Backtothe docks after summer of discontent

RUSSELL LEADBETTER THIS is no doubt where the expression “a model police officer” comes from.

Sculptor John Wincentzen, photographed here in 1992, had started his business four years earlier in the village of Millhouse near Tighnabruich. His sculpture of a police dog handler with German Shepherd had won praise. When our sister paper, the Evening Times, caught up with him at his Glasgow studio, he had just created a 19-inch-tall, china-and-resin figurine of a female constable, and he presented it to Leslie Sharp, the then chief constable of Strathclyde Police. SEPTEMBER, 1947, and Glasgow’s latest experimental tramcar excites considerable interest when it went on display in Renfield Street. The tram, decorated in three shades of blue, included several new features.

There was a front entrance near to the driver’s compartment, and there was a separate exit at the rear. Noted the Glasgow Herald: “The entrance door is air-operated by the driver and will be opened only when the tram is at rest, thus reducing the danger of platform accidents.” The new tram could seat 72 passengers, more than either the Coronation or standard trams.