MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Falklands flag flies forever on ss Great Britain

The Falkland Islands flag is to fly forever on Britain's most famous heritage ocean liner, the ss Great Britain, as a reminder of its links with the Islands.

In response to an appeal from the ss Great Britain charity to replace the worn and tattered flag flown since the vessel's highly publicised salvage and return to Britain from the Falkland Islands in 1970, the Falkland Islands Association has donated £135 to donate a new flag immediately and pledged to continue renewing the flag in perpetuity.

Thanking the Association, the ss Great Britain charity says: "The flag will look fantastic flying high as a reminder of her time in the Falklands.....It has great significance and strengthens the link with the Falkland Islands".

The charity continues to receive donations of memorabilia and souvenirs of the vessel, some of which came from Falkland Islanders in 1970. The charity says it would welcome any unique contributions from the Falklands and relevant accounts of Islanders' experiences of the ship. Islanders visiting visited the ship two or three years ago amused the organisers by saying: "We've got a bit of this ship at home! We used to picnic aboard and take souvenirs home!"

To cement more strongly its links with the famous vessel, the Falkland Islands Association chairman, Sir Rex Hunt, has offered to give a talk on board next year about the 1982 Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands. The charity has welcomed this offer as a valuable fund-raising event which would be of great interest to the many ex-services (armed forces) organisations in and around Bristol. It is here the world's first great ocean liner is now preserved in the Great Western Dockyard where she was built in 1843 for the Great Western Steamship Company under the personal direction of Britain's famous engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

When built, she was by far the largest ship in the world, and the first screw-propelled, ocean-going, wrought iron ship, exemplifying the inventiveness of the Victorian era. As a technological fore-runner of modern shipping, she symbolises the birth of international passenger travel and communications.

Luxury liner, emigrant and troop ship, coal carrier

In her fascinating 45 years at sea, she covered over a million miles (1,600,000 kilometres) and became known as "the Greyhound of the Seas" as one of the fastest, most elegant and luxurious e