HELENSBURGH Heritage Trust has been very conscious of the forthcoming bicentenary of Henry Bell's Comet in 2012, and is helping to ensure that this important anniversary is marked in a major way in the Clyde area.
The 150th anniversary saw a Comet replica sailing across the Clyde from Port Glasgow to Helensburgh, with many associated events.
A celebration on that scale is not viable, but the Trust — while too small a body to organise a major event — is working to ensure that the bicentenary does not pass without appropriate recognition.
Trust chairman Stewart Noble wrote to over 60 Clyde organisations inviting them to attend a meeting which was held on Friday January 15 2010 in Glasgow's Museum of Transport. In the event some two dozen representatives of different organisations attended.
The aims of the meeting were to determine whether an organising committee for the bicentenary of the Comet should be set up, and if so, to appoint members to this committee.
A decision was made to form a committee, and it held its first meeting in Greenock in February when the respective Provosts of Inverclyde and of Argyll and Bute both attended. Further meetings were held in Helensburgh in March, Greenock in May, and on board the Maid of the Loch steamer at Balloch Pier in July.
The latest meeting was held in Greenock's Municipal Buildings on Thursday August 19 when it was confirmed that the Comet replica, which was build in 1962 and is currently being repaired, would have to be returned to its display position in Port Glasgow and could not be sailed across the Clyde or even transported by barge.
