THIS was the view of West Nile Street, in Glasgow City Centre, from the top floor of a newly-opened office block.

The six-storey Royal London Mutual Insurance Society building had been built on the site of a war-time air-raid shelter.

The previous site owners had built the foundations and the basement but no further work had been carried out when Royal London took over the site. The basement had been adapted as an air-raid shelter early in the 1940s.

The building, which was opened on June 16, 1959, by the city’s Lord Provost, Myer Galpern, had space for three shops, one of which had been let to a radio and television firm.

The society occupied the first floor, and the other floors were let to other businesses, ranging from Shell Chemical, IBM (UK) and Unilever. The Shell floor was divided into small offices, each occupied by a few employees. The staff were allowed to choose their own colour schemes; one room, it was disclosed, had spurned ‘ quiet’ colours in favour of light grey and bright flamingo.

The front of the building was clad in polished red granite up to the first floor and in natural and artificial granite above.

Read more: Herald Diary

The Royal London Mutual Insurance and other life assurance companies, the Glasgow Herald explained, played an important part in the economic life of the country. Through such organisations the savings of millions of people are collected, amalgamated and channelled into new investment. A great part of the new capital on which industry depends is provided in this way.”

The society’s own funds were growing at the “very substantial” rate of more than £7 million every year.