HE was described as the “blushing prince” by this newspaper when he came to Clydebank to see the QE2 make its first voyage from the John Brown yard to Greenock.

“He seemed to blush at the crowd awaiting him and looked up and smiled as a worker on the upper deck of the liner shouted down, ‘hey Charlie’,” we reported.

“The Prince, besieged by photographers and women workers, walked quickly the 20 yards to his car….”

Glasgow Times: Prince Charles

It was Tuesday, November 19, 1968, and the stately Cunard liner was heading from the fitting-out basin of John Brown’s to Inchgreen dockyard, 13 miles away.

It was not quite a launch, more a “christening bump”, reported the Evening Times.

Prince Charles, who had celebrated his 20th birthday the previous week, had arrived at Brown’s at 8am, having reached Glasgow on the overnight train from London.

He was accompanied into the yard by John Rannie, of Upper Clyde Shipbuilders. Near the gangway, he went over to a group of workers. “I had called out, ‘good luck, Charles’, and the prince suddenly stopped opposite me,”said one of them, Thomas Crawford.

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Moments later, workers laughed as Mr Rannie handed the prince a pass to get on board the QE2, saying that he would have to show it to the guards at the foot of the gangway.

A worker, George Stewart, said to Charles, “Surely you don’t need a pass to get on the ship?”

After a breakfast on board, in the grillroom -- milk and orange juice, sausage, bacon and egg, and coffee -- Charles went onto the bridge, alongside Captain Bill Warwick, master of the QE2, a bowler-hatted Mr Rannie and Sir Basil Smallpeice, chairman of Cunard.

At 9.06am the liner began to slip her moorings, surrounded by tugs.

“Many hardened shipyard workers,” he Evening Times reported, “had tears in their eyes as they watched the ship they have toiled on for more than two years ease gently into the river to be met with her first escort of seagulls.”

We also reported that five women, who had spent the night cleaning the suite on the main deck which the Prince would use during his three-hour trip, gave HRH a cheer as he went up the gangplank.

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One of them, Jean Murray, of Drumchapel, said: “We’ve spent the night giving that place a good clean up – it was looking beautiful when we left it.”

It didn’t go quite as smoothly as planned. “There was a sudden plume of smoke from the liner’s side and a grinding noise as she struck the quayside a glancing blow,” we reported.

“When she moved clear, a 20ft long gash in her paintwork 12ft above the waterline could be seen quite clearly.”