When Alistair Maclean won a short-story competition run by the Glasgow Herald’s Weekend page in 1954, Iris I.J.M. Gibson, of Wellmeadow House, Paisley, was the runner-up with 'Now Such Light', earning herself the (then) grand sum of £50.
We all know what happened to Alistair MacLean after the publication of 'The Dileas' but what about the others?
While not know for thrillers like the ones Alistair MacLean wrote, Iris Gibson did like mysteries, though these were more of the medical kind.
Medical Journals
Iris Gibson went on to become a consultant physician in geriatric medicine, and published rather prolific in renowned medical journals. Her most cited article is titled 'Death Masks Unlimited'(1985) in which she traced the history of death masks[1].
Iris Gibson also tried to find out what ailed Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855)[2].
Dorothy Wordsworth was an English author, poet, and diarist. She was the sister of the Romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850), and the two were close all their adult lives. Dorothy Wordsworth had no ambitions to be a public author, yet she left behind numerous letters, diary entries, topographical descriptions, poems, and other writings. In 1829, Dorothy Wordsworth fell seriously ill, followed by a brief recovery period, and eventual relapse in 1831. Despite battling a degenerative illness, Dorothy Wordsworth continued writing.
Iris Gibson suggests that Dorothy Wordsworth must have suffered from migraine 'due to considerable physical and mental activity, to the stress of William's problems and struggles with composition, and her undue anxiety about him. At this time Samuel Taylor Coleridge played a large part in their lives. He was a poet of genius, a man of great vitality and charm, evasive, an opium addict, and had an unhappy marriage. I am in no doubt that Dorothy found him sexually attractive and that this and Coleridge's own problems contributed to the migraine. It is not so much when Coleridge is actually present that she gets migraine, but farewells precipitate attacks.'
'It is difficult to make clear the degree of Wordsworthian physical and mental overactivity,' Iris Gibson continues, 'They walked incessantly. They talked incessantly. They wrote letters and read incessantly.'
The phrase 'a Drench of sleep' is a vivid, somewhat archaic expression meaning a heavy, saturating, or profound bout of sleep — like being thoroughly 'drenched' or soaked in it. It originates from Dorothy Wordsworth's journals (the above entry is from January 10, 1803), where she describes staying in bed for an extended, restorative sleep, likely to recover from fatigue or headache. In modern contexts, especially among those familiar with migraine, this phrase is sometimes referenced to describe the intense, overwhelming need for deep sleep that can accompany or follow a migraine attack.
Death
Archaeology was also a passion of Iris Gibson, but when on an expedition to Turkey, she tumbled into a deep pit and was badly injured. She never fully recovered, and was forced to retire in 1988. Iris Gibson died untimely on April 15, 1993.
Nowadays, Iris Gibson is largely forgotten, but maybe this article helps a bit to revive her and her writings.
[1] Gibson, Iris I.J.M.: Death Masks Unlimited in British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition) - 1985. See here.
[2] Gibson, Iris I.J.M.: Illness of Dorothy Wordsworth in British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Edition) - 1982. See here.
A SHORT-story competition run by the Glasgow Herald’s Weekend page in 1954 attracted 942 entries from as far away as India, Canada, and the United States.
Some, we observed, did not really qualify as short stories, being straightforward accounts of holidays at home or abroad, or narratives of true incidents at a conversational rather than a literary level (an assertion that was speedily challenged by one reader in a letter to the paper).
All 942 entries were read and assessed. And, once that had been done, the judges awarded the prizes.
The authors of the fourth- and third-placed entries, respectively, Henry R. Saunders, of Gartocharn, and D.R. Miller, Greenock, both received £25. The runner-up, Iris I.J.M. Gibson, of Paisley, was given £50.
The winner, who received £100, was a 30-year-old Rutherglen schoolteacher who after his war-time naval service had studied for a degree at Glasgow University. He had had short stories published in a couple of periodicals but, until The Herald contest, he had not written one for several years. His winning entry was entitled 'The Dileas' (‘The faithful one’). His name: Alistair MacLean.
The story, about a shipwreck off the West Highlands, was published in the Saturday edition of the Herald, on March 6, 1954. “Three hours gone, Mr MacLean, three hours – and never a word of the lifeboat”, it began.
A Herald reader, Marjory Chapman, mentioned the story to her husband Ian, who worked for Collins’s Bible department. With The Herald’s assistance he contacted MacLean and, over dinner at the old Royal Restaurant, asked if he had thought of writing a novel. No, came the reply; but Chapman persisted and, at length, MacLean gave him the manuscript of a novel, HMS Ulysses. Published in October 1955, it had sold 25,000 copies by Christmas.
