Vital Spark

The Vital Spark is the best known name associated with Clyde puffer boats,[1] having been used in the fictional works created by Scottish writer Neil Munro.

They appeared in the newspaper over 20 years, were collected in book form by 1931, inspired the 1953 film The Maggie, and came out as three popular television series, dating from 1959 to 1995.

In her captain's own (islands accented) words, the Vital Spark is "aal hold, with the boiler behind, four men and a derrick, and a watter-butt and a pan loaf in the foc'sle".

Others scoff at her as a coal gaabbert, reflecting the origins of the puffers, but an indignant Para Handy is always ready to defend his boat, comparing her 6 knots (11 km/h) speed and her looks with the glamorous Clyde steamers.

In 1963 Macrae, McMillan and Grieve, accompanied by Alex Mackenzie and guitarist George Hill, recorded an album of songs, Highland Voyage.

In 1994 BBC Scotland produced The Tales of Para Handy which starred Gregor Fisher in the lead role alongside Sean Scanlan as Dougie, Andrew Fairlie as Sunny Jim and Rikki Fulton as Dan Macphail.

Alex McAvoy, who played Sunny Jim in The Vital Spark, appears in one episode as a fellow captain of Para Handy in the coastal trade.

[8] From the early 1980s, the engineless boat was moored in Bowling, West Dunbartonshire[10] but within a few years had been vandalised and fallen ito a bad state.

[23] The vessel ventured from her home at the Inveraray Maritime Museum to visit the Glasgow River Festival in 2005 and 2006, bearing the name Vital Spark.

[17][25] In December 2007, as part of celebrations of the 150th anniversary since the first puffer was launched, the vessel returned to the Forth and Clyde Canal, to be moored at Bowling, West Dunbartonshire.