Back from the seas

Yes dear blog, this has been one of my far-from-home silences.  I was away for September, but here I am back again, with tales to tell.

The focus of the trip was to visit my family in England.

But the twist in the tail/tale is that we sailed to the Sceptered Isle, (you know that one set in a silver sea, just ask Richard second)  on the Cunard Queen Mary Two from New York to Southampton.  Well, that was a posh adventure. (Future blog of life on board to come…)

The ship set sail from New York so we needed to get there and stay two nights, to be on the safe side, just in case.  

 I would have preferred that we could board the ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but it appears New York New York has more allure, well expensive glitter anyway.

We embarked on the Queen Mary at Pier 12 in Brooklyn, on, get this, September 11th – as in September 11th,  is that a good date to be taking a ship from New York?!  Happy to say no incidents.  Manhattan turned out not to be a great experience this visit (there may be a future blog grumble about this).  

It all came about when, one winter morning, as we drove out to the cottage, I saw the advertisement in the Globe and Mail for this Cunard crossing  and my ears pricked up. We could sail to Southampton, my brothers live just west of there and at least one way, we could avoid Heathrow airport and arrive just on the doorstep. So we paid the deposit and booked.

Beyond the adventure and the convenience, there was also a sentimental reason for me to sail with Cunard. My maternal grandparents worked on the Canards as stewards: my grandmother Grandy, my grandfather whom I never knew as he died when my mother was still a child, and Uncle Bert, my step-grandfather. When I was a young girl, they were on the Southampton to New York sailings on the old Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. When their ships came in, we would go down to the docks in Southampton to meet them. This was in the early 1950s – the days after the Second World War and England was scarred, especially vital places such as ports, with bombed-out ruins, grey, cratered;  the country, broke from the war costs and food rationing was in place and no imported fruit or other foods. 

So it is no surprise that imprinted on my mind is the memory of Grandy coming ashore with baskets of fruit and flowers. They were from her passengers as she worked in First Class. The baskets were Bon Voyage gifts delivered to the ship by the friends of these society people crossing the Atlantic, they were heading for a sparkling season and visit. People took a ship in those days rather than the plane.  Arriving in Southampton a few days later,  with not much of the fruit eaten – you were being served sumptuous food anyway- the passengers, not wishing to be encumbered with these baskets, would give them to the cabin stewards.   So, there was Grandy, with armfuls of colour and fragrance and succulent fruits.  I had never seen such in my tiny postwar life.  It dazzles and shimmers in my memory.