THE blessed peace of a Sunday morning in January in Glasgow was suddenly broken by the unmistakeable sound of an explosion, which was heard across much of the city. And within seconds, an 800-tonne crane at the former iron ore terminal at General Terminus Quay was no more.

Hundreds of people watched from the north bank of the river near the Kingston Bridge as a number of charges were detonated by a Yorkshire company at key points on the 140ft high British Steel crane. It and two other cranes, also earmarked for demolition over the next few weeks, had ceased working in December 1979 as the Hunterston terminal took over from the ore terminal. All three had been in use for more than 20 years.

According to Joe Fisher’s The Glasgow Encyclopedia, the General Terminus Quay had been established on the south bank of the river in 1849, and coal from an adjacent railhead was loaded onto ships moored at the quay. In 1957, he writes, it was turned into a facility for unloading iron ore, via three giant transporters, for the “ill-fated Ravenscraig steelworks”, 11 miles away in Motherwell.

“Even discounting the closure of Ravenscraig,” adds Fisher in his 1994 book, “the facility was ill-conceived, for the increase in the size of the new ore carriers prevented them from using it.”