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00:00The
00:26Queen Mary is the oldest surviving transatlantic liner, one of the great ships that plied the
00:31ocean routes at high speed in old world luxury and in all weathers.
00:36A little bit of England floating across the Atlantic.
00:41She now rests in gentle retirement in the warm sunshine of Long Beach, California as
00:45a hotel and tourist attraction.
00:50The Queen Mary is a reminder of the post-war decades when national pride and prestige were
00:54at stake as countries competed to build the most magnificent ships on the great ocean
00:59routes.
01:00Come on in, come on in.
01:05This was the social and the shopping area for the first class passengers and only for
01:15the first class passengers.
01:21Before the jet age, liners carried passengers and goods en masse across the oceans from
01:28A to B.
01:29They linked the world essentially and they made the modern world possible.
01:34The Americans with the steamship United States had the fastest.
01:39The Dutch had the elegant Rotterdam, the Italians the sleek Michelangelo and the French had
01:44the France as their supreme symbol of national culture and cuisine.
01:51Great ships that, like the Queen Mary, were envied, admired and even loved.
02:00The coming of the jet liner and the 60s assault on class and privilege should have swept this
02:04world away, but somehow it clung on.
02:08Today, more people than ever travel on big ships, ships that have a modern take on glamour
02:13and romance.
02:17The beauty of these ships is that they are technological masterpieces.
02:21Each has a character and a personality of their own and they become much loved by the
02:28people who travel in them.
02:31And one great liner still travels the North Atlantic.
02:37Against the odds, the Queen Mary II carries on in the grand tradition of the long-gone
02:41liners of old.
02:58As peace dawned after the Second World War, Britain alone was ready to reopen the great
03:03sea route between the old and the new worlds, firm in the belief that pre-war elegance and
03:09glamour could be seamlessly welded to a post-war world.
03:25On July 29th, the Mary left Southampton on a two-day trial trip in the Channel.
03:31From Captain C.G.
03:32Ellingworth downwards, through a crew of 1,260, everybody was busy getting used to their jobs
03:38on the reconverted liner.
03:41BBC cameras on board recorded these typical scenes.
03:45Soon, everything was going on much as it did in the pre-war days, and as it will on many
03:51an Atlantic crossing in the future.
03:53At the end of the Second World War, Cunard's Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth practically
03:58had the Atlantic to themselves.
04:00They were the last of the large prestigious liners to have survived intact from the 1930s
04:07with their original owners.
04:12With the Elizabeth and the Mary, the Cunard line had both the largest and the fastest
04:17liners afloat, and with their associations of royalty, they were an adman's dream.
04:25For a few short years, these ships maintained the illusion that Britain still ruled the
04:30waves.
04:31The Queen Mary had a real aura.
04:35There was a whole generation of people who absolutely adored her.
04:52She had that glorious, rich timber interior, slightly old-fashioned when it was put in,
05:01and it appealed to the class of people that she was built to attract.
05:07I do have a strong affection for the Queen Mary, the first Queen Mary, which of course
05:12is now in Long Beach as a floating hotel, convention centre and all the rest of it.
05:17And when you go there, you see this huge black hull with literally millions of rivets.
05:24She wasn't welded, she was riveted.
05:27And these three huge Cunard red funnels.
05:31And you go on board, and it is like stepping back into the 1930s, the 1940s, when she was
05:37in her heyday, when she was the fastest passenger ship in the world.
05:43Are we ready, guys?
05:45Very good.
05:46This way, please.
05:47This is the behind the scenes, yes.
05:50And if you get one of the original cabins, as you stay at the hotel, again, you could
05:56imagine yourself in the 1930s.
05:59The taps, taps of salt water as well as fresh water, a myriad of taps, and so on.
06:07This huge bath, rather than just a shower.
06:11And it is, it's a wonderful experience.
06:17Also in the bathrooms at that time, the towel racks were electrically heated.
06:22When you stepped out of the tub, you would have a nice worn towel to wrap yourself in.
06:33During the war, the United States had to rely on the great Cunard liners to move her army
06:38across the Atlantic for the D-Day landings.
06:41Her war record is phenomenal.
06:43In July of 1943, she carried 16,683 human beings.
06:50That still stands as the largest number of human beings ever transported on one vessel
06:56in the history of the world.
07:03In the growing chill of the Cold War, America wanted her own independent means of moving
07:08armies.
07:09A ship that, like the two queens, could transport whole divisions so fast that no submarine
07:14could threaten her.
07:19In 1952, she launched the largest American passenger ship ever built, the SS United States.
07:25A passenger liner that could be converted within 18 hours to work as a troop ship.
07:30Winston Churchill has said that the Cunard queens during the war collectively shortened
07:38the war by nearly a year because of their huge transport potential.
07:42And certainly after the war, the Americans seized on this and decided they had to have
07:48a ship of their own.
07:49And so funds were appropriated and directed to the United States lines to build a new
07:55troop ship cum liner, which was the SS United States.
08:03In true American tradition, this baby was fast and a real gas guzzler.
08:08On her maiden voyage, she smashed the Atlantic record known as the Blue Ribbon, taking ten
08:13hours off the Queen Mary's time, and set a record for a passenger liner that remains
08:18unchallenged to this day.
08:22The main attraction of the United States was her speed.
08:26The accommodation was very modern, very tastefully decorated, but in comparison to the queens
08:33and the other great ships of state, it was rather austere.
08:39As a small boy, naval architect Stephen Payne was captured on home cinefilm when the mighty
08:45United States sailed into Southampton.
