Who was the man behind 'flasher' incidents in Helensburgh?

Rosemary Jarvie and her classmates encountered the man near the school – which is now part of Lomond School – on a number of occasions in, she thinks, around 1942.

And though police were informed, and the man was picked out of an identification parade, Rosemary, now 84, says she and her classmates never found out who he was – or what eventually happened in the case.

“I would have been between eight and 10 years old at the time,” Rosemary, who now lives in Fairlie, near Largs, told the Advertiser.

“I was a boarder at St Bride’s, living at Burnbrae House, and it was near there that the man kept driving past a group of six or seven of us, stopping, getting out and showing us all that he had.

“We weren’t alarmed at the time – we were of an age where we just thought it was quite funny.

“It happened several times, but it stopped eventually; someone must have reported it, but I don’t know who. Perhaps an adult at Burnbrae witnessed it and contacted the police.

“We were asked to go down to the police station one day, where there were seven or eight men lined up in an identification parade.

“We were told to behave as if we were Princess Elizabeth, inspecting her troops.

“We picked out the man from the parade, but we never found out who he was or what happened after that.

“I remember there was a rumour that he might have been someone quite important in the town, but that might just have been speculation – and in any event, we were never told his name.”

Despite the experience, Rosemary, who is originally from Hawick, said she looked back fondly on her time as a ‘boarder’ in Helensburgh.

“My grandfather was a vet in Helensburgh,” she said, “and he wanted me to go to school there – in fact I think he paid for me to go to St Bride’s.

“I was there for quite a while and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m still in touch with two of the girls who were my friends at St Bride’s.”

St Bride’s School for Girls was founded in 1895 and existed independently for almost 80 years before merging with the boys-only Larchfield School in 1977 to form Lomond School.

A new purpose-built facility for Lomond’s male and female ‘boarders’ was built on the Burnbrae House site in 2003.

Despite the passage of the best part of 80 years since the incidents – and the fact that very few, if any, people who were adults in the 1940s will still be alive today – Rosemary remains hopeful that there’s someone in Helensburgh who knows who was behind them.

If you have any information that can help fill in the gaps, please contact the Advertiser on editorial@helensburghadvertiser.co.uk or by calling 0141 435 8851.