The aim of the YouTUBE Channel 'Southampton on Video' is to give members of the public, including children, easy access to film about the city. King Henry V's fleet left for the battle of Agincourt in 1415 and the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World in 1620, from the West Gate, which is still in general use today. Jane Austen, one of the greatest authors, was born and raised in Hampshire and lived from 1807-9 just a stone's throw away from the Bargate, another gateway which can still be seen today. RMS Titanic left from Southampton in 1912 and during World War One the town was designated, the Number One embarkation port. In the Second World War the Supermarine Spitfire was designed and produced at Woolston, on the banks of the R Itchen, and Southampton was the main port used by United States GIs on D-Day in 1944. Today, as well as the home for many cruise ships, the city of Southampton is a thriving container port and remains the UK 'Gateway to the Oceans'. (Not for profit).
First comment on an 8 year old video. Love the pics, love the tune. Southampton is my home town. Always love to see old pics if the place as I remember it back in the day. Went for a job interview in the Mullards building many years ago. Always remember them having a Christmas tree with lights on the front of the building every year.
I flew in this plane whilst it was being restored. Took off in Southampton Water, flew down the western Solent and then round the Needles. Back via a low pass over Southampton airport where I was lucky enough to be stood behind the pilot. What a shame it went to the US.
Throughout the 1960's my family would visit my late grandad in Southampton. He was very proud of the City. He would talk about the Nazi bombs, and the great ships, and how his house suffered subsidence from bomb blast. He showed us the Supermarine site, and Vospers. There is much to be proud of, even today. Southampton has changed an awful lot in the post-war years.
Southampton born and bred, 62 years young now. Tragic what has happened to this once brilliant city. Need the old videos and nostalgia to remember what a fine place it was. Shocking demise and when you consider the rich and fascinating history it has, so very sad. It is dirty, unsafe, decaying. Seems a common theme across the UK
At 16 seconds there is a photo of some young ladies. The group on the left include my Mother (Pam, tallest dark hair) now aged 90. The girl next to her is my Aunt Sheila who passed away about 12yrs ago. You can just make out my Aunt Trish. Trish emigrated to the USA and became a teacher - sadly also now passed. They were all born and raised in Southampton.
This aircraft was new to me too. I'm surprised Churchill wasn't using one for flights to the U.S., Casablanca, Tehran, etc. That short landing requirement was very impressive for such a large aircraft.
Lancashire had a thriving cricket league before WW2 and each club would have a professional player and the majority were from the West Indies. There's a good documentary about it on RU-vid. So I'm thinking the Lancashire folk who were in awe of the size strength and skills of the professional players and made lifelong friends with them quite rightly saw the black GI's for what they were. Men that had travelled half way round the world to help us keep the Angry painter out.
I really don't like that opening text. How exactly was "the greed that built the Titanic" different to the "greed" that built any other transatlantic ocean liner? If Titanic is such a symbol of capitalistic greed, why why aren't larger ocean liners like Majestic, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Normandie, United States, France, Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Mary 2 looked upon with the same disdain? The fact that it ended in disaster is not the fact that the ship was built in the first place. The odds were stacked against Titanic, which exasperated the poor understanding of how a liner of her size was to be evacuated in a disaster. It's arrogance to an extent, yes, there was some feeling of being too big to fail. But equally, you can only learn through experience. Like every piece of health and safety legislation under the sun, unfortunately, it's written in blood.
Around about the time of this film, I had just moved to the general area. And was invited onto the original Queen Elizabeth to wish bon voyage to someone or other. (From where I am now, I have not the slightest idea who they were or anything about why.) Had a lot of walking round the ship - seeing inside a cabin, a gym, past a sick bay, outside decks, ending up in a large lounge area - eating pretzels which were in a knot shape. And then off, and hanging around the Ocean Terminal for a while. Also remember the boat trains. We'd see some of them going towards Southampton, and the railway track embedded in a few bits of road. Just missed the steam-hauled ones. For the rest of my years in the area, everything seemed to be about containerisation and increasing oil capacity (and ship sizes) to be refined down Southampton Water at Fawley.
A round bilged boat can be every bit as fully planing as a hard chined boat. Moreover there are full displacement boats that are hard chined as well. The planing or full displacement characteristics rely on other design aspects than whether their bilges are round or hard chined.
I had a long lost friend whom I am trying to contact and trying to find the family who lived in Twyford avenue in the name of the Wilton family in the late eighties and early ninety’s is their anyone would know the family name and any idea where my have moved to I would like to correspond with them once again does anybody remember this family who could help me
my mother worked there making wings for the spitfire she was only 17 years old unfortunately one night she was hit by shrapnel when a mine hit the tram lines in burgess rd her boyfriend with her was killed his name was fred wallace they carried the killed and injured and placed them in the stile inn they thought my mother was dead fortunately someone saw her move she never spoke of this incidence till she over 75 years old when she told me about it? god bless her she passed away in 2010 my name is barry her eldest son now aged 79 this year.
Excellent video - However, one minor misunderstanding - The AW Ensign was not meant to replace the Empire Flying boats but to supplement them. The flying boats were supposed to take passengers over the Mediterranean and then hand them over to the Ensigns for the overland bit over the Middle East and India before they transferred back to flying boats for the rest of the trip out to Australia. However, the original AS Tiger engines could not give the Ensigns the performance for the hot and high conditions in the Middle East. Later, during WW2, after they had been fitted with Wright Cyclone engines they ended up covering that same route quite successfully. It was always meant that some of the Ensigns, fitted out for more passengers, would do European routes, linking capital cities, and before the war they operated between Croydon and Paris briefly.
I wonder what month this was taken. My wife's great-grandmother repatriated back to the UK on Aquitania (from New York), arriving in So'ton on the 2nd of July 1935.
Many stayed after the way ended as their parents were either imprisoned or never to be seen again. They married, had kids and never returned to their home Country again. It was here that a certain MP's parents met and consequently had a child of their own - he was called Michael Portillo.
My dad was a pharmacist on the ship during WWII. He spoke about some of the things discussed in this video. Turning the lights out on the entire ship, , coming back to New York when the war was over, etc. Thank you for posting! Really puts the things he told us into perspective.
