Scale: 1:1200. A standard Bassett-Lowke recognition model, well up to their usual standard, beautifully painted and highly detailed for such a small-scaled, mass production item. The largest and certainly one of the finest of Canadian Pacific’s ships, ‘Empress of Britain’ (1930) was built by John Brown, Clydebank. She was designed as a dual role ship, as a liner on the Southampton – Québec passenger service and also as a winter season round-the-world cruise ship. A combination of tradition and modernity, her conventional profile was painted the fashionable all-white while inside, her period interiors were interspersed with glamorous Art Deco features.

At the start of the Second World War she was converted to a troopship and used to transport soldiers from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada to the main theatres of war in Europe. Tragedy struck on 26 October 1940 when, off the west coast of Ireland, the liner was attacked several times by a German bomber and set ablaze. Of the 643 people aboard, only 49 lives were lost.

Stricken, but in no danger of sinking, the survivors were taken off and, the following day, she was taken in tow bound for the Clyde. The intention was to repair her but instead she was again attacked, this time by a U-boat, and torpedoed. On the 28 October ‘Empress of Britain’ slipped beneath the waves, only half a day’s sailing from the port at which she was built. She was the largest liner to be sunk in the war.