MAY 1967, and the Q4, as it was still known, continues to take shape at John Brown’s yard at Clydebank.

Photographs such as this one conveyed the towering scale of the 58,000-ton Cunard liner: this one shows the rudder being manoeuvred into position. Sir Basil Smallpeice, chairman of Cunard, said he was looking forward to the launch in September but disclosed that, although it was a matter for deep regret, the liner Queen Mary would be withdrawn in October, at the end of the summer season, and her Clydebuilt sister, the Queen Elizabeth, would follow suit about a year later, once the Q4 came into service.

Both ships were losing some £750,000 a year in the face of competition from transatlantic jets. Cunard had spent £1.5 million two years previously to refit the Queen Elizabeth so that it could combine transatlantic trips with luxury winter cruises, but the plan had not paid off. One proposal for the Queen Mary, this paper added, was for it to become a floating hotel off Gibraltar or Los Angeles. (At year’s end the old ship berthed at Long Beach, California, its new, permanent home).

It would only be on September 20 that year that the official name of the Q4 would be revealed, courtesy of the Queen, who launched it amidst much fanfare; the Queen Elizabeth II, QE2. Bookies had been taking bets as to the name: the most popular choices had been ‘Sir Winston Churchill’, ‘Princess Margaret’ and ‘Princess Anne’.