In the past few weeks I have been reaping the consequences of having been Down Under for six consecutive weeks. It's been immensely busy with planning, travelling and catching up with myself. Plus I organised a big join meet in Inverness earlier this month and attended one in Edinburgh the week after.
One of my work commitments involved three days in Greenock at a training event. I was not sure what to expect as I had never been there before, and know very little of the west Central Belt other than Glasgow itself. That whole area has suffered badly from the decline of heavy industry, with little other than burberry caps and heroin to replace it. However, I was pleasantly surprised by Greenock – it is on the coast, facing over the Clyde firth to hills of Argyllshire and Dumbartonshire, and has some lovely old buildings. The Waverley, Scotland's last ocean-going paddle steamer, was even docked in the harbour one night, which took me back to when I was around ten years old and visited it as part of a school trip when it was in Lochmaddy in North Uist.
Anyway, a lot of the historic county towns of Scotland have stunning examples of architecture from Victorian and often earlier periods – Lerwick, Kirkwall, Oban, Perth and Elgin are good examples – and Greenock really impressed me. The town house is a tall, grand affair with intricate and beautiful carvings and pillars, and there are various other lovely old buildings in the heart of the town. Meanwhile the seafront has been significantly tidied up with smart, modern buildings and an attractive promenade. There were a few ugly monstrosities of sixties urban planning, however, and it spoke volumes that one of the largest buildings in Greenock town centre was the job centre. Also, everything from the local college to one of the pubs is named after Greenock's famous son, James Watt, who lords it over the town centre in the form of an elegant statue.
Rather typical of a Central Belt town that their biggest name should be an electrician.