08:49On sea trials, it's rumoured that that ship achieved some 45 knots.
08:55Now when you equate knots to miles per hour, it's over 50 miles per hour, and I always
09:01enjoy saying to my American friends that had that ship been sailing down an American highway
09:07in the 1950s, she would have got a speeding ticket.
09:14Designed for military action, she was fitted with aircraft carrier engines, and fire-resistant
09:20asbestos replaced the opulent panelling of the Cunard Queens.
09:24The only wood on board the United States was said to be the piano and the butcher's block.
09:30What the United States had in terms of speed, I'm afraid she didn't match Queen Mary in
09:36terms of luxury.
09:45Luxury was what the Queen Mary was about, and in first class, it was about as good as
09:50it gets.
09:51A hundred and fifty chefs cooking for critical hungry mouths, fare-paying passengers eating
09:57their money's worth all the way, taking five days off and putting 14 pounds on.
10:03Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I hope I see you in good health tonight, and I hope
10:09good appetite.
10:10Oh, always, sir.
10:11That's a perfect move.
10:12I must congratulate you gentlemen on your choice of your ladies.
10:17Well, we did all right.
10:22Now, what's it like aboard?
10:25Like the society she was built for, the Queen Mary is rigidly divided by class.
10:30First class, cabin class, and tourist.
10:34Only money makes it possible to rise from one class to another.
10:37No, that's the segregation gate, madam.
10:41Well, I don't think you can mix, um, well, clergys and the Regent Palace, can you, Willie?
10:48I suppose you can.
10:51But if you're in the Regent Palace, you're in the Regent Palace, you're in clergys and
10:55clergys.
10:56If you want to travel first class, you can have a small cabin with no porthole for £178,
11:03but a suite for two people is over £1,000, one way.
11:10If you don't feel up to the first class, there's the cabin class at the rear of the ship, gently
11:15vibrating over the propeller shafts.
11:17This costs £120 or so.
11:20Squeezed up in the bows, there's room for 560 tourist passengers.
11:27There, you can get a cabin for just under £100, but you'll probably have to share for
11:36five days.
11:44Life in the first class can be a round of cocktail parties, beginning with the captain's
11:49reception.
11:50Good evening, Mrs. Keegan.
11:51Welcome to you.
11:52Nice to see you.
11:53Enjoy yourself.
11:54Captain Shimin, Mrs. Keegan.
11:55How do you do?
11:56Good evening, sir.
11:57How do you do?
11:58Would you both like to come to the room?
11:59Well, I believe, basically, they are three different kinds of people here.
12:00You take a menu to a first class passenger and he knows exactly what he wants.
12:11He can pick out things and he doesn't really require much explanation of the dishes.
12:16But if you show to a great majority of the tourist passengers, you show them the menu
12:19and they say, oh, what's this?
12:22You know, if it's in French, they really don't understand the menu properly, which is quite
12:27in order.
12:28Everybody's happy to serve them.
12:29But you find that they are definitely different.
12:38Up in the first class, you can eat when you like, what you like, and as much as you like.
12:45Waldorf salad.
12:47And I'll have the artichoke.
12:50Globed artichoke.
12:51And I think I'll have the ribs of beef.
12:56Ribs of beef, mm-hmm.
12:57Very well done, you know what I mean?
12:59Well done, yeah.
13:00Pieces together.
13:01Cremated?
13:02Yes.
13:03You couldn't even fly across the Atlantic in those days, so you had the cream of all
13:07the world's traffic, if you like, the European, American, the British traffic traveling in
13:13there.
13:14You had all the government officials, the actresses, all the chairmen of the big companies,
13:20both American, European, and even the Russians used to travel with us in the main suites.
13:26Well, I don't think you would have such a gathering anywhere in the world as you did
13:30in those days.
13:31It used to be terribly chic and fun, and I'm snobby enough to like it.
13:36I mean, everyone dressed for dinner.
13:38Nowadays, people come down in the most extraordinary clothes.
13:41You think every night looks like a fancy dress party.
13:45And, oh, it used to be such fun.
13:49It was chic.
13:51Ladies, gentlemen, boys, and girls, enter.
13:58You have just entered one of the most beautiful rooms on board this ship.
14:10She is three decks high.
14:14This room was filled with overstuffed chairs and couches.
14:18During the day, passengers would come into this room to socialize with other passengers
14:23or just to listen to music.
14:28Now, at that time, dinner was never, ever served in this room, but promptly at 4 p.m.
14:36each day, tea was served.
14:40And after the tea was served, they would play games, such as bingo.
14:47Eyes down, look in, think lucky, you'll be lucky.
14:51The first lucky number, 2-0-20.
14:55Blind, 60, 6-0-60.
15:00Two little ducks on the water, 22.
15:04All aboard!
15:11The 50s were golden years for the Cunard Line
15:14as post-war austerity blossomed into post-war boom.
15:21Soon, every nation desired a share of the prestige and the profits.
15:26In the 50s, Manhattan became a parking lot
15:29for the finest liners the world had ever seen,
15:32the national flag carriers, the ships of state.
15:36So there was enormous competition between the great lines
15:40to see who could have the best ships
15:43and the ships that showed the better face of their countries of origin.
15:48The SS Rotterdam was the first of a new breed of European ships
15:52to carry their nation's flag and pride.
15:55The Holland America Line succeeded not on speed or size,
15:59but by designing a dual-purpose ship
16:02that was at least a decade ahead of its time.
16:05The watchwords at the time were size and speed.
16:08You were either the biggest or you were the fastest.
16:11The Dutch said, no, that era is over.
