Shipping buffs will enjoy this interesting record of Union-Castle’s heyday
ALTHOUGH the colours in the painting reproduced on its cover were not exact, one of my prized possessions during my kortbroek years was a brochure to commemorate the maiden voyage of Pretoria Castle. The painting showed the mail ship leaving Cape Town, her funnel bright scarlet while the harbour tugs looked diminutive.
Acclaimed maritime author and historian Peter Newall has included that cover in his delightful and meticulously-researched 98-page book Union-Castle Line: The PostWar Liners.
Newall takes the reader on a voyage to the past and has created a wonderful reminder of a remarkable company that, with its ancestral companies, was central to South Africa’s trade and the mass movement of people for 120 years.
I recognise some images of the ships from a time when I regularly begged for postcards at shipping offices throughout the city – and some postcards were brought to me by my Uncle Exill during his time on the ships while arranging railway transport for those passengers heading to or leaving the old Rhodesias (Zimbabwe and Zambia) or Bechuanaland (Botswana).
Newall has also included dozens of previously unpublished photographs from numerous collections, enhancing the interest generated by this fine record of Union-Castle’s heyday.
There are extracts from brochures that were familiar to many in those years, notably the maiden voyage brochure of Bloemfontein Castle that had as its centrespread a detailed cutaway diagram of the vessel. I know that diagram very well, for it adorned the wall of my tiny bedroom in our Mowbray home until the fish moths made a meal of it.
I counted 18 construction cranes in a striking photograph of the launching of Rhodesia Castle at the Harland & Wolff shipyard in Belfast in 1951.
She was the first of the postwar round-Africa liners and, within 18 months, her sisterships Kenya Castle and Braemar Castle joined her on a service that would fade as political change swept through Africa.
Ships’ cabin plans and photographs of the interiors of ships will take folks back to their voyages to the UK or along the coast.
At the age of six, I spent hours on the back of the very lifelike rocking horse in the kiddies’ playroom during a coastal voyage aboard Pretoria Castle, emerging to eat, sleep and to watch the tugs when the ship entered or left port. The playroom also had a box filled with the rubber forerunner of Lego.
This is a book that shipping buffs and former passengers will enjoy. They will keep paging through for its well-illustrated pages and easy narrative will strike a chord with many whose voyages aboard UnionCastle ships remain among their most treasured experiences.
It is published by Ships Monthly and can be ordered via the usual electronic channels.
Another remarkable passenger ship is heading this way. Residents along the Table Bay coast tomorrow will see the magnificent Queen Mary 2, inward from Southampton via a number of ports, including Walvis Bay. She sails on Friday for Australia via Port Elizabeth, Reunion and Mauritius.
The sudden passing of Captain Rodney Young MBE, master of RMS St Helena, was met with great sadness by so many people.
Former passengers recall his courtesy and care for those aboard the ship, and the shipping community laud him as a highly professional shipmaster. His wife, his family and his friends will miss his warmth and cheerful demeanour.
Until February 13, the RMS’s management company, Andrew Weir Shipping (1 Thibault Square), will host a remembrance book for folks to record their own tributes.