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00:00Thank you so much for watching.
00:30They were once as much a part of the Great British Seaside as fish and chips.
00:45Pleasure steamers, linking industrial cities to seaside resorts, treating ordinary people to all the trappings of a glamorous ocean voyage on day trips along the British coast.
01:01It was a fantastic experience to be on board in your best clothes, sailing to magical places that you could only dream of from the centre of the city.
01:09I know beyond a doubt my heart will lead me there soon.
01:19These tourists suddenly found that they had effectively a baby cruise liner on which they could go for the day and they had all the luxury that you would expect on a much, much larger ship.
01:31And we will be beyond the sea.
01:34The excursion steamer was the first form of mass transport, creating a market for travelling for pleasure long before the arrival of railways.
01:44More than anything, what they did was to democratise luxury, with fares aimed at the working family.
01:53Once aboard, the emphasis was on style and service.
01:58The low deck was an atmosphere almost akin to a London hotel.
02:07They offered the latest in entertainment.
02:09On board that day, the star attraction was the sex symbol of the day.
02:15At a time when drinking hours were highly regulated ashore, at sea, anything went.
02:21Yeah, some pretty hairy sights on the way back at ten o'clock at night, I can assure you.
02:26High tees on the high seas.
02:28They brought the adventure of an ocean voyage whilst rarely venturing out of sight of land.
02:34Open to war, they were the people's liners.
02:38It's the early 1950s, and Britain's inshore steamer fleets are eager for business, offering coastal voyages from seaside piers that got you back in time for tea.
03:04Ashore is an era of post-war austerity.
03:09The offer afloat is a taste of luxury.
03:12The steamers operated from ports all around Britain.
03:17But the greatest concentration of steamers and piers had always been along the Clyde Riviera and on the Bristol Channel.
03:26The Bristol Channel was crisscrossed with excursion routes.
03:33Operated by large paddle steamers, each carrying between 500 and 1,000 passengers.
03:40After the Second World War, they were all operated by one company.
03:45Everybody knew P&A Campbell, the white funnel fleet, as it used to be called.
03:49They were a very, very big organisation.
03:52We're probably looking at something about the equivalent of First Bus or one of the big regional airlines.
03:59It was the household name.
04:01If you wanted to go out for a trip, you went to Tom Campbell's.
04:04With the World War still a recent memory, a weary public in flight from drabness did indeed spend a day the white funnel way, rediscovering the joys of the seaside.
04:23Fly me to the moon and let me play among the stars.
04:32Leaving the industry of Bristol and the South Wales coal fields, they voyaged across the Channel.
04:38The Bristol Channel, that is.
04:40To the resorts of the Devon, Somerset and Welsh coasts.
04:44Most people didn't have a car in the 50s, so the trip to Ilfracombe on the boat, that was where the holiday started.
04:51To a lot of South Wales, it was obviously a different world.
04:57Some of these miners obviously could have been in the pit one day and then the next day they were in sunny Ilfracombe.
05:04Maybe having a cream tea, maybe having a lobster tea even.
05:08And there was this sense of, well, they were going away.
05:14They were going abroad.
05:16They were going to England.
05:18My childhood memories of the initial trips I made on these ships was from Newport to Western Supermare.
05:26Without fail, we went there every year for our week's holiday.
05:31We always went on the steamer as a family.
05:34Mother, father, three, four, sometimes five youngsters.
05:39Staying then in P&Bs.
05:42And the type of place then was, you went out at nine in the morning and you didn't come back until six or seven o'clock at night, regardless of the weather.
05:51We were spending days on the beach.
05:54Visiting the Grand Pier and its attractions.
05:57We had the donkey loads on the beach.
05:59The ice cream cones capped with chocolate sauce, which set immediately and hit the ice cream.
06:10The steamers were far more than a mode of holiday transport.
06:14Having disembarked their first load, typically holidaymakers staying for the week, they would then welcome day-trippers up the gangplank for a jaunt along the coast and back.
06:27In an age of limited holiday choices and leisure opportunities, an excursion by steamer was a thrilling ride.
06:34The holiday highlight.
06:36From the deck, you might be on passage from Cardiff to Weston.
06:41Down below, though, you could be on a transatlantic line-up.
06:46The inside was very luxurious.
06:50Big staircases going down and seats around and a lot of upholstered seats in Mockett and that sort of thing.
07:02Oh, yes, yes.
07:03Lovely furnishings.
07:05Some people have tried to draw a parallel between ocean liners and paddle steamers, which you might think far-fetched, but actually there are comparisons.
07:13As it were, the people's liners, the paddle steamers that the average person could travel on, were hugely luxurious.
07:21A taste of that refinement could be found in the restaurant.
07:25Luncheons included salmon, hams and roasts, served by immaculate uniformed waiters.
07:34Neil O'Brien's father was a chief steward.
07:37Neil spent school holidays, bunked down in his cabin, and so experienced this elegance firsthand.
07:45Tables were immaculate in the dining saloon, with the actual flowers and all the cutlery and condiments.
07:53And the restaurant was Silver Service.
07:56They were renowned, even after the war, P&A Campbell, for their food.
08:00However refined your palate, dining on a steamer came with a sense of occasion.
