Category Archives: Megoran’s Musings

On Tuesday 19th April 1966 Embassy was out of the water on the Admiralty slipway at Portland for survey and underwater painting where she had arrived under tow from Weymouth on

On Easter Monday 18th April 1949 Bournemouth Queen was offering trips from Bournemouth Pier in balmy weather conditions with little wind and temperatures well up into the 80 degrees Fahrenheit. It

On the morning of Thursday 17th April 1947 Cunard’s trans-Atlantic liner Queen Elizabeth ran aground inward bound on the Brambles Bank in the approaches to Southampton Water in thick fog.

On Easter Sunday 16th April 2006 Kingswear Castle was running half hour trips from the Historic Dockyard Chatham on the hour every hour from 11am to 4pm in connection with

On Tuesday 15th April 1952 Princess Elizabeth was in the middle of offering five days of Easter sailings from Bournemouth. After the mixed financial fortunes of putting on steamer trips at

On Thursday 14th April 1966 all of Westward Ho’s sailings on the Cardiff/Penarth/Barry and Weston ferry service were cancelled due to the weather which was pretty grim and included unseasonal snow

On Saturday 13th April 1946 Ravenswood made the first P & A Campbell passenger sailing after the Second World War, under the command of Captain Findlay Brander, from Bristol setting off

On Tuesday 12th April 1960 P & A Campbell’s Glen Gower arrived in the scrapyard at Boom near Antwerp on the River Scheldt in Belgium. She left Penarth Dock on

On Saturday 11th April 2015 the Loire Princesse was on the second day of her maiden voyage along the River Loire. And before we go any further let’s get one

On Monday 10th April 1961 the Dorset Evening Echo printed a photograph of progress on the scrapping of Cosens’s Monarch in the Haulbowline Industries scrapyard in Cork. She had left

On Thursday 9th April 1964 British Railway’s paddle steamer Ryde was on the grid in Newhaven Harbour for survey and underwater work. On into the 1960s one or other of

On Wednesday 8th April 1936 Gracie Fields was launched from the Southampton yard of John I Thornycroft & Co by the great lady, popular singer and artiste herself. Afterwards there was

On Good Friday 7th April 1950 Consul opened the Bournemouth season. Starting at Easter at Bournemouth and Swanage was ever tricky financially. The weather might be good. The weather might not

On 6th April 1961 Jupiter was towed away from her berth in the Albert Harbour at Greenock, where she had lain since the end of the 1957 season, bound for

On Wednesday 5th April 1950 Glen Usk opened the Bristol Channel season spending the day running backwards and forwards on the 9 nautical mile crossing between Cardiff in Wales and Weston

At 2.30pm on Thursday 4th April 1946 Bristol Queen was launched from the shipyard of Charles Hill & Sons by the Lady Mayoress of Bristol, Mrs James Owen, for P & A

On Thursday 3rd April 1945 the Admiralty announced that “spirited and successful action” was fought between HMS Paddle Minesweeper Lorna Doone, formerly part of Red Funnel’s fleet of excursion steamers, and three

During the First World War the coal mines were taken over and run by the Government as part of the war effort. After the war they were returned to their

For Easter 1958 P & A Campbell rostered three paddle steamers for their Bristol Channel sailings: Glen Usk for the Cardiff Weston ferry, Bristol Queen for the down Channel trips

The boiler and engine of Princess Elizabeth have been found in a lockup just outside Basingstoke where they have lain undisturbed for fifty years amongst a treasure trove of other