Launched in 1935, she served on the company's route from London to India until 1940, when she was requisitioned for war service as a troop ship, and redesignated as SS Strathmore, until being returned to her owners in 1948.

Strathnaver was launched on 5 February 1931, completed in September 1931, and left Tilbury on her maiden voyage on 2 October 1931, with Strathaird following a few months later.

With gross register tonnage of 23,428 and a maximum speed of twenty knots, Strathmore was then the largest and fastest vessel ever built for P&O.

On her maiden voyage to Bombay in October and November 1935, Strathmore gained the Blue Riband for the route from the Mediterranean to India.

[9] Later in 1936 she took a British-American climbing expedition, including Bill Tilman, Noel Odell, and Charles Snead Houston, to India for the successful first ascent of Nanda Devi.

The cruise was diverted to Rabat and from there it was intended to proceed to Bermuda, but after only one day at sea there came a signal that war was imminent, and the ship returned to Tilbury, with a blackout being imposed after dark.

[14] In February 1947 she sailed from Southampton bound for Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, carrying some 2,000 people going to China, including missionaries, colonial police, business men, and their families, many returning home after being displaced by the war.

She later remembered that "When I was a few months old, Mary was picked to be my ayah from groups of servants lined up on the quayside in Bombay Harbour, waiting to be chosen by the hurrah sahibs and memsahibs as they disembarked from the S.S.