What's in a name ?

I had forgotten all about this until I was driving along the  Clyde shore at  Hunter's Quay  today, and saw someone taking a photograph of it.

This is now known - for obvious reasons - as the "Puffin Rock" but it used to  be called the "Jim Crow" rock and was on the Ordinance Survey maps with that description.   However it appeared to pre-date the abusive and racist use of that term in the United States, which was a puzzle.

It was painted as a sort of "Jim Crow" and by the time I became the MSP was causing considerable offence.  However every time some one painted it over to expunge the image , some days later that image  would be painted back , usually in the dead of night.  

Eventually members of the community asked me and the local MP at that time, Alan Reid, to try and do something about it.   I organised a meeting of the community councils (including some people who wanted the rock to stay as it was and who did not believe it was causing offence despite the evidence) along with  students rom the Grammar School and together with the person I asked to facilitate the meeting (the Rev Lorna Hood, a former Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland) we eventually got an agreement to hold a young people's art competition for a new design which , when in place, would be accompanied by  an information board telling the story of the rock .

Lockdown delayed things and I don't think  I ever got to see the finished picture, though I was involved in helping to choose the design so it was good today to be reminded of it and to admire the board no win place  (my extra photo) which tells the story.