FROM 1931 to 1934, the mammoth shape of Hull Number 534, the unnamed Cunard ocean-liner that was to have been the salvation of the River Clyde, loomed unfinished in the stocks over the John Brown Engineering Works in Clydebank. Construction was suspended on 10 December 1931, plunging thousands into unemployment and poverty in the weeks before Christmas. Looking over Dumbarton Road from the tenements opposite, the rust-red hull of the unfinished ship must have resembled the skeleton of some extinct behemoth, and workers – from the riveters and caulkers of the black squads to the engineers, fitters and foremen – must have feared that extinction too would be the ultimate fate of their industry.