Lecture -
Flying the Red Ensign: Great British Passenger Liners

After World War II, the British passenger ship was the largest and most extensive on earth. It was, of course, the final era of the Old Empire and so there was brisk trading, with both human as well as crated cargo, between the Mother Country and the far-flung colonies. And the inevitable, intrusive jet had yet to arrive and create devastating competition. There's a full cast of ships, such as the Queen Mary & Queen Elizabeth , but also the Windsor Castle , the Uganda and the Oriana & Canberra , sailing to ports such as Buenos Aires, Capetown, Bombay and Sydney. This is a fond look — with anecdotes of the ships themselves as well as those who sailed them — over a great fleet that has long since vanished from the sealanes.

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