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.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here