Megoran’s Musings

By Thursday 4th December 1930 Cosens’s Alexandra was on the sales list. In November she had been hauled out of the water onto Cosens’s own slipway at Weymouth for survey. She

On Tuesday 3rd December 1968 Balmoral made her last voyage for Red Funnel from the Royal Pier Southampton round the corner to lay up on the River Itchen at Northam

On Monday 2nd December 1895 the paddle steamer Dover was launched from the yard of Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde. She and her sister Calais, also on the stocks in the

On Saturday 1st December 1940 Red Funnel’s paddle steamer Her Majesty was sunk in a German bombing raid on Southampton. It was a devastating air attack which did much damage

On Thursday 30th November 1933 the Southern Railway placed an order with Denny of Dumbarton to build a new paddle steamer for their Portsmouth to Ryde route and for summer

On Friday 29th November 1935 Talisman was, as usual that winter, scheduled to run the LNER ferry services connecting the north bank of the Clyde at Craigendoran to the Holy Loch,

On Wednesday 28th November 1951 Lorna Doone was slipped at Southampton for survey. She had been built as HMS Atherstone in 1916 as one of thirty-two paddle steamers specially commissioned during

Around the low water on Friday 27th November 1903 a diver was sent down alongside the railway pier at New Holland to try to retrieve the port gangway door which

On Thursday 26th November 1903 the Barry Railway Company sent out a press release announcing their intention to run passenger steamers on the Bristol Channel. This was taken up by

Former Clyde paddle steamer Jeanie Deans had been bought by Don Rose in the autumn of 1965. Renamed Queen of the South he had tried to run her on a programme of

On Monday 24th November 1969, Eppleton Hall was on her first day out after leaving Mindello in the Cape Verde Islands on her voyage across the Atlantic to Georgetown Guyana.

On 23rd November the Board of the Southampton, Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (otherwise known as Red Funnel) met in Southampton and decided

Caledonia closed her operational Clyde career by filling in on the Gourock to Tarbet mail service between 1st and 8th October 1969. She was then laid up in Rothesay Dock

On Thursday 22nd November 1962 Mrs Cecile Becket, one of the most regular passengers on the Bournemouth paddle steamers after the Second World War, was ensconced as a lodger with

With the introduction of the paddle steamer Cleddau Queen in 1956 for the short Pembroke/Neyland ferry service, the paddle steamer Alumchine, of 1923, became second vessel on the route spending much of her subsequent

Around lunchtime on Wednesday 20th November 1903 the paddle steamer Cleethorpes left the yard of her builder, Gourlay Brothers, in Dundee for the 241 nautical mile run down the east coast in

On Wednesday 19th November 1969 Eppleton Hall was alongside at Mindello in the Cape verde islands. Her master Captain Scott Newhall recounted in his excellent book about the voyage from the Tyne

On Tuesday 18th November 1969 Eppleton Hall was alongside at Mindello in the Cape Verde Islands on her voyage from Newcastle, which she had left in September, to San Francisco. She had

Talisman’s last day in passenger carrying service was Thursday 17th November 1966 when she relieved the Maid of Skelmorlie on the Holy Loch run. By 1966 the large numbers of holiday making passengers

On Wednesday 16th November 1898 Captain William Cosens, brother of Captain Joseph Cosens who had founded Cosens & Co, was buried in Melcombe Regis cemetery having died three days earlier

On Thursday 15th November 1962 Sandown left Weymouth for Portsmouth under her own steam after completion of overhaul work on her engine and boiler by Cosens & Co. She had

After a fast run along the South Coast, Jeanie Deans reached the Medway and eventually tied up on the buoys off Thunderbolt Pier at Chatham on Sunday 14th November 1965. She had

Bristol Queen arrived in Weymouth around 8am on Tuesday 13th November 1962 in calm conditions for attention to her engine and boiler by Cosens & Co. having left Barry around

Having already topped up her bunkers at Holyhead and Falmouth on her way from the Clyde to Chatham, Jeanie Deans made a call at Southampton on Friday 12th November 1965 to fill

On Monday 11th November 1963 Caledonia came close to being blown ashore on the rocks in Millport Bay. She had spent the previous night stormbound at Millport. The weather moderated

With bunkers, fresh water and food topped up Jeanie Deans set off from Holyhead on the morning of 10th November 1965 on her voyage from the Clyde to the Medway with the

The 9th November dawned with Jeanie Deans still sheltering in the lee of the NE corner of the Isle of Man in Ramsey Bay on her voyage from the Clyde to the

Jeanie Deans spent Monday 8th November continuing to shelter from the storm in the lee of the Isle of Man. Today ships have a plethora of weather forecasting and significant wave

I had left the Jeanie Deans the previous day to return to school but of course Captain Woods, Ken Moore and Alfie Le Page were still aboard and they updated me on

Having come to anchor off Stranraer at the end of the previous day the crew were up at first light to steam Jeanie Deans into Stranraer on Saturday 6th November 1965 to

So we were ready to go. About 4pm the pilot came aboard and by 5pm we were off and sailing down the Clyde into the gathering darkness and out towards

The original plan of campaign was to set off south on Thursday 4th November 1965 but this was not to be as there were still things to do to prepare

By Wednesday 3rd November 1965 Jeanie Deans was ready to run trials. Alongside in the fitting out basin at Lamont’s Shipyard, Port Glasgow, steam was raised. The engine was warmed through. And