Please indulge me as I get all nostalgic with this week’s blog as I delve back into the Golden Age of ocean going travel.

I have been prompted to go back through the history books by the news that there are going to be more cruise departures from UK ports in 2011.

My attention was drawn in particular to Holland America Line announcing that it is to run a short season of sailings from the London port of Tilbury next summer.

The premium US company is to deploy stylish, boutique-style ship ms Prinsendam from the River Thames London cruise terminal.

The pocket-size 835-passenger Prinsendam will sail two 14-night round Britain cruises from Tilbury, departing July 11 and August 29 on different itineraries. The ship will make two maiden ports of call, in Ilfracombe in North Devon, and Bristol.

Prinsendam will also offer 14 and 21-night sailings from Amsterdam and Tilbury including the cities of the Baltic, the Kiel Canal and the Arctic Circle.

The Tilbury trips are in addition to 1,260-passenger mid-size Ryndam and 2,104-passenger Eurodam offering departures from Dover in 2011.

Tilbury is used as an occasional turn-around point by cruise lines which include London on their itineraries. The 800-passenger Transocean ship Marco Polo also uses the port as a departure point for summer cruises.

So why get so excited about what is now known as the London Cruise Terminal?

Canberra connection

Well, it brings amazing memories flooding back to me of seeing my grandfather off on an epic voyage to Australia from the port in the mid-Sixties.

I must have been about ten at the time we were driven to see him off on board Canberra, then the 45,000-ton flagship of what was then the P&O-Orient Line’s fleet.

I remember being completely in awe of the biggest vessel I had ever seen at close quarters, with its sleek lines and striking double funnels.

Revolutionary at the time, the liner Canberra helped transform the UK-Australia service in the Sixties and early Seventies before competition from jet air travel led to the demise of such scheduled voyages.

Tilbury will also be remembered as the departure point for thousands emigrating to Australia on the ‘Ten Pound Pom’ assisted passage scheme run by the Australian government and as the entry point for many post-war immigrants to the UK.

My overriding memory of the port were the massive cranes loading provisions on board the mighty 2,200-passenger Canberra in preparation for the long trip to the other side of the world.

A trip of a lifetime

My grandfather opted to take the relaxing option of sailing to Sydney as a once in a lifetime trip to visit relatives of ours who lived in Australia. The journey took more than a month and took him via Gibraltar, across the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, to Colombo and onward to Australia when I made him promise to send a postcard immediately on his arrival.

I couldn’t quite comprehend exactly what the trip meant to him, but I certainly understood how lucky he was to be embarking on what to me was the ultimate seafaring adventure.

I never knew how much he paid for his voyage or whether he was travelling as a first or tourist class passenger but I was sure it was worth every penny.

I have discovered subsequently that in the early Sixties a first class cruise on Canberra to New York would have cost between £152 and £388, with tourist class ranging between £84 and £135. Well beyond the means of many at the time.

I seeing my grandfather off from the dockside at Tilbury and wondering when I would see him again subconsciously must have sparked off my interest in travel in general, although it took me a few decades before I was able to fulfil my ambition and step on board my first cruise ship.

That’s why I am grateful to Holland America Line and Cruise and Maritime Voyages, which run Marco Polo, for reviving the Tilbury connection for me and, I suspect, many others.

Phil Davies

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