To The Breakers - The Death Of The "Mauretania"

Book excerpt: For over 20 years, the Greyhound of the Seas, the Cunard Liner "Mauretania" held the record for the fastest Transatlantic crossing. Much loved and admired, after two decades as the pinnacle of ocean liners, her time came to end. First laid up and then, in a fanfare of nostalgia, consigned to the breaker's yard in Rosyth, she ended her life at the hands of a breaker's torch. Although modern historians revile such an ignominious fate, the "Mauretania's" demise helped to rekindle local industries, her steel helping to build the next generation of ocean liner - and her sumptuous fittings being snapped up by owners of stately homes and public houses to give future generations a hint as to the luxury the "Mauretania" once embodied. To this end, this slim volume recounts the end of the ship's life and the ensuing demolition process, an epilogue often overlooked in many books due to its obvious distasteful nature to ocean liner enthusiasts.