Dugald Mcmillan Duncan

  General Notes:

Extract from John Duncan's "We Are All Margaret Haldane's Bairns":

The Compiler's Father.
My father was born in 1891 and lived with his parents at 27 Richmond St. Glasgow. He was a quiet man and not one that communicated easily with his family. I suppose that this trait may be blamed upon the makeup of our family genes.

He was an electrician, whom I was advised: "entered the trade about 1904, when it was considered a profession for young gentlemen, and his parents had to pay his employer to teach him the trade."

My father also served as a steward for quite a few years on the Paddy Henderson Line of steamships which operated between Glasgow and Rangoon in Burma.

His youngest brother, Malcolm, also went to sea, as a boy of 15, as there was no other work, and served throughout World War One.

My father, like many others, was unemployed during the depression of the 1930's, and I believe that this forced idleness had a profound effect upon his personality.

Resumption of construction of the Cunard liner Queen Mary at the shipyard of John Browns at Clydebank, gave my father employment, and I presume, new hope for future employment and an improved life-style.

Later he worked at the shipyard of Alexander Stephen & Sons at Linthouse, Govan, Glasgow, where he "spoke for" me, enabling me to serve my apprenticeship as an electrician.

During the second World War he joined the Home Guard ["Dad's Army"], and attended parades after work, which then consisted of a 48 hour week, extended by extensive overtime.

He was working upon the repair of a 10,000 ton cruiser, H.M.S. Sussex, and was detailed on one Saturday, to work night-shift, but instead he decided to do as Glasgow workmen are famed for, and clocked on instead at the local pub.

That night the Sussex was set on fire and sunk in the Clyde by a German bomb.

The initial repairs to this ship involved a turbine reblade which was expected to take six weeks, but it was finished four days ahead of time, and the crew had been recalled to join the ship at midnight on 17th September c1940.

At 2.40 a.m. the following day a German bomber arrived over the harbour and dropped a 250-lb bomb, which crashed through the deck of the Sussex, setting fire to the oil-fuel and threatening the magazine. Immediately the thickly populated area around Yorkhill Quay, where the ship was berthed, was in grave danger..

Over 2,000 people, who were asleep at the time, were hurriedly evacuated to parks and later to rest centres. Plans were ready to remove hundreds of young patients from a nearby children's hospital, but these were not carried out in full.

All the time firemen, from ferry-boats, fought a grim battle against the fierce flames. Gradually they won, but twelve hours elapsed before the danger was over.

Going through the deck, the bomb penetrated into the starboard engine-room aft and killed several of the crew. Immediate action was taken by the crew, but when the City firemen arrived they found the ship belching huge black clouds of smoke. The first objective was to flood the magazine for, had the cruiser exploded, the consequences would have been terrible.

Afterwards, torpedoes, which had come loose, were found floating in the Yorkhill basin. The ship was taken to Govan dry dock, and the repairs, which involved almost complete rebuilding from the forward boiler-room aft, took two years.

Later, I accompanied my father on to the ship, to recover his tools, and observed that where he should have been working that night, was in the area on which the bomb had fallen. Workers were reimbursed for their "lost" tool-boxes and had to submit a list of tools lost. And it was interesting to note, how many electricians had carried micrometers, and other expensive items in their tool-boxes! My father gave me the job of cleaning the rust from his tools - but I was not imbursed for my labour.

Dugald married Annie Moore, daughter of John Moore and Catherine Duffy, on 30 Apr 1912. (Annie Moore was born on 5 Apr 1891 in 21 Commercial Road, Glasgow, Lanark, Sct.)