16:15And what they planned was a smaller ship,
16:20by today's standards, actually a very small ship,
16:23although in her day she was...
16:25She was in the top ten, but only just,
16:28and she wasn't particularly fast.
16:30She was designed to do the trip from Rotterdam to New York,
16:34I think, in seven or eight days,
16:36rather than the 4.5 to 5 from Southampton that Cunard were doing.
16:43The Dutch alone seemed to see the future,
16:46a future where the liner crossing had less importance
16:49and the real profits lay in cruising.
16:52With the Rotterdam, the Dutch had recast the role of the liner,
16:56but everyone else continued playing yesterday's game.
17:02The Italians dressed their national colours
17:05on the sleek Michelangelo and her companion, the Raffaello,
17:09bold and beautiful ships designed for a new Italian renaissance.
17:13The Italian line was very proud
17:15to represent the best of post-war Italian design.
17:19The top architects were commissioned to design the ships
17:23and they had a wonderful mix of minimalism
17:27with Italian flamboyance.
17:34But more than any other nation, it was de Gaulle's France
17:37that wished to recreate the pre-war glory of its ocean liner.
17:41All French hopes were placed in one showpiece ship
17:45called simply the France,
17:48the longest in the world by just four feet.
17:55It was a ship for the rich and the fashionable
17:58in their bijou apartment suites,
18:002,000 passengers pampered by over 1,200 crew.
18:05The French line's ships were legendary.
18:09It was said that more seagulls followed French line ships
18:12than those of any other company,
18:14hoping to catch delectable bits of haute cuisine
18:17thrown out from the galleys.
18:21I think this was terrifically important to France,
18:24that the country itself, its culture, its design values,
18:28its engineering, were there to be seen.
18:31Very much, the France was very much a flag carrier,
18:34a national flag carrier,
18:36in that truest sense of a ship of state.
18:39She was very, very much a statement of France afloat.
18:44And originally, they were going to build
18:47two fairly modestly-sized liners,
18:50but during the de Gaulle era,
18:53there really was the need for some great nationalist,
18:57prestigious project,
18:59and he chose the building of a great new liner,
19:02which became the SS France,
19:04which entered service in 1962.
19:14But even as these bold new ships enjoyed their maiden voyages,
19:18dark clouds appeared overhead.
19:20Jet aircraft started across the Atlantic non-stop
19:23in hours rather than days.
19:26The Jet Age was a body blow for the Atlantic liner companies.
19:30At first, they simply didn't know how to respond.
19:33They'd been coining money during the 1950s.
19:36Suddenly, just over a decade later,
19:39passenger numbers were dropping off.
19:42I think what's sometimes forgotten is that
19:45in those early days of airline travel,
19:48it was extremely expensive.
19:50But what happened was that the early airliners
19:53were taking out the first-class passengers,
19:56and it was the first-class passengers, essentially,
20:00who were paying the profits.
20:08Even in the late 1960s,
20:10Cunard were attempting to operate
20:13a year-round transatlantic service,
20:16and certainly in the latter years of their life,
20:19the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth,
20:21sailing in the middle of winter,
20:23would sail with more crew members than they had passengers on board.
20:28Chic travel had moved to the skies.
20:31A new term was coined, the jet set,
20:33for a group of the rich and the famous
20:35who lived la dolce vita in New York, London, Paris or Rome.
20:40The whole imagery of air travel began to dominate the culture.
20:46So liners began to look increasingly dowdy,
20:49no matter how modern the ships themselves were,
20:52and that was a real problem.
20:55Suddenly, young boys wanted to be airliner pilots
20:59rather than to work on ships, for example,
21:02because that whole culture was the fashionable thing.
21:10Although the transatlantic lines enjoyed the prestige,
21:13the other great sea routes were where most of the money was made.
21:17The routes to Australia and New Zealand were popular, lucrative
21:21and effectively out of reach of long-range jets for the next decade.
21:25From the early 60s onwards,
21:27the premier ship on the six-week route to Australia was Pianos Canberra.
21:33The Peninsular and Orient Line had great success
21:36serving these long-distance passages.
21:40Longer routes, such as the routes from the UK to South Africa
21:44and the route down to Australia, were still viable.
21:48Now, these ships were still liners in the true sense,
21:52but they were quite different from the Atlantic liners
21:55because they had to travel further distances before refuelling,
21:59and they also carried invariably a lot more cargo
22:03than the transatlantic ships.
22:05Liners went all over the world, just as airlines today,
22:09and certainly looking at this from a British perspective,
22:12throughout the whole period of the Empire,
22:16the way that civil servants and visitors and friends and families
22:21travelled around the world was by liner.
22:24So, whilst the transatlantic route had the prestige it had the famous liners,
22:30they were then the minority.
22:32Most liners weren't on the transatlantic route.
22:36Some of the most popular liners featured the lavender-coloured hulls
22:40and black-and-red funnels of the Union Castle line,
22:43ships that ran a scheduled service on the South Atlantic routes to South Africa.
22:48Union Castle, it ran like clockwork, literally.
22:52It was always said that, you know, when the Union Castle vessel
22:56blew a parting whistle at, I think it was four o'clock on a Thursday,
23:00you know, Southampton could set their watch by it.
23:04A perserette on the Edinburgh Castle during the 60s was Anne Haynes.
23:09Welcome to my bureau, my little office of Union Castle treasures.
23:14Pictures, various items of happiness and memorabilia in here,
23:20and of course one of my favourite items is my curtain.
23:25A lovely gift from a friend in South Africa,
23:28but he and his wife only gave me the one curtain,
23:30but isn't it lovely with all the various Union Castle ships on it?
