IT won’t be long now. The new Queensferry Crossing will open to traffic on August 30, but before it does it was confirmed this week that 50,000 people, chosen by ballot, will be given the chance to cross the bridge by foot. Malcolm Roughead, of VisitScotland, said that, just as they had done with the two Forth bridges before it, Scots would take the new bridge to their hearts.

There is certainly something special about the opening of a new bridge. Forty-six years ago, more than 5000 people turned up to watch Princess Anne open the Erskine Bridge on the 2nd of July, 1971.

About 3000 people attended the formal opening ceremony; about 1000 more were on the bridge crest where two plaques were unveiled by the princess and at least a further 1000 lined the route through Erskine Hospital, Old Kilpatrick and at Erskine Ferry.

Princess Anne, in a lime-green ensemble of fine wool crowned by a baker’s boy cap with two tassels, stood in an open Land-Rover during the journey across the bridge and back by the ferry, waving and smiling to spectators. She said there had been great engineering achievements in Scotland in recent years and among the most striking and attractive were the new road bridges, which were already part of the landscape.

Interestingly, terrorism, then as now, was an undertone to large public events. According to The Herald’s report of events, Thames Valley police force received an anonymous phone call containing a threat to shoot the Princess at the opening of the bridge. But the report said that if the Princess knew anything about the threat, she did not show the slightest hint.

About 500 police officers were on duty on both banks of the Clyde and their security checks were thorough. Nothing untoward happened. And just to make sure, the Rev D N Alexander, the parish minister, blessed the bridge for the future.