<p>The QE2 first sailed the Atlantic in May 1969. I was in New York at the time and watched from the top of the Empire State Building as she sailed in. I felt a stirring of pride and emotion as she did so. </p><p>This was the last of the great traditional ocean liners, more than 70,000 tons of passenger ship stylishly decked out in the distinctive livery of the Cunard line. </p><p>She had just crossed the Atlantic in four days, 16 hours and 35 minutes. She was the fastest such vessel as well as being incomparably luxurious. And she was British. </p><p>Built at the John Brown shipyard on the River Clyde, she was the first British liner to offer en suite facilities in every cabin, the first to site restaurants high up with panoramic ocean views, and the largest twin-screw ship ever built. </p><p>When Queen Elizabeth II launched and named her on September 20, 1967, she used the same pair of golden scissors that her mother had used to launch the Queen Elizabeth and her grandmother to launch the Queen Mary. </p><p>She was 963ft long and 171ft high&nbsp; -&nbsp; so tall that when she passed under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge into New York harbour, you felt as if she was going to take the bridge with her. </p><p>She was said to get through 19 tons of lobster a year as well as more than 12,000 gallons of champagne and one ton of caviar.&nbsp;</p><p>Many years after first setting eyes on her in New York, I remember my first voyage aboard. I was sitting down to lunch in the Queen's Grill with a friend and his wife, Ruth, an old hand who told us to keep quiet while she organised the meal. </p><p>'I don't feel very hungry today,' she said to our waitress. 'I think I'll just have some dry toast and a couple of ounces of beluga.' Which is how we came to lunch on caviar all the way across the ocean. </p><p>'By the time I made that first trip in the early Nineties, she had carried more than two million passengers. </p><p>In her first three decades of service, she sailed 4,648,050 miles. Every day her passengers got through 2,500 tea bags and whenever she docked she picked up 575lb of coffee and 15,000 cocktail stirrers. </p><p>It wasn't all plain sailing, however. In 1982, she carried 3,000 troops to the Falklands War, accompanied by 650 of her crew who had volunteered for the job. </p><p>In 1995, she lost part of her superstructure when she was hit by a freak 95ft wave caused by Hurricane Luis. The captain said it was like having the white cliffs of Dover coming at you.&nbsp;</p><p>She also once went aground off Nova Scotia in Canada.&nbsp;</p><p>In an age characterised by utility on the ocean waves&nbsp; -&nbsp; where modern cruise ships look like great barges with blocks of flats built on them&nbsp; -&nbsp; it was the QE2's style that took the breath away. </p><p>Usually we tied up alongside docks so that she almost blended into the architecture of cities such as Sydney, Lisbon or Trieste, where we parked under the windows of the smartest hotels. But just occasionally she would have to anchor offshore and everyone was transported ashore in the ship's lifeboats. </p><p>It was then that she truly came into her own. I remember gazing out at her in the waters off Dubrovnik and Cannes, an elegant rebuke to the newer, more functional cruise ships around her.&nbsp;</p><p>Over the years, I crossed the Atlantic in her many times, enjoying grey days at sea as we tottered from one extravagant meal to another, and I gave lectures on subjects I have written books about, from Prince Philip to crime.&nbsp;</p><p>The actor Terence Stamp came on board one year in Auckland, when we sat on a table next to a diminutive passenger who announced himself with great politeness as Mr Willard Small. </p><p>It turned out that Willard had the beef franchise for all the McDonald's hamburger joints in the American Mid-West. </p><p>On the occasion of our last supper together, Willard insisted we have the same as him&nbsp; -&nbsp; lobster thermidor, steak Diane and crepes suzette. </p><p>I shall always remember the great whooshes of politically incorrect flames licking the ceiling as the waiters flambeed liqueurs and brandies in a style not seen on dry land since the Fifties.&nbsp;</p><p>It is true that age wearied Elizabeth a little towards the end of her life at sea. She seemed a little dated; the tables in the Queen's Grill a little closer together. </p><p>I remember once signing books after a morning talk and remarking to a young Romanian ballet dancer alongside me that one always had to watch out for the elderly passenger or two who went noisily to sleep during a lecture.&nbsp;</p><p>She shook her head in mild reproach. 'We always dance for the guests after dinner,' she said, 'and sometimes whole rows of passengers are sleeping.' </p><p class="imageCaption"><img class="blkBorder" src="http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/06/03/article-1023798-0176DDB200000578-580_468x317.jpg" border="0" alt="QE2" width="468" height="317" /></p><p>Wherever the QE2 went, she created a sense of occasion. I recall the evening we once sailed away from Cork&nbsp; -&nbsp; you felt the whole of Ireland had driven out to flash their headlights at us. </p><p>I can still see the armada of boats following us out of New Zealand's waters in Auckland harbour; and the sudden thunderclap which erupted above us a few days later as the ship's orchestra belted out Click Go The Shears as we left Sydney Opera House behind.&nbsp;</p><p>There were fireworks in Trieste and helicopters in Melbourne, where Commander Mike Parker, Prince Philip's old friend and naval brother-officer, came aboard to meet the ship's master and captain, Roly Hasell. </p><p>So now, one Queen has finally said goodbye to another and the QE2 is soon to end up in Dubai as a luxury hotel berthed permanently at the artificial islands of Palm Jumeirah. </p><p>She will, after a lifetime of refits, be restored to her original Sixties self, but she will never be quite the same as she was in her heyday.</p><p>For all of us who sailed with her, loved the ship and took pride in her history and appearance, she will leave memories. Mine will, above all, be of the people who sailed in her, from captains to stewards of all nationalities and descriptions. Most of all, however, I will remember the passengers. </p><p>For obvious reasons to do with America and the Mediterranean, I seldom mentioned cricket. But once, when we were off the coast of South Australia, I bravely talked for almost an hour about Denis Compton, the great English batsman about whom I once wrote a biography. </p><p>Afterwards, a man approached me on deck as the breeze rippled lazily across the bows. </p><p>'Just after the war,' he said, clinging to an embarrassed woman beside him, 'I came out from Blighty to Australia and I met this lovely lady. We married soon afterwards and had a son. </p><p>'Ever since, I have been trying to explain why it was essential that my boy had to be christened Denis.' He paused and smiled at her. 'Now, at last,' he concluded, 'I think she understands.' </p><p>It was moments like that which made you proud to be British. The QE2 gave us many such moments and all who sailed in her will miss her very much.</p>