23:34Another little treasure that I like is an advertising item from the 1960s,
23:41where, if I want to say I'm leaving on the Edinburgh Castle on a particular Friday,
23:48I could put the Edinburgh Castle against the day of the week for Southampton
23:52and then discover where the rest of the fleet are.
24:05MUSIC
24:16It was an exciting adventure on a liner, and we were on a voyage,
24:22going from point A to point B to C to D and then back again.
24:25A true liner voyage, I think.
24:29The cargo was varied.
24:31I've got records showing that things like heifers and cows and horses
24:36and lots of animals were carried on deck.
24:38Locomotives, railway locomotives were carried.
24:41All sorts of things. Wool from South Africa came to the UK.
24:45And one of the cargoes, of course, was gold bullion, which came from South Africa.
24:51I didn't know about this for a long time, but it just shows how secret it was,
24:54and I didn't know about things like that.
24:57And I was told, if I could lift one, I could have one,
25:00and you probably know how heavy they are, so, of course, I couldn't lift one.
25:06A favourite ritual on the Union Castle line
25:09was celebrating the crossing of the equator.
25:12One of the ceremonies that took part on the Union Castle ships
25:17was the crossing the line, and that was very much looked forward to.
25:22So there'd be King Neptune, there would be his queen,
25:25who was usually a male with balloons in strategic places,
25:28and weird and wonderful costumes.
25:31There would be a policeman in a little tiny policeman's hat.
25:36All the victims for the crossing the line ceremony were volunteers.
25:40They knew they were going to get covered in revolting-looking things.
25:44You've transgressed and upset the king of the undersea,
25:48and King Neptune asks you to come here and account for your sins,
25:52you know, and put in a chair or put on a table.
25:55But everybody got a certificate, with the name on,
25:58signed by King Neptune and the date.
26:00Lovely certificates.
26:04Anne sailed her last voyage on the Edinburgh Castle in 1967,
26:08for her an era had passed.
26:13The late 60s were also pivotal years
26:15in the lives of the transatlantic ships.
26:22First the jumbo jet and then Concorde captured most of the passengers
26:26who would have travelled by ship a decade earlier.
26:29The final blow is the onset of the 747,
26:33when flying becomes a mass market,
26:36and pretty well everybody who could have afforded to cross the Atlantic
26:40on a liner can afford to cross the Atlantic on an airliner.
26:44And then the liner becomes an anachronism.
26:48It's the end of that era.
26:53No passenger line could escape the new economic reality.
26:57Cunard had two ageing ships in the Queens, Mary and Elizabeth,
27:01ships designed in the 30s for a world now gone.
27:04They were old-fashioned and expensive to run.
27:08The much-loved Queen Mary bowed out in style
27:11in a long valedictory voyage to her new home in Long Beach, California.
27:16The Queen Mary was out at sea for 31 years.
27:19She is here in Long Beach now for 42 years.
27:22So she has become a part of Long Beach history
27:26longer than she was out at sea.
27:29She is literally responsible for putting Long Beach on the map
27:32as a convention town.
27:34If you say Long Beach anywhere in the world, people say Queen Mary.
27:38If you say Queen Mary anywhere in the world, people say Long Beach.
27:41She's had good days and bad days.
27:45Money has been spent to try and keep her up.
27:49But she's still a very, very fine representation
27:52of one of the old ships of state.
27:54On the quayside, even an American-style celebration
27:57is dwarfed by the huge bulk of the old lady herself.
28:01The final commanding captain of the Queen Mary,
28:05Captain John Treasure Jones.
28:11Now, as the very last captain serving with Cunard of the Queen Mary,
28:16you brought her here.
28:18What sort of experience did you find that last voyage?
28:21Well, I found the last voyage a very thrilling experience in many ways
28:25because I knew I was bringing the ship on an adventurous voyage,
28:28if you like, round Cape Horn,
28:30to a home where I felt she would be appreciated
28:33and become the jewel of the port of Long Beach
28:36in the center of their harbor here.
28:38So I didn't feel bad about it at all.
28:41In fact, I was delighted to bring her here.
28:44From time to time during rough weather,
28:47the Queen Mary would rock and she would roll
28:52and she would rock and she would roll.
28:55And if the passengers became seasick,
28:58looked a bit green, you know, about the face,
29:02they could look into the peach plate mirrors,
29:08see a healthy complexion
29:13and hopefully feel just a wee bit better.
29:22Queen Elizabeth was always considered the Mary's dowdy sister.
29:26She was the unsung partner in the famous double act.
29:30Elizabeth was an altogether more modern ship than the Queen Mary.
29:35She had benefited from at least a decade's design development.
29:39On board, however, there's a bit of a paradox
29:43because the Queen Elizabeth was actually slightly more conservative
29:47in her design than the Queen Mary.
29:49She didn't have the Queen Mary's cult following,
29:54to put it in a modern parlance.
29:57She didn't quite hit it with the punters in the same way.
30:00Compared with Queen Mary, she was less warm, less comforting.
30:06Now, the Queen Elizabeth, she was sold to a Chinese businessman,
30:11C Y Tung, decided to buy the ship
30:14and to rebuild her as a floating university.
30:17And his idea was to sail the ship on long cruises
30:21with passengers and students.
30:24The ship was undergoing a huge rebuilding programme
30:27whilst anchoring in Hong Kong
30:29and towards the end of that process, in January 1972,
30:34the ship suddenly caught fire.
30:37The final death throes of this once great ship
30:40were reported by Blue Peter's Valerie Singleton.
