Deck Chair

As the Summer swelter continues, up goes an impassioned plea “Lead me to my deck chair!!”.

The humble deck chair ….Perhaps? Or the well travelled ship’s “deck chair” – if this linen and teak could talk imagine the gossip it holds – from a Golden Era of luxury transatlantic ocean liner travel. Or the End of The Pier, seagull serenaded, fish and chips frying, spearmint rock munching of Brighton, Cromer or Southend – the World’s longest.

Called a Lawn Chair in the US, the Deck Chair has an illustrious history. It was the victim of some on board snobbery. Around the turn of the 20th century, first class passengers would typically enjoy the padded loveliness of a “Steamer” deck chair -Port Out Starboard Home – their legs raised and clad in a woolen rug, invariably sipping broth, if the climate demanded, whilst more lowly passengers would enjoy their trip on a slung hammock canvas and teak deck chair that could be positioned to follow the sun around the deck and be folded for easy stowage.

The origins of the folding chair has its history in Ancient Greece, Rome and Egypt. More recently, patents were obtained in the 1880’s in the US and UK for the classic steamer chair. R Holman & Co of Boston (Mass) were the manufactures of the Steamer Deck Chairs that graced the deck of the SS Titanic. Of the 600 supplied only six survived – below is a shot of one.

There is some debate as to the precise origins of the more rudimentary wooden framed version. Primarily it comprises two rectangualar wooden frames, hinged, with an adjustable back piece and a single length of canvas forming the seat and backrest. Some sources  attribute it to a British inventor, Atkins, in the late 19th Century whereas others credit its design to being similar to “The Yankee Hammock Chair” as advertised in 1882.  The name “Brighton Beach Chair” also seems to predate our currently understood use of “Deck Chair”.

In my Grandmother’s house in Hertfordshire – I think it was 1976 – she had a row of Edwardian faded green canvas chairs which not only had arms and a footrest but also a large sun canopy that flapped in whatever pathetic excuse for a breeze we had that summer. I recall that the covers perished quite frequently and the local nurseryman supplied rolls of 18” wide canvass to restring your chair. The look was completed by a white parasol, two Lloyd Loom chairs – see our previous post here – Lloyd Loom Chairs – and a bentwood table covered in a circular linen tablecloth with a jug of iced lemonade and tall glasses covered in weighted net – to avoid the flies.

Similar products are still made today by people such as Southsea Deckchairs Southsea Deckchairs

Images used with grateful thanks – Southsea Dechairs and The V&A Museum

If you like this post please “Like” and share it with your friends and colleagues. We’d really like to hear of your experiences of the products/subjects featured in this post. please share them below in the “Leave a Reply” section. Thanks 

Advertisement

Mike Hawthorn – 1958 Formula One World Champion

 

At the weekend, with a couple of my kids, I visited the Brooklands Museum – see the Museums website here  – Brooklands Museum in Weybridge Surrey the home of British Aviation and early Motor Racing. My late father had been an early Trustee of the Museum assisting it to secure substantial support from Shell, his former employer. I am told there is a plaque to his memory on site but, sadly, we couldn’t locate it.

My father was a very keen follower of Motor Racing, he ran part of Shell’s  commitment to sport and visited tracks all over the world in the 1970’s and 80’s. As kids we even lived in the village of Silverstone.

Prior his early years in the Army and then in commerce in Africa and elsewhere, my Dad was schooled at Ardingly College in West Sussex. A rather typical English Boarding School which produced well rounded chaps in the 1940’s. His close friends and contemporaries included Bill Cotton (the son of the 1940’s Band Leader, “Billy Cotton”, who became the head of BBC TV) and John Michael (“Mike”) Hawthorn, who because of his hair coloring, was nicknamed “Snowball”. See our previous post mentioning Mike Hawthorn here – Morgan Cars

Born in Yorkshire on 10th April 1929 this blond and debonair young man was an iconic British racing driver and the very essence of what made motoracing glamourous. He drove a Ferrari and his penchant for racing in a bow tie did much to concrete his reputation as a gentleman racer of the finest tradition. Behind his steely blue eyes lay a depth of grit and ambition that would see him secure the Formula One World Championship alongside a host of other trophies.

Mike Hawthorn’s biography “Challenge Me The Race” carries the line “The first motor races I ever saw were at Brooklands. I was only a very small boy, but to me it was heaven to watch the cars thundering round those towering cliffs of concrete where the banking curved under the Members’ Bridge, to wander along the lines of brightly coloured cars in their stalls in the paddock, to jump as an exhaust snarled suddenly and to sniff the aroma of castor oil.”

