It sounds like something out of Dickens or a novel by Thackeray, a classic case of high-minded Victorian philanthropy, but the Glasgow Humane Society was actually set up much earlier, in 1790 (just after the revolutionary fervour in France demanded liberty, fraternity, equality), to protect human life in the city and especially on the river Clyde. It still exists and Glasgow claims to be the only city in the world to have a full-time officer dedicated to rescuing people from drowning.
Back when it began the river and its banks were hectic with shipbuilding, trade and manufacturing. Now the city is almost ashamed of its river; no big ships, hardly any industry, little trade, and no longer a source of wealth and jobs. It has ‘turned its back on the Clyde’. There’s little traffic on the river, and few bars, cafés and restaurants along the riverside. But George Parsonage still spends his days and nights waiting for a call, ready to rush out in his rowing boat, taking up oars to save a life, just as his father did before him.
In Shaped by the River Clyde on Radio 4 (produced by Mark Rickards), we heard how George rescued Gordon, a keen rower, whose boat had overturned on the river one January morning. I’d been in the water for about ten minutes, Gordon told us, and was beginning to panic. It was so cold. But George calmed him down, pushed him under the water to make him buoyant and then hauled him into his boat and rowed him back to the riverbank.
It was not how Parsonage planned his life. A talented artist, he trained at art school and worked as a teacher. But on the day his father died there was a call later in the afternoon; there’d been an incident on the river.
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