ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CHANNEL

Ships and Scenes at Dieppe

By Derek Longly

Gleaned from various visits to Dieppe, either to the town or just passing through, hopefully the pictures included with these brief comments will bring back some memories for others, as they do for me, of earlier times when arrival and departure aboard the steamers from and to Newhaven was made at the quayside almost in the town centre.

My earliest recollections of arriving in France dating from 1952 are of the long lines of dark green carriages forming the boat train for Paris, with its huge steam engine panting ready for departure, standing alongside the boat in the street.  A scene which was commonplace through the 1950's and changed little right through into the early 1960's even once the terminal building was erected.

The inner harbour too was fascinating with its cargo vessels, especially the attractive reefers, bringing in cooled or frozen produce. 

The first three pictures, however, hark back to even earlier times from before World War II, whilst the one of Worthing is from the immediate post war period.  The next photos are from the hey day of the classic steamers on the route, together with that typical scene mentioned above showing boat trains on the quayside alongside the Londres in August 1962.

The cargo vessel pictures include the Fort Richlieu of the Compagnie Generale Transatlantique (French Line) probably arriving from the Caribbean with fruit, the Russian reefer Mikhail Lomonosov arriving in the port and a view in the inner harbour of the Marrakech unloading.

Virtually all has now changed so that these photos form something of a historical record of days long gone.