John Donald McBain

  Research Notes:

Jean Cameron notes:
John Donald McBain wore the red velvet smoking cap with the tassel all the time. I suppose he took it off at bedtime.
Jean later added:
Did I ever tell you about my grandfather, John Donald McBain, son of Susan Riach, wonderful sea captain and once given an award for the
speediest run between Scotland and Buenos Aires in a double topsail schooner, sometime in the early 1900s, being before the Panama Canal
opened when ships had to round Cape Horn to reach the Pacific.

But when the committee arrived to present whatever it was, he couldn't be found. Had gone drinking with some of his buddies.

My father did go round Cape Horn with Grandad, but only once - a martinet on board. So when they returned to Scotland after what used to be a two year trip, my father went as an apprentice in a Glasgow dockyard and ended up as Chief Engineer with the RFA but he always wished he'd become a Captain.

My McBain grandad drank, of course. I really didn't know him at all; he was very old when I was born. Only remember the 'smoking cap' with the forget me nots embroidered on it.

  Noted events in his life were:

• source. Jean Cameron (nee McBain) who notes:
John Donald McBain, captain of the Gladstone, whom I dimly remember as always wearing a round "smoking cap" with a tassel, indoors.

John married Agnes (Aggie) Russell. (Agnes (Aggie) Russell was born on 21 Dec 1850 in Wemyss, Fifeshire, Scotland UK and died on 21 Apr 1945.)