The passing of an age.

It's funny to think of the passing of "ages" and to have been at the declining end of one.
When I was young we were fed a diet of our history and the place we occupied in the world. The Empire was coming to a close and the Commonwealth was a poor image but still an image of our past endeavours in seeking conquest and trade.
Strange to think how this tiny island had played such a part in the development of so many countries across the world. Of so little landmass we controlled a good proportion of the globe and any schoolboy took it for granted when he saw so much of the Globe coloured in red depicting our sovereignty over the peoples who lived in these countries around the world. We grew up feeling we were the boss and the ships that left Southampton and the other ports around our shores were part of an umbilical cord which connected the mother with her responsibilities.

From the great ocean Liners to the small Merchant vessels which set off and tramped around the world from port to port, no set itinerary, only the directive sent by wireless to the ship from head office in Liverpool "proceed to Bombay for a cargo of tyres destination Buenos Aires"

The docks were a magical place for a youngster with imagination. These ships rising sheer out of the water, surging on the tide, their lines creaking under the strain as if saying we want to be off and soon. The gangplank had an immeasurable pull to our young imaginative minds as we watched the officials and the men sailing the ships come and go about their business. If you were lucky and the ship was about to sail there seemed a sort of feverish activity as last minute, arrangements were made and the crew arrived from the taxi to board their true home from another. Slowly the last office official came down the gangway and up it went emphasising  a separation, our world, from its world. The tugs would fuss around securing their positions as the lines were let go and the gap between the ships side slowly, almost imperceptibly grew. Slow ahead. She swung out into the middle of the harbour.
A blast from her fog horn thanking the assistance and saying goodby to the small clutch of people standing rather forlornly to wave farewell.
Out she went passed the breakwater and into their cars went the "land people" to contest the traffic and return home but now without someone who was in another world, taking a working shift patten which would be their lot until another destination was reached.

The great ships, the massive Passenger Liners were of a different dimension. They were a world within a world and we, who were lucky enough to use them to travel around were treated to an experience which is all but gone. Only the cruse ships remain but they are more floating hotel than ship. They are so large you are swallowed up in their enormity, with the sea and the sense of being afloat lost in the entertainment paradise that their designers think is what a consumer needs to get through the day.

The ships that used to ply the route to the Antipodes, the £10 passage, were in some ways  the equivalent of economy class air. But the cramped hell of a 25 hour air-plane flight was at the other end of the scale to the fun and frolics of a 5 week voyage. Given the equally cramped upbringing of the average Pom, escaping to a new life. Life on board was heaven. There has never been anything to compare, at least in my experience with the freedom found on those voyages and it's a tragedy that, other than a few cargo ships we are now all constrained to travelling in a metal tube !!

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