It is my insatiable curiosity about people’s lives, meeting so many interesting fellow shipmates, that made my holiday so memorable.

This is the first time we have ever had a holiday of this kind, and I tell you cruising must be the best stress free way for three generations to go away together and have a ball. (I even heard of five generations doing this, the eldest cruiser being a cool 98).

Here are some of my holiday highlights:

Biggest shock for son James, 13: Discovering that his strict deputy head was on board too only minutes after setting sail, a big shock for her too, I guess. However, this turned out to be a blessing as she rang the school to obtain my older son David’s GCSE results and, with 11 excellent passes, we celebrated together with some bubbly. I think James has now warmed to her a little more.

Biggest shock for shipmate Martin: Martin turned to me during a show one night and said he had the most amazing story to tell me, we had met briefly that afternoon on the sun deck; I was naturally all ears. He told me how three years ago, his wife had gone away on holiday and never returned, she had decided to leave him. He had booked a cruise for her the following week, but took a friend with him instead. When he returned, he discovered she had cleaned out the house and his bank account. He believed she later headed for Dubai.

So you can imagine his amazement to bump into her on this very cruise where she married husband No 4; little did she expect that Martin would be joining them on honeymoon. Martin was very philosophical about it, we joked about whether she would be entering the Mr and Mrs competition (she didn’t).

Biggest shock for marooned family: We were constantly warned that the ship would leave without us if we returned late from shore excursions. And that is exactly what happened to an unlucky family of four after their trip to Rome. During this excursion, we were bustled from one Roman site to another and stopping for a drink or trip to the loo could mean parting company with your group.

This desperate family then spent £100 on taking a taxi to reach the ship in time, waving frantically to it from the shore, but all in vain. A hefty fine is imposed if the ship overstays its duration and no exceptions are made. The family were penniless and slept rough that night before taking a ferry the next day to Corsica to catch up with the ship, which they only managed by the skin of their teeth.

Some interesting shipmates included Liz, a retired traffic cop who once booked Chris Tarrant for speeding up to 120 mph one Christmas Day morning; she was planning to be lenient, only he was very rude to her and he later described this experience in a magazine interview as his most embarrassing moment.

Liz and I agreed that we would like to visit the Romanian orphanages which fellow passenger John is a patron of. His organisation, the Anglo Romanian Educational Trust, works tirelessly to help improve the lives of abandoned children, including some who are disabled, while at the same working as a head teacher in the UK, I believe in Liverpool. He complained about the painful and expensive bureaucracy at the British Embassy in Budapest which made it a very costly and difficult to bring over some of these unfortunate young people for a holiday in the UK.

I would have liked to have heard more tales from the ever-smiling Barbara, who recalled seeing Churchill and Onassis in Monte Carlo. And I made friends with Jane, also always cheerful and entertaining, during an early morning swim. She had amazingly met up again with Lyndon and they had not seen each other since 1969 while training as teachers. Lyndon has since moved on to pastures new and has the most enviable of jobs – he evaluates cruises on behalf of passengers for P & 0, he never did tell me how he got the job, most definitely a case of knowing the right people, I would imagine.

I would liked to have had a good chat with Richard Romain, a Tory councillor from Harrow, but he barely saw daylight outside the casino. I heard that Peter Bonetti was on board, but we never met up.

I enjoyed joining the crew on their pirate watch off the Moroccan shores with their latest radar device, but they had the good sense to keep well away.

My feet are now firmly back on land, though I can hardly say dry land after the torrential rain here. I hope you all had a great summer too. Thanks to Liz and Steve for inviting us to join them along with their family for a very memorable trip.
Anyone not bored by looking at other people’s holiday snaps can feel free to take a peek at mine by clicking here. You can view the two slide shows displayed on the right hand side of the page. Those I GB memory cards are rather handy, I got through two of them.