A Blast from The Past - Community Heritage Report

"There is no period so remote as the recent past..."

In January 2004, now scarily ten years ago, Magic Torch published a report into local attitudes to and opportunities for local heritage. It was launched in the McLean Museum, and we had speakers along from New Lanark, specifically encouraging everyone who came along to think about the Sugar Sheds in the same way New Lanark had thought about the mills - now of course a massive tourist attraction / social enterprise / unesco world heritage site.

No one commissioned the report, we got the funding and resources to pay for it ourselves, to try and make the case for local heritage at a point in time when it was much further down the agenda - we were very aware of the upcoming riverside regeneration programme, and wanted to try and ensure heritage was embedded in the way forward and in a way which involved our community. Imagine our complete lack of surprise when it wasn't. However it wasn't all bad news, the report formed the backbone of most of the projects we developed for the next few years, specifically our award winning Downriver project.

It's interesting to look back over it now, to see how many of the same debates are still ongoing, the same suggestions being made. Happily, a few of these opportunities and suggestions are gradually coming to fruition, and attitudes to heritage and regeneration have changed. It would be nice to think we gave at least a few people some pause for thought. Even people that would rather we hadn't.

Here then, as a wee curio now in its own right, is the report. (apologies that some of the graphics and tables have bitmapped, but the text is still readable throughout)

Local heritage, local People (2004)

Greenock Town Trail Launch

 

 

There's another opportunity to grab copies of Wee Nasties and see the accompanying exhibition upstairs at The Dutch Gable House tomorrow as part of the launch of the new Greenock Town Trail....

 

From Discover Inverclyde....

On Tuesday 9th July a new Greenock Town Trail is being introduced, using 21 plaques which are situated in pavements across the central area of Greenock, highlighting historic locations in the town as well as famous local people in Greenock’s past, notably James Watt and Abram Lyle.

The new Town Trail has been put together by local tourism group Discover Inverclyde and the Inverclyde Tourist Group with help from local historians and Inverclyde Council and with the majority of funding coming from the Council’s Community Facilities Fund.

Chris Jewell, a Director of Discover Inverclyde said, ‘We are delighted to have had this funding to introduce what we believe will be a fascinating insight into many aspects of Greenock’s past. The Trail will take around an hour to complete on foot, unless you linger at some of the areas highlighted by the individual plaques, but you can start and stop the Trail at any point. Thanks are due to the Council and the Tourist Group in particular for enabling the Trail to be put together for the benefit of the many tourists coming here and also for the local community.’

Eleanor Robertson, Chairperson of the Inverclyde Tourist Group added, ‘The Trail will provide a lot of interesting history of Greenock to the many visitors coming from the cruise liners, and help them to focus on our local heritage, while giving them a fascinating Trail to follow. We had a lot of fun putting all this information together, and also discovered a lot of facts about Greenock’s past which are not well known.’

On behalf of Inverclyde Council, Provost Robert Moran said, ‘Inverclyde has a rich and varied history. The Greenock Town Trail highlights some of the most fascinating aspects of the town. It's appropriate the launch of the trail is in William Street in Greenock. It is our oldest street with two of the oldest surviving properties, next to the birthplace of the incredible James Watt, in the shadow of the historic Municipal Buildings and round the corner is the Strathclyde Fire Museum and Heritage Centre. Within a very short walk this town trail will open up some amazing stories and I would encourage as many residents as possible to take the trail and share the incredible history of Greenock with your friends and family.’

The plaques extend from the Custom House on the river’s edge to Greenock Cemetery to the south and take in the Esplanade, Ardgowan Square and part of Nelson Street, Grey Place, Clyde and Cathcart Squares and William and Cathcart Streets. An accompanying booklet has been produced giving more detail to each location and copies are available free of charge from local libraries, the Dutch Gable House, the McLean Museum and a number of local shops.

In addition to the new Trail, six new double sided information signs are being installed highlighting to tourists and visitors many places worth visiting and including a number of additional facts about Greenock, its people and its past. Chris added, ‘We hope that both the new Trail and the information banners will add considerable interest and enjoyment to visitors’ time spent here and they will also provide a good source of information for the local community.’

The new Town Trail will be launched in William Street at 11am on Tuesday 9th of July after which a mini trail of four of the plaques in the immediate area will be visited by those present, accompanied by a number of characters from yesteryear including James Watt and Abram Lyle.

Heritage Tourism

Here's a wee story about Sleepy Hollow in the Hudson valley USA, which is one of many towns in the US to host pirate festivals. As you would expect, the festival also involves and promotes local business, civic spaces etc. There's another one in Milford. Slightly closer to home, here's one in Brixham in Devon. Or Liverpool...
The grass is always greener on the other side, and maybe these one day Pirate festivals are very similar to our Comet Festival, or on the grand scale of last years Tall Ships...they just seem more interesting because they are elsewhere. And have more pirates in them.

Over summer especially, we frequently hear people bemoaning the fact that so many of the American touists who arrive in Greenock on cruise ships, leave the town to visit the rest of Scotland. Obviously, it would be nice to keep folk in the town and spending, not just for a one day festival, but by creating a regular draw for people from elsewhere. (ask yourself...if you were visiting..say...Italy for only one day on a cruise ship, would you stay in the port, or head off on a bus trip to Rome?)

Let's be honest, heritage tourism isn't the quick fix solution to Inverclyde's challenges; it won't necessarily create hundreds of jobs or bring thousands of visitors to the area, anymore than a TV show being filmed here will - but it could help generate more work, interest and investment in the town. And right now, with no massive reindustrialisation plan currently on the horizon...it can't hurt to try.

But what do you promote? And how? Along with the other folk in Magic Torch, I've worked and volunteered with heritage for over ten years now, and what I think I see, even from the interactions on this blog...is that old photos, our proud industrial past, books about our heritage...those are mostly popular with local audiences...and that's fair enough, it's a nice niche, and it's important for our young people to get a chance to explore and discover that history and shared heritage in engaging ways. But ghosts, pirates, mermaids, seamonsters...the unusual...those things have an international audience, as of course does migration and the story of Greenock as a passing place. And it's in those areas that we should target our efforts, if we target them at all. That's our "USP". (I've heard that on The Apprentice, I think it means "cool thing you have that no one else does")

In the linked story above, the town who hosts the annual Captain Kidd pirate festival have only the vaguest connection to piracy, a piece of local folklore, no historical evidence at all. What they did have though...was the self belief to walk the road less travelled by. Wise men know when to learn.

Right, that's me back aff the soapbox.


(In related Captain Kidd news, some of his famous booty was recently discovered in Peterborough, anyone wishing to chip in and bid for them at auction, gies a shout)