Bootle Times - Thursday 19 July 1990 (page 1) reported: 'QE2 celebration. BOOTLE’S Cunard pensioners will be among the many celebrating the arrival of the QE2 next Tuesday at it sails up the Mersey to arrive at the Liverpool Pier Head at about 11:30am. Beforehand hundreds of local residents are expected to view the liner from vantage points along the north end of the river from soon after 10am. The liner is visiting Merseyside next week to mark the Cunard Line’s 150th anniversary. The 67000 ton flagship of Cunard’s seven-strong fleet is scheduled to drop anchor opposite the Liverpool Pier Head at 11:30am and will be met by the release of 3000 red and blue balloons and a waterjet salute. The Mayor of Sefton Cllr Mrs Beryl Lamont is to arrive on the QE2 via the Royal Iris ferry. Also taking part in the celebrations will be hotel manager John Duffy, who lives in Litherland, and Merchant Navy captain Colin Croall, who lives in Blundellsands, and is the master of the Seaforth-based Atlantic Conveyor. Retired Cunard Fleet personnel and welfare officer, Miss Jenny Kemp, who is also a Sefton councillor and lives in Waterloo, will also be at a remembrance service. The on-shore celebrations will begin with a lunchtime party for Cunard’s Merseyside pensioners, which will be held at the Merseyside Maritime Museum. The maiden visit to Liverpool reflects Cunard’s long association with the port and the fact that the company’s first ship, a wooden paddle steamer, set out from Liverpool in 1840 to establish the Atlantic service. The congregation of the 3:45pm service of thanksgiving and remembrance at Liverpool Parish Church will largely consist of Cunard pensioners, some of whom live in the Bootle and Litherland areas. A memorial tablet to company employees who died in both world wars will be rededicated during the service. Formerly in the Cunard Building, the memorial tablets were recently re-sited in the parish church at the company’s expense...' https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0003860/19900719/001/0001

Liverpool Echo, Monday, July 23, 1990 (page 30); reported: 'MERSEYSIDE is set to go QE2 crazy for the arrival of the grand old lady of the sea tomorrow. Organisers have pushed the boat out to give the majestic Cunard flagship a welcome to remember. Ten thousand balloons will be released upon her arrival tomorrow morning, a huge fireworks display sends her on her way again, and in between, the bells will be ringing out from Liverpool Parish Church. And the BBC will be marking the occasion by recording a Songs of Praise next to the Naval Memorial. The QE2 is due to enter the Mersey at 9.45 am, pass New Brighton around 11.15 am and drop anchor opposite Liverpool Pier Head shortly after 11.30 am. Massive. The celebrations are to mark the Cunard Line's 150th anniversary. Wirral police, anticipating large crowds at Birkenhead, are urging people not to take their cars into the town. The promenade at Seacombe and Wallasey will provide a good early viewing point. On the Liverpool side, spectators are asked to park in the car parks at the Albert Dock and Kings Dock. Tourism bosses have laid on a fleet of coaches to take the 1,600 QE2 passengers on a tour of the city and Wirral. The bells will be pealing out for an hour after a special service at Liverpool Parish Church - known as the Sailors' Church, at around 4.40 pm, and again at 11pm when the QE2 sails assay. At the thanksgiving service at 3.45 pm, the chairman of the Cunard Steamship Company, Eric Parker, will unveil the company's war memorial tablets, which will be dedicated by the Rector of Liverpool, Canon Nicholas Frayling. They have been restored and re-gilded and will have a permanent home in the Parish Church. The service will be attended by 200 ex-Cunard employees and relatives of those who died in the war, officers and crew of the QE2 and present-day Cunard directors and employees'. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000271/19900723/225/0030