THE MOST generous benefactor in Helensburgh’s history believed that divine intervention saved his life, and giving was his way of expressing his gratitude.
Provost Andrew Buchanan is best remembered for donating the outdoor swimming pool, but he also paid for a paddling pool at the foot of James Street, and refurbishment of the Victoria Hall to mark the Silver Jubilee. Privately his generosity was just as great.
ONE of the leading chemists of his era — and an institution in the whisky industry — lived for much of his life in Rosneath and Helensburgh.
Professor Robert Rattray Tatlock was an analytical and consulting chemist, an expert witness in trials involving chemicals, and later public analyst, gas examiner and sewage chemist to Glasgow Corporation.
THE MOST generous benefactor in Helensburgh’s history believed that divine intervention had saved his life, and giving was his way of expressing his gratitude.
Not only did Provost Andrew Buchanan pay for the King George V Silver Jubilee beakers and sweets given to town schoolchildren in 1935, but he is best remembered for donating the outdoor swimming pool.
MAY 1935 was a very special month in Helensburgh and throughout the land, as it was when the silver jubilee of King George V was marked. This fascinating newspaper account, typical of the period, tells how the occasion was celebrated.
A HELENSBURGH man who had a colourful and highly successful career as a lawyer and in business also served with distinction during the Normandy Landings and the Clydebank Blitz.
THE death of Baroness Thatcher on April 8 2013 led to the great and the good producing all their views and memories — some favourable, some not so — of the ‘Iron Lady’.
In Helensburgh thoughts turned to her visit to the town on April 18 1975, when the first woman to lead a British political party was given a rapturous welcome.
HELENSBURGH’S Abbeyfield supported housing for the elderly at 54 West King Street, Barclay Smith House, consists of eleven flats, and is named after its most generous local benefactor.
THE historic village of Rhu has been home to many famous people over the years . . . but only one man changed its name.
‘Mr Rhu’ for decades was Colonel Kenneth Barge, DSO, MC, DL, and he had another historic title — late of the Bengal Lancers.
A PROFESSOR of politics who is a long-time Helensburgh resident marked his 80th birthday this year with the publication of his 41st and 42nd books.
'Representing Europe: A Pragmatic Approach', published by Oxford University Press and written by Professor Richard Rose, charts how the European Union has a democratic imbalance — not enough chances for citizens to influence Brussels, but lots of chances to influence national governments whose decisions in Brussels they dislike.
Iain Hope penned this tribute to his brother-in-law, Helensburgh Heritage Trust company secretary and treasurer John Johnston, who died on October 5 2012.
A YOUNG couple emigrated to the United States from Helensburgh in the 1890s . . . and founded a dynasty which included several smugglers and is now spearheaded by a playwright.
He is Isaac Rathbone, whose World War One tragic comedy ‘Captain Ferguson’s School for Balloon Warfare’ was performed in the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
