Sealink!

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Going through the chuckout dross at our library I was lucky enough to find a book about Sealink from 1982. Not interested in all the shabby ships (though their depressing names bring back many a memory), but grabbed the book for its carshite possibilities and, as you see below, was not disappointed...

 

 

Thought that beauty was a Zephyr, but not so sure now. This seems to be Ireland, as the ship is Antrim Princess. Is that an Irish registration? It seems to be LH drive. No doubt someone can solve these mysteries.

 

 

Not that you have to be Irish or British to cross the Irish Sea of course. This dear little Beetle has driven all the way from Gutersloh, obviously using the dubious services of Sealink twice, to get to Holyhead and board St Columba for the second part of their holiday in Ireland (presumably they bought everything they needed when they got there - unless they had a separate Merc for the luggage?).

 

 

This (above) is inside a ship called Vortigern, not sure which route it plied - wasn't he some sort of ancient Germanic invader? They often named them after nasty people from history who came over to kill & rob: Hengist, Earl Godwin, etc. Don't know where to begin with the wonderful cars, though the one on the right, sadly a bit out-of-focus, is extremely interesting. Seems to contain three of the Great Train Robbers returning to Blighty with their suntans and remaining swag on the roofrack. Nice trailershite with an XL reg in the middle behind the man with his arms folded. You can just SMELL that deck, can't you?

 

 

A Ford in every picture. This is the Isle of Wight, wonder if that Midget's still on the road? (probably not).

 

 

1800 retreating from Boulogne. Soon be back in Potter's Bar and get a decent cuppa again, Winnie...

 

 

Also in Boulogne, but going the other way. That Jag will be turning heads in Milan tomorrow morning. He wisely decided not to risk it on the dangerous autoroutes of la France.

 

 

You could gaze at this fascinating picture for hours! Well, that's Vortigern at Dover, so it obviously did the classic Channel crossing whichever Angle or Saxon invader it's named after. Note the Land & Range Rovers for export there - and the caravans! (one of them towed by an early Range Rover.) And there's a Dormobile in there (which looks like an ice-cream van). But the goldmine of shite is that row of 12 cars in the middle. Is your Dad's amongst them?

 

[Richard]

I'd say the car in the first pic is a yank. I wanted to say Rambler but I can't find an exact match on Google Images, or even one with four doors.The receding Austin is a Maxi, not an 1800, but you've almost certainly got the conversation right.

[STUNO]

I pick the yank as a Plymouth Valiant (or a Chrysler close relative)

[carlo]

First yankee car looks like a Plymouth Valiant 67/68 vintage.

 

[bigstraight6]

I pick the yank as a Plymouth Valiant (or a Chrysler close relative)

Like the car in 'Duel'

 

The car with the shifty characters inside and a roofrack is a MK3 Zephyr 4...

[pogweasel]

SUPER!

[Ross_K]

Thought that beauty was a Zephyr, but not so sure now. This seems to be Ireland, as the ship is Antrim Princess. Is that an Irish registration? It seems to be LH drive. No doubt someone can solve these mysteries.

Number plate looks American to me, which would tie in with the LHD thing.

 

Probably some guy who made his fortune working on the building sites of New York or some other exotic place and brought his car back to lord it over his mates.

[mk2_craig]

Being a young kid on an island in the early 1980s meant that travelling to England usually involved Sealink. Either that or being a customer of AirUK, British Caledonian, Dan-Air etc

[pompei]

Woo. Fantastic pics, but brought back that seasick feeling from 1995 when ex Beloved and I drove the Fiat 500 to Italy, having done the overnight Hull - Holland ferry.

[MrRegieRitmo]

Howcomes the ferry is operated by British Rail?

[Mr Lobster]

You've just made me very happy as other than old cars I do have a thing for old ferries and ships! Sealink went though a phase of naming ships after Dark Ages Kings hence Vortigern, Horsa, Hengist etc.More pics please!

[Mr Lobster]

Howcomes the ferry is operated by British Rail?

Because traditionally, ships and port operations were considered a part of the local railway network with each ship having a number in the same way as the trains did. So Sealink was very much part of the rail network.This all ended when Sealink was privateised and sold to Sea Containers in 1984.

[Richard]

There are actually railway lines inside the ship, you can see them in one of the pics.

[MrRegieRitmo]

Oh yeah! This site is such an education!

[Mr Lobster]

Found these whilst going through some dross on the computer....

 

 

 

taken in Poole harbour in 1985.

[MrRegieRitmo]

and you were interested in Autoshite even then!

