A group of passengers enjoying a game of deck quoits on board a liner in 1908. Despite postcards like this having been produced in considerable numbers to promote cruising, they remain relatively scarce.
Crossing the Atlantic was an experience enjoyed by the wealthy, and endured by the poor. The conditions under which both lived during the crossing were as far removed from each other as might be possible.
For the steerage passengers, the crossing was something which had to be endured if the promise of the ‘New World’ was to be realised, but for the wealthy, the crossing to or from America was one of life’s many pleasures.
Entertainment was lavish and, when the weather was fine, organised deck games were the order of the day. If the weather was poor, covered promenade decks enabled daily strolls to be taken without being buffeted by the often ferocious Atlantic weather.
On other seas and oceans, the experience was much the same. One traveller, Mary Garnett, on a voyage through the Mediterranean to Egypt in February 1890, wrote in her diary that life on board included ‘promenading, playing quoits, skipping with skipping ropes held by two... Last evening we had charades in the dining saloon. The vessel was steady enough to allow one to distinguish sounds, for the previous night had been only ‘a crash of matter’, and myself a shuttle-cock tossed upon my bed like a battledore... A dance on deck tonight; the young folks did fly about and enjoy themselves, but Miss Hunter, being of a serious turn of mind, remarked that “you could not have got them to take as much exercise for a good object!”’As far as the young are concerned, some things never change!
Cruising started to gain popularity during the Edwardian years, with Cunard one of the first to cater for this new market – albeit originally for wealthy American visitors to Europe – diverting the newly-built RMS Caronia from trans-Atlantic service to Mediterranean cruising in 1906.
‘This is how we go ashore’, wrote ‘Auntie’ to her niece, Miss F. Mansion, in August 1908. As many foreign harbours could not accommodate the larger vessels that were being brought into service on long voyages, transferring to a smaller tender was the only way of disembarking. The wicker basket could hold two passengers at a time, so being winched over from the liner to the tender would never have been a speedy undertaking, and in choppy seas, probably anything but a pleasant one! This postcard was posted to Cranbrook in Kent from the South African port of East London.