LAST Tuesday’s story about the RMS Queen Mary making her first voyage down river from Clydebank prompted Greenock reader Jim Gormley to kindly supply me with the two photographs that appear today.

The pictures originally belonged to Jim’s grandfather George Gormley.

One is of the liner passing Greenock on Tuesday 24 March 1936.

Although it cannot be seen here, Jim has blown up the picture and the time on the Mid Kirk clock is exactly 2.00pm. It also appears that several people were standing on the church roof to get a view of the grand vessel.

The second is of the liner at John Brown’s yard at Clydebank, with smoke coming from her forward funnel.

Jim, 61, said: “I was brought up in the old Oakfield Terrace and developed an interest in ships when my father took me walks round the harbours.

“I also had an uncle who worked in the ‘Klondyke’ (the Greenock Dockyard Company) and can recall being in the yard for launches of Clan Line ships.” During the Second World War the Queen Mary and her sister ship Queen Elizabeth came back to the Clyde as troopships bringing American forces across the Atlantic.

On 31 October 1967, the Queen Mary left Southampton for the last time. She arrived at Long Beach, California on 9 December 1967, where she remains as a floating hotel/museum.