P&O Ferries : through five decades

P&O Ferries Across Five Decades traces the roots, history and development of how P&O Ferries came to be established as Britains biggest and leading ferry company.

P&O Ferries today operates a fleet of 22 ships serving France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

This title traces how P&O Ferries has established itself over the last 50 years, together with the history of Thoresen Car Ferries, P&O Normandy Ferries, the Transport Ferry Service and Townsend Car Ferries, which later became Townsend Thoresen, Britain's leading and iconic ferry company serving Europe and Ireland during the seventies and eighties.

The continental routes to Belgium and Holland and to Northern Ireland were originally the brainwave of Frank Bustard with his LST landing craft, which opened services on the North Sea and Irish Sea after the Second World War.

This operation was later nationalised and then sold to Townsend Thoresen.

The routes from Hull to Holland and Belgium, established by P&O in the sixties, were pioneers of freight operations between the UK and continental Europe with their first ships the Norwaveand Norwind. Following the demise of Townsend Thoresen and the rebranding of operations as P&O European Ferries in 1987, the operations on the North Sea were later absorbed under one management in Dover under P&O Ferries.

The book also includes a short history of P&O Scottish Ferries up until its demise in 2002 when the routes to Orkney and Shetland were taken over by NorthLink.P&O Ferries Across Five Decades is being published as part of the 175th anniversary of P&O in 2012