CLYDEBANK - Rebirth of the Town that Died

Revisiting a town that suffered greatly after the closure of the Singer Sewing Machine Factory and John Brown's Shipyard. Clydebank didn't exist until these major employers moved into the area, and when they both closed around a century later there was possibly no reason for Clydebank to exist any more. But the town is holding on, barely holding on, some might say, and now fighting back after a bleak period of mass unemployment. After the removal of many of the towns tenements - built for the thousands of workers who moved to the town to work in Singer's or John Brown's - Clydebank not only felt like a desolate place but also looked abandoned. There were huge derelict wastelands where both housing and industrial buildings once were, and Clydebank felt very much like a lost and forgotten place. But now a huge programme of building is taking place, and where once was John Brown's Shipyard is now an attractive area with walkways and an exciting feel. In the video I look at the building berths of John Brown's shipyard where the Queen Mary and QE2 were built and launched, and also at the fitting-out basin beside the Titan Crane where both liners were fitted out and finished. Clydebank suffered greatly when industry abandoned it, but now the town is back. Big time.