TOMORROW marks the 60th anniversary of the opening and dedication service of St Laurence’s Church in Kilmacolm Road, Greenock.

Nearly 1,500 crowded into the new Roman Catholic church, with dozens, unable to get seats, standing in the aisles.

Outside, half an hour before noon on Sunday 25 April, 1954, hundreds of people, shepherded by police, gathered to watch the arrival of church dignitaries.

Altar boys led the procession into the church, followed by priests and canons, and then Bishop James Black of Paisley, celebrant of the High Mass, and Archbishop Donald Campbell of Glasgow.

Preaching the first sermon, the Archbishop quoted the words: “I have heard thy prayer and I have chosen this place as a sacrifice.” Referring to the destruction of the church’s previous building during the Greenock Blitz, the Archbishop said that no one was likely to forget that night in 1941, and the ruin that was left behind in Greenock.

To the people of St Laurence’s who were left without a church, he added, it had meant that the various activities had to be carried out under the most difficult and trying conditions.

But although they had lost their church, they had not lost their devotion, nor their spirit.

Paying tribute to the Very Rev John Canon Daniel, parish priest, the Archbishop said the opening of “this magnificent building” was the result of his strength and zeal.

The accompanying photograph shows the St Laurence’s church building destroyed during the Greenock Blitz in 1941.