THE KING AND THE LAST RIVET


The process of hand riveting employed a squad of four. A left hand riveter, a right hand riveter, a ‘holder- on’, who had the job of keeping the rivet rammed home with a heavy hammer while it was being ‘worked’ and a ‘boy’, usually the oldest in the squad, who’s job it was to keep a steady supply of white hot rivets.

Willie, John, Joe and Jimmy Mckendrick, a riveting squad of brothers, John Browns shipyard. High tide, the optimum time to launch a ship. Clydeside 26th September 1934, time 3.30 pm...the heavens opened, rain fell in torrents.

The wife of the then British monarch, Queen Mary and the assembled dignitaries climbed the launching platform to name and bless 40,000 tons of steel. A ship needs to be blessed before she slips gracefully into the river of her birth.

Far below, beneath the massive hull, Jock Cowan the carpenters gaffer supervised the final preparations. Removal of the last props that would bring the huge bulk to rest on her launch ways...Launch triggers took the strain. 2,350 tons of drag chains lashed to her body would halt her short journey and 200,000 had assembled to witness and cheer the event.

Launching a ship is a dangerous business. As the last support props fell the carpenters squads made a hasty retreat. Alone, the last man to leave...Cowan, he must see the triggers fall before he makes his escape.

Waiting patiently beneath the aft end of the ship, Cowan took his red Paisley pattern hankie from his pocket to clear his nostrils. A pound note he had been hiding there from the wife fl uttered to the ground. Bending to retrieve it, his eye caught a sight of a shipbuilders nightmare.....a missing rivet. A rivetless hole beneath the keel that would bring disaster to the launch.

Cowan shouted to his nearby second in command...Big John Rannie, ( a boy at the time, he would become one day the managing director of the shipyard on account of his memory for detail )

“John get your arse up to Connollys Bar and get the McKendricks, there’s a rivet missing between frames 345 and 346 aft of the bilge keel on plate strake 53 beneath the engine room floor in the main bilge tank , which, by the way, has a capacity tae hold 10,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil weighing approximately 4 tons and by my calculations the water intake would cause a list of 35 degrees leading to catastrophic keel over spoiling the day for the royal party and the 200,000 crowd who have come to cheer!”

The inclement weather had forced the McKendricks to seek refuge in Connollys Bar. Each clenched a McCallum. A whiskey famed for its ability to ward of dampness. like a speeding train Rannie burst into Connollys... eyes like polished buff ers, “quick lads, there’s a rivet missing between frames 345 and 346 aft of the bilge keel on plate strake 53 beneath the engine room floor in the main bilge tank , which, by the way, has a capacity tae hold 10,000 gallons of heavy fuel oil weighing approximately 4 tons and according to Jock Cowans calculations the water intake would cause a list of 35 degrees leading to catastrophic keel over spoiling the day for the royal party and the
200,000 crowd who have come to cheer!” he puffed.

Willie, his damp gaze fixed on the McCallum glow spoke, “Right lads this is a job for the McKendricks... put they drams behind the bar, we ‘ll be back in ten minutes.” Speeding by the main gate they ran through the East Yard platers
shed. John grabbed two rivet hammers, Jimmy a 20 lb hodderons hammer and a 1 3/8 inch Whitworth spanner. Willie grabbed a rivet furnace that was being used to brew tea, threw away all the tea cans bar one, and slung it on his back..Joe flung half a dozen rivets into the furnace and keeping pace pumped the furnace bellows furiously.

By the time they reached the end of the shed such was the heat that Willies jacket and bunnet burst into fl ames. Had it not been for the torrents of rain he would have surely burnt to death for this happened no less than three time as they struggle through the massed crowd to the aft end.

“Thank the Lord yeve arrived lads...there she is”, exclaimed Cowan, pointing to the rivet hole. “Leave it with us said John”, heroically sweeping Cowan aside. “Jimmy your the best climber, get yer butt up that drag chain hawser tae the main deck, take that tea can, that 1 3/8 Whitworth spanner and that 20 lb holder ons hammer” Jimmy grabbed the tools, took three woodbines from his top pocket stubbed them into his mouth, plunged his face into the furnace to light them, and was off .

Jimmy aquired his climbing skill through being a resident at 26 Graham Street Clydebank. He did not have a good relationship with the wife on account that he was very friendly with a woman who lived at number 28 and developed his climbing ability through always getting locked oot and having to scale the drain pipe to get into his hoose on the fourth floor of the tenement.