Leslie, Mike’s father had relocated from Doncaster to Farnham, Surrey – opening The Tourist Trophy Garage in 1931 – to be nearer Brooklands. His father is said to have driven a young Mike in a Riley 2.0 litre around the legendary track thus sealing his ambition to race. This must have been a fascinating era with the Sunbeam, Napier Railtons and Bentleys battling on the banked curves of the Brooklands circuit.

 

Mike started racing bikes in 1947 and after a period in Formual Two driving a Cooper Bristol and being courted by the Jaguar team – managed by Lofty England –  he joined the Ferrari Team in 1953. He suffered burns following a crash in 1954 in Syracuse (Italy) and whilst  hospitalized his father was tragically killed in a car accident. Mike joined Jaguar in 1955 as team leader, replacing Stirling Moss. After a tragic Le Mans in 1955 and a week Jaguar performance at the same race in 1956 – which led to Jaguars retirement from racing – in 1957 Hawthorn rejoined Ferrari.

On 19th October 1958 – nearly 60 years ago – driving for Scuderia Ferrari, Mike failed to win the Moroccan Grand Prix at the newly built Ain-Diab Circuit. He was beaten into second place by Stirling Moss driving a Vanwall. Despite his position, Hawthorn secured, by a single point (total 42 points), the 1958 Formula One World Championship, the first British driver to do so. Moss came second with 41 points. Anoraks will be amused to note that Bernie Ecclestone competed in the same race – one of only two starts ever by Bernie in a Formula One – the second being the same year at Silverstone.

Immediately following the race Hawthorn announced his retirement from motoracing after eight amazing years. Sadly, the 29 year old champ was unwell following the loss of his friend Peter Collins and a recurrent, and, many have said probably terminal, kidney complaint.

Sadly on 22nd January 1959 Mike was killed in a British Racing Green, Mark 1 3.4 litre Jaguar – Reg VDU 881 – that had been loaned to him by the Jaguar team, that crashed on the Guilford by-pass. Whilst the circumstances are unclear it seems that on the wet surface with a witness attesting to seeing his car traveling at around 100 mph, he may have been racing Mercedes Team’s Rob Walker, who was driving a gull-winged doored Mercedes 300 SL.

See this dated Pathe newsreel announcing in its staccato voice over the sad news of Mike’s death  Mike Hawthorn Killed

If you liked this post please “Like” and share it with your friends. We’d really like to hear your experiences of the subject(s) featured in this post. Please share them below in the “Leave a Reply” section. Thanks

Image credits – used with grateful thanks Brooklands Museum, Pathe News and Motor Sports Magazine

Iconic American Candy – Part 1

“Two countries separated by a common language” is an expression widely attributed to the author, George Bernard Shaw sometime in the 1940’s. This is applicable to many elements of US/UK life, none more so than in the area of confectionary.

Whilst many people raised in the UK at any point in the last fifty year will have a more than a passing familiarity with the English sweets featured in our previous post – see our previous post here – Iconic English Sweets – Part 1 I suspect that there may only be a few Brits who will have any emotional bond to those iconic candies (obviously not “sweets”) hailing from the US including Hersey Bars, Tootsie Rolls, Life Savers or Milk Duds.

I recently saw a store on London’s Oxford Street – the Tottenham Court Road end – that sells nothing but US candy and US versions of known and lesser known cereals like Golden Grahams, Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms. We are familiar with these brands from their presence, to some extent, on our supermarket shelves but also from holidays to the US and strategic product placement in, particularly Hollywood-made films.

Why not try a pack of Lucky Charms or Fruit Loops by clicking the following AMAZON links

General Mills Lucky Charms Extra Value Size 453 g (Pack of 2)

Kelloggs Froot Loops Regular Size Usa Version 345 g

I wanted to major on a few iconic US candy brands to tug at a nostalgic sweet teeth of our US readers but I also wanted to help raise the profile of certain iconic US brands to a wider international audience.

Hershey Bars 

Like many slightly cockeyed views of those products that made the US great, in Europe we have an embedded view of Hershey as having gained prominence from the kitbag of US Military GI’s.

The success story – and there were previous failures – goes back to 1886 when Milton Snavely Hershey founded a successful caramel making business, Lancaster Caramel, in rural Pennsylvania. The business grew rapidly and exported, particularly to the UK, where an early connection with a British importer had proved fruitful.

