Organisations

2002—2003

ONE day in 2002 while sitting in Arrochar Church reading the Pews News, I saw that our minister, who covers Luss as well as Arrochar, was asking the congregation to look out their old photos and articles so that they could be displayed in the new Pilgrimage centre in Luss.

Being absolutely ‘planted’ in the soil of Arrochar, Tarbet and Ardlui I was horrified — something else disappearing from our villages. So by the time the sermon had finished I had made up my mind that I would need to do something.

A HELENSBURGH institution left the town in 2009 after 173 years . . . the local court.

The District Court sat for the last time in the burgh on Wednesday December 9, with JP Andrew Nicolson from Rhu on the bench. From 2010 it and all the other local courts are being held in the enlarged and refurbished court building in Dumbarton.

THE existing minutes of Helensburgh and Gareloch Horticultural Society date from 1926: whatever records there were prior to that date have either been lost or destroyed.

However, there is documentary evidence that Flower Shows were held in Helensburgh as early as 1850.

IN the year of the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns, Helensburgh regained a Burns Club.

In the weeks prior to Burns Night on January 25 2009, a group of local people got together, formed a steering group, and revived Helensburgh Burns Club which had ceased to exist in about 1951.

LIVES are saved on Loch Lomond, Scotland’s biggest and most popular inland loch, thanks to the efforts of a Luss-based group of stalwart and brave volunteers.

Throughout the years the Loch Lomond rescue boat has gone from strength to strength, thanks to grant assistance from the local council, and the goodwill of the public and local businesses.

HELENSBURGH became a Royal Burgh with the right of local self-government in 1802 . . . but 173 years later it lost that right.

The Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 ended the old system of local government, and two years later, in May 1975, an era with a character all of its own was over.

HEADLINE Helensburgh, the talking newspaper serving the blind and other visually handicapped in Helensburgh and District, is the oldest talking newspaper in Scotland.

It is the longest registered Scottish member of the Talking Newspaper Association of the United Kingdom, pipping one Dunfermline Sound by a few weeks, and when it was first thought of in the autumn of 1975, it never occurred to those early enthusiasts that they were starting a local institution.

THE Anderson Trust was established in 1980 on the death of Miss A.T.Anderson MBE to manage her bequest to the town of her private collection of paintings.

Annie Templeton Anderson (1889-1980), known to all as Nance, was born and lived all her life in Helensburgh where her father had been Provost.

THE story of the Rotary Club of Helensburgh actually began in Bennetsville, South Carolina, in the United States, in the summer of 1963.

The Rev John Henry Dutch, minister of what was then Old & St Andrew’s Parish Church and is the now the West Kirk, was visiting the area and was invited to speak at the Rotary Club.

HELENSBURGH has an active and flourishing art club, and the number of active amateur artists is increasing all the time.

The history of the club is bound up with the story of Helensburgh from when it was developed by Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, who sold plots of land to build large houses, culminating in the completion of Hill House in 1902.

HELENSBURGH and district members play a major part in the activities of St John Scotland Dunbartonshire, the local arm of the Order of St John in Scotland.

The Order has its origins in an 11th century hospital for pilgrims in Jerusalem, and has evolved into a charity caring for people in need through sickness, distress, suffering or danger in over 40 countries.

BY the middle of the 1800s Helensburgh Town Council — having obtained a Police Act along with a Harbour Act in 1846 — acquired what had been the old theatre, on the corner of Sinclair and East Princes Street, for use as the Municipal Buildings.

It would also be for the Police Station and the Police Court. According to the records, it was also used for some church services which was not what those arrested for being drunk wanted to listen to — a real captive audience.