Elder Dempster Line

Rebuilding a Dream - relics of the Aureol
Colour photos from the collection of Peter Knego who's text is also reproduced here-


The story is still not finished in this room, but here is a look at progress under way. Frames need molding installed and the farthest door on right needs its outer surface cleaned and polished like the other lustrous doors. We may light them all from the back to emphasize the beauty of the panels. The nickel plate (until last week hidden underneath gold paint) light strips have been cleaned and mounted on the ceiling corners above each door. They are incredibly heavy and took quite a bit of maneuvering to get into place. Hopefully the next seismic blast will not dislodge them, or the table will be impaled. We affixed flourescent lights behind them rather than rebuild the walls to accommodate their massive and defunct circuitry (which will nonetheless be kept in a safe place for archival purposes). The table, which is not from AUREOL (and will likely be replaced with something more fitting), sports two of her fixtures. On the right, with its breast-shaped cone is a nickel plate fixture from the first class dining room. There are three of these, all of which arrived with accompanying glass in varying degrees of destruction (shame on the packers for this because they were perfectly intact at Alang). One glass will look fine once it is mounted, but the other two will need replacing. The one with the best glass will be mounted in the central portion of the ceiling where the black saucer is now. The other two will find their futures in different parts of the house. The circular fixture was originally in the first class Library, which later became the AUREOL's Cinema. It will go in the kitchen once I get it rewired and have the missing panels replaced. Its surviving panels are of frosted glass trimmed with a simple linear pattern -- very delicate, hence the tissue paper padding to cushion loose panels that might fall into the fixture while it is in its dormant "upside down" state. Fixture is also nickel plate and its base (painted white) will soon be stripped to match the rest. Set of eight well worn blue leather (trimmed in white) and wood first class Dining Room chairs (saved by a frantic Lalit from the Indian firewood truck) will eventually be restored and put to use in this room, which I will likely never leave once it is complete!

The lightfittings and the doors can be seen in the backgrounds of these two photographs taken on board

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