By Andrew Gladwell

Many people will remember the famous and well-loved River Thames steamers of the General Steam Navigation fleet but fewer people appreciate the significant role that the New Medway Steam Packet Company (commonly known as 'Queen Line Steamers') played in the growth of services in the Thames estuary from the 1920s until the 1960s.

This new book includes many rare and fascinating photographs as well as ephemera from the 1830s to the present day and includes coverage of famous paddle steamers such as Medway Queen, Queen of Kent, Queen of the Channel and Kingswear Castle.

ISBN 978 1 84868 695 3, 128 pages with an extra 16 in colour, softback, £14.99 JUST PUBLISHED!

To buy a signed copy of this book please contact andrew.gladwell@yahoo.com

By Andrew Gladwell

If you mention the subject of pleasure steamers on the rivers Thames and Medway, you can be certain that most people will remember with fond nostalgia the well-loved steamers Royal Daffodil, Royal Sovereign and Queen of the Channel. Even now well over forty years since their untimely demise, their fame and public affection for them, is just as strong as it was in their heyday.

In this new book, Andrew Gladwell takes us on a long and nostalgic glance back to their short but eventful careers as well as looking briefly at the other paddle steamers that were around from the early 1930s. Today, we are lucky to see three pleasure steamers regularly sailing on the Thames and Medway but there was a period in the early 1970s when it looked like the pleasure steamer had gone from these rivers forever.

Evoking memories of the steamers that once took thousands on their trips to the coastal resorts, Andrew Gladwell brings together a fascinating selection of images and ephemera of these now-lost vessels.

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128 pages with an extra 16 in colour, softback, £14.99

To buy a signed copy of this book please contact andrew.gladwell@yahoo.com

By Andrew Gladwell

To generations of Londoners, the trip aboard a paddle steamer to the seaside was a traditional and essential part of summer life. By the 1930s sleek new pleasure steamers, luxuriously appointed and reflecting the new age, were being introduced to gradually replace the older paddle steamers. But from the 1950s onwards, many of the old paddle steamers made their way, not down river with a happy complement of passengers, but to the breaker's yard to be quickly scrapped. An era was slowly disappearing.

This book looks at those final years of the General Steam Navigation Company as well as looking at some of the other steamers that plied the London River.

ISBN 0 7524 2351 7, 128 pages, softback.

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By Andrew Gladwell

The paddle and pleasure steamer services from the Lancashire coast were short lived. They served some of the most spectacular areas of the UK with cruises operating to the Isle of Man, Lake District and North Wales as well as the thriving Victorian pleasure resorts of Blackpool, Southport and Llandudno. Cruises to and from these resorts provided 'Wakes Week' passengers with the thrill of a sea trip in often lively seas to visit places far removed from their year-long working lives in the mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire.

This book looks at such splendid steamers such as Greyhound, Queen of the North and Belle and concentrates on the popular North Pier Steamship Company of Blackpool as well as the Furness Railway steamers. This fascinating story is seen through countless
evocative photographs and ephemera.

ISBN 0752 428047,128 pages, softback

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By Andrew Gladwell

All around the coast of Britain, in the years after the end of the Second World War, the paddle steamer was disappearing. A trip 'doon the watter' no longer held the appeal it did in the more innocent pre-war period. Famous names such as P&A Campbell's White Funnel Fleet, Red Funnel, Cosens of Weymouth, Caledonian Steam Packet Company, General Steam Navigation and others disappeared or scaled down their operations as people left the steamers for package holidays abroad and the new thrill of a journey by car.

This book takes a look at those fondly remembered old paddle steamers as seen through many remarkable and nostalgic photographs and items of ephemera.

ISBN 0 7524 2395 9, 128 pages, softback

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