The Arts

A HELENSBURGH man drew on his upbringing in the town when working on the film which won him a BAFTA in November 2006.

ONE of the most popular songs sung by a well known Helensburgh singer was "It's a sin to live a lie". But 'boy singer' Master Joe Petersen did just that for most of her life.

Master Joe, as he was known, was in fact burgh girl Mary O'Rourke, who also appeared under the names of Master Wilfred Eaton and Michael Dawnay.

A HELENSBURGH woman who died in 2005 made a huge impact on both professional and amateur drama in Scotland.

Formerly the proprietor of the Bookworms book shop in East Clyde Street, Ros Lane was also for many years an editor and presenter of the local talking newspaper for the blind and otherwise visually handicapped, Headline Helensburgh.

A HELENSBURGH man who for many years was instrumental in selling other people's books to townsfolk is now hoping that they will buy his new book.

Terry Lane has written the biography of the doyen of the small theatre movement he always wanted to write, “The Full Round — the several lives and theatrical legacy of Stephen Joseph”, and it is available at the shop he founded, Bookworms in East Clyde Street.

HELENSBURGH man Terry Lane, who now lives and works in Italy, has published his second book.

“Side by Side”, his history of Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre of which he was the first artistic director and manager, is a very much a labour of love as he and his late wife Ros were instrumental in its launch.

AN IMPORTANT work by a leading Helensburgh artist of the past, Norah Neilson Gray, is on display in Helensburgh Library.

The painting, “Hôpital Auxilaire D’Armée 30, Abbaye de Royaumont” by Norah Neilson Gray, was gifted to the people of Helensburgh by the artist’s sister, Dr Tina Gray, on her death in 1984.

A HELENSBURGH man is well on the way to becoming a top international film director.

Tom Vaughan, whose mother ran a nursery school and still lives in the burgh, attended the London premiere of his latest film 'What Happens In Vegas', starring Cameron Diaz, in April 2008, but also is a very important figure in the world of commercials.

A PORTRAIT of Helensburgh-born TV inventor John Logie Baird which was commissioned for Lomond School was lost in the St Bride’s building fire in 1997.

The original, by eminent Glasgow artist Emilio Coia, had hung in the Larchfield building and was then moved to St Bride’s when Larchfield closed.

A HELENSBURGH woman who earned a reputation as a fine art historian and painter, Ailsa Tanner, is particularly remembered for a book she described as ‘her life’s work’.

Her carefully researched catalogues for the centenary exhibition of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists in 1982, followed by the West of Scotland Women Artists, remain essential sources of information.

A VERY talented Helensburgh man with a great interest in the past began his working life as a librarian and ended up an author and made a major contribution to local history and research.

Brian D.Osborne, who grew up in the the family home in West Princes Street and regularly returned from his Kirkintilloch home, often to give talks, died suddenly on May 30 2008 while on holiday in Uzbekistan.

A GRAPHIC picture of Helensburgh and Garelochside in its more genteel days over a century earlier was painted in two successful novels in the 1970s.

The large mansions, the servants, the steamers racing each other in the Gareloch for pier cargoes, the carriages at Helensburgh Central Station were all vividly portrayed and formed the setting for much of the action in ‘King’s Royal’ and its sequel ‘Queen’s Royal’.

THE author of 21 spy novels, which have sold more than 23 million copies in the United States alone and been translated into over 22 languages, is one of the most famous former pupils of Helensburgh’s Hermitage School.

But Helen Clark MacInnes, who was born in Glasgow on October 7 1907, only came to the burgh when she was five with her parents, Donald and Jessica McDiarmid MacInnes.