Megoran’s Musings

On the evening of Friday 10th January 1941 Portsmouth was the subject of a series of devastating air raids during which one hundred and fifty three German bombers unleashed their

On Friday 9th January 1970 Eppleton Hall was one day away from arriving in Cartagena in Columbia on the north coast of South America. On 15th December she had arrived

On Friday 8th January 1993 KC’s engineering trustee Alan Beavan OBE and I had a meeting with the management of Crescent Shipyard at Strood to sign the contract for them

Looking through the old KC diaries I have here, I see that on Tuesday 7th January 1986 I had a meeting with Lieutenant General Sir Steuart Pringle, then Chairman and

Medina was launched at the Woolston yard of John J Thornycroft & Co at Southampton on Tuesday 6th January 1931. She was to be a twin screw vessel powered by

Friday 5th January 1962 marked the end of the first week of retirement for Captain Noah Rothwell Larkin after a long career as master with Red Funnel. He was sixty-nine.

Talisman lost all power on her approach to Kilcreggan around 5pm on 3rd January 1948 and ran aground east of the pier. There she remained overnight and there she still

On Saturday 3rd January 1948 Talisman was rostered for one round trip on the ferry link between Craigendoran on the north shore of the Clyde and Rothesay. On the return leg

On Wednesday 2nd January 1884 Cosens & Co’s passenger carrying paddle tug Queen assisted by their slightly smaller Commodore led the attempt to salvage the paddle steamer South of Ireland

Sixty years ago on 1st January 1960 Weymouth experienced yet another example of its quite regular floods as the next picture of Consul berthed just upstream of the Town Bridge

On Wednesday 31st December 1958 Charles Henry James Kaile retired as Secretary and General Manager of paddle steamer operators Cosens & Co after a career spanning 56 years with the company

On Saturday 30th December 1967 Queen of the South, ex Jeanie Deans, was in the scrapyard on the River Scheldt in Antwerp. The failure of the business cost her owner Don

Before Christmas in 1993 I was chewing the fat with the nice lady who then ran the marketing department of the Historic Dockyard Chatham over a cup of coffee in

On Thursday 28th December 1967 Queen of the South, which started her career in 1931 as the Clyde paddle steamer Jeanie Deans, was off Vlissingen after her tow across the

On Wednesday 27th December 1967 Queen of the South left the Thames under tow for the breaker’s yard in Antwerp. She was built in 1931 as Jeanie Deans for the

On Boxing Day, Friday 26th December 1902, Cosens’s paddle steamer Victoria inaugurated a new winter service offering a couple of round trips daily between Bournemouth, Boscombe and Swanage, overnighting at Poole

On Christmas Day in 1953 Embassy started to sink at her berth in Weymouth Harbour. Since 1948 Weymouth has hosted a swim across the harbour every Christmas Day. In this current

On Monday 24th December 1883, Christmas Eve, the Great Western Railway paddle steamer South of Ireland left Cherbourg during the evening for the run across the Channel bound for Weymouth.

On Sunday 23rd December 1962 Bristol Queen was still outside Cosens’ workshops in the Weymouth Backwater with any prospect of her returning to the Bristol Channel before Christmas now gone.

On Tuesday 22nd December 1966 Westward Ho arrived back in Cardiff from Weymouth where she had spent the previous nine weeks with Cosens undergoing a major overhaul of both her main

On Sunday 21st December 1919 Britannia was on passage from the Clyde down the Irish Sea and on up channel to Bristol. Having left Troon at 6.20pm the previous evening she

On Saturday 20th December 1919 P & A Campbell’s Britannia left Troon bound for Bristol. The previous day she had left the shipyard of Harland and Wolff where she had undergone

On Monday 19th December 1949 Duchess of Cornwall arrived at Pollock Brown’s scrapyard at Northam, a suburb of Southampton, on the River Itchen. She was built in 1896 as the Duchess

On Wednesday 18th December 1957 Bournemouth Queen was towed away from Southampton for the scrapyard in Ghent. She was built in 1908 for what became Red Funnel as a replacement

On Sunday 17th December 1989 Kingswear Castle ran a Santa Special leaving Strood Pier at 2pm back 4pm and Chatham Sun Pier 2.15pm back 4.15pm. Targeted at families with children we

On Saturday 16th December 1989 we put Kingswear Castle on for a Christmas Buffet Lunch cruise leaving Strood Pier at 12 noon due back at 4pm sailing down the Medway past

On Sunday 15h December 1940 Freshwater was alongside at Weymouth preparing to start a new career the following day. In the Second World War the Government set up an examination service

Having steamed across the Atlantic, with a little help from her makeshift sails, in generally fine weather and with loads of sunshine Eppleton Hall arrived at Georgetown, Guyana on Sunday

On Thursday 13th December 1928 Captain Alec Campbell, one of the two brothers who founded P & A Campbell, was buried at his home village of Kilmun on the north

Having arrived from her builders in Dundee in November, Cleethorpes made her debut on the Hull/New Holland ferry roster on Saturday 12th December 1903 taking the 2.20pm sailing out of

On Thursday 11th December 1941 the starboard sponson of Shanklin suffered considerable damage when the ship was thrown heavily alongside Ryde Pier by the excessive wash from a fast naval craft

On 10th December 1937 Cosens signed the Bill of Sale to buy the Duke of Devonshire from her then owner, Mr Alexander Taylor of Torquay. Built in 1896 the Duke, along

Cleethorpes had arrived on the Humber from her builders in Dundee on 21st November and had spent the next couple of weeks lying alongside at New Holland whilst receiving the