THE list of the vessels launched from the John Brown shipyard at Clydebank reads like a nautical who's who.

The Lusitania and the Aquitania, the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Elizabeth ll, the Empress of Britain and the Royal Yacht Britannia were all launched at what was arguably the world's most famous shipyard.

The massive HMS Hood, an icon of Britain's wartime naval might, was built there as were HMS Duke of York, the aircraft carrier HMS Indefatigable and the world's last battleship HMS Vanguard.

The Clydebank Blitz in 1941 which killed 528 people happened because the shipyard and the town's other industrial sites were so important to the Allied war effort.

Ironically, although the town and its people were devastated, the yard itself escaped largely unscathed.

Clydebank lived and breathed shipbuilding - in fact it owes its existence to Glasgow foundry owners James and George Thomson who bought 32 acres of farmland for the new yard in 1871.

The brothers called it the Clyde Bank shipyard - and the name was adopted by the new town built around it.

By 1899, when it was taken over by Sheffield steel makers John Brown & Co, it was a well-established yard - but its boom years were to come.

But it wasn't the only yard in town. Next door was a gigantic yard owned by William Beardmore, later to become home of the ship breaking firm Arnott's.

There were also smaller marine engineering firms like Aitchison Blair stationed along the Clydebank waterfront.

Like many along the industrial Clyde, the families who lived in the tenements of Clydebank were effectively cut off from the river.

Most of them existed in a community separated from the Clyde by the huge factories, complete with cranes, partially completed vessels and tall brick walls.

Only those who lived at the back of the town could see the river and the green fields of Renfrewshire on the opposite bank.

Today everyone in Clydebank can see the river - the once-proud shipyards have been levelled leaving only a giant Titan hammerhead crane as a memory of the town's past.

The last ship, Alisa, was built at John Brown in 1971 and the yard carried on building oil rigs until the order book dried up and it closed in 2001.

Just as the closure of Scott Lithgow devastated Greenock, so the end of John Brown was a psychological hammer blow for Clydebank workers and families.

But while many Bankies look at the huge brownfield site and mourn the industry's passing, there is a sense of optimism among those charged with breathing new life back into the town.

A new Urban Regeneration Company called Clydebank Re-built has been set up with the aim of "linking the heart of the town with the waterfront".

"The memories of Clydebank are of a dark and industrial place," said the company's managing director Eleanor McAllister.

"In its heyday it was a fascinating place but it became very depressing in recent years.

"Now we are facing green fields, there are cows grazing opposite and there are flocks of redshank on the river.

"There is an image about Clydebank being a post-industrial deprived area, whereas the reality is that there is huge opportunity," she said.

The new projects planned for Clydebank waterfront will cost many millions of pounds.

At Queen's Quay, where the great ocean liners were launched, there are plans for 1200 new houses.

Clydebank College, one of the biggest further education establishments in the west of Scotland with 10,000 students, is to move to a new site at the quay at a cost of £30million. The new building is already taking shape on the plot.

A new leisure centre, initially costed at £2m, will be built in the area.

At the adjacent Rothesay Dock, Clydeport has developed 10 acres of redundant dockland to create the upper Clyde's only boatyard.

And towering above them all like a symbol of Clydebank's defiance will be the 150-ton cantilever Titan crane, which used to lift engines and boilers into the liners and warships that were built at John Brown.

It was a target of the German blitz but somehow survived - and it has survived the decline of Clyde shipbuilding to become an A-listed structure.

Clydebank Re-built plans to transform it into a visitor attraction by installing a lift in the crane and transporting visitors up to the jib, giving them spectacular views of Clydeside.

"We have a very different image in Clydebank, the Clyde-built' image," said Eleanor McAllister.

"We are determined to make this a quality place where people want to invest. We even talk about when the first Starbucks will open here." 1906 Lusitania 1919 HMS Hood 1936 Queen Mary 1941 The Blitz 1967 The QE2 Wildlife returns as river cleans up its act

Generations of shipbuilding and heavy industry left the Clyde and its tributaries among the most polluted rivers in the UK.

But as the industry declined the wildlife returned. In 1983 anglers reported triumphantly that salmon could now be found on the Clyde.

And in 1999 fishermen took to the River Kelvin for the first day's salmon fishing in more than 100 years.

Down river of Glasgow, the Clyde has become a haven for tens of thousands of ducks and wading birds.

There are plans to have Newshot Island, an area of mudflats and grassland facing Clydebank at the mouth of the River Cart, designated as a local nature reserve.

And below the Erskine Bridge, at Old Kilpatrick, rare plants and amphibians thrive at a conservation area known as The Saltings.

Roddy Fairley, Scottish Natural Heritage Area Manager, said: "Given the polluted state of the river for much of the 20th century, who would have thought the Clyde would have recovered so dramatically over the past few years?

"Such are the attractions of the Clyde today that, with the local authorities, we have developed a footpath, the Clyde Walkway, that runs from Glasgow to Lanark so people can enjoy the banks of the river."

And in Glasgow city centre a new "green city park" is to be opened in the rundown Laurieston area by the river.