WITH Fergusons not only rescued but now, as reported in The Herald, investing in expansion and potentially creating a new major shipyard in a Greenock dry dock (“Billionaire planning major new shipyard on the Clyde”, The Herald, July 22), is the time now right to bring Govan Graving Docks back to life partly as an operational dry dock facility?

Ministry of Defence investment has secured shipbuilding on the Clyde for many years to come so there is plenty of life left in the river yet.

Govan Graving Docks is too small and inaccessible for the large cargo ships and cruise liners that traverse the world’s oceans but smaller vessels – ferries, yachts, fisheries protection, small bulk carriers and marine research vessels are all of a size that Govan Graving Docks could easily accommodate.

There are also historic ships undergoing preservation and the interest in projects of this type has never been greater, with current efforts to return the QE2 and the TS Queen Mary to the Clyde.

The focus on Glasgow shipbuilding has in recent decades tended to be about how this is a thing of the past and is looked at in an historical context.

Could Govan Graving Docks be revived, not only out of historical interest but also in the context of modern shipbuilding – showing how maritime technology has changed and adapted?

An operational dry dock integrated into a heritage park / maritime museum could look at the past, the present and the future. Govan Graving Docks could be a facility for maintenance of a tall ship or refitting a marine research vessel. It could be a place for people to learn and for the next generation of shipbuilders to be inspired. It could even be used to build small vessels – replica Clyde Puffers, river buses or for converting retired fishing trawlers to other uses such as houseboats. It could also host a university research centre for maritime studies.

Govan Graving Docks is a category-A listed site and the position of Historic Scotland is that the most appropriate use for an historic building or structure is generally that for which it was built.

Iain McGillivray,

Director, The Clyde Docks Preservation Initiative Ltd, Level 3, 7 Water Row, Glasgow.

WHEREAS I sympathise with Iain A D Mann's comments on Yarrows (Letters, July 24), much more has been airbrushed out.

Not quite airbrushed out but heading that way is Hunterston, its life coming to an end in tandem with Longannet Power Station. The closure of Hunterston will bring to a conclusion a most unhappy chapter in Scotland's history. Hunterston has about 1,400 acres of flat land adjacent to deep water. A prize possession, squandered. There was a proposal to make steel and build large ships there, which would have meant the end of steel -making elsewhere in Scotland and of building many small/medium ships on the Upper Clyde. Local left - wing political activists were able to thwart this proposal despite broad agreement among political parties and trade unions. Margaret Thatcher was not involved at this stage, having not yet come to power.

However she became a convenient scapegoat later when compelled to end (withdraw subsidies) from the residue of Scottish steel -making and shipbuilding. How the Left cursed her in public and blessed her in private for her dual role as scapegoat and smokescreen.

How well Hunterston thus developed would have fared in competition with shipyards in Japan, Korea and China is an open question; perhaps not very well. However, it would at least have been a contender

As Margaret Thatcher is reported to have said in her best West of Scotland accent: "It wisnae me! Wee boys did it and ran away". A true statement on this occasion. The wee boys are still running, and are still defended. Indeed the wee boys have become part of Scottish folklore, up there with William Wallace and Robert Burns.

William Durward,

20 South Erskine Park, Bearsden.