Woke up at 7.30am as usual, pleased to see through the gap in the curtains that the skies were blue once again. Today we had a leisurely sea day, cruising around Mull in sea lochs and passing mountains and castles, and many of the little bays and islands we had visited on previous cruises in Scotland.
We went up to the Artisans’ Foodhall, where we spotted Billy and Carole already seated and went to join them. There was an aura of nervous excitement around us, because this afternoon our football team Sunderland AFC would be playing against Sheffield United at Wembley Stadium for a place next season in the Premier League, the cream of the world’s football teams. We wondered whether or not luck would be on our side… it certainly hadn’t been in the past. Did we dare to hope? 🙂
At 9.40am Trevor and I made our way to the Royal Court theatre for a presentation from maritime historian Eric Flounders once again. This time he was talking about another Cunard ship, RMS Carpathia, whose name will be very well-known among Titanic aficionados. Carpathia was the ship, under the command of Commodore Arthur Rostron, that steamed at all speed for 58 miles to rescue the survivors from the Titanic.
Mr Flounders spoke about the history of the Carpathia, including the fact that she was built at Swan Hunter Shipbuilders on the Tyne. Cunard preferred to order its new ships from John Brown & Company on the Clyde, so Carpathia was one of only two ships built on Tyneside specifically for Cunard, the other one being the Mauretania. (Vistafjord, which later became Cunard’s Caronia was built on the Tyne in 1973, but she was not originally a Cunard ship).
The Carpathia was just another Cunard ship, not known for anything in particular, but what made her name immortal was the part she played in rescuing over 700 passengers after the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic, and taking them back to New York, into Pier 54. Trevor and I know the story well, especially after our amazing one-off Titanic Memorial Cruise in April 2012, when we actually visited Pier 54 on arrival into New York. The photo below is one that I took at Pier 54 on 19th April 2012.
The story of the rescue of the Titanic survivors is an emotional one, and several times you could tell by his voice when Mr Flounders was affected, and by the way he kept pausing to compose himself. It really was an amazing story, that this little ship went to the limit of her speed, through a field of ice, to try to get to the Titanic on time. Captain Rostron was a deeply religious man, and when we was asked about it afterwards, he said that he felt that the Carpathia was “guided by a mightier hand” on the tiller than his.
Carpathia‘s own days ended with no-one coming to save her; she was sunk during the First World War on 17 July 1918 after being torpedoed three times by the German submarine U-55 off the southern Irish coast, with a loss of five crew members. She lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean in 600 feet of water, and her remains are covered in marine growth and tons of old fishing nets. 🙁
We enjoyed the presentation a lot, and afterwards we wandered out on deck to get our bearings. A commentary was being broadcast on the upper decks, advising people what we were sailing past; we weren’t far off the pretty little town of Tobermory, the principal town in Mull and one that Trevor and I have visited twice before, on the Ambition and the Glen Rosa.
We were back in the theatre in good time for another talk by “Peter the Beefeater”, all about the prisoners and punishment that historically went on inside the Tower of London. As ever, it was a fascinating talk; we enjoy Peter’s banter and his engaging manner a lot.
Then it was time for lunch, and we decided to go along to the Britannia Restaurant for a change, instead of into the self-service. We were given a table for two by the window, and we enjoyed a three course lunch while conversing with a couple of ladies on adjacent tables.
Afterwards, we returned to stateroom 4066; three o’clock was looming ever closer. Despite Billy having a word with the Entertainments Director about having the match televised in the Golden Lion or elsewhere, it didn’t appear that it was going to be shown anywhere around the ship, so we hoped we’d be able to watch it in the cabin, or at least stream it from the laptop or tablet; we were close enough to land to have a decent signal and an internet connection.
However, when I tuned into BBC Sounds and Radio Newcastle’s station, a recorded voice said that due to licencing laws they were unable to bring us the Total Sports programme. Trevor then flicked through all the Sky Sports channels which were showing everything from basketball to Australian football to the F1 qualifying, but no football at Wembley stadium. We would just have to listen out for any scores or updates.
In the meantime, I read some of my book, enjoyed a glass of fizz, and had an afternoon power nap. We were then able to pick up snippets of the match from the Sports News channel; it seemed that 70 seconds into the game our goalkeeper Patterson had made a heroic save to prevent Sheffield going into the lead already! I looked at the stats on my phone, it appeared that Sheffield had about 74% posession of the ball up to now, and looked to be the favourites for the win. 🙁
After 25 minutes of play, Sheffield United scored. Trevor and looked at each other in resignation. “Well, it looks like another season in the Championship”, we said. It really didn’t come as a surprise.
