On This Day: QE2's maiden voyage

The Queen Elizabeth II cruise ship began its maiden voyage to New York 44 years ago today – embarking on a four-decade journey that captured the nation’s heart.

The luxury vessel was considered to be the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners - being built despite the huge rise in passenger jet travel witnessed during the 1960s.

British Pathé news footage from May 2, 1969, shows crowds at Southampton waving off the ship, which operators Cunard retired from service and sold in 2008.

Her suitably grey-bearded first captain, William Warwick, was also filmed smiling on deck while cameras captured the elegance of the ocean liner’s ballroom beneath.

Elsewhere below deck, ladies – mostly wearing pearls and 1960s-style colourful dresses - clink their glasses while waiters whisk trays of salmon past them.

Meanwhile, in the bowels of the vessel, the boilers on the last oil-fired passenger steam ship are seen rumbling away in this romantically grainy, early colour footage.

But the QE2, which later had a diesel engine fitted in 1987, wasn’t simply a passenger vessel that touched the lives of only the rich and famous.

During the Falklands War in 1982, the ship, which was built on the Clyde, carried 3,000 soldiers to the British islands after they were invaded by Argentina.

The hull was repainted battleship grey and helicopter pads were installed along with an extensive refit to accommodate so many soldiers.

Also, more than 650 Cunard employees volunteered to help look after members of the Fifth Infantry Brigade during the voyage.

But her days became numbered after Cunard built a new cruise line, the Queen Mary 2, in 2004.

After 39 years – in which she carried 2.5million passengers, completed 806 Atlantic crossings and travelled six million miles – she was sold to a firm from Dubai.

But future of the once proud ocean liner, which has been docked at Port Rashid since 2009, is now in limbo.

Reports about her future range from apparent plans to use the vessel as a hotel on land in Dubai to selling for scrapping in China.