November 23, 2020. IT was no surprise that Fred Walker should make his name as a naval architect, marine historian, author and lecturer. In his youth he spent much of his time in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery, peering through glass cases at the collection of Clyde-built ships. He pored over archives in the Mitchell Library, and he walked the city’s docks with his friend, James Macaulay. The Clyde was then busy with shipping: dredgers, tugs, passenger steamers, and cargo and pleasure vessels such as the King Edward and Queen Mary. Much of what Fred saw, learnt, and read would find its way into The Song of the Clyde, A History of Clyde Shipbuilding, (1984), a valedictory memoir of 36 shipyards; within a few years most of them were to vanish.