ON the morning of Tuesday, April 3, 1934, the Glasgow Herald declared that it would be the most eventful day at the Clydebank yard of John Brown’s since December of 1931. That, of course, was when work had been suspended on the Cunarder No.534 - the Queen Mary, as it would be christened. “To-day,”the paper reported, “will see the end of all the rumours and counter-rumours that have punctuated the two years and three months of aimless idleness for so many thousand Clydeside craftsmen.” That day saw the first batch of 350 men returning to work on the 73,000-ton liner; by the end of the month it was expected that at least 1,000 men would be engaged on the task. Work had been suspended on the project because of the Great Depression. According to the Queen Mary website, the hull plating was 80% complete and the ship stood nine stories high. The liner was finally launched on September 26, 1934, by Queen Mary herself. “In exactly 54 seconds,” this paper reported the following day, “the greatest weight ever set in motion by human command was safely transferred from solid ground to the less stable element.” To the Herald, No 534 was no less than a “moving masterpiece in steel.”
In October 1967 the venerable ship made its final voyage, to Long Beach, California. Today the liner thrives in its stately retirement as a major hotel and tourist attraction.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here