IT WAS A MATTER of Cambridge regulations. In the summer of 1936, my brother was getting married in Canada and I was to be best man. We were both booked on the Queen Mary, but at the last moment I found that I couldn't go by ship. I had passed my exams, but to get a degree one had to spend 56 consecutive nights on campus. If I took the Queen Mary I would be one night short, and the next ship wouldn't reach Toronto in time for the wedding. It looked hopeless. Then my father saw a notice about the German airship Hindenburg. Passenger aircraft of the time could not cross the Atlantic in one hop, but airships could. Hindenburg was to make its third North Atlantic crossing at precisely the right moment to solve my predicament. The fare was £80, twice as much as second-class passage on the ship Normandie, on which I later returned.
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