DURING 25 years service the 29,000-ton Arcadia carried 430,000 passengers and steamed 2,650,000 miles, equivalent to 100 times around the world.

Today the name lives on in Southampton with the modern day 63,524-ton liner Arcadia now one of the most successful vessels operating in and out of the port.

The former ship was built by John Brown & Co at Clydebank and was launched in May 1953.

Arcadia was P&O's biggest passenger ship until the arrival of the 44,807-ton Canberra in the early 1960s.

With a white hull, a buff funnel and two masts Arcadia was a fine-looking ship.

She had a rounded, streamlined bridge and her name shone in lights at the base of her funnel.

She had been designed for line voyaging and cruising, and her first programme from Southampton began in June 1954.

It was a great success and it was decided that Arcadia should regularly sail to Australia in the winter and cruise from Southampton in the summer.

Later in her career Arcadia became a more permanent cruise ship, operating not only from Southampton, but also from Australia and around Alaska.

For the Alaska cruises the liner lost her main mast and 30 foot of her foremast to enable her to pass beneath power lines.

From 1976 the liner was based in Sydney and her last cruise took place in February, 1979 and once it was over the splendid old ship headed for the breakers yard in Taiwan.