The Only Way To Cross: This Book Reminds Me Of My Grandmother 12/2012
Back in the early and mid sixties my grandmother used to drop by my parents’ house and regale my parents with tales of the ocean liners of time including the France, the Queen Elizabeth, and the Queen Mary, all the ones she’d just sailed on. In 1967 when the Queen Mary took its last voyage to Long Beach to retire she predicted the end of the ocean liner business, losing out to airplanes. That’s the theme of this book written by John Maxtone-Graham with a Foreward by Walter Lord and published in 1972. They even include a photo of the France, Rafaello, the Queen Elizabeth, the Constitution, and the United States tied up at Luxury liner Row in November of 1966 which they label “Gotterdammerung”. The irony is that now Queen Mary 2, the billion dollar ship, now plies the Atlantic doing crossings at all times of the year. The liner business seems to have been reborn after being reinvented as something for the middle and lower classes and not just the aristocracy. Everything the authors thought they were reporting seems to be an historical blip.
Back in the early and mid sixties my grandmother used to drop by my parents’ house and regale my parents with tales of the ocean liners of time including the France, the Queen Elizabeth, and the Queen Mary, all the ones she’d just sailed on. In 1967 when the Queen Mary took its last voyage to Long Beach to retire she predicted the end of the ocean liner business, losing out to airplanes. That’s the theme of this book written by John Maxtone-Graham with a Foreward by Walter Lord and published in 1972. They even include a photo of the France, Rafaello, the Queen Elizabeth, the Constitution, and the United States tied up at Luxury liner Row in November of 1966 which they label “Gotterdammerung”. The irony is that now Queen Mary 2, the billion dollar ship, now plies the Atlantic doing crossings at all times of the year. The liner business seems to have been reborn after being reinvented as something for the middle and lower classes and not just the aristocracy. Everything the authors thought they were reporting seems to be an historical blip.