Businessman; Born September 25, 1917; Died June 26, 2008.
Claude William Maynard, who has died at the age of 90, was a Londoner who brought the rag trade to Scotland in the mid-1960s. He was the production director of three lingerie and nightwear factories in Dumbarton, Cumbernauld and Vale of Leven who won a well-earned reputation for excellent industrial relations, recruitment and training policies.
Bill - he was never called Claude - opened a factory for JE Clarke to make lingerie for Marks & Spencer in the old Denny's shipyard drawing offices in Bankend Road, Dumbarton.
The factory provided much-needed employment in 1965 when the town, under Provost Ian Campbell, was struggling to replace jobs lost when the shipyard closed.
Sewing-machinists with the skills to produce high-quality garments were hard to find in Dumbarton, but Maynard used his talent as a publicist to attract high-calibre women to his factory - and keep them in his employ.
He launched training programmes for mature women and organised well-publicised visits to the factory for senior pupils from local secondary schools and invited them to take part in an "earn while you learn" scheme.
Once the women were recruited and in place, Maynard knew how to retain staff. He organised trips and nights out, famously one of which was to see and meet his fellow Londoner, Frankie Vaughan, at the Alhambra Theatre in Glasgow.
In a gesture that attracted a great deal of publicity at the time, Maynard presented Vaughan with a daringly cut, aqua-coloured night set for his wife, Stella. Mrs Vaughan later wrote a thank you note, which said: "I really must thank you all for the lovely lingerie set which you gave to my husband for me. It fits perfectly and the colour is very pretty. It was a very nice thought on your behalf."
There was another occasion when one of Maynard's machinists secured a backstage interview for the local paper with the singer Tom Jones at the Odeon Cinema in Glasgow.
When the then-Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the Right Reverend W Roy Sanderson, visited the JE Clarke factory in 1967 he was presented with a specially designed pink nightgown for his wife.
"It was modestly cut, of course, and appropriate to a Moderator's wife," said the Rev Ian Miller, of Bonhill Parish Church, who conducted Maynard's funeral service at Cardross Crematorium.
JE Clarke closed in 1970 when Marks & Spencer switched suppliers and Maynard, and a number of his staff moved to the Berlei factory in Alexandria and later, when that closed in 1972, to the Lovable factory in Cumbernauld, where he retired from the lingerie business.
Maynard had continued to live in Dumbarton where he became very much an adopted Son of the Rock, joining the Rotary Club, Dumbarton Bowling Club and the Sma' Corks, a traders' association in the town.
His daughter, Lesley Dalrymple, said: "My dad was a social animal. He loved all the camaraderie and high jinks that being part of these clubs often involved."
English and proud of it, Maynard was born and brought up in Tottenham, where he went to the local grammar school and then worked in the London Stock Exchange before joining the Army Medical Corps. He was posted to Downpatrick in Northern Ireland where he worked as a dentist. He was an excellent footballer in his youth and he once played a trial for Tottenham Hotspur at White Hart Lane.
Maynard, who died in Vale of Leven Hospital following a short illness, loved Dumbarton and never showed any desire to move back to England. Despite living in the town for more than 40 years, he never lost his London accent.
His booming voice and unique way of communicating ensured that once spoken to he was never forgotten. He had a wicked sense of humour and his final joke was to have his bowling club cronies sing the great English anthem, Jerusalem, at his funeral. By BILL HEANEY
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