Classic ship models

“I was really interested in the Courier’s recent Weekend supplement headed Mighty Ships,” emails Montrose Port’s honorary archivist John Aitken. “In the early 1980s, I was visiting the Canadian Maritimes and Newfoundland on business.

“When in Halifax, Nova Scotia, I had a few hours in hand prior to boarding a flight north to St John’s. Making my way to the airport I called in to the local maritime museum where there were some classic ship models on display.

“One was of the St Ninian which had been built by the Caledon yard in 1950 as one of the ‘North Boats’ sailing weekly between Leith and Aberdeen to Orkney and Shetland. I had seen her that year and she had looked like a mini-passenger liner, so much so that an elderly bystander commented: ‘I didnae ken they got cruise ships intae Aiberdeen!’

“I looked at the model’s information notes to see that she was reputed to have been built in Aberdeen. I pointed out the error to the curator and hoped he would believe me without written evidence. She was being exhibited in Halifax as she had been sold to Atlantique Cruises and had crossed the Atlantic in nine days to her new home.

“During the same trip, while in St John’s, I was invited on board the Topsail Star by her master Captain Lloyd Bugden. His ship

was the former DP&L coastal cargo vessel London. Over the years we became good friends. While inspecting a newer ship in the UK, he visited the former shipyard at Burntisland to see where the London had been cradled.

“I wish Jack Reilly and Dr Andrew Jeffrey success in their quest to negotiate for the return of the model of the Glenearn to Dundee. There is no doubt we are short of marine-related artefacts to display the city’s important maritime past,” John concludes.