Secrets of the Great Ocean Liners

This episode explores one of the world’s greatest historical collections relating to the golden age of ocean liner travel. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with John Sayers, a man who has dedicated his life to creating the most wonderful collection. In the early 1950s John’s parents took him across the Atlantic on the Cunard Line’s RMS Franconia eastbound to the UK, and RMS Queen Elizabeth back westbound to America. Shortly after that he came across five souvenir ocean liner lapel pins at a Sunday morning antiques fair and from that moment on his career as a collector began. What started with lapel pins and then souvenir spoons and napkin rings soon moved onto ephemera - printed bits and pieces relating to everyday life on board ship - a crucial source of historic material that helps us reconstruct the lived experience of those aboard, both passengers and crew. That collection, which includes posters, tickets, brochures, sailing schedules, letters written on board, passenger lists, menus, advertising material (the list really is endless) – is now held in the John Johnson collection at the Bodleian Library in Oxford and to illustrate it John has written a fabulous new book: Secrets of the Great Ocean Liners.

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