Nick Jellicoe

I am deeply humbled by the honour that you have given me today.  I am joining an extraordinary team of gifted individuals in a special place: Bitten, John Silver, Knud Jakobsen. Led by a man  - Gert Normann Andersen - whose extraordinary generosity, modesty and  commitment has given each one of us something very precious. A sense of direction and purpose.  

Gert Normann and I have not known each other that long. 4 years but we have built a special friendship on a shared passion.

How those who died at Jutland  - or in any conflict – shouldn’t be overshadowed with messages of glory and sacrifice. This is too often the case in national commemorations. The museum is here to tell stories, to make one stop and think, to reflect a little and to try to get a closer to the truth of conflict: the horror of world war.  

Every moment of this friendship with Gert, with Thyborøn, with his team, has been very special for me. We have shared our knowledge, helped each other and worked as a team.  It has been an extraordinary and very privileged journey for me.

I would never have been able to write about the Jutland wrecks or the remaining wrecks in Scapa Flow without having seen them. Or to have been able to have been part of the documentary films.

Each time I come to this museum it is also like visiting old friends. There are many objects here that are very personal:

• The Union Jack which up until yesterday was on the wall opposite the E.50 conning tower.  It was this flag which my grandfather covered his mother’s coffin when she died in 1916 and he wasn’t able to leave the Fleet. It was replaced yesterday with Iron Duke’s white ensign, her battle flag, which I will be taking back to its home on the Isle of White in a month.  
• When I see his watches, I think of my grandfather quietly working out what to do in the midst of the chaos of battle. Gert and I had them with us when he invited me to join the expedition in 2015.  
• A very special gift to the family by a man who spent three years of his life lovingly making it is the ship’s model of the Iron Duke. Ron wasn’t rich, he was a bricklayer, a man who built houses. He sadly died of cancer and never saw his model here but his widow and I talk each month.
• When the Iron Duke was loaned to the German Naval Museum, Stefan Huck, the museum Director and I then drove here with a model of Lutzow in the back of the van, arriving in the dark, in the rain, working with Gert that night before we left in the morning. I hope that moments like these will also lead to more sharing and co-operation between the principal European naval museums. The story is all the better for sharing our resources and knowledge.

The last four years have been very full of these kinds of memories. Helping digitize photos, translating Knud’s audio guide, using different language versions of the Jutland animation to help German visitors. It has been the greatest pleasure to work with, and learn from, the men and women of the team, J/D Contractor, the Sea War museum. I could spend hours on the bridge of the Vina listening to Mons’ explanations of how multi-beam works and what it helps us now see.

Whatever I can do to bring value and connections to help this wonderful museum, I will do. This is a great honour. I am under no illusion that the tasks ahead are not small. That’s the pleasure of working with people of passion and vision. I am excited about the challenge and look forward to being part of this great team.

Thank you.