Singapore is an ordeal. We arrive days before Saga Rose but with the sweltering wet heat we hardly venture out of our hotel. "We should have gone to Alaska," my wife Erica murmurs. But after a mirage of days Saga Rose appears in the harbour. It is unimaginable bliss to enter her cool interior.
A cruise liner is a world unto herself. Saga Rose proves no exception. We have embarked on the final leg of her world cruise. We will be covering a third of the globe and it will take us five weeks to get back to Southampton. The itinerary sounds daunting but I feel a great sense of relief as I find my way around, exploring the decks and passages.
For the next five weeks everything will be done for me. All I have to do is breathe in and out and sleep in the sun. And eat and sleep and ring for room service. And be beautifully bored. But after perusing the daily programme, I realise there will be no time for boredom.
The first night we slink into the ballroom. No teenagers rampage; no toddlers to be entertained. It's just for us, the over-50s. The gentlemen hosts are busy twirling unaccompanied ladies. Perfect, smiling, immaculate clones with Chingford accents, blue blazers, white trousers and silver hair, they jerk enchanted superannuated partners through Jealousy.
One such partner is an American lady of about 4ft 7in who looks as if she's escaped from a Tennesee Williams play. But she dances like a girl of 15. We later learn Tina is 87 years' old and every night she will appear in a variety of outrageous wigs. Tina is the belle of the ball. Oh to be young in spirit, forever.
We are also drawn to Leslie and his evocative wife Lila, both into their second marriage. Leslie, formerly a chiropodist, is an unassuming, gentle and amusing 80-year-old, Resigned, alive and sweet. Lila flashes her eyes. "Do you come here often, darleeng?"
"If I can come once I'm more than grateful," he laughs.
"Oh? What about two weeks ago?"
Ah, the alluring complexity of desire and the cupidity of age. There's an awful lot of sexual subtext among the over-50s. It's all still happening where it really matters.
"The middle-agers are far more sensuous than the young," I observe.
"Young! Old! As Gertrude Stein says, 'You're always the same age inside,'" Erica replies.
At 8am the daily ritual is upon us. Michelle, our young keep-fit instructor leads us seven times around the promenade deck and thus we achieve our daily one-mile marathon, the triumphant Beryl Cook ladies and their jolly puffing partners trying to keep up. After, we collapse into our breakfasts.
I eavesdrop along corridors where one picks up such precious pearls. I notice two ladies perusing a huge navigation chart. "I'm lost. I should understand these things. I was a Wren in the war."
"Were you really? So was I." They whoop and embrace.
"What was your job?"
"Actually, I was a despatch rider. What did you do?"
"I was a cipher clerk."
Stereotypes suddenly become sweetly human and walk away, chatting, laughing. Young gels again.
This cruise is not turning out to be a rest cure. A plethora of activities are going on all day; and hopefully all night. The retired are anything but retiring. Searching the daily programme, I notice an alarming entry: "The Protocols of the Elders of Saga." There are dress codes. Oh my God! Tonight is Formal Night! I am expected to wear a monkey suit. Imagine. An anarchist in a bow tie. It's a comedy. A farce. I shall not do it. And that's final!
I do it.
"Some anarchist!" I chide my ridiculous reflection in a mirror, but dress as anarchistically as possible. A violent violet shirt, a screaming purple bow tie and a black velvet jacket I bought in Camden for a tenner. "I am a hypocrite," I mutter, entering the restaurant. "Yes darling," Erica responds.
We are seated on a table for four. Our companions are Audrey and Derek. The first thing we talk about is family. Grandchildren lead to education and suddenly there we are, smack bang in the middle of politics. "Our kids and grandchildren have been educated in comprehensive schools and are doing very well," I utter. Erica kicks me under the table.
"Derek! Pass the salt," Audrey commands, and smiles with her soul of tempered steel.
I change the subject. "I hated Singapore."
"I loved Singapore," she replies. "They have the right ideas. Hang you if you commit murder. Flog you if you steal."
I swallow my smoked salmon, bite my tongue and turn to Derek. He was born in Birmingham but never went back. "Is it the Spaghetti Junction?" I ask.
"No. It's the changes. The strange faces."
I decide not to pursue his meaning. Yet they are very nice people. The backbone of England and all who sail in her.
It is obvious: Audrey rules the roost, but Derek is very sweet and strangely innocent. "I really like you, Bernard. You're different. You're very interesting."
Audrey and Derek are obsessed with a fear of garlic. She pokes her Nosferatu nose into every main dish. "Does this contain garlic? I'm sure there's garlic." The waiter shakes his head. "Derek! You smell! Is there garlic?"
Derek is not sure. "Get the head waiter," Audrey commands. And so it goes; every night until the end of our sea world.
The food on Saga Rose is first class; the chef appears, beaming and proud, looking nine months' pregnant through indulging in the fruits of his own creations. After two weeks of emulating the chef, I've already put on four pounds. Now I shall have to go 14 times around the deck. Life on Saga Rose is an interval between feasts. There is even a gargantuan late-night snack for the truly famished widows and widowers lurking footloose on the midnight prowl.
Night on the Promenade deck: the endless sea is now a syrupy cobalt quilt. And the sky is scary, with billions of stars shooting the rapids of forever. It is 90F and the breeze is balmy and my heart sings when I hear that London is shivering under an avalanche of freezing rain.
