What was Balmoral — by then the only ship left in the P & A Campbell fleet — doing in August 1976, and how did the weather affect her sailings?
Weather has always shaped the sea‑going excursion trade. Some summers — like 1956 — brought wind and rain in abundance, with many days when the steamers were tied up earning nothing. Others — like 1955 — were excellent, with sunshine, flat calms and capacity loads. But the fine weather of 1976 was truly exceptional, smashing the records set in 1911 and 1933, with the temperature in Cheltenham reaching an eye‑watering 35.9°C on 3rd July. I was living in London at the time and it was so hot that when I got home from work in the evening I simply had to run a cold bath to cool down.
So what was Balmoral rostered to do in a week in August during this lovely, baking hot summer of 1976?
Sunday 8th August 1976: Leave Swansea (9.20am) for Mumbles (9.40am), Ilfracombe (11.45am) and Lundy (1.30pm – 4.30pm) returning to Ilfracombe (6.20pm) for Mumbles (8.20pm) and Swansea (8.40pm). After that she had to position herself to be ready to start the following day’s trip from Penarth.
Monday 9th August: Leave Penarth (9.30am) for Weston (10.25am with a coach tour offered from Weston to Wells Cathedral) for Ilfracombe (1.40pm) and cruise to Bull Point returning to Ilfracombe (4.15pm), Weston (7.15pm) and Penarth (8.5pm). After that she had to position herself to be ready to start the following day’s trips from Swansea.
Tuesday 10th August: Leave Swansea (9.15am) for Mumbles (9.35am), Ilfracombe (11.45am) and Lundy (1.30pm – 4.50pm) returning to Ilfracombe (6.45pm), Mumbles ( 8.45pm) and Swansea (9.5pm).
Wednesday 11th August: Leave Swansea (9.15am) for Mumbles (9.35am), Ilfracombe (11.45am) and Lynmouth (12.45pm) before returning to Ilfracombe (2pm – 2.30pm) and setting out for an afternoon cruise to Porlock Bay calling at Lynmouth (4.45pm) and then back to Ilfracombe (6pm – 6.20pm) for Mumbles (8.20pm) and Swansea (8.40pm).
Thursday 12th August: Leave Swansea (9.15am) for Mumbles (9.35am), Ilfracombe (11.45 – 12.20pm) and Lundy (2pm – 4.50pm) for Ilfracombe (6.45pm) Mumbles (8.45pm) and Swansea (9.5pm). After that she had to position herself to be ready to start the following day’s sailings from Penarth.
Friday 13th August: Leave Penarth (9am) for Weston (9.50am) for Penarth (10.45am) for Weston (11.35am with the offer of a coach tour in the afternoon from Weston to Bristol Zoo) for Ilfracombe (2.35pm – 3pm) for an afternoon cruise “Along the North Devon Coast passing Hillsborough Hill, Hele Bay, Watermouth Castle and harbour, Combe Martin, Hangman Hills, Heddonsmouth and towards Wooda Bay” before returning to Ilfracombe (4.15pm – 4.30pm) for Weston (7.30pm) for Penarth (8.30pm) for Weston (9pm) where the day ended.
Saturday 14th August: Leave Penarth (9.10am) for Weston (10.5am) for Ilfracombe (1.5pm – 1.20pm) for a non landing “Afternoon Cruise to Lundy Island Roads” returning to Ilfracombe (5.15pm) for Weston (8.15pm) and Penarth ( 9.5pm).
Sunday 15th August: Leave Penarth (9.10am) for Weston (10am with the offer of a coach tour to Lyme Regis, Beer and Sidmouth) for Ilfracombe (1.20pm with the offer of a coach tour to Clovelly and Westward Ho) for Lundy (3.10pm – 5.10pm) before returning to Ilfracombe (6.55pm) for Weston ( 9.55pm) and Penarth (10.45pm).
Monday 16th August: Leave Penarth (9am) for Weston (9.50am) for Penarth (10.45am with the offer of a coach tour of “The Welsh Mountains including Pontypridd, Porth, Rhigos Mountina, Vale of Neath, Bridgend and Porthcawl”) for Weston (11.35am) for Mumbles (2.40pm) and a cruise along the Gower Coast returning to Mumbles (4.30pm), Weston (7.45pm) for Penarth ( 8.45pm) and back to Weston (9.45pm) where the day ended. After that she had to position herself to be ready to start the following day’s trips from Swansea.
And so it was in other weeks with the basic building blocks of the timetable shifted around onto different days to suit the tides. It was a masterly schedule trying to squeeze trip options which a decade earlier had been offered by three ships into the timetable of just one.
In this snapshot Balmoral ran from Swansea on four days and from Penarth on five. She ran to Lundy on four days landing on three of them. Then there were cruises, including along the Devon Coast as well as to Lundy, from Ilfracombe on eight of the nine days with the only day Ilfracombe didn’t feature somewhere in the schedule this week being on Monday 16th when Balmoral was rostered for a cruise along the Welsh Coast from Penarth, Weston and Mumbles instead. In other weeks there were other options also available including a double run across from Swansea to Ilfracombe enabling a sailing from Devon to Mumbles and Porthcawl. And trips from Swansea and Mumbles to Ilfracombe and on to land at Clovelly.
1976 was also the year in which Tony McGinnity joined the board of P & A Campbell. Regular readers will know him as a founder member of the PSPS and one of the most tireless advocates for paddle steamer preservation during the 1960s. He was at the forefront of efforts to save Alumchine, Medway Queen and Kingswear Castle, bought and ran Consul in 1963–64, and through the agency he established in Weymouth handled the sales of many well‑known paddlers as they came on the market. It was Tony who organised the 1968 charter of Ryde to London as “Gilbey’s Floating Gin Palace”. In 1977, he became joint managing director of P & A Campbell with Clifton Smith‑Cox.
So that is what Balmoral was up to in 1976 – quite different from what she was doing one and two decades earlier. To look at snapshots of these earlier and halcyon days click on these links:
19th-26th August 1956: A Week in the Life of Balmoral – Kingswear Castle
August 1966: A Week in the Life of Balmoral – Kingswear Castle
Kingswear Castle returned to service in 2026 after the second part of a major rebuild which is designed to set her up for the next 25 years. The Paddle Steamer Kingswear Castle Trust is now fund raising for future rebuilds. You can read more and how you can possibly help here.
John Megoran
This article was first published on 6th August 2021.
