Ships and boats: general interest

It was one of the most important British liner routes of all - the express run from Southampton to the South African Cape.

To Western Scottish Waters: By Rail & Steamer to the Isles is a pictorial tour through the decades and a peek into how both people and goods have travelled to the Isles over the years.

For the past two hundred years, lifeboats have been stationed around the coasts of Britain and Ireland, ready to rescue the shipwrecked.

It was a golden age of travel.

Telling the story of the once-ubiquitous Lancashire Nobby, a handsome sailing trawler that was once found in every harbour from West Wales to the West Coast of Scotland.

Sailing, boat owning and living on a Thames spritsail barge have coursed through the veins of the skipper's family since the early 1930s, and it instilled in him a profound love for salt, marsh and mud.

At different times of the year, herring were found in commercial numbers in the North Sea, the Moray Firth, the Minches, the Firth of Clyde, the Irish Sea and the English Channel.

Flat-bottom craft have always been fascinating, largely because they appear so simple in their construction at first glance, made by the farmers and fishermen who used them.

If you mention the subject of pleasure steamers on the rivers Thames and Medway, you can be certain that most people will remember with fond nostalgia the well-loved steamers Royal Daffodil, Royal Sovereign and Queen of the Channel.

Entering service in 1938, the Nieuw Amsterdam was the Holland America Line flagship until the construction of the Rotterdam in the late 1950s.

Overshadowing the port of Chester, Liverpool grew in size from the 1800s on sugar and slavery.

No other moving object has carried as many people in one voyage (over 16,000).

Queen Elizabeth 2: The Last Great Liner tells the story of the Cunard liner.

On October 20, 1910, RMS Olympic was launched at Belfast.

Many people remember with great fondness the pleasure steamers that plied the River Thames in the years after the end of the Second World War.

When Titanic sailed on her maiden voyage she carried two cousins.

The Port of Southampton saw many changes in the 1960s and 1970s.

'Port of Southampton' is the story of the Hampshire port from Roman times to the present day, illustrated by a colelction of images showing everything from seaman's strikes to shipwrecks, the Titanic and Queen Mary, as well as the other famous ocean liners that have called at the port since the 1840s.

Until the middle of the twentieth century, the Port of London was the busiest in the world.

Wales is known for its green hills and valleys, narrow gauge steam railways and medieval castles, but not, it appears, for its pleasure piers.

From Gigha in the south to Lewis in the north and St Kilda in the west, Alistair Deayton covers the piers of the Hebrides and other outlying islands in the companion volume to his West Highland Piers.

Despite their popular association with fun and frivolity, the function of piers as both an amusement centre and landing stage was varied, and nowhere was this better illustrated than on the coasts of Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and east Dorset.

In 1837, P&O, or the Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Company, won a lucrative mail contract to the Iberian peninsula.

In 1995, P&O introduced the 70,000grt Oriana into service.

Pleasure steamer cruises along the scenic North Wales coast from Liverpool disappeared some fifty years ago.

For well over a hundred years all around the coast of Britain there were located a series of nautical training ships.

Built in 1949 in Southampton for the Southampton, Isle of Wight & South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Co.

In this charming sequel to the successful local best-seller Salt Marsh & Mud, the skipper and his mate meander gently around the coastline of East Anglia, exploring the marshland from North Kent to Suffolk in their tan-sailed, wooden clinker sloop, Whimbrel.

From Whitstable, with its oyster beds and fishing fleet, to Chatham and Rochester, the Medway and Swale areas have seen a diverse variety of shipping over the years, from the fishing smacks to men of war, Thames barges, sailing vessels, submarines, pleasure steamers, ferries and cargo ships.

It is now just over a century since Lusitania made her maiden crossing of the North Atlantic.

The Pier Head and landing stages have been places where the people of Liverpool have been able to view, participate in and enjoy many of the major maritime celebrations and events of the last hundred years.

The Port of Liverpool handles more container trade with the United States than any other port in the UK and now also serves more than 100 other non-EU destinations, from China to Africa and the Middle East, and from Australia to South America.

The Humber lifeboat station is unique.

The first Lake District steamers were designed to serve the numerous villages and settlements along the side of the lakes.

The Port of Holyhead has a long history and is now operated by Stena Line Ports Ltd.

Harwich lifeboat station operates two modern, state-of-the-art lifeboats,operated by 28 volunteers and two full-time members of staff.

The Golden Age of Liner travel was from the early 1900s to the 1950s, a period dominated by black and white photography, with little colour views.

Harley Crossley paints for the major shipping lines, with his work adorning many cruise ships.

From the mid-1890s a race was on between the merchant navies of the recently unified Germany, Britain and France.

Ubiquitous in ever supermarket and corner shop, it is hard to imagine a world without bananas.

2008 was a magical year for Cunard.

In 1839, Samuel Cunard, a wealthy Haligonian, sailed from Nova Scotia to England with the idea of setting up a transatlantic steamship company.

Often a lifeline for remote waterside communities, the Scottish pier has been a functional rather than a pleasure pier.

From the 1840s, with the development of steamships, there was a demand for day trips to the coast.

Cruises by pleasure steamer along the Essex coast have been a popular day out since the Victorian age, and are still going strong today despite a plunge in popularity in the 1960s and 1970s and several tragic fires.

When Royal Princess was named in Southampton by HRH The Princess of Wales in November 1984, she was the most advanced purpose-built luxury cruise ship ever conceived and constructed.

On both sides of the Hudson River, along the Manhattan and Hoboken waterfronts, for the best part of a century, millions of people teemed out of ocean liners, bound for a new life in North America.

The 1960s saw a gradual movement of shipping from central London and the quays, wharves and docks of the upper River Thames down river to Tilbury and Harwich.

Memories from Pembroke Dock is an anthology of memories, reminiscences and experiences of people now living in South Pembrokeshire.

When Arthur Anderson invited William Makepeace Thackeray to take a cruise in 1844, and to write about it, British shipping lines offered passage on their vessels for no other reason than leisure.