LOCAL HERO
Model of a champion
Lachie Stewart won 10,000 metres gold at the 1970 Commonwealth Games. These days, it’s his hand-built model boats that are sinking the competition
IMAGE ANGUS BLACKBURN
Were you always a good runner? I won my very fi rst race, in Dumbarton, in 1957. I was around 15 or 16. In the next race I took a wrong turn and ended up third. The following race was the fi rst Scottish Boys’ Champion ships at Hamilton Park, which I won.
When were your fi rst major championships? It was the Empire Games in 1966, in Jamaica. I didn’t run well, but it was good to be there. At the time the steeplechase was my race, but I was never any good at hurdling and I used to make up the ground between the sticks. I moved to the 10,000 metres when I joined Shettleston Harriers.
Were you confi dent of winning gold at the 1970 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh? Not at all, though I did think I had a chance of a medal. I’d run the second fastest time of the year before the Games and I had the home crowd advantage. My plan was to stick with the leaders, so when Ron Clarke and Dick Taylor broke away, I went with them. When I saw the gap between us and the rest, I thought, ‘I’m getting a bronze here’. But with two laps to go I realised I could win – I had the sprint fi nish and was never beaten over the last 100 metres. The pace was easy for me, so just after the last bend I sprinted away from Clarke, the world champion. Winning gold is an unexplainable feeling – you really need to be in that position to know what it’s like.
Did you run in the 1972 Olympics in Munich? Yes, but I didn’t even make it through the heats. I was injured for most of 1971. I was fi t for Munich, but I wasn’t race fi t.
You were an amateur, of course. What was your job? I was a dental technician. I served my apprenticeship in a private practice and then I worked in Glasgow’s dental hospital. When I was an apprentice I worked every Saturday morning, so there were many times when I was running down the station platform to get the train to wherever I was racing.
When did you fi rst get into model boats? I started with aeroplanes when I was 16 or 17. Airfi x had only four models: Spitfi re, Hurricane, Messerschmitt and Stuka, so I’d multiply the size of them and make my own wooden models. I switched to boats when I joined Queen’s Park model club – they had a boating pond.
How do you choose which boats to build? I tend to build boats that I can photograph. When I worked near Ferguson’s shipyards I used to take pictures of the ships as they were being built. If I fancied building one of them I’d get a copy of the drawings. I’ve built six Ferguson-built ships and a number of Clyde-built tugs and paddle steamers, such as the Maid of the Loch.
How many boats have you built? I must have built about 80. I gave a lot of them away when I moved back to Alexandria, but I have 21 that I can sail at the moment. They’re all radio-controlled. The largest is a model of the Bismarck; it’s about 12 feet 8 inches long. I started it in 1991, and it’s just the smaller details that are missing.
How long does it take you to build a boat? On average, a single boat will take me between six and nine months. It largely depends on the type of boat, though. A warship takes longer, because of all the deck hatches. All my boats are handmade from scratch – including the hulls. I also mould a lot of the fi ttings and fi gures myself. My job as a dental technician helped in that respect; it taught me about moulds, waxing and soldering. And the hobby also helped my work.
Would you call yourself a fanatic? I am defi nitely fanatical about boats. When I’m not buil- ding them I’ll sit and read about them. I have more than a dozen books on the Titanic, for example. There is some evidence that it’s not the Titanic at the bottom of the sea, but rather its sister ship, the Olympic – that the whole thing was an insurance scam by the owners, White Star Line. The plan was to scuttle the Olympic and transfer the crew and passengers onto waiting ships – but it hit an iceberg before it got to that point.
Why haven’t you built a Titanic? I started working on a hull, which would have ended up being about 14 feet long. But the arthritis in my hands made it too tricky – with all the portholes and windows that were needed, there was just too much to cut out by hand. To be honest, I’d be happy if I could fi nish off the boats I already have.
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