This photograph of General Steam Navigation’s CRANE was taken exactly sixty years ago today, on 24th February 1964, as she passed Pill on the River Avon outbound from Bristol on one of her last round voyages, the inward leg being from Bordeaux to Liverpool and Glasgow.

Built at Troon in 1937, CRANE was very soon sold to Greece, trading as NISSOS THASSOS until 1969 and then as TOULA until 1975. Kuwait owners then traded her as AL MADANI until 1981 when she was reportedly broken up as GULF ACE.

The ferry service between Pill and Shirehampton was a convenient short cut when travelling between Portishead and Avonmouth by public transport, albeit at low water passengers were obliged to walk along a muddy slipway for much of the distance across the river. I was returning from Avonmouth to my home at Portishead after photographing OZARDA.