30:44Soon the whole ship was alight
30:46and despite all the efforts of the Hong Kong Fire Brigade,
30:49it became obvious that the liner was doomed.
30:53For five days and nights she blazed
30:55and television viewers all over the world were appalled by these pictures.
30:59She caught fire in several places at once
31:02and so it's assumed that it was the work of arsonists.
31:05And as with the Normandy in New York during the war,
31:10so much water was poured onto the ship to put out the fire
31:14that it made the ship unstable
31:16and so she rolled over and sank and was subsequently scrapped.
31:21It takes a long time to cut up and carry away 83,500 tonnes of ocean liner
31:27but every day she gets just a little bit smaller
31:30and soon even this rusting hulk will disappear.
31:33It's rumoured that the salvage is being sold across the border to mainland China.
31:38It's odd to think that the imperial grandeur of RMS Queen Elizabeth
31:42will end her days as scrap in communist China.
31:46This is the Blue Peter Annual from 1972
31:50which I received as a youngster for Christmas that year
31:53and if we open up one of the articles here
31:57is about the Queen Elizabeth, Queen of the Seas.
32:00The very last paragraph reads
32:03it was a sad moment for everybody who loves great ships.
32:07The Queen Elizabeth was the last of a great age,
32:10a super liner and nothing like her will ever be built again.
32:14Well it just so happened that at the time
32:17we were learning how to write letters of complaint at school.
32:20My English teacher, Miss Bootle, she said
32:23the most important letter you can learn to write is a letter of complaint.
32:27So I duly wrote for my homework a letter of complaint to Blue Peter
32:33saying that when I grew up I wanted to design and build a new ship
32:37that would rival Queen Elizabeth.
32:40So I wrote and I sent it in to Blue Peter
32:43and lo and behold I received by return the blue Blue Peter badge
32:48and I was rather upset that they didn't give me a gold badge,
32:52I must say, I was rather precocious.
32:57Cunard had the confidence to commission a new ship
33:00to replace the retired Queen's Mary and Elizabeth.
33:03Like the Rotterdam, she would be dual purpose,
33:06a liner and a cruise ship.
33:10I name this ship Queen Elizabeth II.
33:17The Queen Elizabeth II, or QE2 as she is commonly known,
33:21became the flagship of the Cunard line for nearly 40 years.
33:25From 1969 to 2008 she was the most famous British liner of the modern age.
33:30Sleek and spacious, she was built to take Cunard into a new era.
33:36Now the big difference physically between the liner and the cruise ship
33:40is that the liner has to be significantly stronger than the cruise ship
33:44because it has to be able to be driven hard through bad weather.
33:48The bow of a liner is much finer, much more like an arrow,
33:52and again it's to push its way through those rough weather.
33:56Now all those things combined amounts to about a 40% increase
34:01in the price of the ship.
34:03So if you built a cruise ship and a liner of the same size,
34:07the liner would probably cost you about 40% more,
34:10and that's a big premium to pay to call your ship a liner.
34:15The QE2 really in many ways was the bridge
34:19between transatlantic liners of the traditional kind
34:23and modern day cruise ships.
34:25She was potentially able to operate as a two class ship,
34:29equally as a one class ship.
34:31She had all the facilities one would expect of a modern cruise ship.
34:35She was like a modern hotel on board.
34:38Her design was extremely progressive.
34:41She was rather jet age and also in many ways space age,
34:45both in her external design and in her internal outfitting.
34:54There were 50 luxury suites and 300 deluxe cabins.
34:59The QE2 was much more a floating hotel than a means of transport.
35:05The new ship attracted a visit from Blue Peter.
35:09After a fabulous lunch, I changed my clothes to go to the engine room
35:13as I thought it would be very dirty,
35:15but they looked more like mission control at Cape Kennedy
35:17than on board a liner.
35:19There were dials, meters, switches, knobs by the dozen,
35:22each one controlling or metering some part of the engine
35:25so that a constant check could be made by the control room's computer.
35:31On the bridge, I met the captain of the QE2.
35:34Good afternoon, Captain Warwick.
35:36Thank you very much for letting me...
35:38The QE2 also had the unique distinction of being the only Cunard liner
35:42to be captained by both father and son.
35:45Huge great wheels, of course, a relic of the past also,
35:48when the wheel was right on top of the rudder.
35:51I first stepped aboard QE2 to visit my father
35:55when it was at Kingston, Jamaica, on a cruise,
35:59and this was the very first time I'd been aboard the ship,
36:02and I just couldn't believe what I saw, a fantastic modern ship,
36:06and that left me with the burning ambition to be captain of it one day.
36:10And I achieved my goal in 1990 when I was appointed relief master.
36:21But for the Dutch, the Americans and the French, the Atlantic game was up.
36:25In 1969, the Rotterdam, with her advanced design,
36:29moved exclusively into cruising
36:31and was a sought-after ship for the next 30 years.
36:35But there was no escape for the gas-guzzling United States.
36:38Brute economics sank her as a going concern.
36:42Losing $3 million a year, she was taken away for a refit
36:46and never returned to passenger service.
36:52The sudden loss of America's rocket ship
36:55left her devoted passengers high and dry.
36:59There are always some people who would always go by ship.
37:03We still get, I still get letters from people asking
37:06whether or not they can travel as a passenger
37:09even in these container ships that we're operating.
37:12They still want to operate, run in a ship,
37:15but as far as operating a passenger ship the size of the United States,
37:19I rather doubt whether we could even assemble a crew,
37:23the type of crew we had, to operate that ship again.
