MEMBERS of Helensburgh Rugby Football Club have begun planning for the club's 50th anniversary from August 23-25 next year.

A Friday evening reception will be followed by a match on the Saturday afternoon, then a Golden Jubilee Gala dinner for some 500 guests in a marquee at the Ardencaple ground in the evening.

A MYSTERY bell inscribed with 'Helensburgh' and discovered in an antique shop in the south of England made its way back to the town where it is believed to have originated.

Andrew Joyne, who lives near Canterbury, was given the bell by a friend who used to run an antique shop in Ramsgate, Kent. It is inscribed 'NLSCC/Helensburgh/AJAX DIVISION'.

AUTHORS Iain Quinn and Alistair Deayton signed copies of their new book '200 Years of Clyde Paddle Steamers' — which started with Henry Bell's Comet — aboard the paddle steamer Waverley on a trip from Glasgow to Rothesay on Friday August 10.

In the book Deayton and Quinn look at the two centuries of Clyde paddle steamers, illustrating the most famous, such as the Columba, Jeanie Deans and Waverley, — as well as the piers they sailed from, from Rothesay to Helensburgh and from Loch Goil to Loch Long.