March 20, 2009
Yesterday morning I was eating breakfast by myself in the hotel dining room, facing the mural shown in the upper photo. Above the union jacks on the lower right you might be able to see a ship with the name "Queen Mary." That got me wondering, "was the great ocean liner, the Queen Mary, built in Glasgow?" The answer is yes. My hotel is on the banks of the River Clyde, in an area that was formerly dedicated to shipbuilding. The keel of the Queen Mary was first laid down in 1931 but the worldwide great depression forced a suspension of construction until Cunard merged with the White Star Line in 1936. The ship was the height of elegance when it sailed out of the River Clyde. She then served her majesty's armed forces during World War II, returning to passenger service after the war. The personal connection is that my parents sailed on the Queen Mary a few months after their marriage in October of 1953. This was confirmed by my father today. He also said it was a typically rough (transatlantic?) crossing. The Queen Mary is now a tourist attraction in Long Beach California. However, the legend lives on in Glasgow. At the same time as the Queen Mary was launched (circa 1935) a restaurant named Rogano was established in the Art Deco style. It is the oldest surviving restaurant in Glasgow and to this day has its original furnishings, wall decorations, and "bar clock," as shown in the photo. Rogano proudly copied some of the designs from one of the bars on the Queen Mary. P.S. I have no idea who the guys are in the photo but the guy in the plaid shirt looks suitably Scottish.
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