written by Jack Webster
January, 2000

For all the ambitious thoughts of being in places like Bethlehem or Times Square, New York, most of us reached 2000 in the place we know best - the warmth of our own family circles. Throughout 1999 it gradually dawned on us that all the exotic offers of millennial magic would merely remove us from familiar scenes and that, if ever there was a time to be within reach of home, this was it.

It was a universal thought. In the dying hours I had lunch in Glasgow with my old friend John Ferguson, the Hollywood screen writer who was determined to fly back from America to be close to his beloved Govan, where he was born in 1924.

So we reached the witching hour and viewed the celebrations from our window on the world, standing up at the first authoritative chime of Big Ben, the only clock I can ever trust implicitly.

But through all the jollifications, there was one piece of news beyond all else which sent my heart leaping. At long last there was justice for John Brown, that grand old gentleman of shipbuilding who became a knight at the age of 98.

It is an honour I have been advocating for years, though I had practically resigned myself to disappointment. Some time ago his case was forcibly presented to a previous Secretary of State for Scotland, who had it in his power to act.

Perhaps he thought it was all too late. But is it ever too late to put right an injustice? Are our politicians of such limited calibre that they cannot swallow party pride and make up for an oversight of the past?

Thankfully Donald Dewar has shown that kind of courage and, whatever the criticism over the Sean Connery case, he has more than made good with the recognition of John Brown.

For here is the man whose designing hand touched some of the finest ships ever to leave the Clyde, spanning 40 years from the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth to the Royal Yacht Britannia and the QE2.

The coincidence of his name caused confusion. He was not the John Brown whose company owned the famous shipyard at Clydebank. Then again, that particular John Brown never saw Clydebank in his life. He was a Sheffield steel-maker whose company happened to buy the yard, but only after the chairman had gone.

By a wonderful stroke of fate, Glasgow produced its own John Brown who would make his mark on the company as well as on the reputation of Clyde shipbuilding.

He was just a clever lad who was brought up at 364 Clarkston Road and went from Hutchesons' Grammer School to combine an apprenticeship at Clydebank with a degree at Glasgow University, where he graduated with distinction in naval architecture in 1923.

His big break came as early as 1926 when, at the age of 25, he was asked to sit down in secret and begin the first drawings of the biggest luxury liner the world had ever seen. Little did he know that he was helping to create not only the great Queen Mary but the whole legend of those Queens of Cunard.

Under the guidance of his mentor, the distinguished Sir James McNeill, he was soon heading the design team at Clydebank, which would follow up with the Elizabeth and later the QE2, an order secured under the stiffest competition.

On his way to the top, John Brown had been managing director and deputy chairman of the company and he did receive an honorary doctorate from Glasgow University before retiring in 1967.

But he was then allowed to slip into obscurity without any recognition from his country, whereas his two predecessors, Thomas Bell and James McNeill, had both very correctly received knighthoods.

This omission astounded me when I met him more than 20 years later and decided to make a television film about him. By the 1960s, of course, shipbuilding was in decline and such an honour may not have suited Harold Wilson's government.

In 1993 I had the pleasure of writing and producing that film about John Brown and observing, at Long Beach, California, the wistful look of a wonderful old gentleman as he set eyes once more on the great Queen Mary, now a hotel and tourist attraction.

Last autumn I asked him that awkward question which troubled me: "John, did you ever turn down an honour from your country?" He smiled bashfully and said: "No, I was never offered one."

Well, the gods have come good. That film was entitled 'John Brown: The Man Who Drew a Legend'.

That legend was meant to be the Queen Mary but now it embraces the man himself.

Come May 6, he will enter his 100th year, still as sharp of mind as ever, modest and courteous in the manner of a bygone age. What a glorious way to reach for the centenary of a life so well spent. In this milestone year, better late than never - arise Sir John!