Plymouth's Portrait Bench

The Portrait Bench is a simple bench with three life sized figures, chosen by the local community for their contribution to local life, culture or history.The figures are two dimensional, cut from two inch thick steel.

It is part of a national project which when complete will comprise a national collection of 230 portraits.

From left to right the figures are:-

Marine Ben McBean - A local 25 year old, who lost an arm and a leg when he stepped on an improvised explosive device (IED), whilst serving in Afghanistan in 2007.

Since his injuries Mr McBean has run two full marathons, reached the base camp on Mt Everest using prosthetic limbs and completed The Three Peaks Challenge.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott RN (1868 - 1912) - Born in the city, Captain Scott won fame as a Polar Explorer who led two expeditions to Antarctica. It was on the ill fated second (1910 - 1913) when Scott's party reached the South Pole on 17th January 1912, only find that they had been beaten to the Pole by Roald Amundsen's Norwegian Expedition. On their desperate return journey Scott and his four comrades all died from a combination of exhaustion, starvation and extreme cold, but entered the panoply of British National Heroes.

Charles Darwin - Naturalist who proposed the theories of Evolution and Natural Selection.

Darwin's connection with Plymouth is that his famous five year voyage around the world on HMS Beagle left Plymouth on 27th December 1831,  after being stuck in Plymouth for two months waiting for favourable weather.He didn't much like the town and described his time waiting for the Beagle to sail as "The most miserable I have ever spent".

Follow the course of this epic journey by clicking here 

Looking down from Mount Wise (2)

The pictures in yesterday's post where shot from the spot where one of Plymouth's most famous sons looks down across the River Tamar.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott, Naval Officer and Antarctic Explorer (1868 - 1912), died with his four companions as they struggled back from the race to be the first to reach the South Pole, a race in which they had been beaten by Raold Amundsen and his Norwegian team.

The news of his death turned Scott into an iconic British hero 

and statues were erected to him around the country, not only here in his own home town.

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

From the poem Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Question: What connects the two images?

Answer: The Name FALCON.

On the left, the statue of one of the most famous sons of the city, Captain Robert Falcon Scott RN, (Scott of the Antarctic).The centenary of his death occurs in March 2012.
Here is some fascinating  restored footage  of Scott's expedition preparations, shot 100 years ago.

Below, the Research Vessel Falcon Spirit, named after him, which belongs to Plymouth University, and is currently involved in a wide range of research projects in the field of renewable energy sources from the sea.

Click here for details of the vessel's specification and research facilities and equipment.