08:05Fish and chips for high tea.
08:09Oh!
08:11In a saloon! My goodness!
08:14Only grown men went into saloons.
08:17And I was never allowed to eat fish and chips.
08:22So this was a great thrill!
08:27The thrills didn't stop there.
08:30On some trips, entertainment was thrown in too.
08:32And it wasn't just any old entertainment.
08:38Like their upmarket, ocean-going cousins, these people's liners showcased the stars of the day.
08:46The entertainers were quite exceptional.
08:51I remember, on one occasion, even Shirley Bassey was on board.
08:59I've got you under my skin.
09:01I don't know whether she would like to remember that in her star-spangled future, but she was there.
09:16Deep in the heart of me.
09:18Shirley Bassey wasn't the only celebrity to grace the decks.
09:26Campbell's used to do a lot of showboats.
09:31Summer showboats, mid-summer showboats.
09:33And I can remember, well, Easter 1956, they did an Easter showboat.
09:41And on board that day, the star attraction was the, well, it was the sex symbol of the day, in the UK anyway.
09:50And her name was, it was Britain's answer to Jane Mansfield then, and her name was Sabrina.
09:57Oh, she was a sensation.
10:03Sabrina came on board the Glengower for the day.
10:07Uh, caused, uh, all sorts of, uh, mayhem, havoc.
10:14People really enjoying, uh, her presence.
10:18And if I can remember, even the crew members were enjoying her presence as well.
10:23The captain suddenly noticed that the, the ship had slowed down and lost speed.
10:28He looked round and found that all, all of his stokers from the Stokehold had sneaked up on deck to get an Eiffel.
10:40That evening, we were, we, I stayed on board the Glengower in, in, in Cardiff with, with Dad, with my father.
10:46And, uh, prior to, uh, prior to this, I, I made it known to, to the crew.
10:51I, to, to a couple of crew members, I thought it would be great if maybe Sabrina could kiss me goodnight.
10:58You've got to remember, I'm only eight years of age now.
11:01Do you know, she actually came down, uh, into the dining saloon and she did kiss me goodnight.
11:08I like the tan of the bronze, the power with some muscles.
11:13My school friends, they, they never believed me when I did eventually get back to school and told them that, uh, Sabrina had kissed me goodnight.
11:19But, um, I did have some evidence, you see, which I still have today.
11:25And, uh, that was, uh, that was actually, uh, a photograph that Sabrina gave me, signed to Neil, Love Sabrina.
11:34What a man, what a man.
11:36I had this Easter, 1956, on the white funnel fleet, Neil O'Brien.
11:41Mmm, to be nice, yes.
11:44The thing that I will always remember.
11:46I want men.
11:47On the cusp of major social change, British society in the early 1960s was still fairly insular.
11:57People grew up, married and settled in the same locality as their parents.
12:02Around the Bristol Channel though, the steamers helped to broaden horizons, enabling connections across the water, relationships blossoming in their wake.
12:12If you mingle about in Swansea and in Ilfracombe, you'll find that there is a change, there is an exchange of personnel, as it were.
12:26People met and married, some settled in Swansea, others settled in Ilfracombe.
12:34One Sunday evening, we'd, um, just backed out of Ilfracombe. I would just put my books away.
12:41I spotted this very attractive young lady, sat with a much older lady, uh, drinking tea in the lounge.
12:48And I caught her eye, and she caught mine, and I went into the mess room, and this girl was on my mind.
12:55I went back out to the lounge, sat with them, introduced myself, and offered them a cup of coffee.
13:00Oh, yes, please.
13:01I subsequently sat with them for most of the way back up the channel, and were going into a date for the following Thursday.
13:09We got married three and a half years later, and we're still married now, and haven't produced how many children.
13:18The steamers not only helped to create families, there was a sense of family on board, too.
13:23Robin Wall's father was a purser on the Campbell fleet.
13:28One thing that I'll say about the Campbells family, and I don't mean the Campbells themselves, I mean their workforce.
13:35Half of them I called uncle, although no relation.
13:39Whenever we stepped aboard the ships, we were treated like royalty.
13:43Robin would sometimes stay aboard and lend a hand, mucking in with the crew, some of whom acted as childminders.
13:50My dad would be wanting to go ashore for a pint.
13:53He'd say, just go down and give Mr Munden a hand, polishing the engine, you know.
13:57Yeah, all right, Dad, thank you very much.
13:59And I'd be there, a ten-year-old, working away while he had his pint.
14:03Robin eventually joined Campbells himself, becoming a white funnel man in 1960.
14:12As an ordinary seaman, he found himself working alongside his father.
14:17And days afloat on the Bristol Channel often meant nights ashore in South Wales.
14:27It was wonderful. We were based mainly in Cardiff.
14:30And all the delights of Tiger Bay and the ship beams and stuff like this as a 16-year-old kid.
14:36Cardiff's Tiger Bay was one of Britain's first multiracial neighbourhoods.
14:40By the early 1960s, there were over 50 nationalities living there.
14:44I never saw a black face when I was a little boy.
14:49And we'd walk through Cardiff and you hardly see a white face.
14:51And all these guys knew my dad.
