The Arts

A HELENSBURGH-born actress has become a well known TV, film and theatre performer.

Morven Christie was born in 1979, but only lived locally for a few months until her family moved to Glasgow.

A HELENSBURGH woman who died in Edmonton, Canada, in 1999 is still revered in that country as an educator, actress and playwright.

Elsie Park Young was born in Mavisbank Terrace in the burgh on September 9 1905, daughter of chemist Robert Young and his wife Elizabeth Muir Park, who had married in Glasgow on December 7 the previous year.

TV INVENTOR John Logie Baird peers out over the seafront at the foot of William Street in Helensburgh, Henry Bell has an obelisk at the foot of James Street, and his Comet artefacts have recently been restored to the East Bay grass after the Scottish Water works.

But the town does not mark the achievements of its two most famous film and theatre stars, Deborah Kerr and Jack Buchanan.

A REMARKABLE tribute was paid on March 4 2009 to a Rosneath Peninsula man who had a huge impact in spreading the joy of music amongst people of all ages and abilities.

The Ronnie Walker Memorial Concert was held in a packed Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow in aid of the Musicians Benevolent Fund and Cancer Research UK.

A CARDROSS couple are both leading Scottish artists, acclaimed by their peers.

Helensburgh and District Art Club members James Spence, RSW, RGI, who is 80, and his wife, Anda Paterson, RSW, RGI, who is six years younger, were two of the three founders of the Glasgow Group of artists in 1957.

A HELENSBURGH singer was a highly regarded member of the chorus group at the Royal Opera House in London’s Covent Garden for 30 years.

Born in Adelaide Street in the town in 1920, Daniel McCoshan travelled the world and sang with some of the great names in opera before his death on January 21 2003 at the age of 82.

A VERY well known singer who spent much of her childhood in Helensburgh returned to the burgh for a concert in January 2009 . . . 25 years on from when she won several major prizes as a student.

Soprano Lorna Anderson, who now lives in Somerset with her husband and three daughters, sang in a charity concert in the West Kirk on Thursday January 22 with broadcaster and singer Jamie MacDougall and the Eisenstadt trio.

A SEAT beside a desk in the editorial office of the Helensburgh Advertiser in 1995 was occupied by a young reporter with a talent for finding stories.

A GARELOCHHEAD man was named top director at the 2008 Scottish BAFTAs.

Kenneth Glenaan, better known locally as Kenneth Grant, won the coveted prize for his film Summer, which starred Robert Carlyle, and it also took the Best Film award.

A YOUNG artist from Rhu who now lives and works in America has gained an international reputation, with her paintings selling for as much as 10,000 dollars.

Vicki Hopkinson — who comes home regularly for holidays — is particularly renowned for her paintings of animals.

HELENSBURGH people have long embraced Deborah Kerr as their very own film star, but the time she spent in the town was very short.

Countless newspaper, magazine and website articles say that the Scottish girl who became the archetypal movie ‘perfect English rose’ was born in the burgh.

JEWELLERY owned by Helensburgh film star Deborah Kerr was sold at auction by Bonhams in London on Thursday December 4 2008 — and the prices exceeded all expectations.

Deborah Kerr, who was born in 1921 and died in Suffolk in October 2007, starred in more than 50 films over four decades, most memorably appearing in From Here to Eternity, with Burt Lancaster (1953), The King and I, with Yul Brynner (1956) and An Affair to Remember, with Cary Grant (1957).