The new history of Western Ferries is a detailed but intriguing book, and not only for those of us with an enthusiasm for Scotland’s ferries – normally dismissed as anoraks.
It will be controversial because author Roy Pedersen, a former official in the old Highlands and Islands Development Board (HIDB), one time Highland SNP councillor, writer, publisher, illustrator, member of the Scottish Government's Expert Ferry Grpup and consultant, is no fan of CalMac.
Indeed many will dismiss this work as a polemic – publicly owned CalMac seriously bad, privately owned Western Ferries good. And it is true he can’t resist taking a swipe wherever possible at the “feather-bedded, over staffed and inefficient state-owned operation..” that he sees CalMac as being. Other narratives are available.
But Western’s story is important not least as the pioneer of roll on roll off (RO-RO) ferries.
The roots of the highly successful company whose red and white liveried vessels now have a monopoly on vehicular traffic across the Clyde from Gourock to Dunoon ( or more precisely McInroy’s Point to Hunter’s Quay), are to be found further west on Islay. Pedersen goes back to the 1960s when ferry services to many islands were lamentable by today’s standards.
There were infrequent sailings and turnarounds painfully protracted with vehicles being loaded buy hoists and then side ramps.
But there were a visionary few who saw the answer for Islay in Norway’s approach of RO-RO vessels plying the shortest feasible crossings. The Western Ferries’ founders pursued the model. They applied to the newly created HIDB, which approved assistance only for Labour Secretary of State Willie Ross to block it, because he didn’t want to fragment ferry services.
It was just one episode in a long list which Pedersen compiles, whereby Western suffered from “the perversity of government policy and the inside aversion to independent private operators...”
The debate over whether CalMac routes should be kept as one subsidised network or allow some to be taken over by commercial operators, has been going for years. Pedersen has long been an advocate of the latter and sees the amount of public money spent on CalMac as an “obscenity.”
But you don’t have to agree with him to get something from this book, and be impressed by the pioneering spirit and sheer nerve of Western’s founders.
They built ferries and linkspans so RO-RO car ferries could serve Islay, Jura and Gigha. They introduced a service from Campbeltown to Red Bay in Northern Ireland. Then there was a high-speed catamaran brought into to see if commuter services would work on the Clyde. The same vessel was later used to provide a link from Oban to Molville in the Irish Republic, Western’s first international service.
Only the Clyde is left, but it is now the busiest ferry route in Scotland and Pedersen lays into those who campaign for a return of the car ferry between Gourock and Dunoon town piers. They are likely to respond.
‘Western Ferries Taking’ on Giants by Roy N. Pedersen is published by Birlinn £9.99.
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