[Mr Lobster]

Well, actually, they're not my photos! Although at the age of ten i do remember the current Renault range brochure holding a strange fascination so I suppose I was!

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Thanks for i/d-ing the Plymouth Valiant, and thank you Mr. L for those superb colour pictures! Who was it who had that unused Townsend Thoresen GB sticker a few months ago? It aroused much wonder & envy at the time. Sorry not to post for a few days; was away from computers this weekend & put up this thread's opener just before leaving on Saturday morning.

 

Yes, all those ships belonged to British Rail. Everything they touched turned to dross. Laughably the 1982 book contains a chapter on their wonderful design values & corporate imaging which, even as a pre-teen I knew to be crap. Won't go off at too much of a tangent into the ships, but by way of example...

 

...this is the Tern, a once-beautiful little steamer that Sealink (preposterously) ran on Lake Windemere in the '70s. Note how she has been painted in their shitty colours, complete with that awful logo* on the funnel. Needless to say, there is no smoke to be made as she's also been converted to diesel. And they've fucked the portholes.

 

 

I hope this pretty boat, originally built in 1891, has since been restored to her full Victorian glory. Maybe someone has some info on this?

 

*The logo is still, well into the 21st Century, to be seen at stations, particularly on the London Underground! When I enquired, they said it was 'the easiest way' to indicate 'overground trains'. And the laziest.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Forget what I said about 'not going off at a tangent'. Having just about run out of shitty car pictures from the book, the time has come to poke some fun at the people who drove them (i.e. our parents & grandparents).

 

A romantic corner of the second class lounge on a Harwich - Hook of Holland ferry in the 1950s. Looks like that 'gin & it' is making her frisky and he might score mid-North Sea! But whose taken the ashtray? Does he dare flick it discreetly onto the floor? (for bonus points, note the seasick-inducing mirror design):

 

 

Later that night...

 

 

Foiled again! Separate beds, even after up-grading to First Class! Sexual intercourse won't begin until 1963. He'll just have to lock himself in the shower unit with a copy of Lilliput or National Geographic as per-bloody-usual.

 

No such problems for the kids in the swinging, sea-going, sexist '70s! In fact, quite the opposite. Look at Bra-less Barbara's body language here...

 

 

Isn't that the blonde one out of Man About the House in the background? And that guy with the shades & the kipper tie is sooooooooooooo cool. I am, however, disturbed by Bab's belt buckle with its chunky heraldic griffin design. Whatever can it mean? But seriously, this page is, as you'll immediately notice, extremely badly laid out. They have inset Ford Maddox Brown's Last of England in a feeble attempt to show how much nicer sea travel is in the 1970s compared with the 1850s. Yes, but DUH! that Victorian couple are EMIGRATING FOREVER. Babs & Kev are going over to Calais for a few hours & a quick shag behind the SNCF depot.

 

Except that now they've swapped partners (as was the way in those post-pill, pre-AIDS days):

 

 

What a magnificent pork pie in the foreground. 3 or 4 boiled eggs embedded in there. And I like the way he's arranged the real metal cutlery. Such, such were the days...

 

 

When they got tired of sex in the '70s, there were always Match-balancing Games. This was obviously before i-pods, Wii, books, magazines & newspapers had been invented. Most of us will recall being in similar - if not that very lounge on the St George - when it was actually jam-packed with tired, bad-tempered people, luggage, litter, fag smoke and the all-pervading stench of stale Stella.

 

But let's face it, first place everyone headed for was the Duty Free...

 

 

 

...not, however, for poncey perfumes & cosmetics as in this unlikely image. It was, of course, booze & fags they were after.

[Mr Lobster]

Who was it who had that unused Townsend Thoresen GB sticker a few months ago?

That was me also! it's going to go on my van at some point

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Ah, that's better...

 

 

...Although his one half bottle of gin is a bit feeble. I remember doing Holyhead - Dun Laoghaire in the early '80s. As soon as the Duty Free opened an old chap in a raincoat shuffled up clutching two enormous suitcases. These proved to be empty, but he proceeded to fill them both with bottles of spirits. That's the way to do it!

 

The book includes several pictures of Sealink staff at work. At the time they kindly gave everyone's name, which it seems better not to repeat here in cyberspace. I know we're now supposed to be entering some kind of terrible economic recession, but the people in these photos have that shabby, shell-shocked look that only having lived through Britain in the '70s could give you. Sealink just about epitomised it.

