THERE used to be 11 ferry routes criss-crossing the Clyde from Glasgow's city centre down to Erskine.

And then there was one - the Renfrew ferry. Not the old car ferry which I remember toiling across the Clyde from Yoker on a giant chain which allowed the boat to drift downriver before the chain sharply pulled it back to the landing quay. That ship is now a floating music venue in Glasgow's city centre, replaced by a little passenger boat ferrying a dozen folk at a time.

But for the summer months we now have a second crossing, the iconic Govan Ferry running from the Transport Museum to Water Row in Govan. Again the actual boat is somewhat different. The Govan Ferry used to be a car ferry with an upper car deck which could be raised or lowered to fit the quay depending on the tide. When the Clyde Tunnel opened, a smaller passenger boat replaced it.

These ferries really were of a bygone Glasgow, before the tunnel, before the Kingston Bridge and before pedestrian bridges both squinty and straight. Their routes mean little these days. The Stobcross Ferry ran from Maviesbank Quay to Finnieston Quay. Even veteran Glaswegians would be hard-pressed to point out Stobcross and Maviesbank on a map with any certainty.

They were crammed with shipyard workers heading in both directions as the Clyde then had shipyards within hailing distance of the city centre. Few realise that the paddle-steamer Waverley, one of Scotland's most photographed symbols, was built here, just where the River Kelvin enters the Clyde beside the current Transport Museum - or do we call it the Riverside Museum now?

In fact one of Scotland's worst transport disasters happened near there on the Govan Ferry although it is not commemorated in any way. In 1864 the Govan Ferry was then a large rowing boat. On that day in November there were 27 passengers packed on board, who were left to steer it while the ferryman was collecting fares. Their inept steering in the swell of a passing steamer led to it capsizing, and the passengers thrown into the freezing Clyde. Some 19 were drowned. Two passengers who clung to the overturned boat were rescued by the next ferry downriver as they floated past.

There were no such difficulties on board this summer's Govan Ferry which is in fact a small motor-boat named Ellens Isle, and skippered by Callum McKelvie who reassuringly was brought up in the Outer Hebrides where all Scotland's best sailors come from. In his soft, lilting accent he told me: "On the old Govan Ferry when the yards came out they would just open the gates and the crowd would pour on. I don't think crowd control came into it. The only thing they could do was push off, and four or five men would fall into the water as they tried to get on board. They never wanted to wait for its return you see."

Which leads us of course to the hoary old story of the Celtic fan being chased through Govan by Rangers fans after an Old Firm game at Ibrox. Reaching the ferry quay he could see the ferry was already a couple of feet out on the river so he gave the chasing crowd one last obscene gesture before leaping onboard. "That was close," he cheerily told the skipper.

"Not really," he replied. "We're just about to land at Govan."

Now we shouldn't get too nostalgic about the old ferries. It was best explained by Mark Twain in his travelogue The Innocents Abroad. He wrote: "Schoolboy days are no happier than the days afterwards, but we look back upon them regretfully because we have forgotten our punishments at school, and how we grieved when our marbles were lost and our kites destroyed - because we have forgotten all the sorrows and privations and remember only its orchard robberies and its fishing holidays."

So a fellow passenger on today's Govan Ferry put me right. "As a young lad I was told by my parents not to use the ferries. The landing stairs were steep, slippy, slimy and covered in God-knows-what. If you came home after falling in the Clyde you were taken off to the hospital to have your stomach pumped. The Clyde wasn't cleaned up in the sixties. There was raw sewage in it." Yes happy days.

But today's Govan is different. The little ferry from the Transport Museum is funded by public bodies in Govan who relish the opportunity of attracting museum visitors across the river. The landing at Govan is no longer slimy and unappealing. A £300,000 dock was built for ease of access. It leads up to Water Row which has been pleasantly resurfaced. Signs point to the Govan Stones, the carved medieval and Viking stones at Govan Old Church.

At the top of Water Row is the restored Aitken Memorial Fountain with a golden cherub affectionately known as the Govan Baby. Perhaps the uncommon sunshine was affecting me, but the cherub is cradling a paddle, and it looks as though it has a mobile phone tucked into its chin.

Back at the dock, a local is photographing two swans magnificently traversing the Clyde with six cygnets in perfect line behind them. He tells me though that there used to be nine cygnets. Sounds sad, but here is a River Clyde story with a happier tone than tales of drownings and dank quays. Iain McGavin, the crew-member on Ellens Isle tells me: "There were nine, but three were being attacked by crows and weren't going to make it. Staff at the Transport Museum contacted a bird sanctuary and the three are recovering there."

Travelling back to the museum from Govan - there is no strict timetable, the ferry just potters across when folk arrive - skipper Callum looks around at the sedate river where little activity is taking place, and quietly observes: "There's an awful lot more they can do with the river."

As we tie up he tells me: "It would surprise you the number of Glasgow children who have never seen the Clyde."

As Kenneth McKellar used to sing: "Oh the river Clyde, the wonderful Clyde. The name of it thrills me and fills me with pride."

Perhaps it's time to sing about it a bit louder.