The Skipper Whose Ship Has Come In

He came aboard six years ago with suitcase in hand, a loved mutt at his heels, 70 years behind him and uncertainties dead ahead.

“Goodwill ambassador? Manager?” recalls John Gregory. “I didn’t know what they had in mind when they hired me.”

Neither had they. But the Queen Mary certainly needed a captain, agreed the management of Wrather Corp., which oversaw the liner’s commercial recommissioning in Long Beach in 1980 . . . if only as a prop with few duties beyond looking nautical beneath gold braid; a pretend skipper playacting around afternoon tea and other elegances of the ‘30s.

And so Gregory, former Air Force officer and British-born hotel manager (but better credentialed as a close friend of Dick Stevens, then president of Wrather Hotels), was hired out of retirement and imported from Carmel. He was given a cabin and directions to a Long Beach uniform shop. To further mask the masquerade, Cunard Line Ltd., original operators of the Queen Mary, allowed that Gregory could wear the official braid and badges of a Cunard captain.

Yet one thing was overlooked. Scratch expatriate Britons and you’ll tap sea water. In their minds, the Queen Mary, no matter the current lessor or lessee, remains a property and treasure of the crown. Not only did Gregory share such nationalism, he had, as a young man, witnessed the Clydebank launching of Queen Mary in 1935.

Thereby, he decided, hung a duty.

And therefore, very easily, John Gregory went from hired hand to Capt. John W. Gregory, 34th skipper of the RMS Queen Mary, with all the implications, nuances, rights and privileges that such rank and office doth bestow.

“I am not playing the role,” he says, with pride. “I am fulfilling the role. On this ship I do everything that previous captains did when the ship was in port. I have become the titular head of this ship because, from the first day, I felt I could bring this vessel, this steel hull, alive.”

This is indeed the captain speaking, the man who is never addressed any other way by Wrather Corp. executives, employees and guests . . . or, as Gregory prefers to know them, the ship’s officers, crew and passengers.

“But I am not interested in promoting John Gregory,” he insists. “In fact, I never use John Gregory because I have too much respect for the integrity of the position. I introduce myself as The Captain, answer the telephone as The Captain . . . never as Capt. Gregory.”

The wardrobe has gone from one off-the-peg uniform to four changes of tailored blues (“I never walk the ship in civilian clothes”), plus tropical whites. Gregory has been ordained as a priest of the Antioch rite, which has qualified him as ship’s chaplain to perform memorial services (“but no burials at sea . . . we’re not in open water”) and 2,000 marriages.

By the salute, the authoritative courtesy, the Hampstead accent, the walk ready to lean into a roll, and the veterans who swear Gregory was on the bridge when they sailed aboard the troopship Queen Mary during World War II, the transformation of Gregory has been total.

He has even passed muster with his peers.

In England, Gregory was the house guest of John (Treasure) Jones, the 33rd skipper, who brought the Queen Mary to Long Beach in 1967.

In Scotland, he has been seated at head tables above NATO generals and admirals who called Gregory captain.

At 76, saved from what he saw as the boredom and degeneration of his retirement, Gregory says the six years of captaincy have been his happiest.

That goes for the spaniel-terrier mutt who came on board with the captain. His name is Happy. After graduating from death row in a dog pound to a suite aboard the Queen Mary, he should be.