Ships search for missing man

British warships and planes were combing the Mediterranean in September 1951 for converted mine sweeper `Highland Lassie’, which had mysteriously vanished with its owner, a former Stirling district man, on board.

Captain Drew McQueen

(55) was on the 95-ton vessel with his 24-year-old son

Drew, ship’s mate Bill Lacey of Fareham and a crew of seven recruited from the African coast.

The Observer told how the vessel left Tangier on a trading trip and called at

Malta on August 27 to re-fuel. Capt McQueen advised he was travelling on to Taranto, Southern Italy, two days away, but neither he nor the Highland Lassie arrived.

Nothing had been seen or heard from the boat since then.

Capt McQueen had left behind in Tangier his wife, seven-year-old daughter Jeanette, his son’s wife Bunty and her son, and it was they who raised the alarm.

The Observer could see no reason for the ship’s disappearance as the Mediterranean had been `moderate’ since the Highland Lassie left Malta.

It added, however: `Anxiety has been increased by a story that the vessel was almost sunk in Tangier harbour a few weeks ago. After she had been left unattended for a while, ship’s mate Bill Lacey on the quay saw her settling in the water. It was found someone had opened the stop cocks fitted during the war for emergency scuttling.’

Capt McQueen, the son of a gamekeeper on the Touch

Estate, had been a well-known speedway rider.

He had been the idol of speedway fans at the track at Marine Garden, Portobello, where he regularly raced in the 1920s.

He was also a motor cycle trials rider and is believed to have been the first man to a have ridden over the top of Ben Nevis in a two-stroke machine.

After a spell in the Royal Navy, Capt McQueen, of Rosneath, Dunbartonshire, began a trading business.

Sailing under a British flag, he delivered cargoes he took on at Tangier to other ships at sea.

The Observer said: `Capt McQueen, the one-time sternfaced Chaplin-moustached speedway ace rider, is a wonderful character. His accent is said to be as thick as porridge.’