IT is Tuesday, November 19, 1968, and commuters on the 9am London-bound flight from Glasgow airport have an eagle’s-eye view of a stately liner as she lies in the fitting-out basin of the John Brown yard in Clydebank. The QE2 is poised to make her first voyage -- the 13 miles to Inchgreen dockyard, Greenock.
On board the Cunarder is Prince Charles, who had celebrated his 20th birthday just the previous week. He had arrived at Brown’s at 8am, having reached Glasgow on the overnight train from London. He was accompanied into the yard by John Rannie, of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. Near the gangway, he went over to a group of workers. “I had called out, ‘Good luck, Charles’, and the prince suddenly stopped opposite me”, said one of them, Thomas Crawford.
Moments later, workers laughed as Mr Rannie handed the prince a pass to get on board the QE2, saying that he would have to show it to the guards at the foot of the gangway. A worker, George Stewart, said to Charles, “Surely you don’t need a pass to get on the ship?”
“I will give it to you and you can come aboard with me”, laughed Charles. “I’ll come with you all right”, replied George.
After a breakfast on board, in the grillroom -- milk and orange juice, sausage, bacon and egg, and coffee (no porridge, thanks) -- Charles went onto the bridge, alongside Captain Bill Warwick, master of the QE2, a bowler-hatted Mr Rannie and Sir Basil Smallpeice, chairman of Cunard.
At 9.06am the liner began to slip her moorings, surrounded by tugs. “Many hardened shipyard workers”, the Evening Times reported, “had tears in their eyes as they watched the ship they have toiled on for more than two years ease gently into the river to be met with her first escort of seagulls”.
The successful voyage was watched by large and enthusiastic crowds on the riverbanks. The build-up of traffic had begun before dawn. Many of the onlookers had driven up from England; one car-load of passengers from Rochdale arrived in the Erskine Hospital grounds at Erskine Ferry at 7.30am.
At 3.10pm, at Greenock, Prince Charles left the QE2 and chatted with officials, and “seemed to blush” at the sight of the crowds awaiting him. “Hey Charlie!”, someone shouted from the upper decks. The Prince looked up and smiled.
In March 1971 Charles was the guest of honour at Murrayfield, where, accompanied by Prime Minister Ted Heath, he shook hands with the Scotland and England rugby teams before a special match marking the centenary of the first international between the two countries; here, Scotland captain Peter Brown introduces him to Scottish players. Scotland had beaten England at England the previous weekend, for the first time since 1938; now, Charles watched the Scots win, by 26 points to six.
Read more: Herald Diary
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