This month's feature on Argyll Bute is a prompt for us to look back at past operations in one of the towns in the council area, Dunoon on the Cowal peninsula on the Firth of Clyde. Home today to a population of around 7,600, this used to be a thriving holiday resort easily accessible from Glasgow and the urban west of Scotland by steamers and ferries calling at its pier; passenger ferries still run today from the railhead at Gourock while vehicle ferries make a shorter crossing between Hunters Quay to the north and Mclnroy's Point on the Renfrewshire coast. The United States Navy had a Polaris submarine base in the nearby Holy Loch from 1961 to 1992. For around 60 years the Graham family, which had sold its Kirkintilloch business to Alexander's in 1938, dominated bus and coach operation in the area. It acquired Dunoon Motor Services during World War Two, running double-deckers from 1949 until that business was closed in 1964. The Grahams' Cowal Motor Services took over its services and the Alexander Baird coach business then and continued to operate until the family retired in 1996.
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