One glorious morning in June 1947 when I was a nine-year-old pupil sitting at my desk at Sea Mills Junior School overlooking the River Avon and down stream from Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, I turned my head to see a sight I shall never forget.

Sailing up river right before my eyes was the magnificent P and A Campbell’s paddle steamer Cardiff Queen on her maiden voyage into the city docks.

It was a time of great excitement because only the night before, my father Bert had taken me along to the Hotwells landing stage to watch the arrival of Campbell’s Empress Queen* on her return from war service.

The previous April he had also taken me to watch the paddler Ravenswood* make her first post war sailing down river from the city docks. She was packed with passengers and crowds also lined the riverbank all along the Portway.

The Ravenswood, like other ships of the Campbell’s fleet, had previously been converted into a mine sweeper for war work and had now just come out of Bristol’s Charles Hill shipyard having been refurbished for peace time service.

My father’s passion for the paddlers began in his childhood because the family had relatives in Cardiff and used to take the old Marchioness* from the city’s Bathurst Basin to Cardiff.

I well remember him coming home from his job as a Co-op grocery store manager one night in 1946 with a copy of the Bristol Evening Post and saying ‘look at this my boy’ as he opened it to the centre page spread to reveal the news that a brand new paddler, the Bristol Queen, was to be built at the Charles Hill yard.
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He certainly instilled a love for the paddlers in me because as a lad I used to get on my bike and peddle down to the Horseshoe bend in the river to watch them sailing up and down the Avon.

Today Alec is Bristol Channel Manager for the Bristol based MV Balmoral and the famous sea going paddle Steamer Waverley that are operated by Waverley Excursions on behalf of the charitable Paddle Steamer Preservation Society.

NOTES

Empress Queen, Campbell's first twin screw turbine driven ship was large and powerful and designed for the cross channel trade to France but then the Second World War intervened and she saw service as the Queen Eagle.

Unfortunately when the war ended, she was not able to resume cross channel trading to France because passport restrictions were not lifted until 1955 by which time she had been tried out unsuccessfully in a number of other roles and eventually sold to the Greeks.

Ravenswood had been sailing in the Bristol Channel since the early 1900’s mainly linking Bristol and the South Wales ports with Ilfracombe but she had also carried passengers on the south coast.

Ravenswood sadly failed a Board of Trade inspection in 1955 by which time Campbell’s with dwindling resources did not think she was worth repairing so she went to the breakers yard in Newport having failed to find a buyer

Marchioness was the last packet steamer to provide a year-round service between Bristol and Cardiff but she was sold to the Dutch in 1913 when her owners, Cardiff & Bristol Channel Steamships owners, went into liquidation and was then operated on the River Maas.

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