GOOD to see the River Clyde in Glasgow with a bit of life on it. Photographer Frank Gray in November, 1957, was actually doing a feature on the Govan car ferry, from where he took this picture, to show that the skipper had to keep his eye out for “puffers” going up and down the river.
He might have meant puffer in the generic sense of puffing black smoke into the sky as this vessel is doing. However what we know as Clyde puffers, the small general cargo ships that serviced the islands of the west coast had generally disappeared by the fifties, and these vessels may well have been tug-boats.
Behind them is the Govan yard of Belfast shipbuilders Harland and Wolff – famous, of course, for building the Titanic in Ireland. They bought three adjoining yards in Govan in 1912, which they opeated as one site with seven berths. It closed in the sixties, although the engine works lived on as The Shed where two large theatre productions were staged.
Showing a more modern Glasgow is this espresso bar, which opened just two months after the puffer picture was taken, and shows some stunning wallpaper. You could also have a fag with your coffee then.
Pictured below them is then veteran entertainer Lex McLean mugging it up in a restaurant in 1971 with sombrero and mandolin, even though it appears to be a German beer hall.
The props were probably just lying around and Lex grabbed them when the snapper appeared.
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