Memories
Stepping back in time:
At the height of the Clyde’s shipbuilding might, a launch might not have been an uncommon sight but it was always a grand one. When RMS Queen Mary was slowly dipped down the slipway into the water on September 26, 1934, four years after work began on her at the John Brown Factory, it started a remarkable maritime history.
Costing £3.5 million (that’s more than £200m today), legend states that she was given her name after Cunard asked King George V for permission to name the ship “after Britain’s greatest queen”, meaning Victoria, to which the King replied that his wife would be delighted.
For a short while, at 1,019.4ft long, she was the world’s largest ocean liner, until her rival, Normandie, had modifications carried out that made her once again the biggest.
But Queen Mary would prove to be the quickest. Her fastest Atlantic crossing is recorded at three days, 22 hours and 42 minutes.
The liner was the height of luxury. Featuring art deco interiors, the Queen Mary boasted two indoor swimming pools, tennis courts, dog kennels and libraries, to mention just a few features.
The largest room was the first-class dining area, which spanned three storeys in height. An acre of kitchens prepared the 50,000 meals eaten on each crossing.
During the Second World War, Queen Mary was converted for use as a troopship. About six miles of carpet were pulled out and put into storage, as were 220 cases of china. The ship’s hull, funnels and superstructure were painted grey and that, along with her great speed which saw her outmanoeuvre the U-boats brought in to stop her, saw her nicknamed The Grey Ghost.
She carried 810,000 military personnel during the war, and Winston Churchill credited her with shortening the conflict by a year. He is said to have planned the D-day Landings from a bath tub in the suite named after him.
But it was far from always plain sailing in those war years. In October 1942, she accidentally sank one of her escort ships off of the Irish coast, tragically slicing through the HMS Curacoa with the loss of 239 lives.
In July 1943, while carrying a record 16,683 military personnel and crew, she was 700 miles from Scotland when hit by a rogue wave that had a height of 92ft. The ship rolled 52 degrees and was said to be three degrees from capsizing.
The liner was repurposed after the conflict ended and returned to carrying passengers in 1947.
This continued until 1967 when, having made 1,000 Atlantic trips and carried
more than two million passengers across nearly four million miles, the Queen Mary was retired.
She was moored at Long Beach, a short distance from Los Angeles, and was converted into a tourist attraction, being used as a hotel, museum, restaurants and event facility, passing through a string of owners over the years.
In 2006, she was greeted by RMS Queen Mary 2 as the successor made a port of call at Los Angeles Harbour while on a cruise to Mexico. Skywriting in the sky above the ships declared: “Hail to the Queens.”
The Queen Mary remains in California today as an iconic landmark and an attraction, although concerns have been raised in recent years over her condition.