Megoran’s Musings

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

Following the departure of Captain Baker at the end of the 1956 season, Cosens appointed Cdr T Johnston to become their Bournemouth manager in March 1957 to take his place.

The operational career of Red Funnel’s Duchess of Cornwall finished at the end of March 1949. She had been built in 1896 by Barclay Curle on the Clyde as Duchess of

Cosens & Co Limited held their Annual General Meeting at 12.15pm on Tuesday 29th March 1955 in the company’s board room in their office in Weymouth at which they presented

28th March 1948 was Easter Sunday and Cosens’s Embassy was ready to start her season. However it was not a nice day with wind and general murk so she stayed

Easter was early in 1967 and the weather terrible with wind, rain and heavy seas. Although both Waverley and Caledonia were rostered to be out from 24th to the 27th March, passenger

On Sunday 27th March 1960 Princess Elizabeth was in a mud berth at Northam, a suburb of Southampton, being prepared for a new career running excursions from Torquay. In 1958 Red Funnel

On Monday March 26th 1951 Pride of Devon was in the scrapyard at Grays in Essex having been towed round from Southampton where she had been laid up since the

On Tuesday 24th March 1970 Eppleton Hall completed her more than 8,000 nautical mile marathon across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and on up the west Coast of North America

On Tuesday 23rd March 1954 the brand new Clyde car ferry Arran carried her 2,000th vehicle between Gourock and Dunoon with the lucky owner given a free ticket as a prize.

On Friday 22nd March 1968 Bristol Queen had rounded Lands End and was on her way up along the south Coast of Cornwall under tow bound from Cardiff to the breaker’s

The Diesel electric paddler Farringford was launched at the shipyard of Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde on Friday 21st March 1947 for the Southern Railway’s Isle of Wight ferry

On Monday 20th March 1961 when this picture was taken work was starting on the demolition of Monarch in the scrapyard of Haulbowline Industries in Cork. Not a lot has

On 19th March 2001 Kingswear Castle was at the Acorn Shipyard at Strood undergoing major works. It was a busy time for renewals. Not only was a new boiler built for

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