THE HOUSE FLAG

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 110, 11 May 1934, Page 9

THE HOUSE FLAG

GREAT DAYS AT SEA

EMBLEM OF FAMOUS LINES

PRIDE AND SENTIMENT

A shipping line's house'flag is now a latter of much less importance or merest than it used to be at one time o the line's passengers or shippers or o the general public, but in the malgamutiou of the Cunard and White Star lines ivc have a reminder of the imes when it was the fashion to name ho line after the flag or its design and vhen a definite value came to be atached to both, writes Boyd Cable in he "Manchester Guardian." The White Star Lino and its flag go jack to the days of the clipper ships, he homeward races with the first of he season's teas from China, the speed rivalry in carrying impatient lassengers to the El Dorado of the Jlustralian goldfield diggings.- And :his naming of the line after its fivejoiuted white star on a red swallow:ail flag was carrying on, as the clippers dia,. the same practice which lad been followed by the Atlantic packets, and before them by the fleets jf frigate-built East Indiamen, that -succeeded those of the East India .Company. To. those familiar with sailing history there are still old names and flags that conjure up pictures of certain ships, the seas they sailed, and the record passages they made. The packet ships carried their passengers and mail driving hard under every stitch of canvas the sticks could stand, sailing, blow high n blow low, on the advertised time and tide, bound by.contract, and by still more binding custom, to leavo port if they could set no more than a single close-reefed topsail. SOME OLD BADGES. Some of the packet lines carried the badge pf their name both on the flag and across the depth and width of their fore-topsail, which was always the last to keep set in a hard blow as well as the least obscured by other sails. The famous Black Ball Line had a solid black circle or ball on a crimson swallowtail flag, and the. ball painted on the fora topsail; the St. George's Cross Line had its flag of red cross on white and the cross again on the sail. Train's White Diamond ,Line, with white diamond on a red field; Griswold's black cross on a red swallowtail; the Swallowtail, with flag of that shape- coloured red before white for the London run, blue before white for the Liverpool, were others of the flags that flew over tho staunch packet ships and men that fought their way out against tho gales of the jSforth Atlantic winters, thrashed down Channel, tack and tack, in the teeth of the tearing south-westerlies, or came crashing in for Mersey mouth under a press of sail and the urge of the favouring gales. In another generation steam was cutting into the sailing packets' trade across the Atlantic, but speed still had to be sought under sail on the long voyages of the Far East or the distant colonies of Australia and New Zealand, and tho beautiful clipper ships and famous clipper lines came along to meet tho need.

FAMOUS CLIPPEKS. Another no less famous Black Ball Line between Liverpool and Australia "commandeered" the name and flag of the old Atlantic Black Bailers, and in their Marco Polo, Lightning, James Baines, and others made a name that is' known today, long after the ships and flag have disappeared. The same White Star flag and name borne by tho line that is now joining up with the Cunard was carried by the White Star clippers White Star and Red Jacket on the Australian run, and another White Star Line, distinguished from the other as George Thompson's, or the Aberdeen Whit© Star, was building a fame that reached its zenith in sail with, tho great Thermopylae and her never-equalled record run of CO days England to Australia from the start to the Melbourne pilot. That star also carried on into steam, and its flag now flies over the Aberdeen and Commonwealth liners. The Blue Cross, Black Star, Lund's Blue Anchor, and tho Plying Horse clippers were more of the China and colonial clippers that embodied -their name in their flag devices and raced for months 'across the- world without one moment's slackening, whether they were flying under tiering pyramids of sail across the friendly trade winds or scudding wildly before the giant greybeard seas and shrieking winds under the- closest reefed storm canvas "running tho Easting down" along tho latitudes of the Roaring Forties. Then the Suez Canal opened, shortening the distances steamers had to carry their coal, and the- -clipper men either hauled down the bravu house flags for good or rehoisted them in the new "steam kettles" -when they—as they used to phrase it—"left tho sea and went into steam." "ONION-CASTLE. Tho strongest feelings of pride and sentiment used to attach to the old house flags, not only . amongst those serving the lines but amongst their passengers and shippers. This was clearly expressed no farther back than 1900, -when the Union Lino and Castle Lino to tho Capo amalgamated and the bitterest feelings were expressed by supporters of each line, who feared their fabourite would bo "absorbed" and submerged. One of these wrote of it being "galling to see- tho armour of Achilles appropriated by a hated Trojan," and a. paper opposing the combination had a picture of Sir Donald Currie stirring a mash-up of steamers in a huge pot and labelled tho cartoon "Curried Hash." To fly the flag of one line over the ships of its former rival would have been adding insult to injury, but this difficulty was neatly avoided. The Union Line flag had a white field with blue edgo and- a red saltire across the white, and the Castle's had a red C on a white diamond in the centre of a white saltire running across the blue field. The two were merged bj widening the Castle's white saltire and dropping tho C, and by running the Union's red saltiro through white saltiro and diamond.

Tho Cunard and White Star may not find it so easy to merge the yellow lion rampant aiid tho largo white star, but they will certainly offend air nautical sentiment (and perhaps some of their supporters' feelings) if they drop cither of the flags completely.