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!

Christmases Past...by Sheila Claydon

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One of the first of my books published by Books We Love is Cabin Fever. It is the story of Ellie and Drew who both chose to work at Christmas rather than spending time with their loved ones. Instead they joined the ship The Osprey as Cruise Director and lead dancer on its journey from Aukland to Sydney and back. Thinking back to how the story came to be written set me thinking about Christmases past. Then I read fellow writer Nancy M Bell's post of 18 December where she reminisced about the changes we have all experienced in the last 50-100 years, and even more memories returned.

I was born when rationing and shortages were still very much part of life in the UK, so Christmases then were very different from now. Parents, unless they were wealthy, had to be inventive when it came to presents, and mine certainly were. I remember the doll house they made me. It was no more than a box divided into 4 rooms. The outside had stick on paper bricks and the roof had stick on paper tiles.  Somehow they had found scraps of carpet and wallpaper to cover the floors and walls, and there were handmade curtains on the painted on windows. The couch and matching chairs were made from matchboxes covered in a blue floral fabric and the painted chest of drawers was made from matchboxes too. The wooden bed had a knitted blanket and tiny pillows stuffed with cotton wool. There were other things, including a family of tiny dolls, and I absolutely loved it. I didn't worry that there were no stairs or internal doors. Nor that when the front was closed I couldn't see inside. I cherished that doll house for years and it was only when I was much older that I realised how much love had gone into the making of it. 

I remember, too, the blue pinafore dress that arrived one Christmas. It was  dark blue with bright pink daisies embroidered around the bodice and I loved it. It was much later that I discovered it had been made from my mother's airforce uniform and that she had sawn it together and embroidered the daisies. My father, who had worked in the northern mills before the war as a cutter, had made the pattern and cut it out for her.

When I see what my grandchildren receive now at Christmas, I don't begrudge any of it, but I do wonder if they enjoy their Christmas stockings quite as much as children did when there was so much less to be had. Then, the tangerine in the toe together with a small bar of chocolate, a packet of wax crayons, a colouring book and maybe some plasticine and a few other things were the highlight of the year. I remember a mouth organ, a set of dibs or jacks (does anyone play that now?) a skipping rope, a drawing pad, a small box of watercolour paints, and of course books. Books were read again and again and if they began to fall apart they were mended and covered with brown paper. I still have a very battered book that was my mother's when she was a child and which she read to me, one chapter every Sunday, until we finished it. Then, when I was older, I read and re-read it for myself. It is one of the original copies of Anne of Green Gables, and it is still one of my favourite stories.

Nancy is right. Times have certainly changed but they have left behind some lovely memories.

Happy Christmas everyone. May you all be blessed and may 2023 be good to us all.