It's 10am the next morning: computer lessons for absolute beginners. Erica decides the time has come. Even though the instructor is somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan. I find the 350 Saga Rose staff amazingly friendly and helpful, but this guy is one glaring exception. It is whispered he has made several matriarchs of the American Revolution weep. But Erica sails through her baptism of fire without tears. But then, she's got antibodies, having lived with a tyrant for almost a lifetime.
Afternoon tea is in the Britannia Lounge, with hot scones, cream, and raspberry jam, luscious tarts, chocolate eclairs, cream horns, gateaux, and cucumber sandwiches worthy of the Ritz. And the pianist, worthy of Louis' Café in the Finchley Road tinkling away on the grand piano. His head swivels like an old owl as he plays Ivor Novello and Noel Coward. "We'll gather lilacs in the spring again... " The Britannia Lounge throbs with plaintive longing. "Some day I'll find you, moonlight behind you... " But outside on the Lido deck, we flop down under the sun and indulge in gallows humour. "I can smell smoke," someone utters. "Someone's smoking."
"No. They're cremating those who've died on board," scaffolder Terry mutters.
Abandon all pre-conceptions all ye who enter here. These passengers are not all upper or county. In fact the majority are ordinary middle or ex-working class. Most have regional accents, are down to earth, yet thankfully all at sea; indulging in a dream, a holiday of a lifetime. Earned by years of graft, or from the windfall of early retirement. Terry is a self-made, urbane, wise-cracking, open-hearted scaffolder from Stratford-upon-Avon with his ever-smiling wife Anne, dripping with gold. And Louis Levy, thin as a rake and deep in a deep novel. But when he sees me clocking him he unravels. "I'm 92. Should I stay in England in the winter? I've been round the world 17 times, and I've booked for next year. Mind you, I might be being a bit too optimistic."
The tannoy blares. "Dolphins on the starboard side!" Everyone makes a dash for the rail. There is a certain mystical enchantment about our oceanic cousins. These beautiful creatures make you want to laugh and cry at the same time. You envy them. They have an eternity of sea to live and explore, to make love and play, with no rent or mortgage to pay.
The secure world of the ship acts as a serene counter-balance to the dizzying, relentless itinerary ahead; to the many destinations we are to dip into. Ten countries in all. After Singapore there's Penang. Then Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Oman, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Greece, Portugal. The shore visits overwhelm. Petra - a most fabulous reward after a strenuous three-and-a-half-mile hike through an impossible canyon for our jokey, croaky crowd, half as old as time. And what of awesome Karnak? And gentle Salalah - miles and miles of white-sand beaches and not a tourist in sight. Apart from us. And there's Ephasus. And the Parthenon, that miracle of floating stone. The great crumbling civilisations tower, fascinate, unnerve. "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty and despair." The legacies of great civilisations long since turned to dust.
But tourists can only take a snapshot, get a brief impression. They all soon merge. Places, faces. Did I buy that saffron in Colombo? Kandy? Or beneath the Towers of Silence? Impressions avalanche. Images helter skelter in the mind. Bollywood billboards billow. The poverty, the opulence. The desperation. The beauty. The mind-blowing contrasts. Families huddle domestically on pavements; one million will sleep on these streets tonight. We wend towards the entrance of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai. A chorus of disfigured beggars smile and wave on the melting pavement outside. It all coalesces. Oh for a cup of tea and scone in the tinkly Saga Rose ballroom, the air-conditioned oasis where friendly faces greet you from sweltering shores. "Welcome home." This is the fulcrum, the true core of our holiday.
There has been a dance every night. But tonight there is a wistful sadness. The band starts to play old songs, such as On Mother Kelly's Doorstep. The assembled join in with the evocative words, "Show me the way to go home. I'm tired and I want to go to bed... " There is a certain Titanic undertow in their voices. The end of our odyssey is in sight. Days start to tumble. Impressions, images meld in the memory. This cruise has been fabulous but the main event has been the ship. Saga Rose will cruise in my head forever.
Out on deck, the Bay of Biscay is a moody old bitch. Everyone predicted she would be furious, yet tonight she is unusually calm. But you can smell Europe. The cold envelopes us and we shudder. Almost every day we have been embalmed in the nineties and now we are steaming out of our dream, towards reality and the rest of our lives.
Soon the English coast twinkles in the dark distance. It is our very last night on board. You can scrape the sadness off the atmosphere. In the ballroom it is time for tears and cheers and hugs and scribbled addresses. We all sing "We'll meet again." And people dance like there's no tomorrow. But there is. It's called disembarkation.
The cocoon ejects us into Southampton. It's pissing down. "It's great to be back," I groan. "I'm sure it's done us good," Erica responds. And we both laugh as we re-enter the cold world.
Way to go
Bernard and Erica Kops travelled on Saga Rose from Singapore to Southampton on the last leg of the 2001 World Cruise. The 2002 Saga Rose World cruise leaves Southampton on January 4 2002, and includes 36 ports of call. Prices for the Singapore to Southampton sector (leaving Singapore on March 13 2002) start at £4,599pp inc flight. The price includes all meals, entertainment and activities and gratuities on board. Saga Holidays (08000 565880, www.saga.co.uk) are available to people aged 50 and over.
