Helensburgh is a precious gift from the past.

We live in a town in an incomparable setting on the Firth of Clyde, within easy reach of Glasgow and city pleasures with isolated scenic splendour as close as Glen Fruin or Glen Douglas. We have a functioning town centre and an active and involved community. We tend to take these things for granted, since they have always been there. But these are delicate and fragile assets. All of us have a responsibility to protect, nurture and improve on this inheritance. The town must change to meet the needs of today’s society, but change in a way that fits with our heritage and the existing structure of the town.

I was a pupil at Hermitage Academy and lived in the town until 1964 when I moved to North America. I returned to Helensburgh in 2000. Remarkably little has changed in forty years. No lasting harm has been done but the bills for forty years of neglect are due. The town needs help - now.

In October 1964, I took a boat from Greenock to Montreal and travelled cross-country to Vancouver. On the roads of New England, I had my first encounter with the central dilema of small towns in the second half of the twentieth century. How do you meet the needs of retail businesses to expand, improve efficiency, have the benefits of scale, without destroying the traditional town centre? Large shopping malls were being built on the outskirts of small, centuries-old, traditional New England towns. Invariably, the town centre then withered and died. Character and charm lose out to cheap prices and convenience and in the process, the community lose the very thing that made it a community in the first place.

The battle of these opposing forces continues. There are numerous examples in the UK of town centres decimated by shopping developments outside the town.

Galashiels with a population of 14,500 is the same size as Helensburgh. A new Tesco Superstore has just opened. An ASDA Superstore is just across the street and a shopping mall to include a Marks and Spencers is underconstruction. This is a massive gamble on the future of the town. The existing Somerfields Supermarket on the north side of Gala has already lost significant market share and will probably close in the near future. The existing town centre is within walking distance of the new mega complex. It remains to be seen if Supermarket customers who drive to the stores will walk into the town centre to support the retail core.

Large planning decisions matter but so do the small things we do every day. We are all part of the process of preserving, improving or destroying Helensburgh. Do you shop in the town? If you don’t support our local shops, they will close. Do you drop litter? Do you clean up after your dog? Are the trees on Sinclair Street important? Are you involved? Do you express your point of view? Do you care? Do you complain, but do nothing?

British society lags behind America and we have a chance to observe and decide if that is really the environment and culture we want. American towns are dominated by the automobile and the need for convenience. Mini-malls proliferate, convenient but ugly and soul-less. Sit in a Starbucks in a mini-mall in Portland, Oregon, look out over the vista of parked Fords, Chevys, Mazdas and you could be in Lubock, Texas or Jacksonville, Florida or East Lansing, Michigan. You have no reference point to let you know where you are. Coffee in the Coffee Club in Colquhoun Square is a unique Helensburgh experience.

America has lost its small towns and doesn’t know where to find them. Many destroyed by Walmart (ASDA) in the endless search for the cheapest and lowest prices.

I lived in Portland, Oregon for 35 years. The local TV cable franchise requires the company carry programmes with local content. One local programme covered a meeting in Multnomah, a former village now absorbed into the city. A planning expert from Los Angeles was discussing how to get your community noticed by passing traffic. This is a real problem in LA where wide boulevards run straight as a die for forty miles or more. What distinguishes one part of this visual desert from another? How do people know where to stop to eat or shop in this vast expanse of nothing? We don’t have this problem in Helensburgh. We are obviously a place, a functioning community to anyone passing through. But is it a town worth visiting?

Is Helensburgh unique? We have a unique setting but is Helensburgh any different from any other town in Scotland? A significant number of Helensburgh shops are sole traders with shops which are unique to Helensburgh. The owners have made a financial and emotional commitment to the town. It is vital to the prosperity and character of Helensburgh that these shops are encouraged and supported. National chains are here for good financial reasons but are responsible to their shareholders. Any minor change in national strategy by a distant management and these firms close their doors and leave town, the recent closure of the Esso petrol station on East Clyde Street being a case in point. They do provide local jobs but have no essential long term commitment to Helensburgh.

Unique Scottish towns are an endangered species. Helensburgh has already been placed on a list of borderline towns. We must heed the warning. When the retail heart of a town stops beating, the town dies.

Do we want a unique town with a thriving retail economy which attracts other businesses, offering an expanding menu of local choices? A town that caters to the shopping and entertainment needs of the diverse segments of Helensburgh society.

The tourist trade is an essential element of a flourishing Helensburgh. We must offer visitors clean streets, interesting sites, traditional hospitality. Contented visitors and we all benefit.

This isn’t somebody else’s problem. We live here, we work here. It is important to all of us.

Small things do matter. Support your local shop. Keep Helensburgh clean. Take pride in Helensburgh.

It’s Oor Toon!