the problem. Some walk with a stick. Some with two. Others hang on grimly to their zimmer frames, and even more get pushed about the deck in wheel chairs.

On shore excursions, it can take half an hour to get them up the steps onto the coach. How much longer would it take to get them up the flights of stairs to the slippery lifeboat deck when the ship is listing, the lifts are out of action, and the wind is howling like a banshee?

Lifeboat drill is a legal requirement on the first day of a cruise, of course. Rigorous captains insist it takes place on the open deck, where the chronic couples wobble uneasily, put their life jackets on backwards and adjust their hearing aids to catch what the

man is saying about not running up the stairs.

Cruises proclaim themselves the holiday of a lifetime, but often they bring that lifetime to a sudden halt. Entertainment staff run sweepstakes on how many will drop off the perch between ports. On a trip from Rio to Southampton we lost six.

As an early riser, I have often watched as the ship nudges its way into a foreign port at dawn, to be met precisely on time by an ambulance. Then a covered stretcher and a weepy companion are ushered down the gangway and driven quietly away.