A Mersey Tribute to the RMS Windsor Castle

In this special feature we reproduce a recent article from Liverpool’s Daily Post newspaper by Peter Elson honouring the RMS Windsor Castle of 1960. This article pays tribute to her remarkable career from her construction and launch at Cammell Lairds, her service career, her life as an accommodation ship in the Middle East and Greece, our preservation attempt and finally to her imminent demise and scrapping in India.

This ship has an honoured place in the hearts of Merseyside people. As a result it is fitting that the RMS Windsor Castle should be remembered one last time and receive this special tribute from Merseyside. She was the pride of Merseyside, an engineering masterpiece; the last ocean liner built on Merseyside by Cammell Lairds and has (unlike so many other classic ocean liners from her time) retained her dignity and elegance to the last.

Soon she will be setting sail on her final voyage from Greece to India.  It is rewarding to know however that she will sail to India under her own steam (a testament to the engineering excellence of Cammell Laird, Merseyside and all the people who toiled to help build this fine ship) and so will make her final voyage with dignity and elegance. 

Merseyside bids this fine ship one last fond farewell, but long may she be remembered and long may her legacy endure.

An article from the "Daily Post / Liverpool Echo" newspapers

12th April 2005

End of the Line for Floating Palace

AFTER a failed preservation attempt, the last siren has sounded for Birkenhead's Windsor Castle. The biggest ocean liner built in England is sailing to the ship-breakers next week. Peter Elson reports on a ship that once epitomised the best of British.

WHEN she sailed on her maiden voyage 45 years ago, it was said that every passenger travelling in first class was titled.

Costing £10m, RMS Windsor Castle was the last great South African mailship and the finest vessel that Cammell Laird's Birkenhead workforce could produce.

As flagship of Union-Castle Line, she slashed two days off the schedule of the 7,000-mile voyage from Southampton to Cape Town from the previous 13 and a half days.

Windsor Castle was launched in brilliant sunshine on June 23, 1959, by the Queen Mother, before a crowd of 50,000 and watched by millions more on television.

The Queen Mother broke a bottle of sparkling South African wine against the bows and spoke the traditional words:

"I name this ship Windsor Castle, may God bless her and all who sail in her."

The bottle smashed with such gusto it splashed over the Queen Mother. What should have been an unadulterated celebration of the country's maritime supremacy was marred by a nine-week dispute, which started on the ship.

Dubbed by the press as the "who twangs the twine war", striking boilersmiths argued with shipwrights about who should draw chalk lines on the ship's plates. Thousands of Laird's workers were laid off, the launch postponed and the large ceremonial luncheon cancelled.

Yet the event was so popular that traffic grid-locked in Birkenhead and police shut the shipyard gates 30 minutes before the launch, fearing a crush. This caused uproar among the crowd, with hundreds of ticket-holders excluded.

Even Bob Bird, the famous Wirral press photographer, couldn't get in, recalls his son Robin:

"Instead Bob went to the riverfront and took a dramatic picture of Windsor Castle surrounded by tugs. This was well received by news desks as all the other press photographers couldn't get out of the yard."

Whether through stress or atmospherics, the Queen Mother suffered a severe nose-bleed, jeopardising the event, timed for the vital high tide.

Somehow she recomposed herself and christened the ship just one minute after its scheduled time of 1.30pm. She alluded to the shipyard row in her speech later, saying:

"I am so glad to be here and to launch the Windsor Castle in spite of the difficulties which I know you have had to contend with."

Bob Hunt, also from Prenton, was a charge-hand supervisor on launch day for Windsor Castle, working in a 5ft-high space beneath the ship.

He says: "It was a beautiful day, but there was a big strike going on. Using a seven pound hammer I had to split out the supporting pine keel blocks so Windsor Castle would sit down on the heavily greased launched ways.”

"When we finished, the foreman alerted the launch platform and the Queen Mother smashed the bottle on the bows. Simultaneously, a bell was pressed telling the men to trigger the release on the hydraulic rams, holding the ship in place.”

"Immediately the ship's weight started carrying her down the slipway. It was a fantastic sight seeing this massive ship sliding into the water. It wasn't noisy, just the sound of grease cracking under the ship and a few crashes and bangs.”

"With so much water displaced, there was a big backwash onto the slipway, so the stewards had to keep the surging crowds back."

Mr Hunt, who retired from Laird's in 1993 as steel construction manager, says: "Windsor Castle was a fabulous ship. The best one I ever worked on."

Bob Jones, 79, from Prenton, says: "I remember when we laid the first keel plate. Cammell Laird was delighted with such a prestigious contract. This was before pre-fabrication and the workforce could adapt to building anything, having completed the aircraft carrier Ark Royal a few years earlier. We could do tankers, tugs, anything."

Mr Jones, who started as a shipwright, later becoming manager for accuracy control on steel welding and in charge of the mould loft, says: "Windsor Castle is a beautiful ship and the fact that she lasted so long is a great tribute to Laird's.”

"When she was finished staff and families were invited onboard. The furnishings were beautiful; the main stairway looked like one in a Hollywood film.”

"I was made a manager aged 28 and there were big problems with the unions. The shop stewards wanted to impose their views on how a ship was built. Everyone knows the skits about the workers jumping over the wall, but my answer is to look at the ships we built."