14:53Hi there, Mr Wall.
14:54And we'd walk up and I thought this...
14:56The smell.
14:58And a Chinaman playing mahjong, you know, and...
15:01I thought, if this is going to sea, I'm going to have a bit of this.
15:03It was wonderful.
15:04In the predominantly white society of the time, Robin's nights out in Tiger Bay were a foretaste of multicultural Britain.
15:14Also, this reflected in the crew members as well on board.
15:18They came from all races and all walks of life.
15:22It had a profound effect on me.
15:23Very much part of the communities they served around the Bristol Channel, the white funnel ships were witness to a changing society ahead of their times in many ways.
15:38Excursion steamers were also agents for change right around the British coast and had been since the first steamboat arrived on the Clyde in the early 19th century.
15:47Freed from the vagaries of the wind, this first passenger-carrying steamship, the Comet, cast off in 1812.
16:06The Comet is the equivalent of Concorde.
16:10And within a decade, there are dozens of boats flying from the big cities.
16:17The advent of the steamship was a transport revolution, predating the first steam railway by almost 20 years.
16:28Prior to this, steam engines had been housed in industrial buildings.
16:33So for many people, the early steamboats were the first time they'd experienced the wonder of steam.
16:40The excursion steamer makes tourism.
16:46People start to get into the habit of travelling for pleasure.
16:52Within six years of the Comet's maiden voyage, steamboat operators were advertising sightseeing trips and trying to attract the widest possible clientele on board.
17:02The democratisation of the steamboat and later railway comes from the fact that they enabled all to travel.
17:16Whereas previously, travel, in any sort of comfort, had been the prerogative of the rich.
17:26We like to think that Thomas Cook, a former Baptist preacher and active member of the Temperance Society, invented the excursion with his railway tours.
17:34But he was, in fact, following in the steamboat's wake.
17:39The steamboats in Scotland invent excursions.
17:43The railways follow suit, and Thomas Cook, of course, picks up his idea in 1841.
17:49Ironically, his day trips are designed as part of the temperance movement, give people an alternative to wasting Saturday in the pub.
17:58In Scotland, it works the other way round.
18:01What we get in Scotland is the Sunday steamer being used as a way to drink.
18:07In Scotland, the steamer actually sabotages temperance.
18:13In England, the railway makes temperance with Cook.
18:17What happens is that, in Scotland, there is legislation passed in the 1850s that says you can only get a drink on a Sunday if you're a genuine traveller.
18:30And within two weeks of this legislation, an enterprising steamboat proprietor was organising what nowadays we'd call booze cruises down in the Clyde.
18:41So popular was this Sunday pastime, it helped coin a piece of Scottish slang in which steaming means an advanced state of intoxication.
18:54And that's why, in Glasgow Patois, steaming is steaming.
18:59The boats meant drink.
19:01A favoured destination for Sabbath steaming was Rothsay on the Isle of Bute, to some the Blackpool of the Clyde.
19:10You got on a Sunday this mob of happy holidaymakers swilling off the boats, and it's no accident that the biggest urinal in Scotland is on the pier at Rothsay.
19:21And then spending a merry Sunday, perhaps drinking a little more, going to the beach, stripping off, swimming, all the things that would offend middle-class proprieties.
19:36So the steamers are really an agent of mass working-class tourism.
19:41They're called by one local MP, the cheap trams of the working class.
19:47The Victorian and Edwardian era was the high tide for Clyde steamers.
19:53We're probably around 30, 40, 50 paddle steamers, beginning of the 20th century, end of the 19th century, all competing for the business.
20:02All with a different colour of funnel, different colour of hull, all with different things on board, a hairdresser, a post office, some that sold no alcohol, the famous Ivan Hall.
20:15So they all had their point of difference, but the steamer that could race to the pier and be first at the pier was the one that got all the passengers, and that was the one that got all the glory.
20:25I'll sing of a river, I'm happy beside. The song that I sing is a song of the quite.
20:36Chasing the desires of the day, steamers got faster, larger and ever more luxurious, each with a devoted following.
20:45A 1930s flyer was the Genie Deans, the most commodious, the Queen Mary.
20:50The Queen Mary and the Lucy Ashton were the ones that we travelled on.
20:57We always hoped it would be the Queen Mary because it was plush.
21:01She was big. She was fast.
21:04She still had a residue of her pre-war grandeur.
21:09People thought of her as a liner rather than a steamship on the river Clyde.
21:14She was a cut above the rest.
21:15On her daily trip, the 10 o'clock from Glasgow to Danone and Rothsay, Queen Mary would pass the Clyde shipyards, where Cunard's latest luxury liner was taking shape.
21:28The directors of the Cunard Company decided to build a new and vast liner for the Transatlantic and call her Queen Victoria.
21:39And they felt they had to have royal approval and they went to see King George V.
21:44And they said that they were going to name her Queen, at which point he is reputed to have butted in and said how wonderful, my wife Queen Mary will be quite delighted.
21:56So they never got to tell them that it was going to Victoria and they were far too embarrassed to say anything, they had to accept the royal will.
22:03When they got back to headquarters, they discovered to their horror that there already was a Queen Mary plying her legitimate life on the Clyde.