His next work, The Guns of Navarone, came out the following year.
A few years before his death in 1987 MacLean asked The Herald if he could have the copyright of The Dileas. It was willingly granted, in exchange for an exclusive article that he wrote for this newspaper.
Told at breakneck speed, featuring wild action, high body counts, claustrophobic settings and black-hearted treachery, to his fan, Alistair MacLean invented the modern thriller.
[David Niven, Gregory Peck, Anthony Quinn The Guns Of Navarone - 1961]
The son of a Presbyterian minister from the Highlands, he would become one of the 20th Century’s most read authors and novels like 'The Guns Of Navarone' and 'Where Eagles Dare' were destined to become big screen blockbusters starring Clint Eastwood and Gregory Peck.
But MacLean never rated himself as an author, and believed he would have been a better novelist had he written in his first language, Gaelic, rather than English.
Patronised by literary critics, but adored by the public, he sold 150 million books and 18 of his 28 novels were made into movies, yet he boasted of how much he detested writing, and would churn out books in a matter of weeks because he disliked the process so much that he wanted it over and done with.
As the centenary of his birth approaches in 2022, a BBC Alba documentary examines the life of a complex man who entertained millions, yet who was a brusque character around family and friends.
"Alistair thought of his novel writing as a formula. I think that’s to diminish his ability," said Ian Chapman, whose parents, Ian and Marjory, discovered MacLean. Ian Senior worked with Scottish publisher William Collins and persuaded them to sign him after the couple fell in love with a short story he wrote for a newspaper competition.
"He was a storyteller,” Chapman continued. “He was great on character, great on story. He never thought of himself as a good writer. On occasion he said he would prefer to write in Gaelic or even Spanish than in English. He didn’t feel his English was good enough, which is clearly nonsense.”
MacLean was brought up in Inverness-shire, but when his dad died at 49, his mum took her three youngest sons to Glasgow, where her eldest boy was studying. Alistair hated the city, and volunteered for the Navy during the war, serving on two Arctic convoys. At the end of his service, he went to university and became an English teacher, writing short stories in his spare time.
Alistair Maclean autographing The Guns of Navarone at Smiths Bookshop in Glasgow
His first novel, 'HMS Ulysses', based on his experience of war, was a huge success, as was his second book, 'The Guns Of Navarone', so he gave up teaching, left Scotland behind, and became a millionaire novelist and screenplay writer, penning scripts for four of his movies.
Author Mairi Kidd said: "The thing about his writing in general is it is very visual. He writes as if he is writing a film anyway, and I think his novels I like the most are very similar to watching a film. There’s a lot of fun, a lot of action, and they’re moving quickly, and I think that was a strength to work on something and see it in his head as a film".
Shona MacLean is Alistair’s niece and a successful author in her own right, having published nine novels. She remembers many of the encounters she had with her uncle as she was growing up.
"I remember the first time I met him, being really surprised that this person who was a name on TV and in books was just this very ordinary looking man who dressed like my dad, was a wee bit smaller, and was very quietly spoken," she said.
"One time I was on holiday with my sisters visiting Uncle Alistair in Dubrovnik and we were out on his boat. I was reading a Neil Gunn novel and he looked at me and said, "How many of my books have you read?", and I said none, so he gave me a copy of 'HMS Ulysses' and said, "Have the first hundred pages of that read by tomorrow or you’re sacked as my niece".
"He had quite a dry, particularly Highland, sense of humour, which he shared with my dad and their brothers. There’s a kind of underlying sarcasm which you can see in the books with the way men speak to each other. He didn’t suffer fools gladly and he didn’t like a lot of the hyperbole that I suspect was in the publishing and film worlds".
MacLean’s first marriage, to a German woman called Gisela Heinrichsen, ended in divorce, but not before he decided to give up writing in 1963, after publishing 10 novels, to become a hotelier.
He would return to fiction three years later, however, and would write a further 18 books. He married his second wife, Mary Marcelle Georgius, a French aspiring movie producer, in 1972, but they divorced five years later.
MacLean, by this point was drinking heavily, and he died in 1987, aged 64, after a series of strokes, shortly before his final book, Santorini, was printed.
Although his sales might not be what they once were, his influence remains strong, with John Wick screenwriter Derek Kolstad citing MacLean and Stephen King as two of his primary influences.
"I think if critics dismissed him they were probably missing the point", offered his niece. "It must have been very frustrating for them, because he had these huge sales but actually, when you read the books, the writing is exceptionally good and he deals with human emotions, he deals with human potential, and human weaknesses".
And she believes more 21st Century readers should be discovering the joy in the nail-biting suspense of an Alistair MacLean novel.