37:27Because a lot of these people have retired,
37:30a lot of them have died off, a lot of them have gone elsewhere.
37:34I do not think she'll ever go to sea.
37:37At one point, she was told across to Turkey to have her asbestos removed
37:41because, of course, being an American ship,
37:43she was absolutely stuffed with asbestos for fire-proofing reasons.
37:47The job was done, but the owners couldn't pay.
37:50So in lieu of money,
37:52they paid by allowing the scrappers to take her lifeboats away,
37:57which were made of aluminium, and the davits.
38:00So the remains of the United States, the gutted shell,
38:04was then towed back across the Atlantic
38:07and she now lies as a hulk in Philadelphia.
38:12Finally, even the world's longest ship, the France,
38:15the ultimate symbol of national pride, would fall.
38:18In 1974, with her $10 million subsidy removed by the French government,
38:23her owners were forced to concede
38:26that her days on the Atlantic run were over.
38:29France was laid up in La Havre, her home port, for several years
38:34before she was bought by Norwegian Caribbean Lines,
38:38and they had her rebuilt in Bremerhaven as the SS Norway.
38:43And she was a very, very successful cruise ship
38:46for many years in her modified form
38:49and has only recently been finally retired and sent for scrap.
38:54As the France, this ship was the last of the Ocean Greyhounds,
38:57built for speed and to dash across the North Atlantic
39:00in competition with other great liners.
39:02But in these days of rising oil prices,
39:05that's a recipe for economic disaster.
39:09Perhaps the most curious fate of all
39:11befell the France's predecessor, the ÃŽle-de-France.
39:15The ÃŽle-de-France was a very significant ship
39:18in that she was the first, effectively the first,
39:22passenger ship to introduce the new Art Deco style.
39:27And she continued in service until the late 1950s
39:31when she was sold for scrap to a Japanese firm in Osaka.
39:36But it was the early days,
39:38those were the early days of the disaster movies.
39:41And before they scrapped her,
39:43the Japanese hired her out to an American film studio
39:47who were making a film called The Last Voyage.
39:541,500 carefree passengers happily unaware of a note to the captain.
39:59And they actually sent the ship out to sea
40:02and created various explosions inside and on the open decks,
40:07sent the forward funnel crashing down onto the bridge.
40:10All realistic, and I think the film actually won Oscars
40:15for the special effects because they weren't made up,
40:18they were actually real,
40:20and you could see this great ship being destroyed
40:22for the purposes of the film.
40:31Hold it, the piano's going to fall!
40:38MUSIC PLAYS
40:47Help!
40:49Poor Dorothy Malone, who was a star of the film,
40:52spends about three quarters of the film up to her neck in water.
40:56Very difficult to give a good acting performance
40:58under those circumstances, I should have thought.
41:01Never before has the screen flamed with adventure and suspense so real
41:05that this dramatic moment was filmed at fever pitch,
41:08entirely aboard the world's most glamorous luxury liner.
41:11Hurry it up, for God's sake, I can't keep her head in the water much longer!
41:21The telephone cord!
41:25Pull yourself up!
41:29She was then partially sunk for the finale of the film.
41:35The French were absolutely scandalised
41:37by the use of the Ile-de-France in this film,
41:40and they ensured that all references to Ile-de-France
41:43were very carefully erased,
41:45and in fact, in the film, the ship is given the name Clarendon.
41:49I think that she was so much a ship of the movie age,
41:54so many famous film stars had travelled on her.
41:58Her decor was so much...
42:00Before the war, before it was changed,
42:02so much Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,
42:05that maybe that was a rather suitable final role for this great ship,
42:10a starring role in a big-budget movie.
42:14But not all liners met such a dramatic end.
42:18Most were adapted for the expanding cruising market.
42:24In 1981, Robert Robinson took a slow boat to Madeira.
42:29The ship was the former liner, the Canberra.
42:32It was now supposedly a one-class ship,
42:34but reminders of the old days were not hard to find.
42:37Where some passengers had every convenience, some had very few.
42:42Did you know you were in for this kind of thing?
42:44I mean, you're four strangers, just this minute sent to me.
42:47That's right.
42:51Right.
42:52I mean, you knew you were in for this kind of chummery.
42:55There again, it's economics.
42:58A single cabin would have cost another £200 extra.
43:02But I wanted the company.
43:04I look for a company and this is where you get it.
43:06Of course.
43:07It was the company I was after.
43:09But perhaps this situation wasn't quite the company I was looking forward to.
43:12Fairly early on in the cruise,
43:14people tend to split into two fairly well demarcated groups.
43:19The people in the cheaper cabins, the old second class,
43:22tend to congregate in the Alley Springs at lunchtime.
43:24What happens there?
43:25Well, the Alley Springs is the casual bar
43:27where the people sit in shirtsleeves
43:29and, you know, the old classic blackpool and the braces syndrome.
43:41Whereas the people who live up in the front end of the ship,
43:44the old first class, days at the Raj, still sort of lives on up there.
43:49So, as it were at the top end,
43:51the Commodore hosts an alfresco cocktail party on his private deck.
43:55Now, I wouldn't hear a word against it.
43:58I honestly wouldn't because it's just straightforward
44:01and I don't think you'll get a better value for money.
44:04While at the other end, it's pub night.
44:06Send the Irishman in.
44:12A big putty walked in.
44:13He said, there's a cabbage, a potato and a knife.
44:15What do you do without putty?
44:16He said, Jesus, all I reckon is the cabbage.
44:20At the Commodore's party,
44:21one of the guests remembers what cruising was like in the 20s.