The air crackled with the sound of a damply connected microphone....freeeee, crackle weeeee, dump, dump, a barely audible English voice hissed through the rain...”Is it switched on?”..and returned in a Clydeside tone, “aye mam it is” ...”do you want me to do it now? ...”aye mam, in your own time”....weeee
crackle...weeeehhhhe. “George what are you doing” ...hiss weee“get your erse over here and stand beside me” weeee hisses wee...”yes dear” ...weee weee.

In the time it took jimmy to reach the main deck the rivets were white hot. Willie, completely extinguished, emerged for a cloud of steam clutching rivet tongs, grabbed a rivet from the furnace, drew it back and with a mighty heave slung it skywards. From the launch ways to the main deck ... 140 feet. Jimmy saw the missile streak past and ricochet of the underside of a Derrick crane 60 feet above .

Flying earthwards like a speeding bullet Jimmy caught it in the tea can.With only the dull red glow from his woodbines to guide him Jimmy plunged into the darkness of the cavernous shell and made his decent of the engine room stairwell. H deck the first to echo with the clatter of his thrashing boots, G deck quick to follow, then F, E and D. At C he paused for a woodbine puff
before crashing on, B deck passed in a fl ash A deck appeared before him. Scuttling aft he arrived at the engine room watertight doors. ...unlocked the 12 locking cleats revealing the vast cavern that would be home to the 34,000 HP engines.

He quickly descended an engine room ladder to the tank top. Taking the 1 3/8 Whitworth spanner from his back pocket he undid the 12 bolts and lifted the lid off the tank manhole, dreeped into the tank, emptied the rivet from the can and rattled it into the hole...white hot it sparked brightly against the deep red of the newly painted hull...”hold you a moment” said john. “Steady lads” give her a few second...we don’t want to spoil this launch for the 200,000 who have came to cheer....and in that instant hiisss whee hiss....”I name this ship Queen Mary, I wish success to her and all who sail in her”...whee hiss whee...”stop fidgeting George” whee hisss wheeee.

Now a launch is an extraordinary thing ...a ship named becomes an entity...no longer a spiritless steel shell. The sharp crack of a bottle of rainbow ribboned champagne against steel is met with a muted cheer which masks the dull metallic clunk of triggers falling, then nothing.

In an eerie rain splattered silence ... hollow spits drummed 50,000 umbrellas. 200,000 pairs of eyes, unblinking, gazed on the mountain of steel. Seconds like minutes passed, and then ..the pain of launch ways bearing this gigantic birth groan. Tallow on greased slipways melts under pressure....in a barely perceived moment she moves, 1 inch....and in that moment is born!


As the cheers rose she set upon her first journey...far below the McKendricks hammers in hand set about sealing the great ships vitals....8 hammer blows aside ..16 blows to hammer a rivet home... bang, crack, smack, bang, thump, crack...... A moving mountain, into the river of her birth the gracefully lady
sped. Pitch pine, hewn from the forests of Canada nursed her on her journey ...a short but awesome spectacle, she plunged into the river of her birth...her travel slowly halted by weighty chains, thousands of tons of shackled steel dragged in a tethered cloud of growling rust.

In mid river herding tugs ....gently nudged her hull, tethered and guided her to the safety of the dock. Her home for the next year where she would be finished, resplendent in sumptuous glory.

Queen Mary, wife of the reigning monarch, was not the ‘happiest of women’, greeting faced in Clydeside parlance, but her man George had always considered himself one of the lads. On hearing how this squad of heroic Clydesiders had saved the day he had requested an audience. John, the assumed squad leader, reluctantly consented, being impressed by nothing in life bar his own presence.

In a luxuriously furnished oak panelled room adjacent to the launch party lunch, the hero’s assembled. Riveting is a dirty rust tarnished business. Sharp steel edges shred working clothes; tramps struck by lightning a fitting and often used description. Enter the King, resplendent in a 25 guinea Saville Row suit.

An assembly of stark contrast not often seen in British society. John related the saga, blow by blow to the admiring monarch ending the story with words that were to become legendary on Clydeside.....”I’ll tell you this your highness, and I will tell you no more...."we were up to our necks in watter before we got that rivet hammered home.”

Of the five remaining rivets...the McKendrick’s took one each. John presented the king, to his delight with the 5th . The monarch, in memory of the occasion had it plated in gold and used it as a paperweight in memory of a grand day out, for while the launch celebration of dignitaries was in process, accompanied by the king they had all sneaked out for a sing song and a pint and a half in Connolly’s bar.

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