11 Apr 2011

Many passengers love to be entertained on board their ship, and with excursions at ports of call. A Tunisian tour guide posing with his official P & O sign, Bizerte, Tunisia (P90849) In the Exhibition there is a picture of a man holding a sign on the quay beside Viceroyof India in 1935, advertising a P&O Official Excursion at Bizerte, Tunisia; there is the rickshaw man beside a ship in 1935 in Durban, South Africa; the Waterline book includes pictures from many ports of call, including Blue Star Line's Arandora Star at Valletta, Malta, about 1937. A local rickshaw driver in 'traditional' costume, with a Union-Castle Line ship in the background (P91550) My Father was a Junior Engineer on that ship as a young man in the early 1930s, so I have similar pictures from his photo album, and often think I am 'following in Father's footsteps' when I look at his pictures and mine nowadays. Of course I don't have a picture, like one of his, of Amundsen's sleigh dog 'Jacob' in Kings Bay, Spitzbergen, about 1932! The Exhibition shows us passenger children in the 1960s on the deck of Windsor Castle following a Children's Hostess, or trying to catch an apple (suspended on a string) in their mouth, without using hands, on board Chusan about 1960; the book shows us children's parties and children with Father Christmas. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"219550","attributes":{"class":"media-image","typeof":"foaf:Image","style":"","width":"500","height":"498","alt":"Three children in the \u0026quot;Apple Eating\u0026quot; contest, possibly in the ballroom of the "}}]] Three children in the "Apple Eating" contest, possibly in the ballroom of the Chusan (P85787) In the Exhibition I like the pictures of passengers with a splendidly-moustachioed barman on board Transvaal Castle, of Father Christmas apparently climbing down to the deck from a ship's funnel, of lightly-clad passengers playing deck games, others enjoying a daytime deck buffet (obviously on a Union-Castle ship, to judge by the stewards' lavender-coloured collar and cuffs), and dancing a Conga at night in a ship's lounge in obviously sunny climes, according to the clothing. Passengers could enjoy dog racing (not real ones) or frog racing (again, not real ones) which were very popular when I was at sea. Wooden 'frogs' with a long string through their middle could be flapped along a course with perhaps six contestants, with bets being placed on the winner. Passengers could be as inactive or as busy as they chose, as shown in all these Waterline photographs, and that is just the way it should be.