THE SCOTTISH ADVENTURES OF A CRUISE SHIP ADDICT

(Copyright: Ships Monthly) As my newest 'book' comes out - World of Ships, Queen Elizabeth - I reflect on the life of this great liner. As I say in the World of Ships Publication, when I started to write about the QE, I thought I'd have nothing to say, but actually she is a fascinating ship with a turbulent history. I grew to love her! The idea of two monster ships was conceived in 1926, and came to fruition in the 1930s, when the keel of the Queen Mary was laid at John Browns, Clydebank, Scotland. Soon after, work began on the Queen Elizabeth, but her fitting out was stopped with the onset of World War 2. She had to be moved from Clydebank, and the 'Unruffled Elizabethans' took her out to New York where she joined her sister, Queen Mary, and her rival, the utterly jaw-droopingly gorgeous Normandie. (J&C McCutcheon collection) From there, she was refitted for carrying more troops and did the Australia/Middle East run, then onto the transatlanti...

As I am about to board one of my favourite ships - QE2 - this afternoon, I wanted to talk about her name.  Originally the name of Cunard's ships ended in -ia, eg Britannia, Carpathia, Bothnia. But when Cunard and the White Star Line (owners of the Titanic) merged in 1934, this created a problem as all White Star Line ships had the suffix -ic, eg Olympic, Cedric, Britannic.  The first Cunard White Star liner to be completed after this merger was Hull 534 at John Brown's Shipyard, in Clydebank, Scotland. What could they call her? Then someone had an idea. King George V was approached and officials asked if they could name the ship "after Britain's most illustrious Queen" - meaning Queen Victoria. The King replied, "of course you can name it after my wife". Thus the new liner ended up as Queen Mary. Now the original Queen Elizabeth liner, didn't have such problems as it was named after the Queen at the time - Queen Elizabeth.  The Queen Elizabeth 2 was ...