Dumbarton’s former MP has spoken of his rise to the top of politics - but how his roots remain on the Clyde.

John McFall, Lord McFall of Alcluith, has been speaker of the House of Lords since he was elected to the post last year.

In a video from the upper chamber, Lord McFall is asked about his early years growing up in Dumbarton, his time as an MP and championing regeneration and the setting up of the National Park, and his work for the past decade in the Lords.

Speaking of his time as a Labour MP for Dumbarton, he said he was known by everyone and that was an advantage.

 

He said: “It was just an ordinary childhood in a Clydeside town where it was dominated by heavy industry, engineering and shipbuilding - very much a working-class community where aspiration, mutual obligation and community was very much the watchwords on that.”

Lord McFall was shown in the video in Levengrove Park, in Dumbarton, talking about growing up in the area and getting his first job, gardening, just behind where he sat.

“My parents had a paper shop nearby and the superintendent of the parks department was a regular customer,” he explained.

“And after I left school at 15 he offered me a job and lo and behold the first job was right behind me digging the flower bed and trimming the grass.

“And if you want a definition of a local man, local person, then it’s me: married to a girl in the next street, living 500 yards from where I was born, the same distance from where I live now.

“And Dumbarton is very much my home and it will never be anything else.”

Speaking about the loss of industry from the area, Lord McFall said it was a “hard slog” to make changes.

He highlighted Lomondgate as an example of successful redevelopment.

Lord McFall said: “Lomondgate is a very successful economic redevelopment model from the ashes of the closure of the GNB bottling plant to one where there’s now the BBC which has a real presence in Dumbarton, where we have Aggreco, the generating company which stayed in Dumbarton and developed there, where we have hotels, where we have housing and where it’s located is on the road to Loch Lomond.

“So it’s making Dumbarton a very attractive place and encouraging both inward investment but also people coming to Dumbarton because the locations of Dumbarton is very handy whether you’re talking about Glasgow [or] whether you’re talking about Loch Lomond.”

The video also features Lord McFall speaking with Jackie Baillie MSP at Duck Bay Marina about the establishment of the Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park, and Mike Fitzpatrick, former general manager of Polaroid UK about the decline of industry along the Clyde and efforts to keep local jobs.

Mr Fitzpatrick said: “That was one of the benefits of you working with me and supporting me was to help influence a parent company to see Scotland as a place to continue to do business when other companies, multinationals, were pulling out and your contribution there was just immense.”

Lord McFall said he was most proud of where he came from and being rooted to that area.

He said: “I think I’m most proud of the fact that I have no sense of entitlement and I strive to keep that. 

“But also that I know who I am, I know from where I come from and I’m kept on the road on that by my wife and my family and that’s really important to me.”