‘The TEMPTATION of a SERIOUS CARD GAME was TOO GREAT for some and serious amounts of money COULD BE LOST’
ALL ABOUT EVE
In the early 1930s, White Star Line produced Eve’s Day, a charming brochure describing a young London socialite’s day at sea. Here are a few extracts:
7.45am: Another perfect day began with the entrance of my lovely early cup of tea!
8.30am: Enter breakfast – a divine omelette and the rolls were hot! There was a daily newspaper on my tray, with all the latest news in it. They know breakfast isn’t really breakfast without the newspaper!
9.15am: Got up and dressed. It’s fun to have a bathroom all to myself.
10.15am: The Promenade Deck. With all the pretty frocks, it’s like Hyde Park on a summer Sunday morning.
10.30am: Discovered I’d lost the Browns’ address in New York, so rang up Daddy in London.
11.30am: Refreshment in the Verandah Café – coffee was excellent.
12.40pm: Had a game of deck tennis. Altogether more amusing that anything seen at Wimbledon!
1pm: A heavenly lunch – appetite simply ravenous.
2.30pm: A spell in the gym to counteract the growth of avoirdupois brought on by the superb lunch.
3.15pm: Went to the swimming bath and got the trained instructress to help me get my swallow dive right, in readiness for the swimming gala tomorrow.
4.30pm: A delicious tea; the orchestra played beautifully.
6.45pm: Dressed for dinner. Oh the joys of dressing in such a lovely room.
7.30pm: Simply marvellous dinner! Can’t decide whether the Captain or the Chef is the most important person on this ship.
9pm: After dinner there was a most marvellous dance – even more enjoyable than last night’s fi rst-rate concert.
Midnight: Could have stayed up all night but one must go to bed sometime and the only thing White Star can’t provide is more then 24 hours to a day!
TVs in every cabin, newspapers are seldom seen on modern ships. One of the exceptions is in MSC’s Yacht Club, which offers an impressive range of newspapers each day for guests. Three-quarters the size of the original, the full newspaper is printed, bound and hand-delivered each morning by the butler. The introduction in 1920 of radiotelephony was another milestone in live communications. Up to that point, the main method of sending personal messages was via telegrams, espe- cially towards the end of an Atlantic crossing. The most famous example was aboard Titanic on the fatal night of her collision with an iceberg. The Marconi operators were so busy sending personal messages that vital iceberg warnings were overlooked. In July 1920, Allan Line’s Victorian was fi tted with an ex- perimental radio telephone and passengers were able to listen to a concert broadcast from Poldhu, Cornwall, whilst the ship was in mid-Atlantic. From the 1920s onwards, radio broadcasts became a regu- lar feature of shipboard life. For example, in the programme of events on Cunard’s Aquitania in 1939, there were BBC News broadcasts in the fi rst class lounge at 5 and 8pm, fol- lowed at 8.45 by the commentary on the World Welterweight Boxing Championship. These, of course, were “subject to favourable receiving conditions.”
GAMBLING Radio also allowed passengers to make ship-to-shore tele- phone calls and, in the 1930s, the iconic Hollywood-style white telephone became a regular feature in fi rst class cabins. The Queen Mary had a large switchboard, open 24 hours a day to handle 600 telephone lines. For many seasoned cruise travellers, the sight of a mod- ern casino, with its banks of slot machines and rows of card tables, is an anathema. However, like the proverbial mal de mer, gambling has always been a part of shipboard life on passenger ships. From the 19th century onwards, passengers were always
warned about the dangers of professional gamblers and yet, with many days at sea, the temptation of a serious card game was too great and large amounts of money could be lost to card sharks. For those who wanted a fl utter at sea, there were always the horse races (the famous ‘frog races’ on Union-Castle Line), which were run either on deck or in one of the lounges. At the throw of a dice, six wooden horses were moved across the course by one of the ship’s crew. ‘Bookmakers’ sold tickets for the race whilst a cashier calculated the odds for each horse. There was great excitement as the horses neared the fi nishing post and the backers of the winning horse received their pay- ment, minus 10% which was deducted for seamen’s charities. Another opportunity for gambling was betting on the ship’s daily run, i.e. the mileage covered up to noon each day. During the inter-war years, this was usually done through a syndicate or an auction of the probable numbers, which was
56 WORLD OF CRUISING I Summer 2010
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