EAW004210 ENGLAND (1947). Queen Mary in dry dock, Southampton, 1947

2ndWW camouflage paint scheme.

'Toogood's Farm and Garden Seeds for all Soils and Climates'

Toogood and Sons The King's Seedsmen.

Redundant or surplus naval mines? For a photograph see the Imperial War Museum (IWM) example of a mark XVII, which were 48 inches tall (1.22m) and 40 inches diameter (1.02m). Those in the BfA image seem larger, when compared to the double decker buses behind, but if the IWM example is a mark 17, presumably there were 16 types before hand, some of which may have been bigger. As a child, (late1950s, early '60s) I remember seeing old mines at seaside towns, painted red and used as coin collecting boxes for donations for, I think, ship-wrecked sailors. I seem to recall one on the Gordon Promenade at Gravesend and asking my parents what it was. The Royal Navy laid extensive mine fields around the British coast during WW2 to counter the risk of invasion and as a weapon against German U-boats. These must have been cleared after the War, made safe, and held at various locations pending final disposal. See: https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30021858

Very large ships' propellers

Ships' lifeboats

I always looked out of the passing train to see what was in the dry dock.... and indeed one day there was the Queen Mary, but not on this occasion as my viewing started about ten years later!

The Queen Mary undergoing conversion back to being a Cunard liner. The grey paint is giving way to black on the hull and the funnels have already got black tops and seem to have been repainted red, but it is hard to tell as red is a difficult colour to 'see' (detect might be a better word) in black and white pictures!

Now here's the real question about this image; what are the large, black spheres so neatly piled up at Southampton Docks?