Copyright � Ron Baker
Ron Baker from Hythe (near Folkestone) was our guest speaker at our meeting on Monday 5th July. Ron, a native of Liverpool, gave us a first class tour of the Liverpool docks, mainly during the �70s with a few oldies from the �60s. Ron remembers well the visits as a young lad to the docks with various friends and relations whilst they were working their Saturday morning overtime. He explained that most of his early photos were taken with a simple fixed lens camera, (none of the SLRs with interchangeable zoom lenses, auto focus and exposure of today) from a dock shed roof. For most of us it was a trip down memory lane, seeing the long gone liner cargo ships belonging to Bank Line, Booth Line, Blue Funnel, Blue Star, Canadian Pacific, Cunard, Ellerman, Glen Line, Harrison�s, New Zealand Shipping, PSNC, Shaw Saville and Cunard White Star. Ron�s obvious favourite (and ours) was Elder Dempster�s liner Aureol that mysteriously appeared in many a slide. Many other old favourites included Cunard�s Mauretania, Shaw Saville�s Dominion Monarch, and Cunard White Star�s Britannic. For completeness ships were seen in other ports around world, with a good number taken at Cape Town. Also slides were from within the UK, at London, Falmouth, Fowey, and Swansea. It was an evening of nostalgia seeing so many of those wonderful funnels that we all remember seeing at that time in the nearby London Docks.
Our thanks to Ron for travelling to Mid -Essex for the evening, and look forward to taking him up on his offer to bring along another show.