I've still got most of the souvenir bottle of rum that I bought in Cuba a couple of years ago (not to mention a bottle of Syrian arrack from a 1998 trip) so I resisted adding to my alcohol stocks when I visited The Rum Story  in Whitehaven.

This is the story of a local family who developed a rum business in Antigua. There's a lot to see including some grisly mementos of the slave trade that made the business possible.  The town has rather a lot of mementos of past glories compensating perhaps for the lack of present ones.  It's lost its place as a commercial harbour, as a centre of mining and as a fishing port of any importance.

Fishy Memento

Maritime Memento

Mining Memento

Military Memento

Further up the coast at Maryport there are mementos of a much earlier time in the Senhouse Roman Museum which has an extensive collection of material found in the area.  There's a Roman fort adjacent but you have to use your imagination to turn the grassy mound into an outpost of the empire or the handful of diggers straggling onto it after their lunch into a detachment of legionnaires.

After my few days exploring the Cumbrian coast I spent the weekend playing the saxophone in this stately pile turned adult education centre.  It was fun but emphasised again that I've a way to go.

 

Was it sensible then to go to the Queen's Hall immediately on my return to hear the SNJO and a saxophonist who was introduced by Tommy Smith as the greatest jazz improviser on the planet?