I was in London for a meeting last week and had some spare time to kill before my train home so I headed to one of my favourite places, the Victoria and Albert Museum. I always enjoy wandering around the galleries or sketching the marble sculptures, but this time I decided to visit the exhibition Cruise Liners, Speed and Style – about the days of the great ocean liners.

Ocean travel features strongly in my books as I often write about displacement. I hoped to find the ships I’d researched for my books – the Ceramic on which I based the Historic in A Greater World, the Viceroy of India from Kurinji Flowers and the Scythia on which one of my characters is sailing to Canada in the book I am writing at the moment, The Frozen River. Alas they weren’t featured – but there was much of interest anyway.

The exhibition began with a collection of publicity posters – all very striking – and large scale models of some of the liners. I was much taken with the idea of a £140 return trip First Class to Australia by cruise liner. Those were the days! Not all the posters extolled the virtues of luxury travel – one of the most striking was a World War 1 recruitment poster featuring the sinking of the Lusitania – a deliberate plea at the heartstrings as it featured a drowning mother clutching her baby.

Indeed there was a lot about sinking here – a real deck-chair rescued from the Titanic, found floating on the surface above the wreck along with other Titanic artifacts raised from the deep.

There was a giant bronze-effect wall-panel from the smoking room of the sumptuous French ship, Normandie, which conveyed both the elegant art deco style of the period  as well as the sheer opulence that went into the furnishings of the great ships. No expense spared from the enormous chandeliers to the sweeping grand staircases. There were also plenty of examples of furniture all in fabulous condition and oozing style. Clothing too – travelling by sea required a vast wardrobe of outfits and finery to show off and there was plenty on display.

Ships represented included, as well as the doomed Titanic and Lusitania, the stunning Normandie, the Queens Mary and Elizabeth. As well as the beautiful public areas there were insights into the underbellies of the great ships – and into their construction with Stanley Spencer’s stunning mural of the shipbuilders hammering in rivets in the yards of the Clyde.

The centrepiece of the exhibition is a starlit re-creation of the traditional “grande descente” when the stylish passengers entered the dining room in all their jewels and finery by way of a sweeping staircase.

Before the end of the exhibition, I welcomed the opportunity to rest my legs by sitting and watching the series of ocean liner film clips from James Bond to Titanic by way of Marilyn Monroe and the Poseidon Adventure – but oddly no An Affair to Remember. or the Marx Brothers in Monkey Business – demonstrating how popular cruise liners have been in the history of cinema – whether as a setting for comic capers, tragic disasters or romantic encounters

There was a bit of everything in this exhibition – history, art, fashion, furniture, films, engineering, nostalgia and marine architecture. Well worth a visit.