Episode 23:  THE END OF THE LINE

There are so many ships to be seen in this specially extended production, as we tell the story of the final days of the once great British Merchant Navy and Shipping Industry. We follow the voyages of ships belonging to many of the once great Shipping Companies, as they make their way home,many for the very last time, many having been away for as long as two years on voyages that have taken them all around the world, from the frozen ports of North America in mid-winter to the Panama Canal and the warm waters of the Southern Oceans, calling at New Zealand and Australia before turning North for the Far East, Africa, Aden, Suez, and the Mediterranean. We show the ships both above and below decks and experience the many emotions felt by their crews as they sail closer and closer to home and their loved ones. We also sail with them through some of the most spectacular and frightening storms ever captured on film, storms that only people who served at sea will ever have experienced. Since first starting the production of “The Great Liners ” over sixteen years ago, I have spoken with thousands of people who served in or worked with so many of the great Shipping Companies that once helped to give us the greatest Merchant Navy in the world, and ask of them the question; How could we have possibly lost so much? In this 23rd Episode of this series, with the help of more rare archive film, we once again ask this question and look for possible answers. I hope you will enjoy the rare archive film we have found and painstakingly restored, and that this story will help you to open the covers to your own very special book of memories. Des Cox. Producer. Ex Vindicatrix, NZCo and Cunard.