REMINDER

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO THE LAUNCH OF BILL HEANEY’S NEW BOOK AT THE DUMBUCK HOTEL ON THURSDAY NIGHT (November 30) AT 7.15PM FOR 7.30PM

Bill Heaney, the Dumbarton-based journalist, has produced his third book in two years.

Two Minutes Silence is a follow-up to All Our Yesterdays, a social history of the Lennox, formerly Scotland’s red rose county, which stretches from the banks of the Clyde to Loch Lomond.

The book will be launched at the Dumbuck Country House Hotel in Dumbarton on Thursday evening (November 30) at 7.15pm. Everyone’s welcome.

Pauline McLean, the Arts and Culture correspondent of BBC Scotland, will introduce the event, which will feature songs from Olivia Dawn Haggerty, a gifted musician and singer from Loch Lomondside.

The source of the new book’s title, which is explained in the foreword, is well known to older people and is linked to the local newspaper industry.  Two minutes silence is what descended on nearly every household when the Lennox Herald arrived on a Friday evening.

Almost all the essays and hundreds of photographs in Two Minutes Silence, many of them in colour, are of local places and faces and are based on the social history of West Dunbartonshire.

Contributors include Donald Fullarton, Brian Averell, Alex Mooney and London-based Dumbarton exile MT Rainey.

Heaney said: “The book is aimed mainly at people with links to the events of last century when Clydeside was a very different place from it is today.

“It is full of nostalgia, a rattle-bag of reminiscences and recollections of a wide range of activities and events which have taken place here in times of war and peace.”

He added: “It’s not just about the great and the good but a cross section of our ain folk here and abroad. It’s a book by a local person for local people.

“Folk from the Lord Lieutenant to the loo attendant are included in this affectionate look at the way we were.”

• Signed copies of Two Minutes Silence by Bill Heaney can be purchased on-line from heaneymedia.com or from the usual outlets in Dumbarton, Alexandria and Balloch.