Events

THE dramatic story of the top secret Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment in Helensburgh and Rhu in World War Two and why it came to Garelochside was revealed at Helensburgh Heritage Trust’s final open meeting of the 2012-13 winter season on March 27.

Author Robin Bird, who has published one book about the establishment and written a second, travelled from his Merseyside home and told an enthralled full house about what was officially known as RAF Helensburgh, showing a number of images never before seen in public.

TWO Helensburgh enthusiasts for Mauchline Ware spoke about the history and variety of the popular wooden collectibles at the February 27 2013 meeting of Helensburgh Heritage Trust.

A packed audience in the meeting room at Helensburgh Tennis Club heard Pat Wiseman and Isobel Stirling, both members of the Mauchline Ware Collectors Club for over 25 years and collectors themselves, explain why they were so fascinated by the souvenirs, some of which sell for large sums.

THE story of the Scottish Maritime Museum at Irvine and Dumbarton was told at the well-attended January 2013 open meeting of Helensburgh Heritage Trust.

Operations manager David Mann was welcomed to Helensburgh Tennis Club by Trust chairman Stewart Noble, and he said that a new display is currently being prepared at Irvine and will be open from May 23.

THE AUTHORS of a book about Madeleine Smith, the young woman from Rhu who was alleged to have murdered her lover, told her story at a packed meeting of Helensburgh Heritage Trust on Wednesday November 28 2012.

It was standing room only when burgh-born Eleanor Gordon, Research Professor in Economic and Social History at Glasgow University, and Dr Gwyneth Nair, Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of the West of Scotland, spoke to members and guests in the upstairs meeting room at Helensburgh Tennis Club in Suffolk Street.

AN expert on the history of Henry Bell and the Comet gave a fascinating talk to Helensburgh Heritage Trust's second open winter meeting on Wednesday October 31.

John Ransom spoke to members in the meeting room at Helensburgh Tennis Club about his new book 'Bell's Comet: How a Paddle Steamer Changed the Course of History', which he wrote to mark the Comet's bicentenary this year.

HELENSBURGH Heritage Trust's first meeting of the 2012-13 winter season had four speakers instead of the expected one.

A good attendance in the upstairs meeting room at Helensburgh Tennis Club on Wednesday September 26 were expecting to listen to the Trust's hon president, Malcolm Baird, speak about how his father, John Logie Baird, related television to print. However Professor Baird had a very sore throat, and his talk was read for him by Trust chairman Stewart Noble.

SOME help is needed by Helensburgh Heritage Trust for the Comet Bicentenary celebrations!

At the pier car park on Saturday August 4 Helensburgh will be celebrating one of the most important events in its history, and indeed in the history of the West of Scotland.

MEMBERS of Helensburgh Heritage Trust enjoyed a fascinating talk by J.Craig Osborne of the Scottish Maritime Museum on 'The Comet and her Creators' at the final open meeting of the winter season in Helensburgh Tennis Club on Wednesday March 28 2012.

Mr Osborne, author of a booklet with that title in 2007, spoke and showed images of the men who built Henry Bell's Comet, telling the story of the inventor from his birth in Torphichen in 1767 and the men with whom he worked to build and operate the two Comet steamships.

THE Helensburgh area had two legal distilleries — and many illicit stills.

John Ashworth OBE, retired chief executive of the Chivas Brothers group, told the Helensburgh Heritage Trust meeting in Helensburgh Tennis Club on Wednesday evening that one distillery was at Altdonaig, Rhu, and the other behind the Victoria Hall in the burgh.

"Surely this is a spelling mistake?" That was the reaction of many people when they saw the title of the talk which Simon Green of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland gave to Helensburgh Heritage Trust on Wednesday January 25. However, it was no mistake!

The baffling title was "The Bute-ifying of Scotland". The solution to the conundrum came in the subtitle to the talk, which was "The Architectural and Archaeological Patronage of the 3rd and 4th Marquesses of Bute". And what a patronage it was.

THE history of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders was described in an illustrated talk given to Helensburgh Heritage Trust's final open meeting of 2011 by Joyce Steele on Wednesday November 30.

Mrs Steele, who lives in Garelochhead with her husband Colonel Bobby Steele, is the curator and manager of the regiment's museum in the King's Old Building at Stirling Castle.

HELENSBURGH Heritage Trust's 2011-12 winter session of talks started on September 28 with a thought-provoking presentation from Michael Davis, the Trust's first and only honorary life member.

Although his subject was 'Castle Restorations', the talk covered a much broader field. This became apparent from his very first slide which was entitled 'A Restoration Tragedy', and which contained further wording in the style of a Victorian melodrama in three acts and with a prologue!