22:13And so they came cap in hand, the board of Cunard, to the board of the Caledonian Steampacket Company and begged to have the name Queen Mary.
22:21And it was graciously agreed that the one in the Clyde would become Queen Mary II.
22:28She would have a wonderful, huge painting of Queen Mary in the four loun gifted by the Cunard Company.
22:38Dealt with as equals by the owners of the world's fastest luxury liner, the Clyde steamers were at the height of their prestige.
22:47Then, war was declared.
23:00Within days, excursion steamers all around the coast were being requisitioned by the Admiralty.
23:07And by early 1940, some 30 vessels had swapped deck chairs for armaments and were engaged in one of the most hazardous naval duties of the war.
23:17Paddle steamers made superb minesweepers because they were shallow draft, so they could often float over minefields where other ships would hit the mine.
23:27They were fast, they had broad decks, and they were ideal for minesweeping kits to be carried.
23:33Fundamentally, what was done was a wire was paid out each side of the ship over the stern, attached to a para-vein, which was a torpedo-shaped float.
23:45The idea was that the wire would cut the mooring lines of the floating mines, and they would float to the surface where they'd then be sunk by gunfire or rifle fire from the deck of the steamer.
23:56But if that was dangerous, it was nothing compared to what they steamed into at perhaps Britain's most desperate hour.
24:08May 26th, 1940, the beaches at Dunkirk, and the beginning of an eight-day saga that prevented the complete annihilation of the Allied armies.
24:19With the British Expeditionary Force cornered on the beaches of Dunkirk, the call went out for any ships to rescue them.
24:26The minesweeping flotillas were very quickly called in and told to make for Dunkirk.
24:32Amongst the crowds awaiting rescue was Army Supply Driver Jim Chivers.
24:37We got a dive bomb from Stugars and that.
24:43We were just lucky we didn't get hit or anything.
24:46We just lay waiting there, eating some blooming biscuits and bully beef or something or another, whatever was going around, until we got the orders, you know, to go up to the boat.
25:01That boat was the Medway Queen.
25:05I went down below, and I just flaked out.
25:10The Medway Queen, yeah.
25:11I'm definitely thankful to her, because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her.
25:16And she's often been called the heroine of Dunkirk because she took more people off the beaches than any other paddle steamer,
25:23and possibly more than any other merchant ship.
25:26She made seven crossings, no change of crew, and carried over 3,500 people off the beaches.
25:33The day after Churchill's We Shall Fight Them On The Beaches speech.
25:43Yorkshire-born writer J.B. Priestley, author of An Inspector Called, broadcast the first of his BBC radio postscripts.
25:52We've known them and laughed at them, these fussy little steamers, all our lives.
25:58We've called them the Shilling Six.
26:01We've watched them load and unload their crowds of holiday passengers,
26:05the gents full of high spirits and bottled beer, the ladies eating pork pies, the children sticky with peppermint rock.
26:12But they were called out of that world.
26:16Yes, these Brighton Bells and Brighton Queens left that innocent foolish world of theirs to sail into the inferno,
26:24to defy bombs, shells, magnetic mines, torpedoes, machine gun fire, to rescue our soldiers.
26:31And our great grandchildren, when they learn how we began this war by snatching glory out of defeat,
26:37and then swept on to victory, and they also learn how the little holiday steamers made an excursion to hell and came back glory.
26:52Of the 50-plus paddle steamers called up for service, 17 were sunk throughout hostilities.
26:59Six of those at Dunkirk, and a further 11 had to be scrapped.
27:03So the end of the war in 1945 brought the urgent need for new steamers.
27:12With government compensation to fund new builds, most steamer companies look to the future.
27:19Things will turn out fine tomorrow, all along the line tomorrow.
27:27And chose efficient diesel motor propeller ships.
27:32Emblems of post-war modernity, they embraced the technology and design of the day.
27:38Always bear in mind tomorrow.
27:42But on the Clyde and Bristol Channel, the two busiest steamer regions, operators opted for what they knew.
27:48Four brand new paddle steamers were commissioned.
27:52Two for Scottish Waters, the Waverley, and Maid of the Loch.
27:56And two for P&A Campbell's White Funnel Fleet.
28:00All new builds, but in terms of design and appearance, they all looked back to an earlier age.
28:06Yesterday's a mystery, today will soon be history, but what a day it's gonna be tomorrow.
28:15The two paddlers launched by White Funnel were the largest and most regal yet, Bristol Queen and Cardiff Queen.
28:29Their pre-war elegance struck a chord with post-war holidaymakers, and they became firm favourites on the Bristol Channel,
28:37each building a devoted following with passengers and crew.
28:42Bristol Queen was very special. She was the cream of the cream.
28:49She was lovely inside. A first-class passenger ship.
28:52The decision to stick with paddle propulsion also proved popular.
28:58My mum described it as like a swan coming out the river over the top of the water,
29:02and all you could hear was flop, flop, flop, flop, flop of the paddles.
29:09It's a beautiful sound of paddle, the sound of paddles going through the water.
29:13It's a sound of power and an overall sense of, hey, yeah, we're going somewhere.