David Smith, 63, from Birkenhead, who now lives in Cheshire, was indentured as an apprentice shipfitter at Cammell Laird in 1957, aged 16.

He says: "The 11,000-man workforce built outstanding ships in the harshest of conditions; some equipment was German, taken as WWI reparations.”

"Labour relations were appalling and there were genuine grievances that highly-skilled craftsmen weren't respected by management or paid appropriately.”

"Yet out of this chaos came Windsor Castle. You were amazed at the way things went together and the beauty of the craftsmanship in the lounges, bars, cinema and ballroom. Wonderful woodwork, no expense spared. We were in awe, there had been nothing like it since building the Mauretania before the war.”

"We had a week of trials to the Clyde and it was a very exciting trip for us younger lads. We started equipment up for real. We were ferried on and off by pilot boats. I'm glad this ship was around while I was there, she was the big one, the nub of everyone's life at the time."

While a teenager, Anthony Smythe was shown around Windsor Castle by her designated head chef. He says: "Many of the ship's start-up crew lodged around Birkenhead. My parents became friendly with this man, who was staying at New Brighton's Grand Hotel.”

"The ship gradually emerged over the shipyard sheds as she was built, so it was very exciting finally going aboard.”

"She had an aura about her, very, very attractive for that era. We were only just coming out of post-war austerity and her interiors looked both glamorous and modern. In contrast to most Liverpool liners, she had wide open decks for sailing through the tropics."

Fearing further strikes, Union-Castle cancelled the liner's shakedown cruise from Liverpool to Scotland and the ship left early for Southampton.

Brought up in Heswall, Nigel Hughes, now a YMCA manager at Birkenhead, after training at HMS Indefatigable, began his career as an engineering cadet aboard Windsor Castle in 1977, aged 17. Unknowingly, he signed on for what were the liner's last two voyages.

He says: "Whenever I smell oranges instantly I think back to Southampton dockside where the ship was unloading bulk fruit as I arrived, with this vast lilac-painted steel wall towering above me.”

"Being Union-Castle's flagship, she was kept in pristine condition. The crew (who were very friendly) never forgot she was a Birkenhead ship and used to say to me, 'she's one of yours'. You felt really proud to be part of that Merseyside tradition.”

"Between voyages I was told to relight an engine room boiler with a long taper and the explosive ignition made me jump several feet in the air with shock.”

"Although this was the merchant marine everything ran with an understated military precision. To see the dining room, with its Windsor Castle mural, fully set for dinner was sensational. Because of her wealthy clientele, passengers could get literally any food they wanted.”

"However, there was sadness on board as everyone knew the mail-boat service was nearing its end. The last voyage from Cape Town was very emotional, hundreds of people and press saw her off. I feel privileged to have been part of history on Britain's last empire liner service."

The fight to preserve our heritage:

A MERSEYSIDE group's £30m project, which began two years ago with the aim of preserving Windsor Castle at Birkenhead as a hotel and conference centre, was an "honourable failure", says RMS Windsor Castle Trust founder, Alex Naughton.

Mr Naughton, a Merseyside town planner, says: "The idea is sound. Sadly the timing was nearly, but not quite, right. We needed a permanent berth and although the Cammell Laird basin would be eventually earmarked for regeneration this wasn't soon enough.”

"Also, the ship deteriorated more during her 12-year lay-up than we realised and her DC electrics would be costly to change. We planned to berth the ship broadside to the river and a Dutch company was set to operate her as a hotel. She would have looked fantastic." Low steel prices extended her life, but the death-knell sounded with rising scrap values and cheap, unregulated labour available at Alang, SW India. Next week Windsor Castle will sail from her Piraeus mooring, Greece, via Suez, for demolition.

"She will sail under her own steam to India, making her last voyage with dignity and elegance," says Mr Naughton, who has relaunched a website for the ship: www.oceanlinermuseum.co.uk/Windsor Castle.html

The life and times of the Windsor Castle:

·        WINDSOR Castle's keel was laid down in late 1957, the ceremony performed by six-year-old Robert Johnson Jnr, son of Cammell Laird's managing director, Robert Johnson.

·        Flagship of Union-Castle Line, which dominated the UK- South Africa run and held the official mail contract, Windsor Castle was designated as a Royal Mail Ship (RMS).

·        The ship was the first with an on-board garage and a cinemascope screen cinema. Her 38,000 tons surpassed Cammell Laird's previous biggest liner, Cunard's Mauretania (35,600 tons).

·        Windsor Castle's maiden voyage was from Southampton to Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, East London and Durban, on August 18, 1960, with 250 first class and 600 tourist class passengers, plus 470 crew.

·        In December 1967 she celebrated her 50th UK- Cape round trip after steaming 700,000 miles with 35,000 passengers with no break-downs or delays.

·        Traffic was so healthy that Union-Castle misguidedly talked of adding further liners. After just 17-years, Windsor Castle was hit by a double whammy: rocketing fuel prices (after the 1974 oil crisis) and the impact of Boeing 747 "jumbo jets". Her final 124th voyage ended on September 19, 1977.

·        Sold to the Greek construction tycoon John Latsis, she was renamed Margarita L, after one of his daughters. The liner was used as mobile offices and his personal luxury yacht. Kept as built, she steamed around the Persian Gulf as Latsis oversaw desalination projects.

·        Since his death the liner has been laid-up in Greece and was sold in December to Indian shipbreakers.”