To mark the 40th anniversary of the return of the ss Great Britain to Bristol, the visitor attraction is appealing for your memories of the landmark occasion in 1970. David Clensy talks to former TV producer Ray Sutcliffe who travelled with the ship on her incredible final journey home,

As he looks out at the enchanting aquiline bow of the ss Great Britain, Ray Sutcliffe chuckles to himself.

"You know, there were some people in Bristol who didn't want this 'great big hulk of iron' being dragged into their city back in 1970 – she looked considerably less beautiful in those days.

"But those of us who had got to know her, knew just how important she was."

It's hard to imagine it now, seeing her standing in all her glory on the side of the Floating Harbour, but back in 1969, the vessel that changed the way ships would be built forever, was a scuppered wreck – a rusting lump of iron being rapidly beaten out of existence against the rocks of Sparrow Cove in the Falkland Islands.

When BBC television producer Ray first saw the once-great ship, he thought the idea of bringing her home – which had been first mooted in 1967 – was a virtual impossibility.

Over the following year Ray chronicled the ambitious project in a landmark documentary, The Great Iron Ship, which first brought the plight of Brunel's revolutionary ship to the British public.

The ss Great Britain Trust, which finally relaunched the ship as a landmark visitor attraction in 2005, is preparing to mark the 40th anniversary of her epic homecoming next year. They intend to create a new exhibition at the Great Western Dockyard entitled The Incredible Journey, which will explain the major feat that was undertaken in bringing the ship back across the Atlantic in 1970.

But in order to do it they need your help. The trust today launches an ambitious oral history project, costing £90,000, with the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The project aims to gather together a vast archive of peoples' memories of the ship's emotional return to Bristol. The trust wants to hear from everyone from the Falkland Islanders who witnessed the ship's dramatic refloating to the Bristol tug boat crews who had the unenviable job of bringing her back up the Avon.

Over the next few months volunteers will distribute postcards and "memory collection" boxes, so everyone can contribute their own memories of the special occasion.

The best 40 memories will be recorded in filmed interviews, which will take a starring role in next year's exhibition.

It is hoped the final collection of memories will include the recollections of everyone from Lord Strathcona, the Trust's vice president, who stood with Prince Philip on what remained of the weather deck as the ship was eased in to her dry dock, to the normal Bristolians who came out on July 19, 1970, to see the ship sail for the first and only time beneath Brunel's other great masterpiece, the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

As well as marking the 39th anniversary of that day, this Sunday is also the 166th anniversary of her launch, when Prince Albert named Brunel's revolutionary ship in the very dock that has become her permanent home for the last 39 years.

One of the most compelling oral histories is likely to come from Ray Sutcliffe. The 69-year-old looks back on the resurrection of the ship as if it was a great Boy's Own-style adventure.

Ray was a fresh-faced 30-year-old TV producer in 1969, working for the fledgling BBC Two. Two years previously Ewan Corlett had brought the ship's plight to light in a letter to The Times.

The world's first luxury liner, her revolutionary iron structure had made her the fastest thing on the high seas, and she was looked upon as the Concorde of her day.

But she had been scuppered off the Falklands by the Royal Navy in 1937 after an undignified period of almost 60 years when she was used as a floating warehouse for wool traders.

By 1969, there was very little left of her, and Ray explains, she had just months before she would have broken up altogether.

With David Attenborough at the helm of the new TV channel, there was a great impetus for an increase in documentary output, and Ray was sent to the Falklands to see what the fuss was about.

"It was quite a challenge," he recalls. "Nobody had ever heard of the Falklands in those days, and there was just one ship every month linking the islands to the South American mainland.

"So when I arrived in 1969, I knew I'd have to spend at least a month there. When I first sailed around the bay and saw just how poor the Great Britain's condition was, I thought, there's no way they can bring her home, and there's certainly no way this will make a documentary."

But Ray was soon proven wrong.

"Everything happened remarkably quickly," he says. "The team that instigated the campaign to refloat her and bring her home were working against the clock, for fear she would disappear altogether.

"I went back to the Falklands the following year to watch her being refloated, and that was an amazing moment," Ray says. "She had been strapped up the night before she was due to be raised, but 10 hours before she was to be lifted, incredibly she refloated all by herself – it was as if she wanted to come home.

"She was lifted on to the world's biggest floating pontoon, in what was an incredible operation to witness.

"Afterwards I travelled with her, onboard the tug boat, as she started her 8,000 mile journey home. I stayed with her as far as Montevideo, from where I jumped on an aeroplane back to the UK.

"I had to get home and edit the documentary in time for it to be shown on the television as she arrived back into Bristol."

But first she had to have her hull patched up by dock workers at Avonmouth, so she could re-enter the Avon floating for herself – the pontoon was too large to enter the river.

"It was an incredibly moving moment to see her being towed back beneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge – which hadn't even been built when she last sailed down the River Avon after her launch.

"Then I witnessed her being skilfully reversed back into the dock that had been built to launch her all those years ago. I can remember thinking that Brunel could never have imagined she'd come back to the exact place where she was born after so many years."

Interviews:

Lord Starthcona, vice president of the ss Great Britain Trust

Liz MacKenzie, trustee of the ss Great Britain Trust

● To contribute to the oral history project, fill in a memory card and drop it in to one of the special collection boxes dotted around the city – there's one in the reception of the Bristol Evening Post building in Temple Way.