SLIDE 0144
Well, there she is, in almost all her glorious majesty! The SS "Canberra", pride of the P&O fleet, tied up to the dock somewhere in the Mediterranean at some point in August 1964.
Probably.
This lack of effective labelling is troubling.
What I can tell you is that she was launched on March the 14th, 1960, took her maiden voyage in May 1961, and was finally withdrawn from service in October 1997, and that during the Falklands conflict in 1982, she was requisitioned as a troopship.
All this you could find out, without any help from me, by doing a quick search on Wikipedia, of course (at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Canberra) like I just did. However, she remained a favourite ship of my Grandparents, and they would positively purr with pleasure whenever her name cropped up in conversation on several occasions that I remember.
As far as I can tell from the slide collection, she took them on two cruises. Once in August 1964, and again in July/August 1965, and we (you and I, dear reader - and mostly "I" I suspect - but I insist upon persisting...) are currently ploughing through the slide photographs that my Grandfather took during those two voyages.
This, I think, is by far the most impressive shot he took of the ship, and so I feel that it does deserve an entire blog posting to itself - a situation I will probably repeat whenever the (rare) occasions occur when a particularly lovely looking, or "interesting" shot crops up...
After all, if it's the only inspiration I've got, I might as well stretch it out a bit, eh...?
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