44:25They made their own amusements.
44:27They appointed a sports committee when they had the first day out.
44:33Helped by the senior officers on board.
44:39Go, Johnny, go! Go, go, Johnny!
44:42Johnny Beagle!
44:46Yeah!
44:52The following year, the Falklands War
44:54created new roles for the QE2 and Canberra.
45:01Like their predecessors in the Second World War,
45:03these welded leviathans were the only realistic means
45:06of transporting an army over long distances,
45:09in all seas, at speed.
45:12They're ready to fight if they have to,
45:14and we in the government will do our very, very best
45:17to see that that is not necessary.
45:19But if they have to, I know they'll equip themselves with honour.
45:22How do you feel now, as the ship's sailing away?
45:24Well, I think I'll be quite tearful in a few moments, actually.
45:27What about you?
45:28Just about the same, very tearful.
45:32Come back safely, that's the main thing.
45:35It took the QE2 just 16 days to reach the South Atlantic.
45:39These grand ladies could lift up their skirts when they had to.
45:45The QE2 was kept at arm's length from the Argentinians,
45:48but the Canberra was sent into San Carlos water,
45:51in the thick of the action.
45:53She received a heroine's welcome on the return to her homeland.
45:57By the 80s, the new cruise ships looked very different
46:00from the classic ocean liners of the past.
46:09Whereas traditional liners had their ladies' retiring rooms
46:13and smoking rooms and all kinds of spaces for simply sitting,
46:17the QE2 was designed to be a place where you could sit
46:20and relax and have a good time.
46:22Whereas traditional liners had their ladies' retiring rooms
46:25and smoking rooms and all kinds of spaces for simply sitting and relaxing,
46:29the modern cruise ship is built around revenue-earning spaces
46:33like bars, casinos and shops,
46:36and the new purpose-built ships were designed in that way.
46:40It was only in the 1970s when cruising came for the mass market,
46:45and that's when various new operators started,
46:49like Royal Caribbean Line, Carnival Cruise Lines,
46:52Norwegian Cruise Line,
46:54and they brought in specialist ships
46:57that were very, very successful,
47:00high-density ships that really supported the mass market.
47:14This new world was soon attracting drama treatment
47:17in the hit television series The Love Boat.
47:20Its glossy take on cruising
47:22helped to make floating holidays even more mainstream.
47:26The Love Boat, with its mixture of romance and comedy,
47:29changed middle America's perception of what went on in cruise ships.
47:34And it generated a huge boom
47:38in affordable cruising in the USA.
47:42The Love Boat herself was the Pacific Princess,
47:45operated by a British company, operated by P&O.
47:48Here they come, out of the starting gate.
47:51And this hit the imagination of the American public
47:57so that people maybe in middle America
48:00who had never dreamed, maybe never seen the sea,
48:03suddenly realised that cruising was not for the toffs,
48:06it could be fun,
48:08and there was always the hint of romance, drama, whatever.
48:13So the Love Boat really put mass market cruising on the map.
48:17One can never underestimate the power of television.
48:23Television was making cruising seem accessible.
48:26Travel programmes were quick to democratise its packaged glamour.
48:30Parting can be such sweet sorrow,
48:33but not for long in a ship like this
48:35where you'll soon find plenty of shallow water to drop anchor again.
48:38The last thing you need in this heat is more heat.
48:43A good job, then, there's so many pools like this on board.
48:51Naturally, a lot of activities are arranged around the pools,
48:54but I found there was still enough space
48:56to enjoy your own privacy if you so desired.
48:59But for those that have been before,
49:01what then is the appeal of a cruising holiday?
49:03Well, if you get on a beach and you get covered in sand,
49:06you get covered in people here,
49:08your room and your shower are just a few yards away,
49:11and the bar stewards are passing by every couple of yards,
49:14every couple of minutes.
49:16The pool is there to dive into.
49:18It is very easy.
49:20Thank you very much.
49:21They tend to do things in style on cruise ships.
49:23This is not a meal, it's in fact a drink at Blue Caribbean,
49:26and normally you'd probably have to carry around
49:28two wallets loads of money to pay for it,
49:30but like everything else on board,
49:32you simply pay for it with a credit card.
49:34Over the last four decades or so,
49:37the cruise market has changed very much
49:40and cruise ships have changed very much.
49:42Of course, most of them are much bigger now.
49:44They have much better facilities.
49:46People now very often demand
49:48that they shall have a balcony outside their cabin.
49:51And also, cruising has become, in real terms,
49:56very much cheaper than it was.
49:59How about coming into my room?
50:02Well, this is it.
50:04That's the shower room and toilet in there.
50:06You get a fridge, two single beds,
50:09there's a television, you get a telephone
50:11and you can actually phone home from the boat.
50:13This particular room has a balcony,
50:15which, of course, costs extra.
50:17It's independently air-conditioned
50:19and I'm sure as ships' cabins go, it's quite spacious.
50:22But if you have any ideas about bringing
50:24the sort of trunks that you see in the movies,
50:27well, I'd think twice.
50:29The cruise ship was not a means to transport its passengers.
50:33It was now a destination in its own right.
50:36A destination with no revenue stream untapped.
50:42Drinks cost extra and make carnival money,
50:45and they've found a way to sell as many as possible.
50:48My salary is very small, about $48 a month,
50:52and then you get 15% of all your sales.
50:55If you don't run, you don't make money.
50:57That's the way it is.
51:06MUSIC
51:19Passenger numbers soar.
51:21By the turn of the century,
51:23two important milestones had been passed.
