They're sinking the Big U...by Sheila Claydon

 

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An article about the cultural heritage of transatlantic liners has triggered a childhood memory. Exciting though it was at the time, I had long forgotten the day I ate lunch aboard the SS United States until I read about its imminent demise. Known affectionately as the Big U, it was the last word in transatlantic liner design. The biggest and the sleekest, it broke the transatlantic speed record on its maiden voyage from New York to Southampton (UK) in July 1952, a record it still holds to this day.

More than 40,000 people greeted its arrival in Southampton.  It then provided a regular service between New York, Le Havre (France) and Southampton until it was suddenly retired in 1969.  Since then its chequered ownership has included the US Maritime Administration, several individual owners and the Norwegian Cruise Line, all of whom attempted to make the ship profitable, but to no avail. Eventually her interior furnishings were sold and her interiors stripped to the bulkhead. Then, unloved and poorly maintained, she was towed to Philadelphia where she remained for many years while the United States Conservancy unsuccessfully attempted to raise funds to save her from being scrapped. 

Now she is owned by Okaloosa County in Florida and the plan is to sink her this year near Destin, where she will become the world's largest artificial reef. Artificial reefs have been created since Roman times, so this is nothing new even if it seems a sad end for such an elegant and famous liner. I don't know whether the plan is to promote marine life, control erosion, block ship passage or block the use of trawling nets. It might even be to enhance scuba diving and surfing.  Because Destin is a popular tourist destination I would guess it's for the latter. Sinking such a beautiful ship is sad but the good news is that at least the Big U will continue to be useful.

So where do my childhood memories come in? Well I was born and raised in Southampton and can just about remember the excitement of that maiden voyage because, as my grandfather was a merchant seaman for fifty years, ships were very much part of our family history. So I can remember being taken to see it as a tiny girl, not realising then that it was special or that I would be eating aboard it a decade later.

That's where my mother comes in. She was a florist, and in those heady days when a five day voyage from Southampton to New York meant that the ship's public areas had to be decorated with fresh flowers and foliage, and bouquet after bouquet had to be carried aboard and delivered to the cabins of departing passengers, she was very busy. As a young teenager I was sometimes conscripted to help during my school holidays and that is how I ended up eating with the crew on board the SS United States. The meals were large, hot and delicious, and I can see them in my mind's eye to this day.

Those experiences, together with my own journey through life, inform my books Cabin Fever and Bouquet of Thorns.

First of all Cabin Fever. This is the story of a cruise director and the lead dancer of the onboard entertainment troupe as the fictional liner, Oceana, sails from Aukland, New Zealand to Sydney in Australia. I have been on  that cruise but as as a passenger, not a crew member, and it was wonderful, not least because we have friends and family in both countries, all of whom we were able to see at the different stops along the way. The information about the life of the crew is, however, linked to what I learned from my grandfather, and to what I saw on board the SS United States. Times change of course and Oceana is a very different ship from the liners of the nineteen fifties and sixties. These were designed to deliver a fast and efficient intercontinental service in all seasons and all weather whereas the cruise liners of today are more like floating holiday resorts whose job is to convey tourists between ports. They are, however, still things of elegance and efficiency even if they are not looking to break any speed records. 

Bouquet of Thorns, while not set anywhere near the sea or a passenger terminal, contains much of the knowledge I learned about hotel floral displays, weddings, parties, in fact anything that can be enhanced by flowers, including, staying true to my writing genre, romance!

Say it with flowers...by Sheila Claydon

Click here for my BWL page

Weather-wise, I don't know what the winter of 2020/21 was like in the rest of the world, but in the UK it was cold and wet, and the dreariness dragged on into spring. When the sun should at least have been trying to shine it stayed tucked away behind a blanket of grey cloud, and the rain kept on falling. The outcome, where I live on the northwest coast, was overflowing ponds, puddles everywhere, and, as the weather warmed slightly, lush grass and greenery. No flowers though. Everything was waiting for the sun to break through. Then it did, and my goodness the wait was worth it.

Too eager to show off, many of the plants burst into bloom before their time so that late winter, spring and the beginning of summer plants have been fighting for space all at once. And the growth is like nothing I've ever seen. Everything has doubled in size thanks to all that winter rain so that gardens are full to overflowing with colour and foliage. 

