You will recall that I often refer to coincidences that occur in my life and the fact that I seem to enjoy more of them than most people.
The biggest coincidence of the Iceland cruise involved Roger and Sandra Laycock. Not just the fact that every time we got into a lift they were there! The coincidence related to the original Queen Mary. The first of the Queens and still a floating hotel in Long Beach, California. I know that many of you have been there.
Many years ago I mentioned on the blog that I had the Original First Log Book of Queen Mary. The first log book which, on the first page, set out that on 27 May 1936 the ship had arrived in Southampton and that King George V had arrived and boarded the ship and that later Queen Mary and her party had also boarded the ship. All written in ink by one of the officers.
The log book is a fairly worn out hard backed exercise type book and for the last 18 years has been on display in the Cunardia memorabilia cabinet on Queen Victoria. I will talk more about Cunardia later, but why am I rambling on about the Queen Mary’s original Log book.
Remember this is all about coincidences. Roger and Sandra have a diary written by Roger’s grandmother who was a passenger on that Maiden voyage of Queen Mary that left Southampton on 27 May 1936 and in it she wrote about the crossing to New York.
Roger brought that diary with him to show me. Two documents both recording the same event back in May 1936.
The Queen Mary logbook is still on Queen Victoria (I hope). When I heard recently that Cunard is to carry out a refurbishment of Queen Victoria this autumn, I contacted Guest Relations, hoping to find out if the Cunardia exhibition on QV is to be removed during the refurbishment. I want to be sure that the log book doesn’t disappear. I am still awaiting a response. I will let you know when I have a response.
Cunardia iis gone some time ago and the cabinets are no longer. I had items in them and when I asked I was told they had been disposed of. Mine were not valuable. and I had removed those that were beforehand and I know where these items are.
Stewart
Stewart. I think the position is that about 10 years ago when there was a QV refit they took out the large Cunardia display. I had some stuff in there and it vanished for a time. They said it had been sent to California. As a result they upgraded us on a couple of cruises and then eventually the missing items were returned. The glass cabinets at the side remained throughout and my logbook is in there and when I checked about a year ago a passenger said the logbook was still there.