Long before Aldi’s Kevin the Carrot graced our television screens, Clydebank had Carroty George.

The cartoon drawing could be found on the front page of the Clydebank Press promoting the wide availability of the root vegetable to Bankie tables and even offering a recipe for “carrot hot-pot”.

“You can meet young Carroty George any day at the ‘Hot-pot’ if you’re a member,” it reads. “He belongs, of course, to all the best clubs, and what’s more, he has the entrée of all the best kitchens.

“That’s because he’s a fellow of tact and resource and can so quickly adapt himself to any occasion, sweet or savoury.”

A week earlier he was called “Dr Carrot, your winter protector”.

To look through the pages of the Clydebank Press was to see ads for Ryvita, malt or cod liver oil, the latest film showings, the upcoming church services.

And at Christmas, there were thank you messages and best wishes for the season ahead.

Sadie’s, at 90 Dumbarton Road, Duntocher, wrote: “Extends to her many friends sincerest Christmas greetings and thanks for their help and indulgence, which has made a very difficult year much more satisfactory than anyone dared hope.

“May 1942 bring us all the blessings of peace.”

“A very difficult year” saw hundreds killed and thousands more made homeless.

Read more: Memorial services honour Clydebank Blitz 1,200 lives lost

Of 12,000 homes, 4,000 were destroyed and only seven buildings were undamaged.

The Clydebank Blitz was just nine months earlier, on March 13 and 14, 1941, but the Press at Christmas marked not a season of loss, but of moving forward with life and rebuilding.

Much of that was down to the restrictions imposed on reporting the true scale of destruction during war time.

But Clydebank was also an industrial powerhouse, essential to a nation.

And the region’s MPs, in the Boxing Day edition of the Press, called for support from the nation as they rebuilt.

“Several Scottish MPs are to approach the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Scotland to get the financial burden of blitz damage shared by the whole country instead of being concentrated on the local authorities of Scottish towns and burghs which had suffered as the result of air raids,” reads an article.

David Kirkwood was one of the local MPs and told the Press it was “unfair” they should pay heavier taxes due to the loss of rateable houses and other buildings.

The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland had already told the local authorities he could do nothing for them.

The article continued: “He had held it from the beginning, and had stated it several times in the House of Commons, that this should be a national charge.

“It was the duty of the whole of Britain to come to the rescue of the local authorities.”

Meanwhile, at the Scottish Housing Association’s hostel in Whitecrook, there was an “interesting exhibition” of photos from the town and country planning department of the Edinburgh College of Arts.

“The photographs, with large-scale maps, indicate the things which are being avoided in the replanning of Scotland and blitzed areas like Clydebank,” we reported.

There are articles too about a “row in a fish supper shop” and “juvenile police court sequel”.

The Duntocher farmers’ sixth annual dance took place in the public hall, with nearly 60 couples present.

“The hall was beautifully decorated,” said the Press. “Judging from the number present and the cheery way the programme was got through, the dance may be said to have been one of the foremost of the season, and Mr Hunter’s band supplied up-to-date music.”

Immediately under that is a brief piece that a Duntocher School teacher had been selected to teach at a concentration camp in South Africa.

Another article recounted that Pte John Gow was a prisoner of war. He had been reported missing after Dunkirk but his parents, of Second Avenue, said they got regular letters reporting he was “keeping well and getting stouter”.

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And in a further reminder of war-time, the paper carried the black-out times for the week ahead, running from just before 6pm to after 9am.

The Press said curtains and other darkening material had to be kept up until 9.18am on New Year’s morning: “This will likely be early enough for some people.”

But John Johnston blamed the darkness for tripping over something after leaving a public house in Dalmuir. Officers told the Clydebank Police Court they found him “lying on the footpath helplessly drunk”. He was fined £2 or serve 20 days in jail.

In the next column over, the “Clydeside Cameos” hailed an edition from 1901 that advertised “Fine Old Scotch Whisky” for 3 shillings per bottle. “Did we hear someone sigh for ‘the good old days!’?”

A photo of the Press proprietor’s daughter, Jane Brown Cossar, getting married was next to “home guard notes” and the latest football table, showing Clydebank Juniors at the top of Group B.

The Empire Cinema was showing “Footsteps in the Dark”, “Case of the Black Parrot” and “Ride, Kelly, Ride”, while the Pavilion had “Something to Sing About” and “Laughing Irish Eyes”.

A week later, the Press carried the New Year message of David Low, who was provost throughout World War II.

“The casualties were considerable, though not on anything like the scale which might have been expected from such an inferno. Material damage was extensive - one cannot walk anywhere in our town without seeing the deep wound marks inflicted there, but the spirit of our people remained, and still remains unbroken.

“You have been tested and not found wanting, and I am confident you will meet the demands of the future with the same resolute spirit.”

He concluded: “Let us face this new year with the same high courage and splendid endurance that was so magnificently displayed in the time of our ordeal and in the hope that this curse of war which has afflicted the whole world will soon pass, so that we may be enabled to replan and rebuild our town as a fitting memorial to those who gave all.”