​You wait years for a ferry then none come at once - Susan Morrison

​Love a ferry, me. As a child of the Clyde I regularly raced about the decks of the Juno and the Jupiter as we crossed from Gourick to Dunoon.

The Glen Sannox ferry departs Ferguson Marine shipyard on its maiden voyage ahead of see trials on February 13, in Port Glasgow

We cared for two elderly aunts who lived there. My dad did odd jobs in their crumbling house. This included unscrewing the cap on the bottle of Wincarnis Tonic Wine, which my Auntie Suzie swore by to relieve her arthritis.

Those ferries were smart wee boats. Swift, agile and a great trip, as long as you didn’t drink the coffee, which was astonishingly vile. It was brilliant service, with these two great ferries hammering backwards and forwards all day. There was competition. Western Ferries opened up a route that’s still used. We spurned that. We were CalMac to the core.

My father maintained that the reason for this excellent service was because there was a massive US Navy base in the Holy Loch.

Come WW3, you can’t have the fate of the free world resting on shonky ferries. Servicemen would need to cross the Clyde pronto. Of course, he was wrong. Had the Bomb gone off, no-one would have been left to buy the dodgy coffee, never mind man a submarine..

He might have had a point, though. Strategic importance and all that.

We always seem to have enough money and resources when it comes to sabre-rattling, but things slow down when it comes to schools, roads and, indeed, ferries.

In the case of the Glen Sannox and the Glen Rosa, it also looks like there was an unholy amount of interference during the building.

Ferries aren’t an optional luxury if you live on the islands, and the islanders have been very patient so far.

The Glen Sannox was launched in 2017. We’ve only just seen her out to do her sea trials. Harland and Woolf launched the Titanic in 1911, and did her timed miles in 1912.

Yes, alright, she hit an iceberg later. That’s generally not a danger on the Ardrossan to Brodick crossing.

Mind you, if these shenanigans drag on a whole new Ice Age might start before Glen Sannox goes into service.