Under the title ‘The Launch of the Great
Cunarder’
(Appendix List No. 100),
published on September 29th, the ILN reacted in style to the announcement
that the Queen would launch and name the new Cunard White Star liner
destined for the Atlantic service on September 26th, 1934. The issue
starts with the history of the Cunard Steamship Company and presents
pictures of Cunarders of other days, from the pioneer ‘Britannia’
of 1840 to the ‘I,usitania, torpedoed by a German submarine on
May 7th 1915 with a loss of nearly 1,500 lives. It continues with a
survey of the Clyde shipyard and the problems connected with the launching
and the actual launch of the ‘Queen Mary’,
only known up to the last moment as the ‘543’.
The key feature of the magazine is a double page colour spread of the
new ocean liner, a ship “so big that one of her public rooms could
contain the first Cunarder and the fleet with which Columbus first crossed
the Atlantic”.
Of course, at the launch, the ship was a mere shell of steel weighing
about 40,000 tons and would spend nearly two years in the fitting-out
basin whilst an army of some 100,000 workers would be employed on the
furnishings and accessories which would transform the empty shell into
a fully-equipped liner, including a theatre, a cinema, a gymnasium with
a boxing-ring, swimming pools and medicinal baths, an arcade of shops
and two acres of deck for walking and games — not to mention a
storage room for aeroplanes and a garage for motor cars.
Half the front cover is taken up with a coloured illustration of the
ship with its three red funnels against a deep blue sky ploughing through
a deep green sea.
This is issue number 4980, vol. 185, pages 457 - 492, measuring 37 x
26 cm. and priced at one shilling.
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