The latest speaker at East Kilbride Probus Club made sure his talk wasn't a bridge too far.
President Jim Ballantyne opened the meeting and carried out of the club business.
This included in acknowledging that our member, Harvey Littlejohn, reaching the ripe old age of 97.
He then introduced the speaker Mr Bruce Keith, who is surveyor and environmentalist who started his career with the Department of Agriculture then he moved to England with English Nature as Chief Surveyor.
Mr Keith retired seven years ago as head of property at SSE.
His passion for bridges stemmed from his childhood as well as for Scottish history, geography and landscape all culminating in his love for bridges. All of this appears in his book, “Bridgescapes”.
He started his slide show with the Fallen Bridge near Langholm dated 1873, quickly followed by the Skye Bridge of 1958 known as ‘the second bridge across the Atlantic’.
Next was a picture of a rainstorm in the Cairngorms in 1962/63 which washed away a bridge.
While in that region, he showed what was a very early bridge, which is still standing and used, built in 1320, called The Elphinstone over the River Don in Aberdeenshire.
Next was of the oldest viaduct, The Milton viaduct built by the Duke of Portland to take coal from his Ayrshire mines to Troon to be loaded onto ships. It was restored in 1995 as part of a walk.
Mr Keith also spoke about the Craigellachie Bridge over the Spey built by Thomas Telford near the village of Charlestown, Aberlour.
Thomas Telford, born in Dumfriesshire, was a self-taught stonemason who went on to be a civil engineer.
The following bridge was the Union Chain Bridge across the Tweed joining Scotland to England. It was the first wrought iron suspension bridge.
One of the ensuing slides depicted the famous cantilever bridge The Forth Rail Bridge – a World Heritage Site.
After a few more, they saw the original Tay Bridge, which was lost in a train disaster in 1879. Then they were shown the new one, which is the longest bridge in the UK over water.
The last few slides were of the Kessock Bridge at the Black Isle, built in 1982.
The Forth Road Bridge from 1964 then The Queensferry Bridge erected between 2011 and 2017.
All these bridges across the River Forth amount to four – not forgetting The Kincardine Bridge.
He finished with a birds eye view of all three bridges and took questions.
Drew Kean gave the vote of thanks in which he said that it had been an interesting, instructive and educational view of bridges.
He thanked the meeting was closed by the president, who wished everybody safe home.
The next meeting will be on the December 7 with a topic on ‘tales from the classroom' from Mrs Anne Walker.
The Christmas lunch will be on Wednesday, December 14 costing £20.
For further information go to EK Probus’s website.
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