Megoran’s Musings

On Saturday 18th March 1961 the London & Home Counties Branch of the PSPS held its first meeting. A committee was elected chaired by Bill Prynne. who I got to

Given her subsequent career trajectory it is easy to think of Waverley as having been built primarily as an excursion paddle steamer which of course to some extent she was.

On Monday 16th March 1959 Consul was up on Cosens’s own slipway in Weymouth for underwater survey and hull painting. She had been towed from her layup berth in Weymouth just

On Monday 15th March 1948 Brading and Southsea were in the fitting out basin at the Denny shipyard at Dumbarton on the Clyde having been launched the previous Thursday 11th March.

Wingfield Castle made her last voyage in steam with the 5.30pm departure from Hull to New Holland on Thursday 14th March 1974 under the command of Captain Stan Wright after

On Saturday 13th March 1915 Golden Eagle carried 569 German prisoners of war, including 9 officers, from Le Havre to Southampton following their capture during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle the

On Monday 12th March 1934 Brighton Belle was in the shipyard in Barrow-in-Furnace with work continuing to remove her old boiler and install a new one. She had left Bristol at

On Thursday 11th March 1953 Maid of Ashton, sister of the Maid of Argyll pictured above, was in the fitting out basin at Yarrow’s Clyde shipyard having been launched on 17th February.

On Friday 10th March 1911 Lake Lucerne’s latest paddle steamer Rhein ran trials on the lake. At 44m LOA Rhein was a medium sized paddle steamer 20m shorter than the Wilhem

On the morning of Saturday 9th March 1963, having just left drydock St Trillo set off bound from Birkenhead for Cardiff but due to the weather only got as far

On the afternoon of Wednesday 8th March 1961 the bell from Cosens’s first Monarch, built in 1888, was presented by Charles Kaile, a director and former general manager of Cosens, to

Tuesday 7th March 1972 was the second day of the resumption of the paddle steamer ferry service between Hull and New Holland after a coal shortage caused by a strike

On Tuesday 6th March 2001 Kingswear Castle’s new boiler arrived from the factory of Wellman Robey and was lifted into place aboard the ship. The new and the old boilers next

In the spring of 1967 Caledonia was reserve steamer based at Gourock for the ferry services once again and as usual had a number of outings on scheduled services at

In early March 1957 a debate was raging in the pages of the Bournemouth Echo about the possible advantages of reintroducing Zostera weed to Poole Harbour to encourage wildlife and

On Saturday 3rd March 2001 Kingswear Castle took a stand at the South East England Tourist Board Travel Trade Fair at Brighton. There were usually three or four of of

By Wednesday 2nd March 1932 Royal Eagle had been in the fitting out basin at the Mersey shipyard of Cammell Laird for just one week having been launched the previous Wednesday.

Having planned to leave Weymouth at the end of January poor weather delayed her departure for a whole month to Wednesday 1st March 1961 when she finally got away under

On Wednesday 28th February 1968 work was in hand aboard Cardiff Queen to prepare her for the tow from Barry to Newport the following day. Withdrawn in September 1966, P &

On Wednesday 27th February 1957, Dextrous, built at Yarrows yard at Scotstoun on the Clyde for the Royal Maritime Auxiliary Service, set off bound for Portsmouth. The following year she

By Saturday 26th February 1949 Lucy Ashton was now laid up with her boiler blown down in Bowling Harbour. Her passenger certificate had expired on Thursday 17th February. Surplus to

On 25th February 1947 Cardiff Queen was prepared for her launch by Mrs Banks, Chairman of P & A Campbell, and move to the fitting out basin of Fairfield Shipbuilding

After passing through the Town Bridge to berth alongside the Pleasure Pier at the harbour mouth, Monarch left Weymouth under tow on Thursday 23rd February 1950 for a voyage along

On Monday 23rd February 1948 Lucy Ashton became the first of the former LNER fleet to have her red, white and black funnel painted buff with a black top to conform

By Monday 22nd February 1965 Caledonia was on the slipway at Lamont’s Shipyard at Port Glasgow for her annual Board of Trade survey and refit. 1964 was the last season

On Friday 21st February 1941 HMS Aristocrat, the former Clyde paddler Talisman, was given a thorough inspection by Captain E C Cordeaux RN, Senior Officer Thames Local Defence Flotilla, at Sheerness.

On Monday 20th February 1950 the 150ft long paddle steamer Aberdare, built for the United Africa Company, was launched at the shipyard of William Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde. Aberdare

After a refit by Cosens, Vecta left Weymouth around 10am on Thursday 17th February 1966 bound for Cardiff where she arrived around 8am on Saturday 19th. It had been a windy

By Saturday 18th February 1950 the news was out that Cosens’s first and twin funnelled Monarch had been sold for scrap. On Tuesday 22nd February she was towed from the

On Thursday 17th February 1966 Vecta left Weymouth around 10am for the passage down the Dorset, Devon and Cornish Coasts to Lands End and then on up the Bristol Channel to Cardiff

By Friday 16th February 1962 Captain Stuart M Townsend was the proud owner of the paddle steamer Swanage Queen then lying laid up at Topsham on the River Exe in

In February 1934 Mr Jeremiah Dwyer, who ran Rocksavage Engineering in Cork, was looking to buy a paddle steamer to offer short excursions on the River Lee in the south

Around 5.30pm on the evening of Tuesday 13th February 1945 the first of the Lancaster bombers took off from England for the 700 mile flight to Dresden to lead the