Tickets to join the final voyage of the cruise ship QE2, before she is converted into a floating hotel, sold out in just 36 minutes. Bruce Hawksbee, who once took a cruise with the author, enjoys a book which recounts the great ship's adventures

WITHOUT wishing to appear a chronic namedropper, I did once go on a cruise in a press party that included Carol Thatcher.

Yes, the Carol Thatcher - and very good company she was indeed.

It was on the Queen Mary 2 and it was a little while before she became the socalled Queen of the Jungle when, as a rank outsider, two years ago she won the ITV reality show I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. Mind you, back in 2004, when we sailed on the QM2 around Britain, it was pretty obvious that she had personality to spare. And she never once mentioned her famous mum.

Anyway, the point of the recollection is to underline how travelling by sea is in her blood and that's clearly conveyed in her new book QE2: Forty Years Famous, which marks the milestone birthday of the legendary luxury cruise liner.

This is a lot more than just a coffee table tome full of wonderful photographs from the ship's history and laden with technical information. There are fascinating chapters on moments in history like the QE2's service in the Falklands War or the early hours of September 11, 1995 when the vessel was struck by a 95-foot rogue wave a day before she was due to dock in New York. Miraculously, and thanks to the skill of her crew and the way the ship was built, she rode out the storm while most of her passengers slept on, blissfully unaware of their near-Poseidon Adventure moment.

Then there was the time in May 1972 when a caller demanded $350,000, threatening that the ship would be "blasted out of the sea" if payment wasn't forthcoming.

Cue bomb disposal experts being parachuted into the Atlantic to climb aboard and check the ship for what turned out to be a hoax alert in another remarkable story from the QE2 archives.

It's all there - and a lot more besides, like detailing the famous passengers who have sailed on her - and the stories are brought to life by galleries of illustrations.

Make no bones about it, there's a film script or two waiting to be discovered within Thatcher's engrossing 256- page read.

And give Carol her due, she's quick to point out the immense help she received from two Cunard experts. In the book's acknowledgements she writes: "First, and above all others, I am indebted to Michael Gallagher and Eric Flounders without whom this book would not exist.

I am especially grateful for Michael's vast and meticulously referenced personal archive."

But she is clearly the ideal author for the book as she also wrote Queen Elizabeth 2: A Voyage of Discovery and so has neatly book-ended her experiences on the great lady of the sea.

My only disappointment was than when we sailed together I forgot to tell her that, many moons ago, I had bought her book Lloyd on Lloyd, a best-seller about the tennis stars Chris Evert and John Lloyd.

Well, maybe next time...