Just after the war, the VIPs using the Air Service from Poole Harbour included film stars Gracie Fields, George Formby, Jean Simmons and Stewart Granger and singer Vera Lynn.
Jean Simmons as a very young actress who had never left England at that time or been in an aircraft, flew out to Fiji to make the film ‘The Blue Lagoon’ and she left in one of these planes from Poole.
She flew from Poole Harbour and her itinerary was much as below :-
The era of flying boats in Poole lasted until Easter 1948, when the service returned to a new marine air terminal in Southampton. In eight-and-a-half years, 34,000 passengers had flown in and out of Poole on seaplanes.
So when Jean Simmons boarded the plane at Poole – probably with other members of the film crew – and maybe Donald Houston, she was facing a journey with hops from one place to another to get to this far flung part of the world. The list below says it all.
I do remember a Travel Agent in our local town who told me that he had visited his sister in New Zealand in 1955 – so a few years after this – and his flight entailed at least Eight stops even then.
Poole 0600 Thu
Marseilles 1000/1100
Augusta (Sicily) 1640/1740
Cairo 2359/0230 Fri
Basra 0930/1030
Bahrain 1340/1440
Karachi 2240/0200 Sat
Calcutta 1140/1240
Rangoon 1710
(Nightstop)
Rangoon 0545 Sun
Penang 1205/1305
Singapore 1555
(Nightstop)
Singapore 0600 Mon
Surabaya 1145/1245
Darwin 2330/0130 Tue
Bowen (N Queensland) 1000/1100
Sydney 1700 Tue
The famous flying boats splashed in and out of Poole, connecting Britain with its colonial outposts across the globe.
Many even consider Poole to be the birthplace of British Airways, its forerunner BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation) having established itself during its short time in the harbour.
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