Saddleworth Chatter by GH
AS YOU possibly know, the Cunard Companies three great Ocean Queens will be visiting Liverpool together in May.
This will be a spectacular event and well worth seeing. You will be able to marvel at ‘Queen Elizabeth’, ‘Queen Mary 2’ and ‘Queen Victoria’.
However this reminded me of a special event in the history of Cunard, who consistently produce and operate the world’s finest and most luxurious Liners.
But the interesting bit is that Cunard’s big ships’ names were always chosen with names that ended in ‘ia’, hence the Lusitania and the Mauritania etc.
So when Cunard began construction of their latest super Liner in 1930 the management began to look for a name with the ‘ia’ ending.
They decided the obvious name could be ‘The Queen Victoria’ which would celebrate the life of our past monarch and also have the required ‘ia’ ending.
However the board thought it would be prudent to first ask permission of present monarch King George V and so a deputation was sent to London.
The Cunard spokesman told the King they would like to name their new Liner after the Queen and before they could explain, the King quickly answered: “Yes, ‘Queen Mary’ (his wife) would love that, and she would be honoured.”
The Cunard men were too embarrassed to point out the King’s innocent mistake and so the ‘Queen Mary’ was built. She gave many years and thousands of miles of service until on retirement being sold and becoming a luxury hotel in Long Beach, USA.
As a result of this episode it was decided by Cunard that names finishing with ‘ia’ would now not be required but instead names of queens would suffice.
The ‘Queen Mary’s replacement was the ‘Queen Elizabeth’ which came into service in 1938 and during WWII served as a troopship.
After the war she resumed her transatlantic route on which she carried passengers in high luxury as well as all the Transatlantic Mail. She once again became the world standard for luxury Ocean Liners.
When her working days were over she was sold in 1972 to a Hong Kong business man who intended to convert her into a floating university – but when the ship was being towed into Hong Kong harbour for a refit, it caught fire, capsized and sank in shallow water.
Some of the wreck was recovered as scrap but the majority remained in view. In fact, part of the James Bond film ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’ was filmed on her – but sadly she remains a visual reminder of the tragic end of this great Luxury Liner.
