Scale: 1:48. A shipbuilder’s model of the very highest quality, housed in its original case with two information plaques. The quality of the paint finish is outstanding for a model of this size. The glazing of portholes and windows has been depicted using surface-silvered glass. The insides of the ventilators have been picked out in the same French blue as the company’s colours on the funnel, an attractive and unusual feature. A number of the fittings have been gunmetalled and their dark patination looks very effective against the mass of gold-plating.

A cargo liner carrying 180 first-class passengers, the ‘Antenor’ (1925) was built for service in the Far East with the China Mutual Steam Navigation Company, a subsidiary of the Blue Funnel Line. She was a striking ship: the cliff-like forward face of the central island rises through five decks with the bridge right at the top.

At the outbreak of the Second World War it was refitted as an armed merchant cruiser and renamed ‘Calcutta’. Following a brief period in contraband control in the eastern Mediterranean, it was transferred to the Indian Ocean on escort duties, and it was during this period that the German raider ‘Kormoran’ made at least one capture while impersonating it.

In 1942 ‘Antenor’ was converted again, to a troopship, serving in several theatres. During the invasion of Normandy, it carried nearly 50,000 American servicemen, and one of its last trooping duties was to assist in the repatriation of prisoners of war from the Japanese camps in Malaya and Siam. It was returned to the owners in 1947, who sold it after six years for breaking up.