Selina King heading down the slipway at Pin Mill: Photo by Arthur Ransome. Copyright by The Arthur Ransome Literary Estate, and reproduced with the permission of Special Collections, Leeds University Library. (Click to enlarge)

Nancy Blackett Trust’s exhibition project wins National Lottery support

The Nancy Blackett Trust has received £8,300-plus from the Heritage Lottery Fund for its project to present Arthur Ransome’s own photos of the building of his yacht Selina King at Pin Mill, Suffolk, in 1938.

Made possible by money raised by National Lottery players, the photographs will go on permanent display at the Pin Mill Studio on May 13th as part of the riverside hamlet’s Arthur Ransome Jamboree, which marks the start of a summer-long celebration of the local author who died 50 years ago this year. They were originally taken by the Arthur Ransome as part of a plan to write a book about building the boat that was to be the successor to Nancy Blackett. They were discovered in an album in the Ransome archive in the Brotherton Library Special Collection at Leeds University.

The black-and-white prints, smaller than cigarette cards, at less than 3 x 2 inches (7.5 x 5 centimetres), had to be processed by the Brotherton’s digitisation department as extra-high-resolution 1200dpi TIFF files, before being sent to the Nancy Blackett Trust. They have since been further processed by Trust member and photographer Anthony Cullen to enhance detail and remove dust particles, and enlarge them over 60 times to A2-sized exhibition prints.

Mr Cullen has also selected two images to be blown up even further to 4-foot wide AO-sized prints on transparent acrylic sheets. This has enabled them to be mounted where they can be seen from the point of view of the photographer, with the present-day Pin Mill scene behind them.

“It’s remarkable how little things have changed in the last 80 years,” he comments. “These photos really connect Pin Mill to its boatbuilding past.”

The Nancy Blackett Trust was originally set up 20 years ago to secure the preservation of Arthur Ransome’s yacht Nancy Blackett, which he featured as the Goblin in his classic children’s novel “We Didn’t Mean to Go to Sea”. 

Peter Willis, President of the Nancy Blackett Trust, said, “We regard this project as an important extension of our work to preserve Arthur Ransome’s maritime heritage and celebrate his connection with the East Coast.”

Plans are in hand to develop educational materials for local schools, and there is a future possibility of a book based on the photos and the text that Ransome completed about the building of Selina King.

Commenting on the Heritage Lottery Fund award, Peter Willis added: “We’re delighted to have received this funding thanks to National Lottery players, and are very pleased to be able to use it to bring this part of its history back to the local community.”