RMS Caronia Timeline

The Caronia Timeline mainly charts where in the world the Caronia was on any particular day during her 20 year career with Cunard. At least that was the original starting point. As more information has been gathered, the Timeline has grown to well over 700 pages.

Don't let that put you off! Even with such a large site, my primary purpose is that you enjoy your visits and that you don't miss anything. This page is dedicated to providing help and advice about how the Timeline is arranged, the range of topics covered, and how to get around.

Getting the Most from Your Visits

The basic design of the Timeline is optimised to be viewed in most browsers at almost every possible resolution from a 640 pixel screen width upward, with the Font Size set at Medium giving the best readability. Internet Explorer users, see Changing your display.

Throughout the Timeline, all text that has been transcribed from published sources or quoted as visitor feedback has been laid out in justified format. Therefore, where there is a mix of both on a page, it's easier to distinguish between these quoted sources and my personal remarks. I felt that this was much preferable to presenting big blocks of text in italics, which is not easy to read.

Providing simple access to all the information has been given high priority. By offering a logical sequence and multiple access methods to all the various site sections, hopefully most needs will be met. A full explanation of this is set out below.

How the Timeline Information is Arranged

The Year Indexes

The Timeline itself is neatly divided into individual Month Activity pages which can be selected from their relevant Year Index pages, linked in the Navigation Bar at the bottom of every page.

The Year Index page headers usually show a summary of that year's activities, or describe a key event that affected the Caronia's career. Further down these pages are details of all the brochures, itineraries and maps issued for each voyage or cruise.

Links to the Month Activity pages are placed in the left column within each Year Index. Every page carries links back to the previous, or forward to the next Year Index.

The Month Activity Pages

Like those of the Year Indexes, the Month Activity page headers carry various topics about the history of the “Green Goddess”. Being a floating community, events ashore that shaped her career at sea are also recorded there.

These headers deliberately carry an eclectic mix of information, be it historical detail or short stories about life on board Caronia. Events associated with a specific date usually appears on the relevant page, or on another close to it.

Place-holders

If you progress through the Month Activity pages sequentially, you'll probably arrive at a few with a “standard blurb” in the header text. This doesn't mean you have come to an abrupt end.

These headers are just place-holders that permit adding of new information without being compelled to add new pages. They also signify the few information gaps in the Timeline. If you are able to help fill them, I'd be delighted to hear from you!

Day-to-Day Position

Lower down these pages, details of Caronia's day-to-day position is supplemented by all kinds of other information. For example, there are many images of the actual printed materials used on board for particular days, such as daily programmes or luncheon and dinner menus, etc.

Because many of these are images of text, they become an accessibility barrier. To address this, a selection of these items have been fully transcribed. The full list of these can be found on the Text Transcripts page which forms part of the Glossary Section.

Again, every page carries links back to the previous, or forward to the Next month, as well as links back to its parent Year Index. It's within these Month Activity pages where most of the meat of the site is, so please don't overlook them!

Movie Quizzes

On pages where there are daily programmes, the film (movie) title shown on that day is also displayed. What's unusual is that when you hover your mouse over the film text, the names of the main stars will be revealed. This acts like a quiz specially for those with an interest in movies of the 1950's and 60's.

MURDER AHOY Stars: Margaret Rutherford | Henry Longhurst

Above is the film shown on 02 September 1965, clicking on the text will take you to the September 1965 page, where several more films will be found. Clicking on the film text in the Monthly Activity pages will take that film title to the top of the page, thereby probably revealing others in the sequence, without having to use the scrollbar to move the page downward.

Dedicated Topic Links

You will also find assorted links to many other dedicated topic pages as they occur on Caronia's travels around the globe, like for example, “Crossing the Line”. As further research is added, links to news report pages will also be found. Most of these make interesting reading, so it's really worth taking the time to explore.

Other Index Pages

In addition to the Year / Month Activity pages, there are several indexes to other topics that recall Caronia's glittering career. These include...

• The Crew Quarters section which provides a wide and fascinating selection of photographs provided by various former crew members and their relatives. Also included are a growing number of early crew manifests
• The Folio Section that mostly depicts examples of the card stock used by the on-board print shop, along with many other ephemeral items
• The Glossary pages carrying a comprehensive list of ship-board terms. It is planned that this will be extended to put definitions to a lot of the wonderful dishes that were prepared on board Caronia each day. If you could help with building this aspect of the glossary pages, do please get in touch

The Virtual Tours

The most popular pages on the Timeline are the Virtual Tours which give a pictorial view of the Caronia within several different topics. These illustrate the building of the “Green Goddess”, how she was perceived by the press at the time and her marketing.

You will also find a selection of Virtual Cruises, allowing you to simulate a whole year or more on board with a range of cruises chosen from different periods. Each cruise has a different style approach.

Key Events and Special Features

Two closely related index pages bring together links to the key events in Caronia's career with Cunard, along with special Timeline features that focus in more detail on various traditions both on board and ashore.

• The Key Events Index carries a list of various events that shaped Caronia's career. It also links to an alphabetical list of Caronia's port visits and a chronological index of her Captains and voyages.
• The Special Features Summary provides links to many dedicated topics usually added to the Timeline to commemorate or recall a key event. Links to several slide-shows can be found here too - well worth a look because they show pictures of places taken at the time when Caronia was visiting.

Timeline Directory Button

Near the top of each page there is a [Timeline Directory] button (seen left) which will take you a dedicated page where links to every index page of the Timeline are shown, not just the substantive pages as on the NavBar. Another of these buttons is sited just below the Navigation Bar at the bottom of every page.

Timeline Accessibility

Accessibility issues now have their dedicated descriptions page. This includes advice on how the [Tab] key can be used in different browsers to quickly call up the Timeline Directory page, or move forward or backward within a series of pages.

Using Site Search

A site search panel has been placed at the bottom of all the index pages. If you don't get the results that you expect, there is an advanced search option offered at the top of the results window. This allows you to expand or narrow your search at will.

Search Notes

• Single keywords longer than 3 characters nearly always seem to produce the best results, especially with names
• Note that no words shorter than 4 characters are indexed for searching!
• Searching for multiple words is supported
• A word can be excluded by placing the minus character immediately before it. Therefore do not use hyphenated words in your search, simply place a space between them
• using punctuation like full-stops (periods) and commas is not recommended
• A phrase search can be used by placing the search term inside double-quote characters
• all date formats used here are “99 MonthName 9999”
  e.g. 01 January 1950
• If you get nil results for multiple words, always try deleting a word first

If you do a search for a port name, the usual format on the Timeline has been to use the actual port name like Funchal for Madeira, Valetta for Malta, or Piraeus for Athens in Greece. Other search types could be the name of a cruise or the last-name of a person.