Pam awoke first again, at 9am. She had a quick breakfast of cereal and tea in the kings court before her talk at 10am. It was by Diane Janes and was about the mystery surrounding the death of Julia Wallace. She was a housewife from Liverpool who was murdered in her home. Her husband was a Prudential insurance salesman whose day to day work would involve visiting his clients at their home to collect their premiums - no direct debits in those days.
Our story begins with Julia and Herbert Wallace being a respectable couple living in a fairly new 2 up 2 down terrace house. On the night before the murder, while Herbert was heading to his evening visit to the local chess club, a man rang the chess club asking to speak to him. The head of the chess club took the message and gave it to Mr Wallace when he arrived at 7.20pm. The message asked for Mr Wallace to visit an RM Qualtrough at 25 Meadow gardens east the next evening to discuss a policy. Mr Wallace headed out after supper to this address by way of a small walk, a tram and a bus (this address later turns out to be false - no house was ever found). Mr Wallace then returned home after asking many people where the house was, including a police officer, to find his wife battered to death in their front parlour. This, the defence felt, was a ploy by the killer to get Mr Wallace out of the house, but prosecutors said this was made up by Mr Wallace to give him an alibi for her murder. During the trial all the other evidence presented by the prosecution was flimsy and contradicted by many, but Mr Wallace was found guilty. Later an appeal was launched and the case was found not proven and he was released. His reputation in tatters, and after receiving hate mail, Mr Wallace left Liverpool never to return. The murder has still not been solved.
After the talk, Pam met with Mark and Andrew in the Carinthia lounge for a cappuccino - Mark had surfaced at 10am and had had a light breakfast. Mark went to his talk on Mary Queen of Scots. Was she a traitor or a martyr? By the end of the talk Mark had changed his opinion of her and felt that she was more of a weak woman, manipulated by men and bad choices and devastated by the loss of loved ones in a short space of time. In those days you needed to be extremely strong, like Queen Elizabeth, to survive.
Pam and Mark met up and then went to lunch in the Britannia restaurant as it had a chicken Sunday roast with Brussel sprouts, carrots, stuffing, cauliflower cheese and roast potatoes plus apple tart with custard and ice cream for dessert. Next Sunday, our Sunday roast lunch will be back in our own home.
Next up was a visit to the queens room for a special event called the country fayre. It is an annual event, held during the world cruise, with the proceeds going to charity. We played lots of games including guess the teddy’s name, human fruit machine, roll a ball, guess the number of chocolate sweets in the jar and our favourite, guess the babies: 12 members of crew (including the captain) and 12 baby pictures to pair up. After 3 attempts we got them all correct and won a china tea cup and saucer, with nautical symbols on it, in a nice box. We think we were one of only a few couples to achieve it and were only successful as Pam got 8/12 in the first attempt whilst most people got 6 or less and gave up.
Then came the raffle which we did not win but Janet won a 7 day Spa Voucher for The Hydro pool. She was over the moon. After the raffle was the auction where unique items and experiences were going for a lot of money.
After the fayre we went back to the room and relaxed and got ready for dinner. We had pizza and lasagne between us in the chefs gallery. It was delicious and we should have ordered two portions of lasagna instead of sharing.
Then we headed to the show. This time it was Chris Hamilton and Shimi Goodman, who together, were called Tiano. They sang a mixture of popular, and operatic, songs and even changed the words to “Maria” from west side story to “IKEA, I just bought a bed from IKEA.” it was very funny. A very talented pair though Mark thinks they are much better separately than together.
We had to rush off to a special 9pm “chosen by you” quiz as we had supplied questions days ago and today it appeared in the programme. We got 11 out of 20 and would have won if we hadn’t changed 2 answers. Still, it was only wine again.
We ended our evening, as per usual, in the Carinthia Lounge, where Ann and Janet were playing the board game sequence. Andrew and Pam joined them for one pairs game while Mark rang his sister. Then Raju turned up and Janet left to go to bed. As a fivesome called PARMA ham, we got 17 out of 20 but did not win.
We will make our beloved Carinthia Lounge, near the front of deck 7, as our ship tour area today. It is probably the most popular lounge on the ship but we have managed to get pictures late at night when it was empty.
Let's start with the room.
And end with the good stuff - the food.
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