IT was a momentous day in the history of Bearsden. In January 1958, at Bearsden Public Hall, some 1,000 electors voted in favour of burgh status for the area. It was the culmination of a campaign to break away from Dumbarton County Council, which had begun almost a year earlier.

So many people wanted to attend the meeting that the doors had to be closed 20 minutes before it began. Five hundred remained outside the hall, 200 of them in the snow-covered grounds, shivering through below-freezing temperatures, to listen to a relay of the proceedings. Inside, a slight delay in starting the meeting occasioned a brief and decorous outbreak of slow handclapping before the presiding Sheriff, John M Mackay, got matters underway.

The electors, noted this paper’s Editorial Diary, stood “shoulder to Crombie-clad shoulder” listened intently. They indicated their amused agreement when it was said that there was no reason why they should be excessively worse than the people of Milngavie in running their own affairs. They smiled ironically at a reference to increased valuation of Bearsden properties. And they nodded knowingly when they heard how much they had been paying under the old regime towards the running of the county of Dumbarton.

Read more: Herald Diary

The electors reached their decision with only one expression of dissent, that of a man who said he feared they might be setting up another Third Reich in their midst. He said he did not object to burgh status, only to attempts to try to influence people before a vote was taken. He called for the vote to be put to every resident of Bearsden, but the sheriff ruled his amendment incompetent.

After the show of hands, Sheriff Mackay concluded: “May I as chairman wish the new burgh of Bearsden the very best of luck.”