IN her years at sea, RMS Queen Mary was the fastest liner in the world, taking the Blue Riband in 1938 with record speeds for both west and eastbound voyages. Some passengers were keen to book tickets to speed across the Atlantic in the quickest time possible, for others the opulence of the great Queen was the main attraction.

For Mary and Kenneth Ledingham of Giffnock, East Renfrewshire, the luxury was out of their reach, as they travelled on student budgets in 1965 to spend a year in America.

Kenneth was 27, had just finished his Phd and was on his way to take up an appointment at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta with his young wife Mary.

Mary, now 73, laughs when she remembers catching a glimpse of the beautiful first class public rooms when they boarded.

“I didn’t realise there would be a great division between classes on the ship, I was so stupid,” she giggles.” I remember going aboard and thinking, ‘Oh, this is fabulous’ and then realising when we tried to get back up to the first class areas the doors were locked.

“First class looked amazing, I would have loved to have travelled in it. We didn’t have the best of cabins but it was absolutely fine.”

She remembers playing table tennis and deck games during the journey, though she was quite seasick.

Mary still treasures menus, a passenger list and daily newspaper handed out to passengers, all mementoes of a special time in their life.

“It was a beautiful ship. The public rooms were fabulous and the food was just amazing,” she says.

A few years ago when the couple were visiting friends in California, they drove to Long Beach and visited the Clyde-built ship in her permanent home.

“It was interesting going back to see the ship, he walked around the decks and tried to find our cabin. It’s sad in a way that it didn’t come back to Scotland.”

Kenneth, 77, a former professor at the University of Glasgow, who now works at the University of Strathclyde, says he will never forget the Queen Mary arriving at New York harbour.

“It was very early in the morning and we saw all of these huge skyscrapers, at the time we thought this was unbelievable,” he smiles. “We’d seen photographs of the buildings but to actually see them was quite something.”

James Millar went on the trip of a lifetime when he was a teenager in 1957 and accompanied his grandfather Swales Forrest to America.

After sorting out a business deal, Swales took his grandson on a three-month grand tour of North America, from New York to Lexington, Kentucky; and crossing the border to Canada.

“It was quite a trip, especially for a lad of 13. In 1957 people didn’t go abroad very often,” he marvels.

“The ship was fabulous, when we went on board I’d never seen anything like it in my life. It was an experience I have never forgotten. My eyes popped out of my head.”

The 72-year-old retired salesman who now lives in Larkhall remembers the often turbulent Atlantic waters being fairly calm for the crossing.

“When we were a couple of days out at sea the captain made an announcement that we were now passing where the Titanic went down. We all got a bit of a fright,” he laughs.

They travelled second class and though their cabin was fairly basic, James still remembers everything the great liner had to offer.

“There was so much to see, we wandered around the ship all day – the library, the lounges, the restaurants and shops. I went to the swimming pool,” he says.

The thing I remember most was when we were going aboard was a big brass plate that said: “Built in Clydebank”. I said to my grandfather, ‘That makes you proud, doesn’t it?’”

He adds: “The food was out of this world. You could get anything you wanted. I had lobster and shrimps, I loved seafood. It was nothing like what we were eating at home.

“I’ve never tasted food since that was anything like it. I remember it said on the bottom of the menu if it didn’t have anything to suit you, just ask.

“It was a trip to remember and I still think on it 50-odd years later.”

Iain MacDonald was a young seaman in the 1950s when his ship was sold and the crew were sent home from New York aboard the Queen Mary.

He was only 22 and just a few years into a career at sea that would span 50 years.

Now 83 and living in Cardonald, Glasgow, he retells the story of a storm on its way when the ship was approaching the English Channel, making for Cherbourg, before docking at Southampton.

”The ship was given orders not to come into the Channel but to turn around and go back,” he says. “Turning it round cost an incredible amount of money in broken crockery. It cost thousands of pounds and there was even a story in the newspaper in Southampton.

“They never thought a ship of that size would take a roll like that. You can’t estimate the sense of the sea.”

Raised on the Isle of Barra, he remembers making friends on the journey with a young woman from Tiree.

“Before we docked in Southampton she had to do a bit of shopping so she asked if I would do her a favour and hold the baby,” he says.

“Then she didn’t come back and I started to get very nervous. Some of the other members of the crew I was with were joking that she was gone and I’d never see her again.

“What happened was she lost her way and went to the wrong deck on her way back. She was panicking because the ship was coming into Southampton but I was panicking more standing there with a baby.”