QE2 Launch - Celebration on Queen Mary

[CAP]

Throughout the build both existing Cunard Queens' continued to ply their trade to and fro across the Atlantic.

Queen Mary was to be taken out of service in 1967 and at the time Queen Elizabeth was to continue and the new Cunarder was to become her running mate. 

Queen Mary's last westbound crossing of the Atlantic left Southampton on 16/9/67, the penulitmate day on this particular crossing (which was also her 1,000th) also coincided with the launch of what became Queen Elizabeth 2.  Rooting through my collection I came across a couple of references to this event as celebrated on the Queen Mary.

The first is an extract from the Daily Programme of the 20/9/67 with an invite from the the then Captain of Queen Mary, John Treasure-Jones to attend a celebration of the launch, followed later in the day with a broadcast of the event.  Notably, on this occassion QE2 is referred to as the New Cunarder, seemingly there was no prior knowledge of the name (especially as QM's location put her about 4 hours behind UK time)

The second is the header information of a celebratory dinner menu for both the launch and 1000 crossing.  On this occassion the new Cunarder has been named although word of the numeric type has not filtered through.

[Lynda Bradford]

Brilliant piece of history.  This just adds to our knowledge of what an important event the launch of the new Cunarder was the company.