Megoran’s Musings

Browsing through old Paddle Wheels, as I often do, I came across a fascinating spat between the P & A Campbell management and the PSPS in the late 1960s and

On Wednesday 11th February 1948 training continued aboard the Humber paddle steamer Tattershall Castle in the use of the new fangled radar set which had been installed on the ship

On Tuesday 10th February 1970 Eppleton Hall was off the western coast of Mexico steaming on a north westerly heading towards Manzanillo. She had left the Panama Canal on 17th January

On 9th February 1836 the Jersey Argus printed a letter from a passenger recounting his recent experience of sailing on the steam packet paddle steamer Flamer on a voyage from

It was generally the pattern for two of the Humber paddle steamers Tattershall Castle, Wingfield Castle and Lincoln Castle to be engaged on the ferry service between Hull and new

Regular readers of these posts will need no introduction to Captain Sydney Shippick. For any who don’t know he started off as a mate with Cosens, set up on his

On Monday 6th February 1961 the tug Salvonia, which had come to Weymouth to tow Monarch to the breaker’s yard in Cork, set off without her. Salvonia had been there for nearly

On Thursday 5th February 1964 work commenced on the refit of Red Funnel’s Balmoral berthed outside the workshops of Cosens & Co in Weymouth. She had arrived the previous day

On Thursday 4th February 1965 Consul left Weymouth around 9.30am for her last voyage in steam across Lyme Bay to Dartmouth. In this picture you can see her master Captain Defrates,

From Christmas 1962 through to early March 1963 the whole of the UK was blatted by a ferocious winter freeze up which covered the land with thick layers of snow

On Sunday 2nd February 1964 Medway Queen was alongside in the Nelson Dock at Rotherhithe having been towed there on Wednesday 29th January from the Medway under the command of

This picture, provided by Peter Ford, was taken of Victoria in the Southampton scrapyard on Sunday 1st February 1953, just over a week after her arrival under her own steam

On Tuesday 31st January 1961 Monarch, boarded up for her voyage to the scrapyard in Ireland, was towed away from her berth in the Weymouth Backwater, through the Town Bridge

On Friday 30th January 1970 Duchess of Argyll  was in the scrapyard above the bridge in Newhaven Harbour having left Portland, where she had been based during the 1950s and 1960s,

On Monday 29th January 1962 Consul was up on Cosens’s own slipway in Weymouth for her annual survey by the Board of Trade. This was earlier than usual. March was

With the PSPS trying hard to lobby to save the Monarch, on Saturday 28th January 1961 the Bournemouth Echo published two more letters from enthusiasts in support of the Bournemouth/Swanage

At their January 1967 board meeting, Cosens decided to loose from their employ Capt John Iliffe at the end of the month following their decision to withdraw from steamer operations

On Thursday 26th January 1961 the Bournemouth Echo ran a piece announcing that Monarch had been sold for scrap in Cork, Southern Ireland and that the PSPS was to hold

Cosens’ paddle steamer Emperor of India shifted ship from her berth in the Weymouth Backwater through the Town Bridge on Monday 21st January 1957, was put in charge of a Belgian

On Tuesday 24th January 1950 P & A Campbell’s Britannia was towed back to drydock in Bristol only eight days after she had left it. The fact that this was

On Monday 23rd January 1939 Royal Daffodil was being prepared for her launch the following day at the yard of Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde. Although not a paddle

Shortly after breakfast on Thursday 22nd January 1953, Cosens’s paddle steamer Victoria left Weymouth under her own steam and under the command of Capt Moore for the six hour voyage

On hearing the news that Cosens were to sell their Monarch the newly formed PSPS swung into action straight away to try to save her with founding father of the Society

On Wednesday 20th January 1937 in the yard of Denny of Dumbarton on the Clyde the framing of the paddle steamer Ryde was nearing completion. That job would be finished

On the evening of Saturday 19th January 1963 the Humber ferry Tattershall Castle broke free from her moorings in a storm. The two watchmen, Deck Hand Alan Harrod and Leading

Sunday 18th January 1970 was Eppleton Hall’s first day out in the Pacific having cleared Balbao at the western end of the Panama Canal the previous day. After two days

In their edition for Tuesday 17th January 1961 the Dorset Evening Echo reported that Cosens’s paddle steamer Monarch would not sail again for the company and was now up for

Around midday on Monday 16th January 1950 P & A Campbell’s paddle steamers Britannia and Ravenswood left Charles Hill’s drydock at Bristol, which they had shared, dead ship and under tow

At the turn of the year in 1941 HMS Aristocrat, the ex Clyde paddler Talisman, was posted from Rosyth to Sheerness as an anti-aircraft ship. By 15th January she was

On Sunday 14th January 1968 whilst lying alongside and up for sale P & A Campbell’s Bristol Queen was rammed by the Liberian oil tanker Geodor which was manoeuvring for

On Wednesday 13th January 1937 the paddle steamer Sawbwa was in the process of being deconstructed in the Denny yard at Dumbarton on the Clyde. She had been ordered on

On Thursday 12th January 1989 Pat Bushell and I took a Kingswear Castle stand at the South East England Tourist Board (SEETB) Excursions Fair at Wembley. From the outset of

The German bombing raid on Portsmouth which had started shortly after tea time on the previous day continued on until gone 2am on the following morning of Saturday 11th January