Singer

On Wednesday our church Men's Group had a tour of the excellent Clydebank Museum. (Quite coincidentally, Clydebank was the town in which my mother was born.)

We heard the story of the production of Singer sewing machines in the town, the ship-building industry (in which my grandfather worked), and the blitz (13 & 14 March 1941). We visited the Room of Remembrance, the old police cells and the Bruce Street Swimming Baths, all situated within the Museum and Town Hall complex. It was a fascinating visit.

The large image that I've used for my Blip sits above the cafe area. It shows the Singer Clock Tower, once Clydebank's most famous landmark. At one point in its history, the Singer factory employed 14,000 people and produced 1.3 million sewing machines. "The 200ft clock tower stood over the central wing and has the reputation of being the largest four faced clock in the world. Each face weighed five tons and it took four men fifteen minutes twice a week to keep it wound."  (according to the West Dunbartonshire Council website)

As part of a modernisation programme designed to create more factory space, the clock tower was demolished in 1963. However, in a strange development for such an iconic structure, no-one knows where any of the features - mechanisms, hands, clock faces, etc - of the tower went. They seem lost to history.

Faced with increasing worldwide competition, Singer's in Clydebank closed in June 1980.