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A lunch for the Olympic team at Buckingham Palace led the Queen to console her country's swimming captain on the agonising close finish. "I watched your race on television," Her Majesty told him. "It was very exciting and if you'd had a longer finger you would have won."•
McGregor refused to rest on that silver medal though, and enjoyed the greatest period of his career two years later. During the space of five weeks in 1966, he stormed to gold at the European Championships in Utrecht, the Netherlands, shortly after clinching the same medal at the Jamaica-based Commonwealth Games.
His crowning glory came at the British Championship, where he shaved two tenths of a second off his 1964 world record. These achievements led the Queen to award Bobby the MBE for services to swimming in the following New Year Honours.
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McGregor retired from the sport to pursue the career he had trained for over and above his regime in the water - a degree in Architecture had been attained at Strathclyde University some time previously. It was testament to the drive and Scottish stubbornness of such a young man, that he was able to combine the rigours of Olympic-class sport with the necessary training for a lifelong professional career.
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