MY aerial view of Greenock featured last Thursday included a reference to the Victoria Harbour’s former steam crane.

I advised the image could be dated to the first half of the sixties because it showed the Rue End Street fire station which opened in 1960, and still to be seen was the crane, which I believed to have been demolished in 1964.

Today’s image of the crane illustrated a Telegraph article in July, 1963.

The story revealed Greenock Harbour Trust had decided the crane – which would be 90 years old in December of that year and more or less past repair - should be removed.

It had long outlived its usefulness but had been kept just in case something cropped up.

The crane had once played a vital role during peacetime and the First and Second World Wars.

Before the construction of the James Watt Dock’s 150-ton crane, it was the biggest on Greenock’s waterfront and capable of lifting 75 tons.

For many years the crane was used to install engines for ships built at local yards.

The 1963 story included an interview with William Bennett, a former Harbour Trust foreman engineer, who said before the construction of the Watt Dock crane the one in the Victoria Harbour was used for the fitting-out of all kinds of vessels.

He told the Telegraph: “There was such a rush of work they even used to launch ships in the middle of the night to get use of the crane.”

William said the size of the vessels seemed to present no obstacles. If a ship was longer than the east wall, it was moored with its bows sticking out of the mouth of the Victoria Harbour.

An article I wrote about the crane in 2007 quoted 1964 as when it was demolished as I had seen a reference to that being the year.

However, the Telegraph story from July, 1963, said work was due to start in a month or two. I have yet to discover if that happened or the work was delayed and not completed until 1964.

The paper stated preserving the crane would have made a fitting memorial to local shipbuilding in the previous century.