It was nice to see the QE2 finally come home to the Clyde to celebrate its 40th birthday after it was launched on September 20th 1967.As my grandfather was a riveter at John Brown's Shipyard on the Clyde where she was built I, along with the relatives of all the other yard workers, was invited on board for a tour although only being one year old at the time I don't remember anything of the day.
Sadly the ship was to be the last of the great ocean liners built on the Clyde and in fact many of the yard workers, faced with this knowledge and the thought of redundancy, deliberately damaged parts of the ship during its construction to delay the launch and secure a few more months of employment.
Having now sailed more nautical miles than any other liner in history, 5.3 million, she finally came back up the Clyde to her birthplace and was greeted by a crowd in excess of 20,000 and a flypast by the Red Arrows when, at precisely 2:28pm she sounded her horn to mark the exact time 40 years ago when she was launched.
Incidentally I can, without word of a lie, state that I constantly treaded across her carpets every day while growing up. Not because I was the son of a millionaire world traveller but because my grandfather managed to slip some of the carpet out the yard during her fitting and used it to floor our hallway.
1 comment:
Ah the QE2, it used to visit my home town of Saint John, New Brunswick CANADA regularly.
Even though it no longer does, and is on its way to becoming a floating hotel, this ship was my favorite regular visitor to my fair city of 122,000 people.
I thought it was a much more impressive ship than that of the new regulars visiting town such as the, Crown Princess, V. of the Seas and even the Queen Mary 2, which also makes regular calls in the summer and fall.
I will miss the old girl.
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