The World Columbian Exhibition of 1893 had sparked in Hershey a desire to make chocolate and in 1894 the first product bearing the Hershey name – Hershey’s Cocoa – was launched.

In 1900 Milton sold the Lancaster Caramel business – for $1m – in order to concentrate on chocolate production, launching Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bars the same year. A year previous he’d developed the Hershey process that made excellent milk chocolate economically from the excellent raw materials – particularly local milk – available in their rural setting. In 1907 he introduced the small foiled wrapped cones of chocolate “Hershey’s Kisses” – a staple for US Valentine’s Day.

Hershey was raised a Pennsylvanian Mennonite (whose Protestant forbears had hailed from Friesland in the Netherlands) and was a noted philanthropist. In the early 1900’s Milton starting building model towns, schools and leisure amenities for his workers and the local community. Even during the Great Depression, Hershey commissioned substantial building projects in the company town of Hershey, PA.

By the late 1920’s a US staple “S’mores” – a combination of biscuit, Hershey’s chocolate and marsh mallow – became increasingly popular.

The majority of chocolate used in Military rations are made by the Hershey Company. Between 1940 and 1945, over 3 billion of the D ration (that includes six squares of chocolate) and Tropical Bars were produced and distributed to the military. By the end of hostilities the Hershey Company were producing 24m ration bars a week.

Milton died on 13th October 1945. He and wife, Kitty, were childless so their efforts in establishing schools and assisting local families were their lasting legacies. In 1918, three years after his wife’s death, Hershey transferred all of his shares in the Hershey Company – then thought to be then worth around $60m and now valued at around $12bn – to the Milton Hershey School Trust fund, the school that he and Kitty had established in 1909 primarily for local children in need. The school continues to be one of the best funded secondary schools in the US.

The Hershey Company produced Rolo and Kit Kat for Nestle in the US as a result of perpetuity agreements entered into with Rowntree’s in 1978.

Milton and Kitty had spent the winter of 1911 in Nice (France) and Milton needed to return to the US. The Titanic was to sail on 10th April 1911 on its maiden voyage and a cheque bearing Hershey’s signature for $300 payable to the Titanic’s operator, the White Star Line, drawn on the Hershey Trust Company demonstates Milton’s intention to travel aboard. For some reason he elected to return earlier to the US and sailed on 6th April 1912 aboard the SS Amerika.

Try the iconic Hershey Milk Chocolate Bar By clicking the following AMAZON link

Hershey Milk Chocolate Giant Bar 198 g (Pack of 3)

You may also like to try Hershey’s Kisses – they are delicious – Valentine’s Day anyone?

Hershey’s Kisses (1.13kg)

Tootsie Rolls

Tootsie Roll are a sort of cross between toffee (or taffy in US) and chocolate that were first patented in the US in 1907 and launched in September of 1908.

In 1896, founder and inventor, Leo Hirschfield, who named his iconic product after his daughter Clara’s nickname, had established for his employers, Stern & Staalberg, a small New York City based candy store. Leaving the business in unexplained circumstances in 1920 and later in 1922, sadly, committed suicide.

The company was acquired in 1935 by Bernard D Rubin – of Joseph Rubin and Sons Tootsie Rolls packaging supplier. Rubin moved the company to larger premises in Hoboken (New Jersey). He died in 1948 having hugely increased the businesses value. His brother, William, succeeded him as President until 1962 when his daughter Ellen Gordon took over. Her late husband Melvin was Chairman and CEO for many years. The business became Tootsie Roll Industries in 1966 and has a world-wide market with around 64m Tootsie Rolls being made daily.

Why not enjoy some classic candy for your family – see the following AMAZON links

Tootsie Roll Midgees 184 g (Pack of 4)

TOOTSIE ROLL JAR – 96 BARS (14G EACH BAR) – RETRO AMERICAN CANDY

Life Savers

Life Savers are an iconic US brand of circular hard candy – deriving their name from the life-belts used on boats – and are available in, primarily, mint and fruit flavours that are wrapped in waxed paper and aluminum foil rolls. The product was invented in 1912 by Clarence Crane of Cleveland (Ohio) and was intended as an alternative to chocolate, in that they would not melt.

Crane sold his “Pep-O-Mint” trademark and formula to Edward Noble in 1913 for $2,900 who established the Life Savers and Candy Company. In 1919, Noble’s brother developed machinery to mass produce the candies that had previously been made by hand. He sold the tubes of Pep-O-Mint Life Savers for a nickel – 5 cents. Tinfoil rolls were replaced by aluminum rolls in 1925. By the same year, as a result of progress in manufacturing technology the “whole in the middle” first appeared in the fruit candy.

