Billions of blue blistering binnacles! I remember visiting the bridge of RMS Queen Elisabeth on our way to New York in July 1964. Lots of windows and various controls and instruments which made no sense to me, but the Gosport Tubes, wheel and compass binnacle fascinated me, lots of luvverly brass. We were allowed to shout down the tube to the engine room. We did also visit the engine rooms, and could see huge shiny propeller shafts disappearing into the distance. Did the same in SS France two years later, and also a few years earlier saw around the Blue Star Liner Argentina Star on our way to Montevideo. I have very vague memories too of our first journey out to Montevideo on the SS Highland Brigade (which is shown on a few web sites). She was built in the late 1920s and looks so old fashioned that I find it hard to believe I once sailed on such an old ship. The dining room was done up to look like Tudor black beam and white plaster buildings, with bay windows looking in to it at 2nd floor level. I remember not being able to understand if we were inside the ship or outside in a square courtyard surrounded by four big buildings facing us. It's my earliest childhood memory.