"I think the ones who haven’t read him and who enjoy a good adventure story would enjoy them very much," she added.
Best-selling author Alistair MacLean and his friend and Formula One champion Jackie Stewart announced they were going to team-up for the filming of MacLean’s 'The Way To Dusty Death', which was set in the world of F1.
In an archive interview with the two men, shown in the new documentary, Stewart said: "I’m looking for something to replace motor racing in a way, and I’m sure this is one of the reasons Alistair has written this for me".
"If I found myself being able to do this film, I would then have a reason to stop motor racing, to take up something else I could be excited by, and could replace the pleasure and excitement that motor racing gives me".
The film failed to get off the ground, but it was eventually made as a TV-movie in 1995, with Simon MacCorkindale in the lead role.
Written by By Murray Scougall for The Sunday Post [December 27, 2021]
After writing here about The Mysteries of the MacLones, I was contacted by Simon Gandolfi (1933), writer of five (or three) novels that were based on an script for a movie or television series in the 1970s.
Simon Gandolfi wrote: ‘Yes, I wrote five books featuring Trent. The publishers gave me a rough film treatment by MacLean featuring a protagonist living on a converted tug boat, action taking place off the UK coast. I returned the treatment as unusable. The publishers then mislaid it!’
This first few sentences contain a very interesting piece of information: there appears to be an unused (or underused) rough film script, written by MacLean featuring a protagonist living on a converted tug boat and the action is situated off the UK coast. Which means a new writer can be contracted to write entirely new thriller based on Alistair MacLean’s imagination.
‘The protagonist, Trent, and the Caribbean, Central American and Asian story lines were entirely my creation. No reference to these books has been removed (carefully or otherwise) from my site or web blog,’ writes Simon Gandolfi. Still, no mention of these thrillers remain on his site or web blog. Which means that these books were never on his website at all. Now, in 2025, the entire website is defunct.
‘The MacLean Estate did not buy back the film rights – or, if they did, I was never informed and am anxious to know what proof you have as a percentage of film rights were part of my contracts; I stopped writing Trent on discovering the doubts concerning the film rights; Chris Little was the agent. I personally have no idea nor proof or information about any percentage of film rights.’
In theory, Simon Galdolfi should simply have contacted the estate of Alistair MacLean to get clarification. If the doubts about the potential film rights could be resolved much earlier, Simon Gandolfi might even have been tempted to write another novel featuring Trent. Now at 92, he enjoys his retirement.
First publication: 19 July 2017
Second (updated) publication: 20 September 2025
Ian Chapman (1925-2019) began his career in book publishing at William Collins, the renowned Scottish publisher. There he read a short story in ‘The Glasgow Herald’ by the (then) unknown Glasgow-born author Alistair MacLean titled ‘Dileas’ about the sea and sailors which had won first prize in a competition run by the paper. Chapman found it finely written and totally compelling.
Chapman contacted MacLean, who was then a teacher at Gallow Flat School in Rutherglen, and invited him to join him and his wife for lunch in the grand Royal Restaurant in Glasgow’s Nile Street. The Chapmans found MacLean to be a wee bit dour with a strong Highland accent and showed little enthusiasm when Chapman suggested that he should write a novel for William Collins.
However, the Chapmans persisted at the lunch and probed MacLean on his war experiences in the Royal Navy when he sailed on the Murmansk convoys to northern Russia in terrible weather conditions and experienced savage bombardment from the German navy. Chapman instantly recognised the potential for a thrilling adventure story. MacLean left without any agreement to write even an outline and the Chapmans presumed the lunch had been a useless exercise.
But a few weeks later Chapman’s phone rang and MacLean’s strong accent asked, “So, do you want to come and collect that thing?” Chapman dashed to MacLean’s tenement in Rutherglen and was handed a bundle casually wrapped in brown paper and tied with string. MacLean simply commented, “Ach, any idiot can write a book.”
As Chapman hurried home he held the manuscript of ‘HMS Ulysses’ which told of the Russian convoys and the crew being pushed to breaking point. Chapman read the book overnight and immediately knew he had a best seller in his hands. It was published in 1955 and sold a quarter of a million copies in six months.
His career prospered and Chapman guided MacLean’s career both as publisher and agent until the author’s death in 1987.
The success of ‘HMS Ulysses’ certainly ensured that Chapman could move to London in 1955 and rose to become, in 1968, joint managing director and chairman from 1981-89. He was managing director when Rupert Murdoch (chairman of News UK, of which HarperCollins is now a subsidiary) bought 41.7% of Collins. Chapman resigned in 1989, setting up Chapman Publishers with his wife Marjory which was later bought by Orion.
