Ships' Time
It's nearly 24 years ago and I have difficulty in remembering the precise celebration in June 1991, but this clock and ship’s bell still holds a prized place at home.
It was presented to us by Stena Sealink as a memento of the start of its cross Channel ferry run between Southampton and Cherbourg.
Sadly the cross-Channel ferries have long disappeared from the waterfront at Southampton, but back in the heyday of the services to Cherbourg and Le Havre we travelled as often as we could. At the time a long weekend in Normandy became a regular occurrence, or often the long weekends were taken in the middle of the week.
We got to know Normandy and the Cherbourg peninsula well, and usually we were content to simply explore new towns and villages in that region alone. We even had our favourite hotels, and one in particular, Les Fuchias at St Vaast on the peninsula we visited time and again. If only for its reputation for fresh seafood. But St Vaast is a charming little village; its oysters were renowned; the harbour area a picturesque delight for the camera enthusiast — me. And then there was the fabulous epicure delicatessen run by the Gosselin family.
I am delighted that the Royal Southampton Yacht Club where I now devote much of my energies as editor of its publications, both in print and online, still makes a regular homage to St Vaast each May, where I know the cruising members who take part enjoy much the same hospitality as we did all those years ago. And I am told the seafood served at Les Fuchias and other restaurants in the area is just as spectacular.
The old Viking ferries, run by the Norwegian company Thoresen, which opened up the drive on, drive off ferries in 1967, later joined by Normandy Ferries and Stena Sealink and a handful of other operators whose services were shortlived provided opened a fresh dimension for us living in the central South coast 40 years ago. For the perspective of the long tradition of seafarers in the Southampton region, many a tear was shed when the remaining cross-Channel services moved along the coast to Portsmouth.
For us that memory of those times is kept alive by this clock and ship’s bell.
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