QE2

I took this photo from my garden as the QE2 sailed past on her round Britain farewell cruise. I remember her launch not long after we moved to Glasgow - the White Cart river backed up as far as Pollok, near where I lived. She was the last of the great Cunard Queens, the most stately of all cruise ships and one on which it seemed only the super-rich could aspire to sail. But yesterday, many of the people who built her were aboard with their families as guests. I wonder how many of them ever dreamed it would happen, or indeed dreamed that they would live to see the great ship retire. I somehow thought these wonderful vessels went on indefinitely.

As I sat in the conservatory sewing curtains for my mother-in-law yesterday, I could see her single red funnel towering above the Greenock sky-line. Then, with a terrifying roar, the Red Arrows (or similar planes from Lossiemouth) flew over us and started an incredible display of aerobatics above Greenock. There was red, white and blue smoke and a fantastic circle which left a trail in the shape of a Q in the sky. We watched her on and off all day until - with the weather clearing serendipitously - at 6pm she began manoeuvring out. There were hundreds other boats round about, entirely dwarfed by her; the Cally Mac ferry looked like a little toy boat by comparison.

Kimberly gives a wonderfully evocative description of watching from Dunoon Pier. It made the BBC evening news, but apparently merited only ten seconds and a poor shot of her in Greenock Terminal. Shame on you Beeb.