The connecting power of history

Back in 2005 we celebrated the 200th anniversary of the Royal Navy’s victory at Trafalgar, this was marked at the Old Royal Naval College at Greenwich by a Royal banquet in the Painted Hall. Having a connection with this wonderful place I was asked by the organisors if there was anything I could do to support the event. At that time I was the hon. Consul ?for Crimea where my favourite client was the magnificent winery at Massandra. Nelson’s favourite tipple was unsurprisingly Marsala, the fortified wine from Sicily. The standard post dinner tot for the RN was port. Massandra produced both of these wines to superb quality so I asked the general director if he might like to support this anniversary of possibly the greatest event in British history. “Why”? he very sensibly asked. Why indeed.

Cut to the Mediterranean a few years before Trafalgar. The Napoleonic fleet had been defeated at the Battle of the Nile by Nelson, beaten but not defeated. In the centre of the Mediterranean lies Malta, then occupied by the French. They had been away from base too long, as had Nelson. Neither had the capacity for a fight. Having the upper hand in numbers Nelson agreed to allow the French Fleet to exit Malta under parole before occupying Grand Harbour. There he found a starving population, zero naval stores, spars, cordage and so on. He sent his fleet train into the Black Sea where the three ships loaded up in Crimea and Odesa with food, wine and naval stores before returning to Malta, they also took onboard a number of experienced sailors seeking employment. Thus I was able to join Nelson with Malta, Malta with Crimea and Ukraine and ultimately Trafalgar. A dozen or more of those sailors from Ukraine remained with Nelson to fight at Trafalgar. The General Director was suitably convinced, ?(His own father had been a man of the sea) Massandra donated two large barrels, specially made for the banquet, one of Port the other of Marsala. I then managed to fix it for the ambassadors of Ukraine and Malta to sit side by side opposite the Royal guest.

The barrels were placed for the ceremony bang in the middle of the picture above.

When the barrels, properly inscribed, arrived in the Painted Hall we held a ceremony of handover, this coincided with the arrival of Ukrainian President Yushenko to meet HM The Queen to receive his “man of the year” award. At our ceremony the Ukrainian Embassy kindly presented me with the one and only medal I have ever received, The Order of St. George.

Wine theory, forget the string.