QE2 for Southend Pier?

It - to be exact, she - is the one seagoing icon that challenges Southend Pier for length.

Other qualities she has in common with the Pier are longevity, an ability to rouse huge affection in the most hard-bitten heart, an aura of another era, quirkiness, and sheer unabashed Britishness.

Southend Pier and the Queen Elizabeth 2 were made for each other.

And now there's no reason why the union between the world's longest pier and the world's most celebrated ship should not take place.

Last week, Cunard, QE2's owner, announced plans for a vast new cruise ship, the Queen Victoria.

Cunard has been busy.

Last year saw the maiden voyage of Victoria's predecessor, Queen Mary 1.

The announcement of yet another £300million project showed the world's love affair with great regal ships is anything but over.

At the same time, it also re-awakened the question of the future of the QE2 itself.

The QE2 has kept sailing while her contemporaries have been mothballed.

Others, unable to compete with the facilities of 21st-century cruise ships - wave machines, climbing walls and multiplex cinemas - have been sent to the scrap yard.

Yet demand for QE2 voyages just won't go away. Her advantages over other cruise ships are obvious - her legendary status, the fact she is a real ship rather than a floating Las Vegas hotel and, bluntly, her snob appeal.

Nobody is more aware of the ship's status than Cunard.

They unashamedly bill QE2 as "the most famous ship in the world".

Advertisers aren't supposed to make hyperbolic statements like that, but nobody has challenged or sued Cunard, simply because, in this case, the claim is so obviously true.

The Titanic is even more famous, but in no state right now to dispute the claim.

So Cunard rolls out the prose, and steadily, year on year, ramps up the QE2 legend. "How can words do justice to her immortal story?" they ask.

"QE2 circles the globe and inspires generation after generation."

Yet for all her commercial success and the veneration in which she is held, the QE2's days afloat could be numbered.

The suspicion is Cunard is rolling out the new cruise ships as replacements for their most popular asset.

Cunard let this fact slip for the first time at the press briefing for Queen Victoria. Carol Marlow, Cunard's president, admitted: "We have to recognise that at some time the QE2 will go.

"Ideally we are going to try to find a place for her that isn't the knacker's yard."

The sad fact is the ship that has survived 90ft waves, pirates and terrorists, could finally fall victim to new health and safety restrictions.

One of the glories and defining features of the QE2 is her woodwork.

This will have to be stripped out if the new fire-at-sea regulations are to be met.

In any case, no ship's hull takes 40 years battering by the world's waves unscathed. Even the stoutest ship starts to come apart at the seams eventually.

The QE2 simply can't carry on sailing forever. Carol Marlow's veiled statement may be a hint that Cunard is open to suggestions.

If so, Southend has the perfect berth.

For the country, the advantage of bringing the QE2 to the Thames Estuary are clear. The ship stays in Britain, in a symbolic spot - a royal ship at the mouth of the royal river.

For Southend, the attractions are even more obvious.

Southend Pier's most enduring problem in terms of tourist appeal has been the absence of any attraction at the pierhead.

The absence means the world's longest pier terminates in an anti-climax.

Anchored at the end of the pier, the QE2 would provide that elusive attraction without the need for major engineering The QE2 would bring numerous visitors to Southend, not least from the ranks of her two million former passengers.

She could also provide a home for a museum dedicated to the Prince of Prittlewell's treasure.

All attempts so far to launch a regular riverboat commuter service between Southend and London have failed, despite the clear environmental and traffic benefits.

With the QE2 as a focal point, a river-borne tourist service could become viable.

Essex commuters and shoppers could share the facility with the daytrippers The QE2 project would cost Southend taxpayers next-to-nothing. All we need to do is offer our hospitality to the QE2 and maintain a can-do approach.

Private enterprise will do the rest.

Hotel groups, syndicates, venture capital groups, casino operators - all will be interested in a piece of this action.

The project ultimately sells itself.

The world's longest pier as the path to the world's most famous ship.

What other tourist package can vie with that for a slogan?

For Southend, there would be one other benefit.

Anchored at the end of Southend Pier, QE2 would be a major attraction, but not necessarily the prime one.

In the year of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation (the woman, not the ship), Southend Pier attracted 5million visitors. The Cinderella pier could once again approach the levels of its heyday.

As the wider world heads for the QE2, it will also rediscover Southend Pier, and realise something even more extraordinary than the magnificent ship is sitting in the Thames Estuary.