The once familliar names that made up the cream of the British Merchant Navy and maintained passenge and mail links with the furthest outputs of the Empire were established in the nineteenth century.
The second half of the 20th century saw the eclipse of the large passenger liner, and often the extinction of the liners which operated them.
Yet even as one of the most famous, Union-Castle, breathed its last, a new line was established against all the odds.