51:25Miami, with easy access to the Caribbean,
51:27became the largest passenger port in the world.
51:30And for the first time,
51:32the largest passenger vessel afloat
51:34was not a liner but a cruise ship.
51:40Cruising is now a very big business,
51:42and in the course of events,
51:44they've gobbled up a lot of the smaller companies.
51:49Well, I say smaller.
51:52For example, Carnival has taken over Cunard,
51:56and one thinks of Cunard being a big company,
51:59but in today's world, it was a mere minnow.
52:03More berths at sea at the moment.
52:05As we speak, more people are sleeping on cruise ships
52:09on the oceans than ever there were back in the liner era.
52:15And in an ironic twist,
52:17an old enemy was now a new best friend.
52:20It's strange to consider that the cruise industry today
52:25really does rely on the aeroplane
52:28bringing in vast numbers of passengers
52:31from all around the United States
52:34to the ports of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, New York,
52:37and the other areas.
52:39So, whereas jet airliners had been disastrous for the liner trades,
52:44they were actually very advantageous for cruise ship companies
52:48because jet aircraft could fly passengers
52:52straight to sunny departure ports like Miami in shiploads.
52:58In 2008, the two great liners
53:01that had pioneered the transition to cruise ships
53:04sailed to their final resting places.
53:06First, the port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands
53:09saw her most famous ship come home.
53:14Against all expectations, and much to my delight,
53:18the one ship that was saved
53:21from the sort of 60s era of transatlantic ships, of course,
53:26is the SS Rotterdam.
53:28Back in her home port and the port of her birth,
53:31back in Rotterdam.
53:33This ship was just too beautiful to see off to a scrapyard.
53:38And so Rotterdam has finally, after many misadventures,
53:44has finally found her way back to the port of Rotterdam.
53:48There were amazing scenes.
53:51Fourth of August last year, 2008,
53:54I feel so lucky to have been there.
53:58The port was heaving.
54:02Immense numbers of people turned out.
54:05A huge flotilla accompanied her in.
54:08To be part of it was one of the most extraordinary experiences of my life.
54:12The day that the Rotterdam came back into our port
54:17was a celebration that gives you goosebumps.
54:21It was as if a lost child was welcomed home again.
54:25You can actually not really describe that feeling,
54:28that one didn't think about,
54:31but when one saw the emotions of the people here in Rotterdam,
54:35so proud and so tearful, almost,
54:39seeing her back into port,
54:41knowing that she was going to stay this time.
54:46400 workmen are now racing against time
54:49to open the ship as a museum and hotel in the summer of 2009.
54:53When restored, all the Rotterdam's period features,
54:57including the famous Odyssey murals by the Dutch artist Nico Nagler,
55:01will help preserve the legend that is the Rotterdam for future generations.
55:07MUSIC PLAYS
55:15Also in 2008, the QE2, once Cunard's flagship
55:19and for a decade part of the Carnival empire, bowed to the inevitable.
55:24After nearly 40 years on the oceans of the world,
55:28she was sent off in style to drop anchor in her new home of Dubai.
55:34And the idea is that her heritage, all the artefacts on board,
55:39will be on display to be able to show future generations
55:44just what a great ship the Queen Elizabeth II was.
55:48But the story of the ocean liner is not quite over.
55:52In 2004, a new queen was launched, the Queen Mary II.
55:57Once again, a Cunard ship is the largest,
56:00longest and fastest passenger ship afloat.
56:03The dream of the small boy who wrote to Blue Peter.
56:07My brief from my management was simple.
56:11I had to design a ship that could be constructed in the modern era,
56:17using modern materials and modern methods,
56:20that would be able to do the transatlantic route
56:23and that would make the same return on investment
56:27as if we had spent the money on building cruise ships for cruise service.
56:32The Queen Mary II is an attempt by Cunard
56:36to recapture what they want to promote as being the golden age of liner travel.
56:42Her hull is absolutely that of a liner.
56:45The naval architect, Stephen Payne, who designed her,
56:49is a very, very brilliant man.
56:51And in designing that vessel,
56:53he actually had to look back to ships from the 1960s
56:57in order to find the inspiration for a hull form
57:01that would be able to sail across the Atlantic quickly all year round.
57:06Up top, however, the QM2 is most definitely a cruise ship.
57:10This is a ship, a high-tech, super modern ship,
57:15dressed in historic fancy clothes.
57:18One of the things they are selling is the heritage.
57:21And although they are now American-owned, largely American-owned,
57:25they still want to give a rather British atmosphere.
57:29And to think something as amazing as this was inspired by Blue Peter.
57:33Now, Steve, I see that you've got a nice nautical type in there.
57:37Would never be without it.
57:39I've got something even better than that,
57:41which I hope you'll never be without.
57:43Wow!
57:44Yes, it is our highest accolade, a gold Blue Peter badge.
57:48I'm going to pin it on you.
57:50Wow, that's marvellous.
57:51Bet you didn't think you'd get this as a young child writing into the show.
57:54I certainly didn't.
57:55Congratulations.
57:56Thank you very much indeed.
57:59Ladies, gentlemen, boys and girls,
58:05have a fantastic day on board the Queen Mary,
58:10and thank you for coming on board.
58:19Going to make a sentimental journey
58:25To renew old memories
58:31Got my bag
58:34Tomorrow night, Michael Portillo's Railways of the Great War
58:38continues here at 7.30.
58:40Next tonight, an incredible feat of engineering with big risks.
58:45Horizon follows the attempt of the British Antarctic Survey
58:49to move their base several kilometres across ice.