Alistair MacLean never wanted to live the celebrity-author lifestyle and it took all Chapman’s tact and persuasion to get him to attend the 1961 royal film premiere of ‘The Guns of Navarone’, when he was presented to the Queen. Similarly, in 1969 for the London premiere of ‘Where Eagles Dare’, Chapman eventually got MacLean not only to attend the film but organised a private table at the after-premiere banquet at the Savoy at which he and MacLean sat amongst the stars, Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.
Richard Burton and Alistair MacLean became close friends. Richard Burton and Alistair MacLean are both buried in the same cemetery in Céligny (Switzerland).
First publication: 11 December 2019
Second (updated) publication: 07 August 2025
Laurence Bowen’s London-based Dancing Ledge Productions (dead link, company is now defunct) has entered into a deal with publisher HarperCollins to adapt some, most, or all novels of Alistair MacLean as mini-series to be shown on television. Each novel-to-television project will be structured as a four-part or six-part mini-series.
HarperCollins owns the rights to bestselling author MacLean’s novels which also include 'The Guns Of Navarone', 'Ice Station Zebra', and 'Where Eagles Dare'. Each of those was previously turned into a feature movie. His books have sold over 150 million copies since 1955.
SanAndreas
The first project under the pact is ‘San Andreas’, a thriller set on board a torpedoed WWII hospital ship. San Andreas sees the ailing ship attempt to make its way back across the North Atlantic to Scotland while a saboteur picks off members of the crew.
Bowen says, “I doubt there are many bookshelves in the UK that don’t have at least one Alistair MacLean thriller, so the opportunity to work with HarperCollins to adapt a number of them for screen is incredibly exciting. If you then add a writer with the talent of Tony Marchant to the mix, we have a wonderful marriage of nail-biting action and emotional complexity.”
Dancing Ledge was formed in June 2016 with backing from Fremantle Media (taking a 25% share) and a development deal with Martin Freeman. It is currently developing projects for several broadcasting channels and is working with Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Dr Who), Dan Sefton (Mr Selfridge), Guy Hibbert (Eye In The Sky) and Simon Block (Home Fires).
Dead
Now, years later, nothing has been heard of the project anymore. 'San Andreas' is presumably dead in the water.
First publication: 19 July 2017
Second (updated) publication: 30 June 2025
When ‘The Cruel Sea’, written by Nicholas Montsarrat (1910-1979), was published in 1951 it had had rave reviews, and was an immediate success. Remember, it was just a few years after the end of the Second World War when that novel was published. But, contrary to the reactions of Montsarrats' novel, one of the first reviews of Alistair MacLean’s debut ‘HMS Ulysses’ (1955) described the book as “the worst insult to the Royal Navy ever published”. That certainly alerted people to the book, and the novel soon topped the bestseller lists. In other reviews, ‘HMS Ulysses’ and ‘The Cruel Sea’ were compared and most reviewers agreed that both novels were equally disturbing in their portraying of the horrors of the battle of the North Atlantic.
What did Alistair MacLean (1922-1987) write to deserve such a scalding review? Well, ‘HMS Ulysses’ is certainly not a glamorous story about heroism but a narrative about unrelenting stress, hardship, exhaustion and extreme weather conditions that took a heavy physical and psychological toll on the crew of HMS Ulysses.
These factors lead to a mutiny on the previous trip of HMS Ulysses and the admiralty, staffed by officers that always remain safely ashore, decided that both ship and crew should be given the one last chance to redeem themselves. They were ordered to escort a Murmansk-bound convoy, and if necessary, to act as bait for the Tirpitz that was at the time holed up in a Norwegian fjord. In MacLean’s book, the enemy is not only the threat of the Germans, but equally so the horrendous conditions in the Arctic.
‘The Cruel Sea’ by Nicholas Monsarrat is also a novel that does not portray the good and the bad as white and black, but both sides of the conflict are painted in shades of grey. The book, like ‘HMS Ulysses’, focuses on the crew of a woefully inadequate corvette the ‘Compass Rose’ on duty in the icy North Atlantic to protect convoys. Monsarrat’s tale also revolves around the hardship the crew must endure continuously simply in order to survive in those harsh conditions. But it also makes abundantly clear the tough decisions those in command of such a vessel must make while carrying out their duties.
So, which one is the better novel? The answer to that question is a strictly personal one, and I would not want to cast doubt on the heroism of these brave sailors. I think these books have so much in common that they should be seen as a dual testament to that intensely cruel period that so many already seem to have forgotten.
First publication: 08 April 2023
Second (updated) publication: 21 June 2025
