I started an engineering apprenticeship the day after I left school in 1950 at Stephen's of Linthouse. After two years, I went to Glasgow University for my first year in engineering. I then went to Cambridge and completed a five-year apprenticeship, combined with a university degree course in 1955. After National Service in the Royal Navy, I obtained a job in the design office of John Brown's at Clydebank. In 1963, I was appointed Technical Director, and shortly afterwards I became Engineering Director at the age of thirty-one. I remained there until 1966, when, following the recommendations of the Geddes Report, engineering was separated from shipbuilding. I initially became Director and General Manager, and latterly Managing Director of John Brown Engineering. I left in 1984 to take up a position with Trafalgar House, when they acquired the Scott Lithgow yard.

When I came back from my National Service in 1957, I remember that the order books at John Brown stretched well into the early 1960s. John Brown at any one time could be building a large passenger ship, a couple of tankers, a couple of bulk carriers and so on. They had an incredible mix of products. That was seen as strength by some and a weakness by others, because one could say that had they concentrated on one type of vessel they could have done a lot better, rather than dispersing their activities and resources over a range of products. One of the weaknesses arising from this was that everything was made to the highest quality demanded by the one type, whether that was a passenger ship or a naval ship. So a bulk carrier was constructed with too high a finish than was absolutely necessary. The problem was that the owners expected a very high standard of finish from a yard like John Brown, whereas they would have accepted a lower standard from the Lower Clyde, which only made this type of ship, and did not build passenger ships. [Historically, the Lower Clyde yards did build passenger ships, and the districtdid not concentrate on one type of ship]. It was impossible for the workforce to work on dual standard of quality. They tended to work to the highest, and the ship owner insisted on the John Brown standard.