Graham Gowans : New Member

[Graham Gowans]

This may have been asked before, but can anyone confirm that the QE2 was meant to be named Queen Elizabeth Two & not the second as the Queen named her ?

I remember seeing John Rannie, Managing Director of John Brown Shipyard, on the long running STV news programme Here & Now being interviewed by Bill Tennant, which was aired during the build of the QE2. He was in a very jovial mood & his pride in the new Cunard liner was plain to see. His reply to the first question "How is the work progressing ?" of "Fair loupin`" set the tone for the rest of the interview. He was pressed on what name the new ship would have, but he said that he didn`t know. He continued to answer with witty replies but kept his best quip until the end. When asked "How many men work in the shipyard ?" he replied with a broad grin "About half of them !"

John`s party piece on launch days was if the ship being launched didn`t start to move after a few seconds of being struck by the champagne bottle he would step forward on the launch platform, place both hands on the bow of the ship & push thousands of tons of steel down the slipway. This resulted in great roars from the assembled workforce. A truly great man.

[June Ingram]

Hi Lynda - Thank you for the link to the turbine issues and the photo.

Hi Graham - Thank you for your post and accompanying information.  Do you have other recollections of what QE2 looked like as you wandered about at night ?

June   

[Graham Gowans]

Hi again June, The first impression was how huge the ship was. In its early stages of being built everything was a bit of a shambles onboard, mess everywhere.  Gradually things improved as work progressed. Getting the jobs completed was more important than how tidy the ship looked. Eventually cleaners were employed to keep the ship tidy in the latter stages. When they started fitting out the lounges there were soft seats which were very low slung. Once you sat in them you struggled to get back up again. When at sea they must have been a nightmare, especially if you had been drinking. Maybe that was a ploy to keep you there ! As things were getting nearer completion it was harder to get onboard at night. So our night time visits ceased. We had to made do with looking at the ship from ground level.

[cunardqueen]

Graham,
 I wonder given of what you hear about the ship building and fitting out process, were you ever aware of items that perhaps shouldnt have been removed from QE2.....

[Graham Gowans]

Hi Cunardqueen, It was a well known fact within the shipyard that most removable items had to be ordered in double quantities to offset things that went "missing". Anything that could be taken, was. It was a standing joke that most of the houses in Clydebank were decorated in battleship grey paint. In fact an old tv show, The McFlannels, even had a sketch dedicated to this. Workmates would tell of them screwing things to walls & coming back later & they had gone. A favourite story was two workmen carrying a length of pipe with blanked off ends onboard, fillings it with goodies & then walking back off with it saying that the pipe was the wrong length. The amount of men walking out the shipyard gates at night with stiff legs, due to copper pipe etc down their trouser legs had to be seen to be believed. As hundreds of men were leaving at the same time they just got into the middle of the crowd & off they went. I think most of them treated it as a perk of the job. I often wondered why my father had so many brass wood screws at home !