The minutes went by and the score didn’t change. After 75 minutes of play, I went into the bathroom to get washed and put my makeup on, as tonight was formal evening. While I was in there, and with cleanser all over my face, I heard Trevor shout, so I stuck my head out of the bathroom door to be told “Sunderland have equalised!” There was 14 minutes of play left, so it looked as if it would go into extra time.
Still we didn’t dare to hope. In the past, Sunderland have scored four goals at Wembley against Charlton Athletic in the play-offs, and still ended up the losing side on penalties.
As I pottered around in the cabin and continued getting ready, the 90th minute of normal play came and went, and still the score was Sheffield United 1 Sunderland 1. The teams continued to play into injury time, and the fans sang their hearts out around the stadium. Then, five minutes into injury time (90+5)… Tom Watson scored for Sunderland! Sheffield United 1 Sunderland 2. OMG !!!! 🙂
Still the game went on! How many blimmin’ minutes of injury/stoppage time were they playing? “Blow your whistle, Ref… please blow your whistle!” I screamed at the TV. By now, the sports channel was focusing on this turnup for the books at Wembley stadium and, not a moment too soon, we heard the sweet, sweet sound of the referee’s whistle.
We’d done it! We’d bloody done it! Sunderland had been promoted to the Premier League !!! 🙂 🙂
I screamed and whooped and cheered and we could also hear cheering coming from Billy and Carole’s cabin next door. Trevor poured us each a glass of fizz and we took them out on the balcony as we celebrated with B&C. Sunderland had actually done it !! 🙂
We continued getting ready for dinner at 5.30pm, and made our way down there a little late, still on Cloud 9. “Sunderland have just been promoted!” we exclaimed to our waiter when he asked if we had had a good day. Of course, he had no idea what we were talking about. 🙂
Dinner passed in a blur tonight, as we ate on automatic pilot, still unable to believe what had happened! When we’d finished, there was no going along to the theatre tonight. Instead, Captain David Hudson was holding the Cunard World Club cocktail party at the Pavilion at 7.45pm, the large area with the retractable roof that houses the pool.
Last year, Trevor and I had queued for ages, in a stuffy airless corridor, to get into the cocktail party, but we discovered you could get in a lot quicker if you weren’t bothered about having your photo taken with the captain. As we have numerous captain pictures at home, we decided we enter the cocktail party through the other door, where there was no queue. 🙂
I was wearing a long, black dress with a flocked pattern on it, topped with a gold and black sequinned jacket and gold sequinned Irregular Choice heels, that featured an unusual heel. Lots of people commented on them. 🙂
The four of us stood at a high table while waiters flitted around holding aloft trays of fizz, red or white wine, sherry or martini, as well as cocktails such as strawberry daquiri and Mojito. Senior officers circulated around and spoke to everyone. The Captain came over and spoke for some time with Trevor and Billy; Carole and I, in our heels, had decided to sit somewhere more comfortable at that point.
The Cruise Director and Captain then came onto the stage and thanked everyone for their loyalty to Cunard, and said how many World Club members there were in each category: Gold, Platinum or Diamond (bronze and silver don’t receive an invitiation to the cocktail party). Billy and Carole have done more Cunard cruises than we have so they are Diamond while we are Platinum, but we’ll go up to Diamond next year after we complete the cruise we already have booked on Queen Elizabeth to the Caribbean in April 2026. 🙂
After the Captain and senior officers had departed the Pavilion to resume their usual duties, the four of us stayed a little longer to finish our drinks. There were quite a few daiquiris and mojitos left over, so the bar staff kept coming round with top-ups for us. Of course, we weren’t going to refuse – this is Cunard, and freebies are few and far between, although we hadn’t done badly so far this cruise if you include our free champagne and lobster breakfast! 🙂
We’d missed the performance by the Royal Court Theatre Company tonight, but that didn’t matter, because at 9.30pm in the Bright Lights Society it gave us the chance to perform ourselves. Yes, it was karaoke time.
Trevor and I went along, where quite a few singers had already put their names down. I was about the sixth person up, and I sang Back to Black by Amy Winehouse. The overall standard of singing was really quite good compared to some karaokes we’ve attended. 🙂
The karaoke finished about 10.45pm, and we just remained in the Bright Lights for the disco afterwards, just enjoying our drinks and people watching.
It was around midnight when we returned to 4066, still on an absolute high after such a great day. We had the port of Greenock to look forward to tomorrow and, after all of our excitement today, we slept very well.