Production was moved to Port Chester (New York) and a custom designed and dressed building with Life Saver images was constructed. Production took place at Port Chester between 1920 and 1984.

The first five-flavours roll was launched in 1935. Edward Noble ran the business for more than forty years until the late 1950’s when he sold it to the Squibb Corporation.  In 1981, Nabisco Brands Inc. acquired Life Savers from the E.R. Squibb Corporation and in 2004, the US Life Savers business was acquired by Wrigley’s a division of Mars from 2008.

In 1947 Rowntree’s (Nestle) in the UK, a former licensed manufacturer of Life Savers, launched a similar product, the “Polo” mint resulting in an ongoing trade mark dispute.

Try some iconic US candies here by clicking the following AMAZON links

5 Flavours 32 g (Pack of 6)

Lifesavers Wint O Green Bag 177 g (Pack of 2)

Altoids

An advert for a business in the 1990’s – I think it was Hanson Trust –  had the tag line was “a Company From Here Doing Rather Well Over There”. The same could be said for the London based 1780’s creation of Altoids made by Smith & Company – later to become the famed toffee brand of Callard and Bowser – now part of Mars – in the 19th century.  Altoids are still one of the top selling mint brands in the US market.

The Altoid slogan “The Original Celebrated Curiously Strong Mints”, referencing the strength of peppermint oil used in the original lozenge is still displayed prominently on its packaging tins.

In the 1920’s the now iconic Altoid tin replaced previous cardboard packaging. The tins have become highly collectible and have – aside from the obvious hobby uses for storing screws and nails – doubled as survival tins, been the customized home for small personal computers and even emergency cooking pots for those stranded in snow.

Production was moved from Bridgend in South Wales to Chattanooga Tennessee to be closer to its prime market.

Try Altoids – they are really very good – by clicking the following AMAZON link

Altoids Curiously Strong Peppermints 50 g (Pack of 12)

Milk Duds

It appears that the entire US candy market – and now a word from our sponsor – is “Brought to you in Association with Hershey”! Milk Duds are a chocolate-covered caramel drop and another Hershey product.

The perhaps unusual name comes the large amount of milk used in their production and the word “dud” apparently came as a result of employee’s reactions to the original aim of having a perfectly round chocolate-covered product that was proving impossible to create.

Milk Duds were first created in 1926 by Sean le Noble of Chicago. In 1928, Holloway took over production from Le Noble & Company. In 1960, Beatrice Foods acquire Holloway and in 1986 Leaf purchased Milk Duds which in turn was acquired in 1996 by Hershey Foods Corporation.

Hershey’s Milk Duds Candy 85 g (Pack of 6)

Reese’s Pieces

Yet another Hershey brand which was acquired in 1963 following the death of founder Henry Burnett Reese in 1956, the businesses was founded in 1923. Reese who’s signature “Peanut Butter Cups” are a favourite in the US was inspired when he worked for Milton Hershey as a shipping forman to start out on his own. The stock-for-stock merger now values the Reese family interest in Hershey as worth $1.8bn which in 2017 delivered an annual dividend of $42m.

I had a business colleague in the mid-1980 who loved Reese’s Pieces and her luck was in as we had frequent US visitors who would be greeted with a cheery “Got any Reese’s Pieces?” on their arrival in London. For the sanity of all they would often dig deep into huge JFK Duty Free carrier bags and off load onto my colleagues desk!

If you ask an English child to combine Peanut Butter and Chocolate their grimace may suggest that their response is confused. Why would you do that? In the US – and increasingly the UK – everything from a Kit Kat, Twix and Snicker’s bars are now available in Peanut Butter flavour. Even bespoke chocolatiers now cover nuts and toffee with “salted caramel” – after all that’s the core connection between the Peatnut Butter and the Chocolate is saltiness.

Reese’s Pieces and their many variants of this now classic combination are highly successful. Why not satiete your curiosity with a bumper box from Reese’s click this AMAZON link:

Reeses American Candy Gift Hamper | Peanut Butter Chocolate Selection | Assortment Includes Peanut Butter Cups Pieces Sticks Nut Bars Miniatures | 18 Items in Retro Sweets Gift Box

If you liked this post please “Like” and share it with your friends. We’d really like to hear your experiences of the subject(s) featured in this post. Please share them below in the “Leave a Reply” section. Thanks

Image Credits – The Hershey Company, Tootsie Roll Industries, Mars and Kellogg’s

Iconic TV Advertisements

As we emerge from the Christmas Season when parlour games and an over-dose of TV co-incide I wanted to pay homage to those moments of TV history that are either so creative, successful or engaging that they allow us to be described as iconic.

