Sunset Over Dumbarton

By M.R. Howes

Glasgow,1920s, construction on a new ship begins and at the same time a baby is born. Alec refuses to follow his Father into the shipyard but finds that his life, and the ship are intertwined together in ways he cannot begin to imagine as he charts a course through war and peace.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M.R. Howes
• Release date: May 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005431167

Book preview

Chapter One

The golden orb of the sun created a glittering pathway on the surface of the sea and although the day was just beginning the sun was fierce in its intensity and power. The beach banked gently away from the warm waters of the Arabian Sea its red sands blighted by oil, shards of metal and other industrial detritus. Lined up along the beach were the rusting hulks of various ships, each one in various stages of dismemberment, forlorn and disgraced each one unwanted apart from its raw material, the steel, the very substance of the creature. The captain cut the engines to a mere hum, a fraction of their power just enough to drift toward the beach at an oblique angle. The captain had a stern serious look as he lifted off his peaked cap and turned to a colleague.

That’s it then, her last voyage.

Its a sad end to a beautiful ship.

You can’t save everything.

Well they could have turned it into a museum or floating hotel.

Minds greater than ours make these decisions. We are just the delivery men.

Delivery men or executioners?

Do you think there’s a ship heaven?

If there is this is a long way from it.

All I’m saying is I wish we could give her a better send off than this.

I’m with you, but as I said minds greater than ours make these decisions.

You are not wrong there.

Here we go then.

There was a massive juddering thump and the bridge shook like an earthquake, the captain had cut the engines completely now and there was a horrendous grating scraping noise as the ship beached on the sands. No sooner than the ship had beached a gang of men hauled a long and spindly ladder against the forward deck of the ship. The two remaining crew members shinned down the metal ladders to the forward deck and then began to climb down the ladder. The deck was a dizzying height above the sands. Already waiting were a seething mass of men, some with gas blowtorches and others with hammers and chisels. The captain walked over to a smart suited man with a large moustache. The captain pulled out a small bundle of stapled papers and the official carelessly scribbled his signature on each page barely looking at the text printed there. After this had been done the official raised his hand above his head in a swirling arc. That was the signal they needed. Similar ladders began to be angled against various parts of the ship like some invading army besieging at castle. Although the whole scene looked chaotic and disorganised each man knew exactly what he was supposed to do and set to work dismantling various parts of the ship. Growing piles of fixtures, fittings, bars balcony rails and sheets of steel began to accumulate within minutes.

Ship breaking was dangerous work but it paid reasonably well and more importantly there were a huge number of jobs available to those without education. PK’s parents could only afford to send one of their sons to school and so PK’s brother got an education and PK was condemned to a succession of menial jobs. Shipbreaking had its benefits. PK enjoyed working outdoors particularly at the yard because there was a continuous breeze from the sea which was a welcome contrast to the stifling heat of the city. From the deck of the ship the view was marvellous. Looking inland you could see the city stretching out before you and the extra height afforded by the tall ships gave you a clearer picture of the endless ocean stretching further than the eye could see. Many of the ships being broken up were cargo ships or oil tankers but appreciated the style and grandeur he could detect on the passenger ships and liners that would occasionally be scrapped. They hinted at a faded era of opulence when seaborne travel was a luxurious enterprise. PK also appreciated the array of interesting objects that were often still to be found on the ships. Although many had been stripped, there were still inevitably interesting objects still around either that had not been noticed or were too complicated to remove.

PK noticed as soon as he entered the large compartment that had formerly been a lounge. All the carpets, chairs and tables had been removed but there was still a shining chrome rail running around the entire room and pieces of veneer highly polished and shining in a decorative pattern on the floor. At one end of the room there was a large bronze clock with a pleasing sunburst surround and large black roman numerals. It had two bronzed hands which were curved to follow the bowl shape glass cover of the clock. PK leant a ladder against the clock and levered it from behind and with a hard tug he worked it loose in a shower of dust. Having pulled the clock down he stood it facing the wall of the room carefully and gently so as not to scratch the glass. He would retrieve it at the end of his shift.

PK’s apartment was a square concrete box part of a complex with several others. The stairs up to his home were bare, shiny concrete but as he opened his front door it felt much more homely and personal.

Look what I got!

