So the plan yesterday was to visit The Queen Mary at Long Beach CA to try to confirm that the first picture above showing my father shaking hands with Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother was taken on the Queen Mary and not the Queen Elizabeth. It was a old photo we found at home and my father had served on both ships.
Once on board one of the first pictures on the wall is the other B&W photo below showing the Queen Mother meeting other offices on board in November 1954, the very same day.... Bingo it was confirmed this was a photo taken on board this very ship.
We had a great tour about the ship and even met with the current Captain of the ship and he personally took us to where he believed the photo of my father was taken - what a nice guy. Thank you Captain James Sanders.
Pablo and I then had lunch and visited the engine room and upper decks - it was over 100 degrees outside so not too much hanging about...
All in all a brilliant day and very special day .... and I must admit I did even have a tear in my eye just thinking that was standing where my father worked all those years ago. The next thing will be to see if we can get my fathers photo displayed in the gallery on the ship with all the others...
I am informed by my eldest brother that this was not my first visit to the ship - as when I was very small my mother would take the four of us kids down to Southampton docks to welcome my father home when the ship docked, and he would get us on board via the galley stairs and the chef would feed us all ice cream... how cool was that !!
Ah nostalgia ain't what it used to be...,,
Nite nite