Imagine Lister's Mill afloat. Imagine it, in fact, sailing across the Atlantic.

Well, the Queen Mary was bigger. It was longer by the length of a football pitch and much taller - almost as tall, in fact, as if Lister's Mill had been as high as its own chimney. Now Cunard are planning the Queen Mary II.

The original Queen Mary sailed into retirement 30 years ago this year after a lifetime crossing the Atlantic, carrying 1,898 passengers a time.

Her maiden voyage was in May 1936 and at the helm of this flagship among flagships was a Bradford man, Edgar Britten (by then already Sir Edgar), first captain of the Cunard White Star liner.

On May 27, she sailed out of Southampton for Cherbourg, before setting her bows at New York and her sights on the transatlantic speed record held by the French liner Normandie. The Queen Mary breezed it, taking the Blue Riband at an average speed of over 30 knots.

Imagine Lister's Mill afloat at a speed faster than the legal limit in town.

Britten was the hero of the day. At the time, the Blue Riband was a prestigious award, much fought over and much discussed in boardrooms, front rooms and taprooms throughout the empire.

Liner captains had something of the glamour of early aviators, astronauts in the 1960s or Formula One drivers today - though they tended to be rather more on the staid side. After the Titanic, flashiness was not seen as an admirable trait in a skipper. Safeness was.

Britten was born in Bradford in 1874, probably at 17 Rand Street, Great Horton, although of his early years little is known. Better known is that the notorious burglar Charley Peace once broke into the end house on the street.

Edgar was taken to Birmingham when young. His rise through the ranks of the merchant marine began as an apprentice on board the barque Jessie Osborne, between Liverpool and America.

In 1900 he became fourth officer of the Ivernia. By 1913, after a couple of years service in the Royal Naval Reserve, the former apprentice became Captain E T Britten and gained his first command, the Phrygia. He later went as staff captain to the Lusitania and commander of the Carmania. He also captained the Mauretania and the Aquitania.

He held a master's certificate for both sail and steam vessels - a rare distinction when, just before Christmas in 1935 as he was crossing the Atlantic as captain of the Berengaria, he received a radio message appointing him to the command of the Queen Mary. It was on the Berengaria, in 1934, that he heard he had been knighted in the New Year honours.

Sadly Edgar Britten did not enjoy the pinnacle of his career for long. On October 28, 1936, five months after the Queen Mary's maiden voyage, he collapsed with a stroke in his cabin two hours before the ship was due to sail .

Another captain was rushed to Southampton and the Queen Mary sailed on time - but without the man who had steered her into an illustrious career, including wartime service as a troop carrier.

Edgar Britten died in hospital, aged 62, on the afternoon of the sailing.

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