Waking up in the morning and stepping outside into all that beauty and colour makes every minute of the day worth living. Memories of that long winter are fading fast as another and then another plant bursts into bloom. And eating lunch outside under a pergola drooping with roses and honeysuckle, or drinking coffee in our tiny courtyard where the dramatic leaves of hosta provide a backdrop to pansies, pinks, and campanula is an absolute joy. 

In case you haven't realised it yet, I love flowers! My mother was a florist, which probably accounts for some of it at least, and my book Bouquet of Thorns pulls everything together. I know how to care for flowers because she showed me. I know how florists work because I watched her. And when I married I discovered that my mother-in-law was not only a keen gardener but someone who wanted to share her expertise and knowledge, so my garden now pays tribute to both of them. It has flowers that were originally cuttings from my grandmother's garden, there are plants my mother-in-law bought, planted for me and showed me how to care for, and the tubs and displays, while not as beautiful as the ones my mother would have planted, are as close as I can get. 

In Bouquet of Thorns, Sarah is trying to establish her own flower shop. Unfortunately she also has to manage her brother's run down wine bar when he is awarded a travelling scholarship. Working long hours, using the profits from her own business to prop up the wine bar, and trying to pacify her disgruntled boyfriend, she is too tired to think straight as she lurches from one catastrophe to the next. And even worse is the fact that Sean Marlow, with his Viking warrior beard and piercing blue eyes, always seems to be at the bottom of them.

It's a story about love amongst the flowers. What could be better?

Flowers to Remember Christmas...by Sheila Claydon

The cover of the latest edition, published by Books We Love 

Click here for my BWL page

A second edition ebook published by another publisher no longer operating

The original cover when the book was one of 2 full length stories published together

In recent blogs I have written about how the covers of some of my books have changed over the years as new editions have been published. How, too, I have transitioned from using the pseudonym Anne Beverley to my own name of Sheila Claydon, and how this also affected the publication. (see above) 

Today I am blogging about the third of these vintage books, Bouquet of Thorns, and I have chosen this one  because of the flowers and because it is almost Christmas. My mother was a very talented florist and because florists are always very busy in the festive season, I sometimes got to help her in those long ago  Christmases. Although I was given the unskilled jobs such as sweeping floor and filling vases with water, occasionally far more exciting things happened, and these are the seasonal memories I cherish. 

I was born and raised in Southampton, England, which is a coastal city with a port used by liners from across the world.  Nowadays it is the busiest cruise terminal and the second largest container port in the UK. In those far distant days, however, when cruises were only for the very wealthy, people would spend days and weeks aboard ship travelling to places such as South Africa and America, instead of flying as most do today. And that was how, from quite a young age, I was able to accompany my mum when she went on board what were then some of the most modern liners in the world, to decorate the state rooms, the various lounge and dining areas, the ball rooms and other communal places, and deliver personal bouquets to individual cabins. Sometimes I even got to do the personal deliveries myself...not exactly knocking on the cabin door and handing over the flowers, but taking them to the correct deck and searching out the bedroom steward who would then take charge of them.

Walking up the gangway carrying a bouquet of flowers or a box of plants made me feel very important but even better was going down to the galley to see the chefs at work, and then being served a meal that was far more exotic than anything I got at home because it was in the days before we all began to adopt the dishes of other countries and cultures. I would often be given chocolate, cakes and fruit to take home too. I  tasted my first Hershey bar courtesy of a steward on an American liner, long before they were sold in the UK. Pineapple too, and mango. And many other things that are available most places now but which weren't then.

So Bouquet of Thorns not only reminds me of those far off Christmases, it also reminds me of my mum, and every word written about the flowers and the floral displays in the book comes from that. Helping her taught me a lot, and it's thanks to her that I know how to care for cut flowers, how to revitalise them when they start to droop, and how best to display them. I know the best way to pot up plants too, and care for those, and, like my mum, that has tipped over into loving and caring for garden plants as well. So although those visits to the vast and glossy liners in the port of Southampton are long past, I still remember how it felt to be accepted by the crew and, probably because I was young, given so many treats. To this day I still remember most of the things my mum taught me about flowers, the same as I remember the joy of those Christmases past.

If you like flowers too, then you can find a snippet from Bouquet of Thorns on my Website.

Happy Christmas and I hope you are able to make some happy memories that stay with you, even in these difficult times.