During 25 year's service in the P&O fleet, the 29,000 ton Arcadia carried 430,000 passengers and steamed 2,650,000 miles, equivalent to 100 times round-the-world.

The liner was built by John Brown and Co at Clydebank and was launched in May, 1953.

She cost nearly £7m and at that time was the most expensive merchant ship ever built on the Clyde.

In addition, Arcadia was P&O's biggest passenger ship until the arrival of Canberra in the early 1960's.

P&O had designed Arcadia both for line voyaging and for cruising with its first Southampton season beginning in June, 1954.

Occasionally the liner hit the headlines. In 1961 she rang aground off Honolulu while slowing to pick up a party of welcoming hula dancers.

The harbour was blocked for two hours before the liner was finally refloated by tugs.

In the early 1960's she undertook trans-Pacific voyages and became the first P&O liner to visit Seattle.

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

For the Alaska cruise the liner was shorn of her main mast and lost nearly 30 feet of her foremast to enable her to pass beneath power lines.

From 1976 the liner was based in Sydney as a permanent cruise liner until three years later when this splendid old ship was sent to the breakers yard in Taiwan.