IT can take a while to get things moving. This is the world-famous Queen Elizabeth 2, known by everyone simply as QE2, sailing past Dumbarton Rock in November 1968, when she left the fitting out basin at John Brown’s shipyard at Clydebank en route to the dry-dock at Greenock for some final work.
She had actually been launched a year earlier by the Queen but there was a lot more work to be done after that before she sailed.
The Herald’s great writer Willie Hunter observed: “Six minutes after she left, a squadron of seagulls was on station rounding the stern with perfect timing as if they had been assigned to her.”
Prince Charles was on board for the short voyage and The Herald recorded that, although he had breakfast on the QE2, he declined the porridge and had sausage, bacon and egg instead. I really dislike that celebrity reporting in the sixties. Thank goodness it never caught on.
Some 50,000 sightseers turned up to see her guided down the Clyde by tugs, and Dumbarton Rock was regarded as the best vantage point with schoolchildren taken there to see the great ship.
The QE2 was operated by Cunard until 2008, and is now docked in Dubai.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel