SS Uganda - September 1979
Mediterranean

There were a couple more cruises before Uganda was used as a hospital ship in the Falklands conflict (1982).  After a brief resumption of cruising, she was chartered to the Ministry of Defence for her final lease of life as a ferry between Ascension Island and the Falklands, while the new airport at Mount Pleasant was under construction. In this role she achieved a probable Merchant Navy record of over five hundred days at sea.  Her charter finished after the airport was completed and, following a year laid up on the River Fal in Cornwall, she was sold to breakers in Taiwan where she arrived in July 1986.  A month later, still unattended at anchor, she was caught by typhoon Wayne and was driven ashore where she lay an angle of 70 degrees on her starboard side with her keel shoreward and port propeller above the surface sticking skywards.  She was broken up six years later.  There is a lot of information about the ship on the Internet as well as many memories of school cruises.  We particularly liked "does anyone remember how all the drinking fountains were choked with buns and everywhere stank of sick?"

photos from Kerri Wright (Hack)

SS Uganda berthed at Cadiz, Spain

Anne Taylor, NK and Melissa Blakeley in Cagliari, Sardinia

Melissa Blakeley, Mr. Wolsey and Anne Taylor in Athens

Anne Taylor in a Spanish square in Seville

Melissa Blakeley, Anne Taylor and Charlie Watts eating pizza in Heraklion, Crete

 Contents The Gallery College Trips SS Uganda 1979 (2)