Friday 2 March 2012

The Gateway of the West

For my birthday recently I was given a 1957/58 edition of the handbook of The Port of Liverpool, subtitled "The Gateway of the West".


I have yet to browse through it properly, but the first few pages of ads evoke an era from before I was born (just). Several shipping firms take adjoining full-page ads: Harrison Line; Brocklebanks; the Blue Funnel Line; Anchor Line; Clan Line; Houlder Brothers & Co.; Furness Warren Line and Johnston Warren Line; Booker Line; Pacific Line; United States Lines; Mac Andrew Line ... and the list goes on.

The ports their ships served read (mostly) like a table of exotic holiday locations: Calcutta, New Orleans, Galveston, Brazil, British West India Islands, Venezuela, Curacao, Colombia, Cristobal, Central America, Bermuda, Bahamas, Jamaica, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize, Mexico and Charente. And that's just the Harrison Line! Other trading destinations include Ceylon, India, Indonesia, Australia, Egypt, Pakistan, South Africa, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Demerara...

As with most publications of this age, the advertisements are at least as interesting as the main text. There are 97 pages of them! And 110 pages of details about every aspect of the port: its history; the Graving Docks; Unloading Sugar in Bulk; Dredging; Railway Facilities; Canteens etc.

Yes, there's a section on Inland Waterway Facilities, which I will write about another time.

3 comments:

Vallypee said...

Halfie, I've got so much to catch up with. Been horrendously busy at work, so no time even for my own blog - not to mention having my laptop crash a few weeks ago, which set me back some. I hope to read through a few of your posts tomorrow.

Halfie said...

VallyP, welcome back! Many of my recent posts have timelapse films embedded in them, covering all of our midlands cruise last year.

Anonymous said...

I wondered what had happened to VallyP. I missed her comments.

H.S.