There can be little doubting the power of the well-timed TV advertisement to support the marketing efforts of a major brand in a critical buying season. However, there are some commercials that go beyond the marketing mix to become – almost National Treasures – being both iconic and loved by audiences.

Here are a few TV commercials that have an appeal all their own. I make no apology for the nostalgic nature of this collection as, to some extent, the core audience was then less sophisticated. The “short-hand” language of known music to accompany aspirational images is no coincidence.

The Seasonal Campaigns – when Fizzy Drinks Manufacturers and Department Stores corner the run up to Christmas.

Coca Cola Christmas – “Holidays are Coming” Holidays Are Coming – Coca Cola

The first iteration of the Coca Cola Christmas commercial was aired in 1995 featuring the “Christmas Cravan” of illuminated trucks as devised by agency W. B. Doner and Santa Claus as depicted in 1930’s for Coca Cola by the artist Haddon Sundblom. The song “Wonderful Dream (Holidays are Coming)” was first used for the Coca Cola Christmas advert in 2001.

Christmas John Lewis – “The Bear and the Hare” The Bear and The Hare

UK Department Store, John Lewis, released their first Christmas advert in 2007 but the £7m campaign in 2013 entitled “The Bear and the Hare” is truly a masterpiece. With its superb Lily Allen soundtrack (her version of Keane’s 2004 single “Somewhere Only We Know”) and meticulous artwork from a team including Aaron Blaise – known for his work with Disney – we see our hero the Hare ensuring that his hibernating friend the Bear wakes up to enjoy Christmas.

Perhaps one of the most iconic seasonable adverts that courted as much controversy as plaudits was Sainbury’s 2104 offering. This was a wonderfully evocative advert that encapsulated not only a documented historical event but made contemporary and relevant.

The AMV BBDO produced classic harnessed the World War One commenmoration that swept the UK in 2014. The director, Ringan Ledwidge, was keen to engage the support of the Royal British Legion for whom Sainbury’s donated a heathy chunk of the sales of a special chocolate bar that reproduced part of the Tommy Christmas trench rations.

Sainbury’s “Truce” Sainsbury’s “Truce”

The Iconic:

Even if I didn’t think that Levi’s 501s – see my earlier post here – Levi 501’s were the best jeans made I suspect this advert would have converted many to this iconic brand.

Levis – Nick Kamen Levis 501 – Marvin Gaye

First shown on Boxing Day (26.12) in 1985, it was conceived by John Hegarty and Barabara Noakes of BBH and directored by Roger Lyons. It had the desired effect of making jeans sexy and revived Levis flagging fortunes – it also stimulated the sale of boxer shorts!

Even if Guinness isn’t your beer of choice – see my earlier post here – Aestheticons’ Guide to Iconic European Beers – Part 1 –  one of the UK’s most favourite commercials ever made was for the Black Stuff.

Guinness Surfers and Horses

The campaign was devised in 1999 by Abbott Mead Vickers for the Guinness brand and was directed by Jonathan Glazer, who later directed the cult movie “Sexy Beast” starring Ray Winstone. It was shot in Hawaii with one surfer, known as Rusty K, finally conquering the wave. Leftfield’s track “Phat Planet” beats out the inspiration drawn from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick “Ahab says, ‘I don’t care who you are, here’s to your dream.'”

When you pursuade a major rock bands to allow you to use one of their songs in support of your first TV comercial, the launch of Windows 95, you have to expect to pay heavily for the priviledge. It is said that The Rolling Stones were paid $3m – for a six month license – but reports suggest that it was money well spent and made Microsoft a household name. Bill Gates apparently had the idea for the commercial from the “Start” button on his pc. The $200m launch was directed by Portland ad agency, Wieden & Kennedy

Rolling Stones Microsoft – Microsoft – Rolling Stones

The Sexy, Cute and Clever:

Eating a crumbly chocolate bar in a hot bath sound perilous but Cadbury’s managed to turn jeopardy into sexy with a series of adverts in the 1980’s/90s – even if the 1991 version featured an overflowing bath that no doubt caused havoc with the downstairs neighbours…..

