Make no mistake - the leaders of a bid to create a global destination for Clydebank’s shipbuilding heritage and future are dreaming big.

Their vision is so big it isn’t even contained in a singular building design, and maybe not even a single site.

There is already worldwide interest since The Ship Yard Trust (SYT) announced itself earlier this year, from contributions from ship passengers, to Hollywood.

“It’s about time,” says the board’s chair and former MSP Gil Paterson. “That’s what we’re getting from everybody. They’re all saying the same thing - it’s about time.

"Why has it not happened before? It’s well overdue.”

The SYT has already approached hundreds of organisations and now wants to get the public on board.

But what exactly do they want backing for? It can’t just be a museum or heritage centre.

And while the Titanic Belfast is a leading visitor attraction they look to, the SYT aspires more to the Guggenheim in Bilbao.

It has to be a living building, says fellow board member and chartered surveyor and project manager Ian Mackay.

“The human element is most critical to the success of this,” he says. “The building will have to have education facilities - that’s fundamental to it, as is space for innovation.”

Clydebank’s yards were responsible for some of the world’s most famous liners and battleships.

And their communities exported thousands of families abroad, who all still look back to the Clyde but without a focal point for genealogy research or connecting to their personal heritage.

But the shipyards also show the massive gap between the wealth at the top and on board liners built in Clydebank, and the deprivation that left families struggling to feed their children.

There’s the proud fight of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders workers to save their jobs, and the impact on thousands when the yards closed.

And then there are thousands of lives who have been lost to or blighted by working with asbestos.

Those stories, and connecting them, matter immensely to the SYT.

Clydebank’s shipbuilding dominated the town and has since been reduced to the Titan Crane, models and paintings in the town hall and the library basement, and the International Asbestos Memorial.

Those are disconnected from each other, and separated too from the return of industry to the river, such as Malin Group’s Scottish Marine Technology Park at Old Kilpatrick.

“We recognise it’s not all good news what happened on the Clyde,” says Gil. “There are some serious legacies that have devastated individuals, families and communities.

“I want to tell the stories of how shipbuilding impacted people.“They all have individual stories and they have to be involved.”

Artist Tom McKendrick, another board member, summarises the story of the shipyards as “glory and grit”.

“You have got to be able to go in and sense the magnificence of the story and the dimensions and that tragedy as well,” he says.

“It’s not a static pile of artefacts - it’s the people’s story; it belongs to you. It’s all there - What are we going to do with this story?

“We see this as a focus for the entire river and the improvement of the river.”

The board are keen to attract every skill base possible because all will be needed to tell the story of “the future of yesterday”, as Tom calls it.

And public support will also be vital as they build towards an eventual physical space.

“Look at what we achieved,” says the artist.

“This is what you did - this is what you built your future from. The story has not been told well enough.”

Gil adds: “To make this fly, we need people to say what they think about it.”