COMMUNICA | No.3
Pieces of the superstructure are lowered into place on the Forth Road Bridge during the 1960s by Engineers
from John Howard & Co.
But whilst the works were going on, fate and historywould align to ensure that father and son, John
and Denis, would share a special moment together
when they took a behind the scenes tour during the
construction of the bridge in June.
“C-Plan is currently providing diversionary works for
the new bridge too on behalf of John Henry Group
- but that’s not really anything to do with the tour
we had,” explained Denis, who runs C-Plan with his
brother Jim and fellow company director George
Bowers.
“The visit to the new bridge actually came about
because my wife teaches one of the children of the
lead project engineer working on the new Queensferry Crossing.
“Dad and I were invited to visit the new structure - It
was fantastic - we were very privileged to be able to
“There was an
almighty bang which
must have shaken
half of Queensferry”
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to do this.”
“Dad really enjoyed it and he was able to look down
on the [original] Forth Road Bridge which he helped
build.”
“After a full safety induction and we were then taken
by boat to the South Tower where we were given
a tour of the tower itself and the connecting road
structure, as well as learning a lot about the bridge
construction and this included information about how
the cables were anchored which was really interesting for Dad, given his work on the original road
bridge - all in all it was a massive thrill.”
Denis said that he has some very interesting stories
of his Dad’s exploits as an explosives expert during
the construction phase of the Forth Road Bridge.
“There was one particular incident which we still rib
Dad about,” he explained.
“There was a massive rock that was proving difficult to shift towards the end of a nightshift and he
ordered additional explosives to be brought in.
“Ideally, some sort of advance warning should have
been relayed to nearby residents in South Queensferry, but this would have delayed the job which
wasn’t part of Dad’s plan.
“The detonation worked perfectly and the tunnel
route was now clear, but the only problem was that
the almighty bang from the blast woke up half of
South Queensferry at 5am in the morning!
“Dad finished his shift and was not long in bed when