The 22,000 ton Saxonia was the lead ship in the quartet ordered by Cunard in the 1950s to give a much needed boost to their cargo and passenger vessels.

John Brown and Co was the builder, and Saxonia was launched by Lady Spencer Churchill, wife of the then Prime Minister, on February 17, 1954.

Passengers became very fond of Saxonia, with her nine decks and air-conditioned public rooms she represented a tremendous improvement on older ships which Cunard had operated.

In the early 1960s Saxonia was given a facelift, including painting her hull and superstructure several shades of green like Caronia, and she emerged from the yard with a new name, Carmania.

As Carmania she visited Southampton many times and in 1967 she was repainted white.

Two years later she ran aground, when she was stuck on a sandbar for five days, during a Caribbean cruise. In 1970 the ship was registered in Southampton and then laid up, together with her sister, Franconia, in the city's docks only to be moved later to Cornwall's River Fal.

Sold to the Russians in 1973 the ship became renamed Leonid Sobinov and made her first voyage from Southampton to Sydney.

She was operated by the Russians for more than a decade until 1995. She was laid up and then scrapped four years later in India.