29:24In the late 40s and early 50s, Campbell certainly were going somewhere.
29:30They ran six White Funnel paddle steamers.
29:33Passenger numbers were buoyant.
29:38One steamer institution that was as popular as ever was the bar.
29:44Drinking culture at the time was still a mostly male preserve,
29:48and alcohol was mainly drunk behind closed doors or on a steamer below decks.
29:57Father's perennial desire to go down and see the engines
30:00was a euphemism across steamer fleets.
30:04Licensing laws ashore restricted drinking hours,
30:08but once at sea, the bar was always open.
30:10Of course, there was no Sunday opening in South Wales.
30:15So, of course, they would flock across on the ferry boat
30:18from Cardiff, Penarth to Weston.
30:21And on Weston Pier, they had a restaurant, they had a bar,
30:24and they had a bit of a fairground.
30:25Some people wouldn't go off the pier.
30:27And similarly, further down the channel,
30:29the Swansea people were going across to Wilfrid,
30:31couldn't make a drink all the way across,
30:32because as soon as the ship sailed, the bar was open.
30:34So if it was half past nine in the morning, that was fine.
30:38The whole of the South Wales valleys would descend on Cardiff Pierhead on a Sunday morning,
30:44and it could be thousands and thousands.
30:47The steamers on the way back, it was just like a church choir, really.
30:53They would be in the bars or even in the saloons.
30:57Or even if they had enough, they'd be up on deck.
31:00The actual songs they sung, as we know, the wells is the land of song.
31:04They would be there singing, and I can hear that sound, those sounds even now.
31:19And, yeah, some pretty hairy sights on the way back at 10 o'clock at night, I can assure you.
31:2416 years old, blonde hair, blue eyes, and women would tease you and sort of goose you and, you know, that sort of stuff.
31:38Well, you certainly saw the variety of life.
31:41The boozy, boisterous bars were also a feature of steamers north of the border.
31:58Post-war, business was booming.
32:02From the bar up to the promenade deck, it was steaming as usual on the Clyde.
32:06The 1950s were the heyday, the Halcyon days of the steamers,
32:12and there were still 14 of them on the Clyde.
32:15They were full every day.
32:19We could have gone to Monte Carlo.
32:22People would go on these steamers for their main fortnight's holiday.
32:26That was their main fortnight's holiday.
32:29My parents used to take us on holiday to Island of Arne.
32:32We could have gone to some island paradise.
32:36And there have had a bear.
32:39But there was no appeal.
32:41We feel free.
32:43Life grew in the water from the bear.
32:46And from Glasgow, there is this immense exodus called Doon the Wacker,
32:51which lasts until the late 1950s, early 1960s.
32:56So we're going to Doon the Wacker.
32:57We're going to Doon the Wacker for the fair.
33:00We'll wend our way to Roxy Bay.
33:04And our heart lies there.
33:06At the height of the season, there was a daily departure Doon the Wacker from Glasgow,
33:12along with further sailings downriver.
33:14Ten each morning from Goorock alone.
33:17The steamers could carry between 500 and 1,500 passengers per trip.
33:29Queen Mary II had room for over 2,000, and demand was high.
33:33The person charged with looking after all these passengers on board ship was the purser and his assistants.
33:43One young assistant was student teacher Duncan Graham,
33:47who worked across the Clyde fleet over five consecutive summers.
33:51It gave him a porthole onto 1950s dreams and aspirations.
33:56To be transported to Roxy was just as magic as for you and I need to be translated to the Canaries of the south of Spain.
34:06Roxy had palm trees, beautiful gardens, beautiful views, entertainments.
34:12You could take a rowing boat, an ori boat as it was called out in the bay.
34:16But it was a playground with cleanliness, beauty, light in there.
34:21It was like lifting a customer onto a different world.
34:24The same steamer would call at a number of resorts per trip.
34:29Part of the purser's job was to sell tickets,
34:32and Duncan noticed that different groups chose different destinations.
34:37Working-class people made either for Largs or Rothsay,
34:41which was laughingly called Scotland's Madeira, by the way.
34:45I'm out of pay!
34:49I'm on train of all that's not good.
34:51Having called at Rothsay, some steamers would continue on to Arran.
34:57The Isle of Arran was above all the middle-class holiday resort.
35:01Chaps wore shorts and shirts and played golf and hiked in Arran.
35:08And the boarding houses were a class above that.
35:12They hid the HP sauce.
35:14It wasn't in the windows as it was in the boarding houses in Rothsay.
35:17So if you were a sort of middle-class holiday-maker, you went to Arran.
35:25Class differences were also apparent between officers and crew.
35:30Being a personal underclass team was a wonderful introduction to human life for a young innocent student like myself.
35:40I mean, the first day on a payday when we handed out the wages in cash,
35:45and I saw the women in the pier desperately trying to get hold of some money
35:49before the husbands dashed off to the pub, I learned about the hardness of life.
35:54At the other end of the social scale, Duncan also witnessed the excesses of some of the Clyde captains.
36:02Ladies came aboard, some of whom were very charming, particularly to myself,
36:06who in my innocence I did not realise were ladies of the night.
36:12Of whom quite the most wonderful was a lady called the Duchess.
