THE DOVER CAR FERRY SIR,—It looks as if Leslie Adrian
has not travelled by the Dover-Boulogne car ferry for quite a time. That is the only explanation I can think of for his complaint last'weck that it is 'last on—first off' for motorists on that service.
I am not suggesting that we guarantee 'first on— first off,' but all of your readers who have travelled by the car ferry recently will know that we certainly work on the principle of 'early on—early off.'
They will realise, too, without very much hard thinking, that we have got to ask people to turn up rather early, since we have to get up to 150 cars aboard before the ship sails.
It is only one hour before sailing time that we ask passengers to arrive. We certainly wouldn't have asked Mr. Adrian to report two hours in advance, whoever else suggested it to him.
Mr. Adrian, in fact, says he booked through a motoring organisation : it is understandable, of course, that a motoring organisation should recom- mend its members to allow a bigger margin of time than we ourselves require, if they are likely to have to drive through congested Medway towns on their way to the port.
One more point, which really is nothing to do with the Dover-Boulogne car ferry but which may be in the minds of some of your readers: motorists taking their car by passenger ships from the Admiralty Pier at Dover are asked to get there one and a half hours before the sailing time. This is because we have to get the cars aboard before the boat trains arrive from London.—Yours faithfully, F. D. Y. FAULKNER Public Relations Officer, Southern Region, British Railways
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