Travel was different in the 1950s

Cruising 1950s style was different than it is today. Well, maybe not today as the cruise ship industry is pretty well shut down, but in the recent past. Cruise ships of today offer trips to particular destinations, stopping along the way at places of interest where passengers can book excursions. When May and Harold Chambers embarked on the Otranto in December of 1954, it was a passenger ship not a prepackaged cruise liner. There were passengers of all stripes, including the immigrants on the lower decks who May wrote about. The airline industry was in its infancy and many people still relied on ships to get to their destination.

As tourists the Chambers had booked their trip through Thos Cook and Sons. Setting up an itinerary for their six-month long journey, including ships, ground transport and hotels must have been a challenge. It didn't always work. As May wrote on February 7: "Last Thurs we found Cooke had messed up our transportation and instead of the four day tour including Mont Grampia we had to make the journey by bus in one day leaving Adelaide 7:30 A.M. after coming in from Glenelg which, of course, meant getting up about 6 A.M."

Apart from hotel and transportation challenges, May and Harold seem to have been having a great time. They had met people aboard the Otranto who were traveling for reasons besides tourism. Among their shipboard friends were people who lived in Australia who kept in touch with the traveling couple after they disembarked. May wrote of times when she and Mrs. King, the wife in an Australian couple, would have lunch and sightsee while Harold and Mr. King went off to a cricket match.

In this way, they saw a different side of Australian lives than the average cruising tourist of the 21st century. It also made them privy to part of the economic scene of the country they were visiting. One of the guests at a dinner party at the King's that the Chambers attended was an expert for General Motors from Detroit, then living in Melbourne, as the corporation developed the Australian car, the Holden.

I was surprised that GM was doing business in Australia, in fact that Australia had a car manufacturing industry. I had somehow never thought of Australia being a part of '50s car culture until I looked up more information on the Holden. My research into this 1954/55 trip was taken me onto some interesting sidelines. I wonder what will be next?

Sources:

Chambers, M.C. Letter to Mrs. C.E.B. Cavanagh written February 7, 1955 from Melbourne

Chambers, M.C. Letter to Mrs. C.E.B. Cavanagh written February 16, 1955 SS Orion en route Melbourne to Sydney 

Holden information:  https://www.caranddriver.com/features/g31024982/gm-holden-commodore-monaro-cars-gallery/