IN its shipbuilding heyday the banks of the River Clyde were covered in a thick forest of cranes.

They were used to lift cargo, including steam locomotives, and equipment, from engines to boilers, used in building battleships and ocean liners.

Now just four are left at Finnieston, Whiteinch, Clydebank and Greenock, but their memories live on in the people who worked in the yards and lived in the surrounding areas.

University of Strathclyde PhD student Martin Conlon wants to hear from these people for a project he is working on with the Scottish Oral History Centre.

The 27-year-old from Shawlands, who has a degree in history, says he was struck by the changes over the years, from the crane being working objects with a specific role to inactive monuments.

“They have been reborn and reimagined in new and quite interesting ways. They are cropping up all over the place: in the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games, on the new £5 notes with Sir William Arrol who created the cranes, and they are a backdrop to the Scottish news,” he says.

“Some of them are prominent fragments of industry and everyday life but we don’t know much about who worked with them or what they mean to people.”

The Finnieston crane has the highest profile and The Titan crane on the site of the former John Brown shipyard in Clydebank is now a heritage centre, but the Barclay Curle crane at Whiteich is now in a bad state of repair and largely forgotten.

Any Scott, creator of the Kelpies, the 30m-tall horse heads made of steel, now standing alongside the Forth and Clyde Canal near Falkirk, was inspired by the Clyde cranes. Meanwhile, songs, stories and poetry have been written about cranes along the river.

“I have spoken to a few people already, from ex-train drivers to people who worked at the company that built the cranes: Sit William Arrol,” says Martin.

“Also urban explorers who climb up the cranes at night and take photographs to crane drivers.

“I realise there may not be that many people left so this is now quite an urgent project.”

He adds: “The crane at the former Fairfield yard in Govan was demolished in 2007. It was a source of great sadness to a lot of people.

“There is a sense of loss about what can happen when they do go and what it means to people. It’s quite intangible, it’s quite hard to connect with what these cranes means to people. Hopefully by chatting to more people I can find out more.”

To pass on your memories of Clydeside cranes, contact Martin on martin.conlon@strath.ac.uk or via www.giantsoftheclyde.com