This film is part of Free

Northern Star

A spectacular send off for migrants on board the Northern Star, a new ocean liner built and launched on Tyneside.

Industry sponsored film 1963 31 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for North East Film Archive

Overview

An enormous crowd give the Northern Star liner an emotional send-off on its maiden voyage from Southampton with a large number of Ten Pound Pom passengers on board. This promotional film for Shaw Savill documents the ship construction at the Tyneside Walker Naval Yard of Vickers Armstrong, launch by the Queen Mother in 1961, fitting out, furnishings and stores in extraordinary detail. The exhaustive load of food and drink on board includes a quarter of a million eggs. [

The modern Northern Star one-class ocean liner, built for the Shaw Savill & Albion Company for new round-the-world services, carried great numbers of working class British passengers to Australia (and New Zealand) on an assisted migration scheme, first started in 1947. They were seduced by the fare of just ten pounds, hence the colloquial name of Ten Pound Poms. Racist Australian laws prohibited mixed race, black or Asian Commonwealth migrants until the 1970s. This film was made by Newcastle-based Turners, who enjoyed a significant presence in post-war sponsored film production for industries and businesses in the North East until 1999.