36:16She lived permanently, as far as I knew, in the Royal Hotel and in Ellen.
36:21Drove down to the boat, down the steep hill, in a car with a chauffeur,
36:27and came aboard, dressed in all her finest.
36:31She looked like a Duchess. I believed she was one, in my innocence.
36:34And she, I would hand her a board, and she would go up to the captain's cabin,
36:43and she would reappear three hours later, once we had done whatever cruise we were doing.
36:49She would come down, and hardly be, she would give me half a crown as she left the boat.
36:56She would sweep half a crown into my hand, along with her ticket.
36:59Because she had a ticket, which was interesting.
37:03And off she would go in her hired car, waiting at the head of the pier.
37:07And of course, years later, I learned all about the Duchess,
37:10and learned that the steamer I worked on wasn't the only one that she visited.
37:15She had a very select clientele.
37:17Appearances were often deceptive in the world of the steamers.
37:24On their daily voyages down the Clyde, the pleasure boats passed an unremarkable vessel.
37:30It sailed a very similar route from city centre to the coast,
37:34but few people gave her a second glance.
37:37She carried the lowliest of human cargo.
37:39Shield Hall's role was to take treated sewage out to sea and dump it.
37:46Alongside her utilitarian function, Shield Hall had a surprising double life.
37:52Fares across steamer fleets were priced at a level that the majority could afford.
37:58But unique to Glasgow, the corporation offered free excursions
38:02to those who couldn't pay for the usual trips.
38:06It was carrying on a tradition that started around about the time of the First World War
38:12for groups of people, typically pensioners,
38:16who really couldn't afford an excursion or a day out.
38:19And she'd take 60 or 70 people out for the day.
38:24They would then steam the ships down the Clyde,
38:27and around about a mile and a half off Garrick Head,
38:29the ship would steam in a slow circle and drop the cargo.
38:35The passengers by this time would typically be in at lunch,
38:39unless they particularly wanted to see the cargo being discharged.
38:45The ship would then steam around in a big circle,
38:48complete the discharge, turn around and go back up the Clyde again.
38:52As living standards began to rise, there wasn't the same social need for Shield Hall's free trip and lunch.
39:05So the excursion was thrown open to community groups,
39:08and a whole new set of passengers came aboard.
39:10By the time that the late 50s, early 60s came along, there was groups such as the local wine circle,
39:19the Women's Institute, would receive an invitation to present themselves at the sewage works,
39:24again completely free of charge.
39:26By the early 1960s, the steamers had become such institutions that they seemed a mainstay of Clyde life.
39:33But with growing affluence, holiday horizons were expanding,
39:39and the incredible enterprise that had turned a sewage vessel into a quasi-cruise ship
39:45was struggling to keep pace.
39:47Once you could have a cheap holiday and you could sample the delights of Marbella,
39:52rather than that of Rossi,
39:54and once you took the weather into account, then it was a non-starter.
39:57And like all the seaside resorts in Britain,
40:02Rossi and Lars began a slow decline.
40:06Maybe people are not quite as hardy as they used to be.
40:10The days of braving it out on the decks of a Clyde steamer,
40:15when the rain's tipping down and people's aspirations moved up a notch, really.
40:21And for the first time since the invention of the comet,
40:24the excursion steamer, once an agent of change,
40:28was now out of step with social change.
40:31Personal mobility was also moving up a gear.
40:35In the 1950s, few families, including my own, had cars.
40:40And then there came the mass market, the Mini, I think, in 1959.
40:45By the mid-60s, people wanted boats to take them across the river
40:49so they could carry out their own life at excursions.
40:52It was the beginning of the age of the car ferry.
41:00With the rise in car ownership nationwide, it was also the age of the motorway.
41:06And at the top end of the Bristol Channel, a modern motorway bridge,
41:11linking South Wales to the south-west of England, was taking shape,
41:15casting a long shadow over the steamer trade.
41:17In the 60s, the trade declined, partially attributed to the Seven Bridge in 1966 being built.
41:23So instead of going from three hours from Cardiff to Ilfracoon on a ship, being ill, being cold, being wet,
41:35you could drive there in three hours with the whole family, you know, for three gallons of petrol,
41:40you're down there for two quid.
41:42And steamers had become dated.
41:48An independent generation, no longer content to follow in their parents' holiday footsteps,
41:54were finding destinations and distractions of their own.
41:57It wasn't the end thing to do to go on board a paddle steamer to go down to Ilfracoon.
42:10They just fell out of fashion, I think.
42:15Perhaps that's the kindest thing to say.
42:19Whilst the 60s swung, the steamers were shunned.
42:26As incomes fell, maintenance was cut back.
42:29Bristol Queen and Cardiff Queen, pride of the Bristol Channel,
42:33and only launched 20 years before, started to look scruffy.
42:38You know, the ships were all clanking round and running late with paddle trouble.
42:43Something Ross Floyd experienced on board the Bristol Queen
42:47on a trip to Lundy Island in the summer of 1966.
42:51She was clanking and banging and eventually the purser came on
42:55and said that due to a technical malfunction, the steamer would be returning to Ilfracoon
42:59and his great groan went up and that was the end of her getting to Lundy for that year.