Flake – Bathtime Flake

An altogether more breezy and cute image was created in 1991 by the French Publicis agency featuring a fictional father and daughter in a series of adverts for Renault’s Clio. So successful were the ads that in 1996 a survey suggested that the female lead “Nicole” – a none driver at the time of the first commercial – was more recogniseable than John Major, the then Prime Minister! The sound track to the version shown below – and there were eight ads in total – feature an acoustic recording of Robert Palmer’s “Johnny and Mary” played by an old friend, the guitar genius, Martin Taylor.

Renault Clio – Nicole/Papa Papa & Nicole

Adverts featuring a large numbers of extras that through careful choreography create stunning images fall into a category we call “cleaver”. In 1989 a Saatchi & Saatchi campaign for British Airways saw the combination of very beautifully Hugh Hudson (Chariots of Fire) directed photography, filmed in Utah, with a stunning Malcolm McLaren and Yanni produced classical soundtrack (the Flower Duet from Léo Delibes’ opera “Lakmé”) and you have an iconic advert that’s instantly recognizable.

British Airways BA Face Commercial

Given the proliferation of media and the understandable pressures on budgets for TV/on-screen adverts, todays advertising gurus need to be a smart as their predecessors to engage an audience quickly and convincingly.

If you liked this post please “Like” and share it with your friends. We’d really like to hear your experiences of the subject(s) featured in this post. Please share them below in the “Leave a Reply” section. Thanks

Image credits with thanks to Coca Cola, BBC, The John Lewis Partnership, Levi Strauss, Guinness, Leftfield, Microsoft, The Rolling Stones, Sainsbury’s, Cadburys/Mondelez and British Airways.

 

 

The Hovercraft

Seldom do we seen such a dramatic shift away from one established technology with the arrival of a competing and, often, better new technology or solution – this is described by the cruelly true word of “obsolesce”.

A classic example is the Kodiak 35mm film or the Polaroid camera – see our earlier piece here on the Polaroid Camera – when confronted with the dawn of mass digital photography and the ever increasing pixels of the cameras incorporated into mobile phones demand for these former market leaders collapsed.

The powered or manual ribbon typewriter was rendered redundant by the arrival its victor, the word processor/computer.

An equally dramatic commercial market shift can be seen in the impact that the opening of the Channel Tunnel, in May 1994 and the commencing of its passenger services in November 1994, had on the transport links typified by ferry boats and today’s iconic design, The Hovercraft.

On many occasions from the mid 1970’s to late 1980’s I used the Hovercraft services that ploughed between the Kent coasts and Northern France. Akin to flying, rising up then skuttling across the waves on its air inflated “skirt”, the ride was fabulous – if a little noisy – for the sea-sick prone, like me, who could resemble an emerald before a traditional ferry boat had left the harbour!

Not entirely without predecessors, the Hovercraft is regarded as a British invention of  the late 1950’s when mechanical engineer Christopher Cockerell’s and his colleagues developed an annular ring of air for maintaining the cushion and providing lift under the vehicle, combined with a successful “skirt”, resulted in the first practical vehicular use of the concept.

Initially, until no military use was shown, Cockerell’s work and design were Classified. However, it was later Declassified and in 1958 Cockerell obtained funding for a full scale model. Launching in June 1959, it crossed the English Channel on 25 July 1959.

By 1968 a car and passenger cross-channel ferry service was offered by Hoverlloyd from the Kent coast to Calais and Boulogne (France) and, later, by Seaspeed – a joint venture with British Rail and the French equivalent SNCF. In 1981 the two businesses merged to become “Hoverspeed” – whose majestic craft is our featured image.

The Hoverspeed services ceased in 2000 and were replaced by Seacat catamarans until 2005. The reason, often cited for their closure was the impact of the opening of the Channel Tunnel.

I’d also suggest the routes suffered from a decline in so-called “Booze Cruises”, when us Brits, would fill up our cars with lowly taxed beers, wines and spirits in Northern France.

Although the Hovercraft continues to enjoy a role, both in the military and civilian services around the world, and production still taking place on the Isle of White – the  home of its design and testing – perhaps like Concorde – see our earlier post here – Concorde by Dominic Baker in years to come and market forces identify demand there will be a revival in the fortunes of the Cross Channel Hovercraft services, I would be a keen supporter.

If you liked this post please “Like” and share it with your friends. We’d really like to hear your experiences of the subject(s) featured in this post. Please share them below in the “Leave a Reply” section. Thanks

Photo credits – Hover Speed And MarkusHerzig.com