Captain Arnott retired on 31/7/1985 ending a 45 year career at sea and nine as master of QE2
Additionally, I have stumbled across a Cunard article regarding the "This is Your Life" episode.
Apparently the programme was given the go-ahead about 12 months beforehand. The producers did not want to film the epsiode whilst the ship was alongside in Southampton, the preference was to do it whilst at sea. This obviously presented a number of challenges not least getting familiar people onboard and unnoticed. The actual filming took place as QE2 left Cherbourg bound for Southampton and had disembarked the pilot. There were a number of technical challenges including the different phasing of the TV production equipment and the ships power systems, radio interference was also an issue at the time of the broadcast. The latter was readily fixed by cancelling all ship to shore radio broadcasts. A smokescreen in the form of a "aired from sea cabaret" was devised which also provided the opportunity to get the Captain on stage! Guests were boarded at Cherbourg and were given full disguises by the television company. This feat was aided by the French Authorities who had to process those involved using their different names and disguises. For legal reasons it was necessary to produce a full passenger manifest at the time of departure, the relevant ship's company were sworn to strictest confidence. One of those boarding was of course the Captain's wife, known to many of the ship's personnel. According to my information this was a Thames TV production.