43:03Slowly they...they disappeared.
43:07Thirteen days after the Bristol Queen did a celebratory cruise to mark the opening of the Severn Bridge,
43:19on the 8th of September 1966, her sister ship was laid up.
43:24Any sailor falls in love with his first ship and my first ship was the Cardiff Queen.
43:28And she was taken to Newport, someone had the idea of tying her up in the River Rusk
43:35and making her a nightclub and the ship obviously didn't agree with this
43:38because she broke a drift.
43:40So they took her down the river a couple of yards to Cashmore's Yard
43:43and I got pictures of people sat there with burning gear, burning up the Cardiff Queen,
43:48but that was her end.
43:52Bristol Queen lasted just one more year.
43:54By this time, Ted Davis was an apprentice pilot in Barrie, South Wales,
44:00and on his weeks off did relief work on the Queen.
44:04I was on the Bristol Queen for six days as ordinary seaman in August 67,
44:11and the day after I left her I had to return to my job as an apprentice on the pilot boat at Barrie.
44:16Ted arranged to meet his Bristol Queen shipmate for a night out in Cardiff the following Saturday.
44:24Unfortunately, that Saturday never came because she backed out of Barrie one morning on her way down the Wilfracool.
44:31She sounded a mournful three blasts on the whistle,
44:36which bounced off the harbour walls.
44:42I saw her go out into the channel and thought nothing more of it.
44:47Just as we got to the Merker Boi, which is three miles from Barrie,
44:51I heard a thud and then a crash.
44:54We must have hit something very, very heavy.
44:58It must have been submerged, sort of floating just under the surface, because I saw nothing.
45:03I could see her open the channel, drifting for a while.
45:08She eventually managed to get under way, and she limped back up the pontoons in Cardiff.
45:13Bristol Queen had suffered catastrophic damage to a paddle wheel.
45:18I was due to do a trip down to Lundy Island,
45:23and I never sailed on her again.
45:27On the 21st of March 1968, Bristol Queen was towed away for Scrab.
45:34I saw her coming down, emerge, and slowly make her way down towards Barrie,
45:39and feeling so sad that the ship that I enjoyed working on,
45:45I'd enjoyed seeing over the years,
45:48and the last of Campbell's paddle steward being towed away to her demolition.
45:56It was like a part of me sort of went as well when the Bristol Queen actually went.
46:01Oh, I've listened to this record twice, three times a year,
46:12every year since the Bristol and Cardiff Queen were taken off service.
46:19Oh, there she is, blowing the hooter.
46:23She was wonderful.
46:26She was wonderful.
46:38That sound still sends shivers up my spine.
46:43Hopeful that there was still life in the British seaside holiday, though,
46:55P&A Campbell finally moved into the age of the propeller ship,
46:59the second generation of diesel-powered steamers.
47:01And so they brought Balmoral, a former Isle of Wight excursion ship to the Bristol Channel,
47:10and ran her with two other twin-propeller motorships.
47:15Launched in 1949, Balmoral had the looks of luxury motor yachts of the era,
47:21and was built as a replacement for paddle steamers lost in the war.
47:24Now she was replacing the much-loved queens.
47:31The replacement of the paddle steamers by motorships was a difficult period.
47:42All right, I love paddlers, but Balmoral is something very special.
47:50There were purists, dangerous people, who said,
47:57I shall never go on a motorship.
48:01But, as time went on, the lure of being able to go to sea was paramount,
48:10and you saw the old faces begin to return.
48:14I can always remember when Balmoral first came to the Bristol Channel.
48:19I was on board, and I went up onto the bridge, and her first captain was Captain Jack White.
48:25He more or less skippered all the pre-war and post-war paddle steamers.
48:29I said to him, I said, what do you think of her, Captain?
48:32And I can remember his words now.
48:34Neil, she's a flyer. And by God, could she move.
48:36Flying the flag of the White Funnel Fleet, Balmoral continued the line.
48:43The traditions of over 80 years of coastal cruising being carried on the decks of one ship.
48:53By 1971, the sole survivor in the Bristol Channel.
48:58She basically got into a set pattern.
49:03Normally on a Tuesday, Thursday, and sometimes on a Saturday,
49:08we'd do the Swansea run across to Ilfracoon, and then out to Lundy Island.
49:14That was a lucrative run in those days, Ilfracoon to Lundy Island.
49:18Lundy Island in the early 70s was where everybody seemed to want to go.
49:22Nothing for us to take seven, eight hundred passengers out to Lundy Island.
49:27And all these passengers had to be landed by launch as well.
49:34And then interspersed with that, we'd be running day trips from Swansea up the Bristol Channel,
49:41to Cardiff and Weston, the odd occasional trip to Tenby as well.
49:44Balmoral kept White Funnel steamers afloat, linking the same destinations as the Queens.
49:55This is a town from the water meadows, trying to spread some hope into your heart.
50:02But even Balmoral, the fuel-efficient motorship, couldn't halt the inevitable dip in trade,
50:12as the British seaside holiday continued to decline.
50:16I suppose I was aware that the writing was on the wall for Balmoral and P&A Campbell Ltd, as it was.
