Clues in the Mauritania mystery

LOOKBACK is hoping that a Hesketh Bank history buff might be able to shed some light an event in the 1950s.
Pauline Trafford's father remembers seeing the Mauritania run into trouble and is keen to find out more.
She says: "It was around 1950, my Dad recollects he was about 12, when one morning on looking out of his bedroom window of McCloeds butchers, at the railway bridge in Hesketh Bank, a giant was in the fields over near the river. He said it looked like a huge hotel jutting out in to the sky.
"With the great excitement of a young boy he raced over the fields to have a look, it was a ship, a huge ship, it was also a huge stuck ship, grounded in the small, narrow River Douglas." 
The Mauritania was built by Camell Lairds in Birkenhead and was launched in 1938 as a successor to the RMS Mauretania.
During the war she was called into service as a troop carrier, ferrying soldiers across the globe and dodging U-boats.

Reports generally agree that the ship was scrapped in 1965 - but was refitted in Liverpool in the 1950s, which could explain why she was sailing the Fylde coast when Mr Trafford McCloed saw her.
Pauline adds: "The Mauritania, the story went, was being towed to the breakers yard, when they took a wrong turn up the Douglas and the large liner got stuck.
"My dad Peter Trafford McCloed is interested to know if anyone else has memories of this happening, or if there are any photos. What happened to the ship?"