QUEEN OF THE CLYDE

There were sighs of relief all round, for the biggest miracle wasn't that this mighty queen of the North Atlantic managed to squeeze into the tight fit of the river, it was that she was built at all.

September 26 was a miserably wet day in 1934 at John Brown shipyard but it didn't stop 250,000 people, clad in overcoats and huddling under black umbrellas, turning out to see the launch of ship number 534, soon to be named RMS Queen Mary.

"It was such an epic contract for such a magnificent ship," explains Ian Johnston, historian and author of several books on the Clyde's shipbuilding heritage.

"The Depression of the 1920s had brought a number of companies to their knees.

"John Brown specialised in prestigious liners and had a close relationship with Cunard. So Cunard looked to John Brown when it wanted to build two very large ships (Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth) for the North Atlantic service."

By 1926 there were more firm ideas about the first of those ships - it had to be big and it had to be fast.

The men, some of the top talent in the industry, had started work on what was to become the Queen Mary but first the job had to go out to tender.

All the leading yards in the country pitched for the work but it was a foregone conclusion it would stay on the Clyde. With the order placed in December 1930, work started immediately, a blessing to thousands of local families. In its heyday, during the years of the First World War, John Brown employed about 11,000 men.

When it came to the time of the Queen things were so bad that they were down to about 3000 men.

Cunard had thrown the town a lifeline but it didn't stay afloat for long.

Within a year, as the ship started to take shape, Cunard said work would have to stop because they couldn't raise the money to make the payments. The Wall Street Crash meant interest rates had gone through the roof and work on ship number 534 was suspended.

"They had to post notices on the gates of the shipyard to say that as of this morning work on this ship would be stopped and everybody was laid off," says Ian.

"The Queen Mary had become emblematic of the condition the United Kingdom was in - there was unemployment everywhere.

"These were terrible times and this ship represented the tragedy that had happened across the country."

Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald refused to put any money into the ship and it lay at Clydebank for two years before a deal was brokered between the government and the newly named Cunard White Star Line as work resumed in April 1934. On the day work restarted a local pipe band piped the men through the main gate at John Brown's.

Opulent luxury was the order of the day and accommodating 776 in cabin class, 784 in tourist class and 579 in third class, the fabulous Art Deco surroundings of the Queen Mary were in no doubt.

There were swimming pools, ballrooms, restaurants and bars as well as grand salons, elegant sweeping staircases and sumptuous state rooms.

The passenger list read more like a who's who of the silver screen, from Bob Hope and Fred Astaire to Bing Crosby and Audrey Hepburn. Elizabeth Taylor often travelled with her two poodles, and Clark Gable delayed departure in 1948 as he was busy saying goodbye to his girlfriend.

During the Second World War, Winston Churchill sailed three times on the ship and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Edward VII and Wallis Simpson, called it "their ship" and always booked suite M58.

When World War Two dawned the Queen Mary was requisitioned as a troop ship.

Her three red funnels and the rest of the superstructure were painted grey, only restored to their former glory after the war ended.

Today the ship sits permanently at Long Island, California and guests can stay on board though they don't move from the quayside.

l A Shipyard at War: Unseen Photographs from John Brown's, Clydebank by Ian Johnston (Seaforth Publishing) and Ships for a Nation: the History of John Brown & Co by Ian Johnston (West Dunbartonshire Libraries & Museums).