Mrs Smuts, wife of general Smuts, Prime Minister of South Africa, pressed a button in her home on the edge of the veldt outside Pretoria today to send a radio impulse flashing across the world to Belfast shipyards of Mrs Harland and Wolff. Simultaneously the new 28,000 ton union Castle liner "Pretoria Castle" slid down the slipway to the cheers of thousands of workmen. She pressed the button after her christening message had come over the loudspeakers wishing the ship godspeed. Her signal broke a bottle of South African wine over the ship's bows and sent her down into the water. 19 August 1947