THE GREAT RECOVERY CAPTAIN JOHN WATSON

AVAILABLE TO BUY  30TH JUNE 2025

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Captain John J Watson

It was a three-week holiday in Turkey at the beginning of the 1990s that began he and Maureen’s love for the country and its people. Between 2001 and 2014 it was their second home allowing them to travel extensively west of a line drawn from Trabzon in the north to Adana in the south, with occasional sorties to the east of that line. John became a huge admirer of Ataturk, and it was travels to Gallipoli and latterly to Ankara to visit the Ataturk Mausoleum during 2008 that whetted his appetite to explore how the Republic was born, especially after buying a copy of Kamuran Gürün’s book from the mausoleum library upon which this volume is based. It has taken more than fifteen years of consideration to finally bring his work to print with the hope that it might be regarded as having been produced without prejudice.

Captain John Watson was born in Barr, near Girvan in 1939. His career has been long and varied. From joining the Merchant Navy to become Master Foreign Going in 1965 he left to join the ports industry with the British Transport Docks Board in 1966. That was the start of another successful career. He eventually left that organisation and become Harbourmaster and Pilotmaster of Dundee Port Authority and eventually its Chief Executive in 1986 and also Deputy Chairman in 1988.

Before the port was privatised at the end of 1995 he was active in the national and worldwide ports industry being appointed as the Chairman of the International Association of Ports and Harbours Marine Operations Committee in 1989. Then in 1992 he was elected as the inaugural Chairman of the new British Ports Association and was nominated and appointed an OBE for his services to the ports industry in that same year.

 

Between 1996 and 2001 he worked as a management and ports consultant at home and abroad. It was during this time he developed a new career in the conservation and restoration of historic wooden ships which remains his passion today.