50:24From the mid-70s, you only had to look at the crew.
50:29They were all old men.
50:32It had to end, because they were all getting older,
50:35and there was not the interest and there wasn't the demand or the requirement for new people to come in.
50:39Neil O'Brien, by this time Balmoral's purser, went to see his boss, the trilby-wearing Mr Clifton Smith-Cox.
50:56I was a youngster, you know, and I generally could see a demise in Campbell's.
51:02It was such a shame, I didn't want to see it, and I thought to myself,
51:07hey, there's no career here for me.
51:09I said, Mr Smith-Cox, I think I've got, you know, I've got to throw the towel in here,
51:14because I can't see this going on much longer.
51:17And Mr Smith-Cox was absolutely superb about this.
51:21He agreed with me entirely, and I said, look, I'm going to go to Pastors New.
51:26And so, unfortunately, I left Campbell's.
51:27I joined then Cadbury's and sold chocolate for them for 25 years.
51:38Balmoral ploughed on, but the end came in 1980.
51:43P&A Campbell's folded,
51:46and after almost a century of white-funnel pleasure trips on the Bristol Channel,
51:51Balmoral, the last steamer, was sold.
51:54She went off as a floating bar somewhere up in Dundee.
52:02I thought I'd never see her again.
52:05Balmoral sailed for a Scotland that was also losing its steamers.
52:09The Clyde had witnessed a catastrophic drop in the excursion trade.
52:20And no one was better placed to know the commercial realities than John Whittle,
52:25general manager of ferry operators Caledonian McBrain,
52:29which now ran the Clyde steamers.
52:31One Friday I went to Arron on the ferry, came back on the last journey,
52:38and there was myself, two other passengers, and a car on board for a crew of 28.
52:44My heart sank a bit at that.
52:46One by one the much-loved steamers were scrapped, until there was only one paddler left on the Clyde,
52:56the post-war Waverley, and even she was struggling.
52:59We had to face reality and bite the bullet, but it was part of our heritage.
53:09Paddle steamers had made such a dramatic impact on shipping services,
53:14and this was the last of the line.
53:16John had only one business option.
53:21The Waverley had to go.
53:23He invited Douglas McGowan, a leading member of the Paddle Steamer Preservation Society, to meet him.
53:30You can imagine my absolute surprise and astonishment
53:35when he said that he was going to offer the ship to us as a gift.
53:46And so began Waverley's preservation, the last seagoing paddle steamer in the world.
53:59Nothing gives me more pleasure today than seeing families like today enjoying themselves in the decks of the Waverley, having fun,
54:08and looking at those children watching the pistons going round, eyes almost popping out of their heads. Amazing.
54:16Waverley now calls at ports all around the UK, but for a few weeks each year she sails her home waters.
54:33And connects once more with the communities she was built to serve.
54:47Decks chatter with sightseers.
54:56Father really does go down to see the engines.
55:02And hen parties flock to Rothsay.
55:06Keeping alive these traditions, Waverley has now sailed longer in preservation than as a commercial Clyde steamer.
55:20And down on the Bristol Channel, the Balmoral is back.
55:35Leading a drive to revive coastal cruising here too.
55:39At Sharpness Docks, a dedicated team strive to ready her for sea again.
55:46I work on board, doing odd jobs, which range from helping to keep the woodwork in nice condition.
56:00And when she's laid up, I can also clean out the lavatories.
56:05You know, the little things have to be dealt with as well, and I'm not ashamed to do them.
56:14Three years of volunteer endeavour, and the last in the line of the Bristol Channel White Funnel ships is about to cast off once more.
56:22With a good crowd aboard, it's slow speed ahead, down the River Avon towards the Bristol Channel,
56:37following the course of the first white funnel excursion steamer over 125 years before.
56:46With her go the dreams of a former age.
56:49Oh my goodness, this is a really magical moment.
56:56Here we are in the river, making our fresh start, just like it was in the old days.
57:07Amazing.
57:09To hear the engine room telegraphs when we set off, and to hear the ring when they put her ahead,
57:14coming out of Cumberland Basin, that was just, that brought the hairs up on my neck.
57:19Absolutely brilliant.
57:22I've personally been sailing on the ship since I was 12 years old, and I've been sailing on her ever since.
57:28So, to be back afloat and underway on her again is just wonderful.
57:32Sitting in the morning sun, I'll be sitting when the evening comes, watching the ships roll in, then I'll watch them roll away again, yeah.
57:51A greater cross-section of society has travelled by these people's liners than on the better known elite ocean liners.
57:59As the last operational vessels of the two generations of excursion steamer, the paddler and the propeller ship, Waverley and Balmoral, are direct links to a forgotten part of our maritime heritage.
58:12Once boisterously, now more sedately, from the early 1800s on, the pleasure steamer translated our national love affair with the sea into something easily accessible and open to all.
58:27A gloriously populist pursuit.
58:30Babs has everything to play for here on BBC4 next tonight. Off to Bournemouth for Close to the Edge, and a brand new double bill in just a moment.
58:45The end of this recording is on given a happy talk with the peddler as a friend of&.
59:01boards of SpongeBob three of the borne clients реш
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