A FORMER ship's printer has taken a trip down memory lane by revisiting the Queen Mary liner 41 years after he last worked on her.

Harold Doonan, 63, now runs Doonans building materials in Weymouth, but in the early 1960s he had a very different life.

He said: "I was trained as a printer at Sherrens in St Mary Street and then served five years in the Merchant Navy as a ship's printer, the first two on the Queen Mary."

Between 1964-1966 he did 39 trips from Southampton to New York, later working on other ships before leaving to start his own building supplies business.

Harold said: "I had never been back but my wife, Jean, and I have a daughter, Tracey, who lives in Australia, so when we went to see her this year I suggested to Jean that we come back via New Zealand, Los Angeles and Long Beach, California, where the Queen Mary has been a museum and a floating hotel since 1967.

"We did this and I duplicated the photographs I had taken of me on the Queen Mary in 1964 in New York by having them retaken on the ship in 2007 with me standing on exactly the same spot.

"There was a bit of a lump in my throat, very emotional, and I got a big welcome back as a former crewman.

"I got the VIP treatment and was taken round places on board that visitors are not normally allowed to see because there are not that many Queen Mary crewmen still around.

"I even took out with me some old original pay-off sheets and menus which I donated to the ship and they are going to make a special display to put on board."

The Americans said he was the first former printer to ever visit the ship.

Harold added: "They made a fuss of me. They were particularly interested in the small crew items I had brought such as port information sheets because they did not have very many of them."

Harold said it took a bit of adjusting to watch the liner being cleaned during the day.

He added: "When I worked on her all the cleaning was done at night. The crew were seen but not heard and most crew were not allowed to go up with the passengers.

"I was because I had to go to the radio room to get the current news which was then printed out for passengers in our ship's newspaper, the Ocean Times."

Harold, whose Doonans company is the main sponsor for the Weymouth Wildcats speedway team, said he would not mind making another visit to the Queen Mary.

He said: "We might even do so while visiting some people we met from Texas with whom we became friends.

"I just hope that any former crew reading this get in touch with me for a chat about the old Queen Mary."