 

Anyway, here's a young John Prescott (did I give his name? Oops!) serving a horrible British 'salad' to two visibly unimpressed Spanish lorry drivers:

 

 

A certain amount of the crapness of 'service' in that era does survive on several of the privatised railways, but these pictures do bring back memories of a very down-at-heel society...

 

 

British Rail had that laughable slogan 'This is the Age of the Train' - when it obviously WASN'T. That was the 1870s, not a hundred years later. Shortly afterwards some joker changed it to 'We're getting there' [!!!!!!!! Didn't they geddit?]. Another future Labour cabinet minister comes into sight, this time it's David Blunkett getting a plastic cupful of tea. Note the remarkable sighting of an early fruit yoghurt. Actually I rather miss those acidic apple pies. God knows what chemicals they contained, but they made me happy.

 

A small piece of litter has made it into this depressing photo!

 

 

It is striking that everyone in these rather desperate, posed publicity shots is white. The woman without a bra & her friends are probably actors, but nobody thought to put any token ethnic mix in. How very different from today, but at least they weren't patronising. People were definitely less materialistic and perhaps a bit kinder towards others than we are nowadays.

 

You could say that we were all in the same boat.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Who was it who had that unused Townsend Thoresen GB sticker a few months ago?

That was me also! it's going to go on my van at some point

Hope you'll then be taking it on a Booze Cruise!

[jonkw]

Loving the pictures and commentary there KG! I'd forgotten how bloody awful it was on Sealink in that era, memories of fag smoke, sick, crying children...As regards the Tern on Windermere, it is still diesel powered; although the Sealink funnel is long gone and replaced with a more elegant chimney effort.Pics at http://nationalhistoricships.org.uk/ind ... l/vref/380

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Oh good, thanks for that jonkw; guess I'll forgive them the picture windows. It's just amazing how everything had to be given even the most bland corporate makeover and made 'modern'. Worst of all was what they did to stations. This has now been reversed (a little), though it's still irritating to see every sign in baby writing. I don't think anyone really finds it more difficult to read Art Deco lettering in the places where it has survived, and it just looks so much more elegant.

[Karmann Ghiaman]

Nobody else got any Sealink-related rubbish or memories to share? A few more from the book...

 

Since Mr Ritmo asked & Richard mentioned it, yes, trains (or at least their rolling stock) actually went on board:

 

 

Don't think any of the passenger carriages ever crossed over. I have a memory of going in one of the famous Wagons Lit in the mid-1960s and seeing the huge black engine belching out equally-black smoke up front. My mother said, 'Huh! The French have still got STEAM TRAINS.' Decades later they had one of the carriages in the National Rail Museum at York. You could shuffle through & gawp at this amazing relic of a bygone age. I immediately recalled the round sink, ingeniously fitted into a corner & thought 'I've seen that somewhere before...' Then realised I'd actually travelled in the ancient museum piece & felt very, very old.

 

Here's a 1939 (a bit before my time) one with jalopies going onto the Portsmouth - Fishbourne (wherever that is) ferry. This boat will be making some unscheduled trips to Dunkirk next year... Obviously they've already worked out the so-called Ro-ro (Roll-on, roll-off) technique that eventually proved fatal to the ill-starred Herald of Free Enterprise. Nobody ever remarked upon the grotesque irony of that particular ship's clumsy name, did they?

 

 

 

And here's a Minx being hoisted aboard the Guernsey ferry at St Peter Port, presumably in the early '60s:

 

[Mr Lobster]

I shall have to did out a few pictures and see what I can scan as I have a few old Sealink / TT brochures with period tat pictured somewhere...For those really brave / keen / stupid, you can still (to an extent anyway) experience Sealnk austerity in 2008... a couple of the old Sealink ship still survive in Greece and a couple are relatively unchanged in some areas fro their time in England.

[STUNO]

Tha 1939 RO-RO ferry got my interest. Its not sealink but I have this photo of the Paihia- Russell (NZ) ferry taken in 1936 by my grandfather.

The ferry still runs today but a bit bigger and safer to load.

Anorak notice: the car about to be dropped on the harbour at St Peter Port is a TRIUMPH 1300.

[pogweasel]

 

 

And here's a Minx being hoisted aboard the Guernsey ferry at St Peter Port, presumably in the early '60s:

 

*cough* triumph 1300 *cough*

[pompei]

Another great set of photos and comments, KG

[mk2_craig]

Anorak notice: the car about to be dropped on the harbour at St Peter Port is a TRIUMPH 1300.

So 1965 or later then.They'd got rid of the cranes by the time this particular Channel Island resident was old enough to go off on holiday by car ferry