IT WAS an event to lighten the gloom of not only the people of Merseyside, but across a country hit by the world Depression.

Tomorrow marks the 70th anniversary of RMS Mauretania's maiden voyage on June 17, 1939, from Liverpool to New York, commanded by Capt AT Brown.

The event gave hope to millions that better times were returning, in spite of the new threat of war.

Merseyside had a big stake in this beautiful transatlantic liner, named in honour of her 1906 record-breaking predecessor.

The biggest ship built in England at that time, she was ordered by Cunard Line, whose offices overlooked the Pier Head.

Mauretania was built by Cammell Laird shipyard, in Birkenhead, across the Mersey from Cunard's headquarters.

Laird's built few Cunard ships and created a ship to remember.

Mauretania was also the first ship ordered for the newly created Cunard-White Star Line, after the two arch-rival Liverpool companies were merged in 1934.

Although the jet age stole her passengers and sent her prematurely to the scrapyard in 1965, many former Merseyside crewmen, the "Cunard Yanks", remember "the Maury" with deepest affection.

She was a tremendous investment for her owners in the post-war ocean travel boom and for the British government.

Ranging far from her planned route during the war, Maury sailed three times around the world, steaming 540,000 miles and carrying 340,000 troops.

This was after she had only completed a few pre-war voyages.

Patrick O'Connor, 83, from Eldonian Village, Vauxhall, was an assistant chef onboard in 1943- 44.

"We carried up to 1,200 passengers; but in the war it was 4,000 to 7,800 troops," says Pat.

"We did four voyages carrying Canadian troops from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool, carrying a division each time.

"We had to peel 300 bags of spuds on each trip. Luckily, it was part of the troops' fatigues on-board to help us do this.

"Our work was easily doubled, but the menus were much simpler than in peacetime.

"In wartime, you don't think about being torpedoed; it always happened to someone else."

The late Capt Bill Williams, the last Canadian Pacific passenger liners’ commodore, told me how he returned home on Mauretania from West Africa after surviving Empress of Canada’s sinking.

"I was in a former first-class suite. The tapestry above my bed heaved with insects. Mauretania wasn't designed for the tropics."