By the end of my ten-day Atlantic crossing to New York, a new wellbeing seemed to radiate from me. Lulled by the motion and murmurings of the rocking sea, I slept like a baby. I was never bored. Queen Mary 2, the Cunard Line’s flagship, has everything from a ballroom, planetarium and library to an art-deco Titanic-style dining hall. Passengers do not want for anything: there’s even a mortuary.
The last time I shipped out to New York from Southampton was in 1961, when I was a baby. We stayed in New York for more than a year while my father worked for a Wall Street investment bank. During our homeward journey on Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth — 83,000 tonnes of staunchly riveted Glasgow steel — I won the Best Dressed Baby competition as the Roman sea-god Neptune (complete with a tinfoil trident).
Getting to and from New York was half the fun.
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