Today marks a century since the cigar-smoking man with the monocle achieved the aim, making BP Shipping the longest continually operating company in the BP empire.

An app released to mark the occasion recounts a story from the first ship, the 37-year-old twin deck SS Ferrara, through the growth under first managing director, Scotsman J Douglas Stewart, to the arrival of long-term boss John Ridgway as a raw recruit boarding his first ship at Grangemouth during an early hours rain storm.

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