The finest steaks afloat, a ‘skiffle strike’, and minstrels at the quay side on port day

More than half of the table ordered the chocolate fondant. Not hard to see why. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

10 Apr 2025

Direct lines can be drawn between events, through time, so that suddenly the past event seems closer to the present one. Sitting in the Carinthia lounge on deck 3 of Cunard’s Queen Anne, en route from Durban to Cape Town, on Wednesday, I find myself contemplating this.

Maybe the space-time continuum is in play, or perhaps my imagination just goes wild at times.

Capturing my mind this morning — it’s Thursday, 10 April 2025, and we moored at E berth in Cape Town’s Duncan Dock in the early hours, while we slept — is the mail ships that used to dock right here or at nearby berths, until the mid 1970s when the last of the Union Castle passenger liners sailed off to the breakers in the Far East. Windsor Castle, Pendennis, and in earlier years Cape Town Castle and Edinburgh Castle would dock at either A or F berths depending on whether they were headed north to Southampton or east to Durban. Edinburgh Castle brought my parents, sister and late brother to Cape Town in December 1952, then they were flown by Skymaster air transport to Oranjemund where I would arrive three years later. (Not three years late — I was yet to be born.)

And they were mail ships, their basic function having been to ferry the letters and other correspondence of the generations of the mid 20th century. I remember my dad receiving his stack of a week’s worth of The Mirror (of London) once a week, having arrived via Royal Mail, bound in pale yellow.

In the Carinthia lounge on board Queen Anne yesterday (all of the Cunard “queens” have one), Cunard Director of Sales (EMEA and Asia) Bob Dixon described the transatlantic crossings of earlier times, when the great passenger liners (though they were much smaller than today’s) were mail ships first, with their roots in an earlier tradition of paddle ships steaming at speeds that could meet set schedules.

The view from our cabin on deck five of the Queen Anne on Thursday morning. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The lounges are named in honour of RMS Carinthia, launched in 1956 as one of Cunard’s Saxon-class ocean liners, and which had a colourful history. In June 1960, a group of deck hands formed a skiffle group and performed on deck. Not all of the passengers were pleased with the “racket”, and the offending musicians had a day’s pay docked. But their crewmates were having none of it, and downed tools (or their kitchen equipment and brooms, depending on their roles on board). The “Skiffle Strike” saw other ships’ crews joining in, in support, causing passenger liners to be tied up in Liverpool for weeks.

Eventually Carinthia was sold to rival company P&O and later to Princess Cruises.

In the mid 1970s, when I was a young Shipping Reporter for The Cape Times in Cape Town, a golden day arrived when I boarded my first Cunard liner. RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, no less, was visiting the port, and Shipping Editor George Young and I were invited on board to have tea in the captain’s office, followed by a tour of the ship. We were even allowed on the bridge. We didn’t sail, of course, but it was a stellar moment for these two former adolescent truants whose errant schoolboy ways had led both to writing about ships and shipping.

As I write, today, a new Cunard liner is berthed in Cape Town with us having been afforded a “port day”. RMS Queen Anne is strangely quiet, with most passengers having gone off on coaches to the Winelands, Cape Point and elsewhere, to be returned later in the day. They were welcomed by a troupe of minstrels on the quayside while I looked down from our stateroom balcony; no tour for me, it’s my deadline day and work calls as ever.

My days on board have seen me working in corners of lounges where there are plug points, so it’s been at night that the fun has happened.

Wednesday night saw us invited by Bob Dixon to dine in Sir Samuel’s Steakhouse & Grill, where the highest quality of steaks you could hope for were served, alongside seafood including jumbo tiger prawns from New South Wales. When I saw them on a neighbour’s plate, I was sea-green with envy. They were enormous, so plump, so moist — yes, I was offered a taste and a very generous one was placed on my plate. There’s a grand platter of fruits de mer for two (this, like a handful of other menu options, carries a supplement), which gives you lobster, langoustine, king crab, jumbo tiger prawn, and oysters, served with garlic aïoli and a Bloody Mary dip. The supplement for that is $20.

The Boston-style clam chowder. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

My tablemate Bob Dixon’s wagyu tartare. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

My neighbour’s enviable jumbo tiger prawns. I did get a taste. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

My superb Aberdeen Black sirloin from Queensland, 120-day grain fed. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

You choose your selection of cheeses which are then plated and served. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

But I was in a beefy frame of mind and chose the Aberdeen Black sirloin from Queensland, 120-day grain fed and one of the finest steaks I have eaten. Medium rare, so juicy, tender, perfect. On the side I ordered Sir Samuel’s steak butter (an intriguing flavour that is best left to hold its mysteries, I don’t need to know every detail of what went into it), creamed spinach with roasted shallots, chargrilled hispi cabbage (a conical green cabbage) with smoked ranch dressing, and a fabulous red-skin potato gratin — basically a miniature dauphinoise in a ramekin, and dauphinoise potatoes don’t come better than this.

My starter choice had been Boston-style clam chowder, which I relished while looking longingly at John Ridler’s marrow bones across the table. Other options included steak tartare wagyu beef dripping sourdough toast, with gherkin and confit egg yolk. All of which makes clear the high standards of this on-board grill room.

More than half of the table ordered the chocolate fondant. Not hard to see why. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

And then, the cheese board, which I knew had to be somewhere on Queen Anne: Brie, Cheddar, Cornish Blue, smoked Cheddar, Port Salut, Danish Blue, with chutney and olives.

After dinner I somehow made my way to the Golden Lion pub again, where a duo were playing Sultans of Swing, taking me back to Rompies pub in Regent Road, Sea Point, in 1977, when another duo played that song while younger versions of ourselves misbehaved.

A fine evening ended with a single pouring of Highland Park Loyalty of the Wolf 14-year-old single malt whiskey from the isle of Orkney in Scotland. Described as sweet and complex, and “stunning”, such an overused word but, well, it surely was.

While we slumbered the ship sailed on at gentle knots, and when we awoke there was Table Mountain on a perfect blue-sky day. Home, with pangs of sadness punctuating my morning, knowing that the cruise is over, for us at least. For now. DM

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