Exiled Bankies returning to my home town will most definitely see substantial changes next time they travel along Dumbarton Road.Over the last couple of weeks, what I presume must be the final phase of the shipyard demolition has really kicked in and it’s resulting vistas are fairly impressive to say the least.Those ugly three to four storey brick edifices, that have, seemingly forever, hidden the waterway are now beginning to drop, faster than The Swearing Jelly and her Sister’s knickers when confronted with a squad of highly testosteroned council electricians. The result is, exactly where you and our parents have up until very recently always had to look at corrugated iron, armoured glass, graffiti and the rusting detritus of a once proud industry in apparent perpetual decline, there is now, gasp!, daylight, the River Clyde, expansive green swathes of Renfrewshire small-holdings that only a Shetland teacher would know by name and ultimately, in the distance, the Glennifer Braes. Same with the cranes, there’s only one left standing, to give visiting off-worlders a clue as to what went on here for the last hundred years or so. Whether this Meccano Monster has already been given the wizard’s eye or is currently being remade/remodelled as The Very Reverend Alexander Currie Memorial Heritage Centre remains to be seen.
Yours with an uncharacteristic tear in his e’e
Monsignor R. Cocking
Lighthouse Beacon Straight Ahead 