THE new Gourock Heritage Centre will hold its first temporary display during the town’s Highland Games weekend.

Councillor Ronnie Ahlfeld was delighted to receive the keys for the top floor of the former town buildings last week.

Local history expert Kay Clark, who has experience with heritage projects and in securing grant funding from national bodies, has been appointed to take the project forward.

Mr Ahlfeld is appealing for people who have items of historical interest such as photographs, artefacts or memorabilia to come forward.

He said: “We want to put on a temporary display of interesting material on May 13 and 14. 

“On the Saturday there will be lots of entertaining events happening in the town and we thought it would be a good idea to open it up to the general public, basically to let people see the space.”

Two local ladies have already come forward with artefacts of interest to the town.

Jean Canning has a wealth of material on Cragburn where her late husband Bill, an engineer by day, played saxophone in various bands.

She said: “My husband played with the Henri Morrison Band, the Charlie Harkins Band and the Capitol Big Band.

“He made the Cragburn diaries and took a note of all the different bands who played at Cragburn.

“He had three big books with lots of photographs.

“It was amazing the amount of bands we had in the area at that time.

“Most of these musicians were playing in bands at night keeping up morale during the war and were also working at Scotts and Kincaids during the day.

“They did their bit for the war effort.”

Jean Campbell, who’s late husband Neil was the youngest person to swim from Kilcreggan to Gourock at the age of 14, has also kindly agreed to share his treasured medals and photographs with the public.

Mr Ahlfeld said: “We want to assess the potential and let people see the terrific historical rooms in this building.”