Doon The Watter

During my recent stay at the Golden Jubilee Hospital in Clydebank, I quite literally had a 'room with a view' looking right over the River Clyde, just a quarter of a mile down river from the old John Brown yard in Clydebank. This brought back happy memories for me of river-watching during my schooldays 66-72. The river was much busier then, of course, and you would be guaranteed to see a procession of coasters, oil-tankers, barges, puffers, steamers etc etc all day, every day during the summer. I had the great thrill as a schoolboy of seeing the QE2 pass Dumbarton on its maiden voyage, just another couple of miles down river from where the hospital now is. And I regularly used to see the Waverley Paddle-Steamer plying its trade between Glasgow and the exotic locales of the Clyde coast at places such as Millport, Rothesay, Largs, Wemyss Bay etc. Nearly 30 years later I was visiting relatives in Cleveden, Somerset, and I made the tremendously exciting discovery that the Waverley was then operating on the south-west coast of England, and called in to Cleveden Pier on a daily basis in the high season. It was so strange to see her 30 years later and 500 miles distant. I now have, on the wall above where I'm sitting, framed photographs of the Waverley at Cleveden Pier. The photograph here is of an older vintage and is of the more familiar waters of the Clyde at Rothesay Harbour. For no other reason than that I love John Masefield's poem, I conclude this reverie with CARGOES Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir, Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine, With a cargo of ivory, And apes and peacocks, Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores, With a cargo of diamonds, Emeralds, amythysts, Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack, Butting through the Channel in the mad March days, With a cargo of Tyne coal, Road-rails, pig-lead, Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.