Stories of the Clyde: As part of Inverclyde Council’s wider commemorations of Port Glasgow’s 250th birthday, Inverclyde Libraries in partnership with the Beacon Arts Centre are delighted to present a series of talks exploring how the River Clyde has shaped the townscapes of Inverclyde, powered its economy, and defined its industrial heritage. These stories of the Clyde will celebrate the river’s social, cultural and environmental significance, offering fresh perspectives on one of Scotland’s most iconic waterways.

Join historian Hugh Hagan to explore the community of Port Glasgow in its shipbuilding heyday from the perspective of its women. Through the voices of the mothers, wives and daughters who managed the home and the money, gain insight to the tight bonds across family, friends and neighbours that sustained these communities in times of challenge and change.

Traditional shipbuilding stories often concentrate on the men on the yards – their technical achievements, employment conditions, trade unionism, and the culture that grew around this. But behind the industry there is domesticity – even if these voices are heard less often in the formal records.

Hugh Hagan is a native of Port Glasgow – in his early career, he was a shipbuilder initially in James Lamont’s, and then Scott Lithgow’s Kingston Yard. In 1984 he was made redundant as a consequence of disinvestment in shipbuilding and other traditional industries across Scotland. He retrained as an information management professional, and recently retired from the National Records of Scotland, where he was head of the team tasked with implementing the Public Records (Scotland) Act.

His PhD at the University of Edinburgh focused on the lives of women in the shipbuilding communities of the West of Scotland between the Wars. He is a board member of the Scottish Oral History Group and a trustee of the Scottish Working People’s History Trust.