Anyway, she rather surprised me today by telling me that she thought that the cruise was on SS Oriana, most likely in 1969. It was from Southampton, and they called at Lisbon, Palma, Naples & Athens. She can't remember much more than that, apart from the fact that they got detached from their excursion group in Pompeii! Oh, she says it was definitely from & back to Southampton: she can remember a family trek in an old car to deposit her & granny at a hotel in Southampton the day before embarkation, and she can also remember getting a train back from Southampton on return. And she remembers that it was bit bumpy through the Bay of Biscay but she wasn't bothered, and she can remember wandering around a strangely-empty ship for one or two days....

I know from what I've read that Oriana was coming to the end of her regular line voyages to Australia around that time. Does anyone have a detailed programme for that year? It sounds from what my wife canremember that Oriana was still in 'line voyage' mode because there were two classes on the cruise, 1st & Tourist, which would be typical of the line voyage era but not perhaps of the later cruise era.

So what was Oriana doing between 3 August & 12 August? (ie, after the cruise but before the next voyage to Australia) Shore leave for everyone? If so, those were the days....

I never sailed on Oriana although I did go over her and 1969 was some 7 years after Orient Line and P&O were effectively run as one company. Certainly the P&O ships at that time had all UK officers, UK cabin, deck and bar stewards, goanese waiters and possibly goanese cabin stewards in tourist and indian deck and engine room crews and chinese in the laundry.

My wife can definitely remember having a non-UK cabin steward, and they were indeed in tourist class, so that would fit with the information in your post. Presumably the UK cabin staff worked in First class?

My wife has just remembered something else: it was the time of the moon landing. Looking at the NASA site I learn that they landed on the moon at 4:17pm EDT on 20 July 1969, and stepped onto the moons surface about 6 hours later. Translating that into GMT/BST suggests that the landing was probably at 9:17pm on the 20th, and the moonwalk commenced at 3:17am on the 21st, which would have been the day she & granny embarked. That was probably one of the main topics of conversation at dinner on that first night.

On P&O ships the crewing was British Officers and Petty Officers, with Goanese and British staff in all departments on the hotel side of the ship including the laundry !

Most of the deck crew ratings came from Calcutta and the engine room ratings came from Pakistan !

All departments worked well together.

On Orient Line ships prior to the two fleets being incorperated into one fleet with the P&O passenger ships their ships were staffed with all officers and crew from the British Isles.

This changed to the P&O style of staffing ships with the amalgamation of the two fleets in about 1960/61.

John Prescott was a steward with Cunard NOT P&O !

I worked on the original P&O fleet passenger ships from about 1951 until ss Oriana, my last ship before I came ashore, was withdrawn from service in 1986 and sold to the Japanese and converted for use as a maritime museum and leisure centre at Bepu Bay in Japan..

I was not on her in 1969.

They used to say there was three navies in the UK.

1 - The Royal Navy.
2 - The Merchant Navy
3 - P&O !

This was in the days when P&O owned, with the P&O group of about 35 other shipping companies, over 360 ships !

How times have changed !

Regards,

Neil ( Bob )

[ 08-07-2006: Message edited by: Neil Whitmore ( Bob ) ]

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Originally posted by Tom Burke:

I've also learned out that Mr Prescott finished working as a cabin steward in 1963, after 10 years. By 1969 he was working as a full-time official for the National Union of Seamen, having obtained a degree in economics/economic hstory from Hull Uni, following a diploma in economics & politics from Ruskin College. In 1970 he was elected to parliament.

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Former Italian PM Berlusconi is said to have worked aboard cruiseships as a singer.

Are there any other major politicians with an early career in cruising/passenger shipping, or is this just coincidence ?

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Former Italian PM Berlusconi is said to have worked aboard cruiseships as a singer.

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According to a paragrqph in this Guardian Article Berlusconi is a former "cruise ship crooner"...

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