in the Fifties alongside the breakwater at Long Beach, California.
The 1962 Bounty foundered in a hurricane last year, 180km off Cape Hatteras in the Carolinas, while the New Zealand replica is now used for day trips around Hong Kong harbour.
Within the strict meaning of the word ‘replica’, no accurate re- construction of His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty has ever been built. Philip Rose-Taylor. MN retd, Weymouth, Dorset.
QUESTION What is the origin of the Biblical idea that a man named Adam and a woman named Eve were the first inhabitants of the Earth? THE story of Adam and Eve comes from the Bible but it long predates the writing of the Old Testament.
According to Genesis 2:15, God created Adam. From Adam and his partner, Eve, the human race was said to have sprung, but the story of how humans came to inhabit the earth is much older than the Biblical version of events.
The first cities in the world were created about 5,000 BC in the Tigris- Euphrates valley in what is now present- day Iraq and it was there that the first folk tales began to accumulate of how humans began to inhabit the earth.
During the Sumerian era, in this part of the Middle East, about 2,000 BC, the legend of Adam and Eve and their fall from grace in the Garden of Eden became much more developed and stylised. These folk tales were passed on as part of an oral tradition; they weren’t written down.
The Sumerian word for ‘Eden’ was Edin, which meant an uncultivated plain. In time, the Sumerian story found its way into the Bible as the story of Adam and Eve.
Similar stories are to be found in other cultures as far away as India; ancient Judaism had a similar tale and in fact, according to traditional Jewish beliefs, Adam and Eve are buried in the cave of Machpelah in Hebron.
Ancient Persian folk tales on the subject are also similar; the old Persian names for the first man and the first woman were Mesha and Meshiane.
Today, the Qur’an has similar stories to that of Adam and Eve, while ancient Indian culture has almost identical tales. In northern Europe, in far off Norse times, the first man and the first woman were called Ash and Embla respectively.
So the story of Adam and Eve, as told in the Bible, has its origins in folk stories told long before the Bible was written.
The story also provides much of the scriptural foundation for the doctrines of the Fall of Man and Original Sin, themselves two of the foundations for Christianity.
The first five books of the Bible are attributed to Moses, which means that the earliest writings of the Bible were done about 1,400 BC. The Old Testament was completed by 400 BC.
This means the stories that Moses supposedly wrote down, including that of Adam and Eve, were a written transcription of folk stories that were around 4,000 years old. Often, these old folk stories had more than a grain on truth in them.
Adam and Eve wasn’t the only story in the Bible that had its origins in earlier times and tales. Stories about Abraham and Moses, even aspects of some of Christ’s characteristics, have their origins in preBiblical oral legends.
While many people still recognise that the real history of humanity’s creation is to be found in Genesis, including Adam and Eve, many scientists have argued that the present genetic diversity of humans couldn’t possibly have come from a single pair of individuals.
One suggestion is that all humans are descended from about 10,000 people who lived between 100,000 and 150,000 years ago. But in the Bible, there is no indication that God created any other human beings other than Adam and Eve.
Meanwhile, whatever the pre-Biblical origins of the Adam and Eve story, a church that is popularly known as Adam and Eve’s forms one of the most distinctive parts of the Dublin city centre skyline, with its green copper dome.
The real name of the church on Merchant’s Quay is the Church of the Immaculate Conception, but people generally refer to it as ‘Adam and Eve’s’.
The church was founded in 1834 and has been much enlarged and expanded since then, most recently in 1959. Before the Reformation, the Francisan Fathers were based in what is now the church of St Nicholas of Myra in Francis Street in the Liberties.
After they were expelled from there in penal times, they met in a small room behind the Adam and Eve tavern in Cook Street and celebrated mass in that room. What had been the name of the pub was subsequently transferred to the church, when it was built.
Today, most people are still very aware of the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, but whether it’s a true story and can be taken as a literal explanation of the origins of the human race has become a matter of considerable controversy.
Lauren Smith, Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh.
QUESTION Where is the longest water slide in the world? THE current record holder is the 134.5ft Insano slide in Fortaleza, northern Brazil. Riders plummet down an almost vertical drop at a nerve- shredding speed, reaching around 105kmh. The plunge is so steep that the whole ride takes just four or five seconds.
Constructed in 1989, it attracts daredevils from all over the world. To avoid injury, you have to lie on your back with your arms and legs crossed.
For those not distracted by the drop below, it offers spectacular views of the Atlantic Ocean.
But it’s thought Insano will lose its crown later this year with the opening of Verrückt at Schlitterbahn Water Park, in Kansas City. ‘Verrückt’ is German for ‘insane’ and when completed will be about 140ft long.
G B Hollins, Bridgnorth, Shropshire.
QUESTION Was there ever an ‘actress and a bishop’, as referred to in ribald stories? THE phrase ‘as the actress said to the bishop’ seems to have been coined by Leslie Charteris for his character Simon Templar, The Saint.
It first appears in the first book of the lengthy series Meet The Tiger published by Ward Lock in 1928 (re-published under the title The Saint Meets The Tiger), where Simon’s man servant, Orace, says ‘Oo knows, as the actriss said ta the bishup’ (the spelling representing his gruff style of speaking).
It’s unlikely that there were a real actress and bishop involved: the humour is derived from the juxtaposition of extreme ends of the social scale.
For many years actresses were perceived as being little more than prostitutes, while bishops represented high moral characters, so were unlikely to meet socially or indulge in social intercourse... as the actress said to the bishop.
David Albury, Quizmaster, Edinburgh.