PK removed the large clock from under his long gown. He hammered a nail into the centre of the wall of his apartment and then carefully hung the clock. The clock looked big enough in the large room of the ship but in the small apartment it looked absolutely enormous and completely dominated the room.

Look what I got! PK repeated.

Did you steal it?

No I asked for it to be deducted from my wages.

That means less money for food this month.

I know, but its a thing of beauty, just look at it. How could you not want to keep something like that?

Chapter Two: Govan, Glasgow, 1982

A withered and wearied white haired man glanced out of his window on the tenth floor of a grey boxy tower block. The rain was sheeting down now, being buffeted into great wet curtains by the gusting of the wind. The River Clyde flowed ever onwards beneath him, quietly drifting away under bridges past parks, tenements and city streets. Then he saw the great brick bastions of industry, the vanguards of a day of industrial might and favour. Now these grand and spacious pavilions lay open to the elements, their smashed and broken roofs now merely flaking white frames. Now rosebay willow herb and buddleia in all its purple glory pushed up through cracked concrete. What unfettered confidence had bequeathed these edifices to the city of Glasgow, built with such monumental grandeur and finery that surely they were intended to last for countless generations like the pillars and palaces of ancient Rome. Neither was such an expectation entirely misplaced when Britain was at her Zenith with 40% of the World’s ships being built at British shipyards and a large proportion of these ships slipping into the murky waters of the Clyde. Now the clatter of hammer on steel and rivets was all but gone. What would they say now? Those Denizens of industrial might those confident upright dreamers those creators of gleaming white cathedrals of the waters looming up between tenement blocks dominating the city like a great monster taking shape piece by piece. What would they say now?

With agonising slowness Alec inched back to the worn out armchair and slumped back into his cosy cocoon. As he skipped along the border of consciousness he felt sadness about the loss of much of the life and city he had known, sadness at the vandals constantly ransacking the building and breaking the lifts, sad that they were growing up in world seemingly without a hope or a future. Alex was also grateful for the span of life he had been granted, for all the things he had seen and experienced. Yes it had been hard at times, there were times when he wondered if he would see the day out, but it was in those times of uncertainty and danger that Alec felt most fully, deeply, alive. He decided he wouldn’t change it for the world. If he was offered the chance to have his life again, to start now as a young man he wouldn’t take it because it was impossible to imagine a life fuller, more varied and more interesting than the one that he had lived. Now the years had cast their weary spell and youthful energies dissipated like melting snow. Alec drifted off in to a deep and pleasant sleep.

Chapter Three: Govan, Glasgow, 1922

The Offices of Bowan’s shipyard in Govan, Glasgow had been built in opulent Edwardian style with a deep red terracotta moulding on the elaborate facade and large stained glass windows depicting shipbuilding throughout the ages. One of these windows depicted a blonde haired carpenter shaving off curls of wood for the prow of a sailing ship. The drawing office at Bowan’s was the largest room in the office building with a large barrel shaped white ceiling soaring above. The room was light and airy and rare winter sunlight filtered in through the large windows bathing the room in coloured light. A whole series of high mahogany sloping desks were distributed in rows on the bare wooden floor. There was no talking allowed in the drawing office other than that necessary for the design of ships, no small talk or gossip. The only sounds that could be heard were the scratching of pencils and the sharpening of these drawing instruments with sharp knives. The distant clang of metal being worked and beaten could occasionally be heard. At each desk draftsmen stood or sat on a stool pored over the large plans before them, eagle eyes studiously focused on every detail, every calculation which needed to be made. Around the offices were also wooden models of ships built at the yard, correct in every detail and perfectly in scale. A large man with billowing white hair, huge tangled white beard and dark eyebrows appeared from the half glazed door of the chairman’s office. He sidled over to another much younger man with a large black moustache and black thinning hair. The older man spoke almost as an aside, not with the demanding harrying tone that many bosses adopt. These were not men to be ordered around or dictated to but experts of great knowledge and experience without whom the new ship could not be built. His words were few.

How is the progress on the plans for hull 562 Mr Brown?

I think we are ready to begin building Mr McClusky.

The older man simply nodded as if he had merely heard some snippet of information, the time of day or the weather but despite this everyone around understood the significance of this moment.

Chapter Four

Surrounded by sturdy sandstone tenements of several stories with their wide bay windows stacked in a tower, Hampden Park seemed strangely obscured for such a massive football ground. From