Rare footage has emerged that shows the day fire destroyed a Glasgow school that legendary football manager Alex Ferguson attended as a boy.
On June 6, 1962, a community was left in shock as a blaze tore through the old Govan High School, leaving it in ruins.
The red sandstone secondary on Langlands Road, which dated from the early 1900s, had been the alma mater for generations of Govan locals, including Aberdeen and Manchester Utd managerial legend Sir Alex Ferguson, but it was clear to all present that a rebuild would be required.
READ MORE: Bustling Glasgow shopping street in 1962 captured in priceless home video
Now, more than 60 years on, a short reel of film has been uncovered that captures the devastating blaze as it happened.
Retired church minister Alan Sorensen was just a young boy when he arrived on the scene that day with his father, Scott Sorensen, who recorded the incident with his colour cine camera.
The Sorensens had spotted the smoke from the window of their house at Moss Heights, a mile-and-a-half away in Cardonald, and duly jumped in the car to take a closer look.
Alan told Glasgow Live: "Despite being only five years old, I vividly remember my brother shouting: 'Hey, come on and look at this!" on the sixth floor of Moss Heights, which were not the highest of flats, but we were on the top of a hill and had fantastic views over the whole of Glasgow.
"And there out the back window was this gigantic pall of smoke. The whole family dutifully came through to have a look and there was what clearly looks like a major fire and we discussed where we thought it might be and what we should do and my father said: 'Well, come on, let's have a look'.
"So we bundled into the car and my dad brought his cine camera with him and drove down. And there it was this appalling inferno; it was just a horrendous thing to see."
Sign up to our Glasgow Live nostalgia newsletters for more local history and heritage content straight to your inbox
There were fortunately no serious injuries as a result of the fire, which was believed to have been caused accidentally by workmen using blow torches on the roof.
While he was just a nipper at the time, the blaze left an indelible impression on Alan Sorensen. For one thing, it's given him a lifelong appreciation for the brave souls employed in the fire services.
Alan continued: "To me as a five-year-old, being only three feet tall, the fire engines, the ladders, the blazing building and the flames.. it seemed like a volcano; it seemed like a mountain of fire.
"There's a shot where my father takes a picture of the old-fashioned fire engine with the big wheel at the back of it, and his camera just pans up the ladder and it keeps on going. The ladder just goes up and up and there's this one man up the top with his hose, desperately trying to douse the flames."
Alan added: "Actually there's one wee thought that crossed my mind when I looked at the video.. There's a couple of seconds taken in the car as we were driving towards the school.
"You can see people coming away from the area, and I thought: 'That's what firemen do: they run towards places that people leave'. That's courage."
Alan Sorensen recently digitised the footage and posted it to the Lost Glasgow Facebook group, where it has sparked memories for locals.
Aftermath of the fire
In the days and weeks after the Govan High School fire, the building was made safe and all salvageable items and pieces of furniture relocated to the old Bellahouston Academy. Existing Govan pupils also moved to the academy.
The replacement Govan High eventually opened in 1969 at Pirie Park.
Following a refurbishment of Govan High in 2002, the building was reopened by then Manchester Utd manager Sir Alex Ferguson, who had attended the original school from 1955 to 1958.
You can view Alan Sorensen's footage of the fire here.
READ NEXT:
Glasgow's unbuilt 'vision of the future' that would've dominated the city centre
Glasgow's forgotten trolleybuses that dominated city streets in the 1950s
Remembering the pure bedlam that was the Tennent's Sixes at Glasgow's SECC
The historic Glasgow island that completely vanished from the map
The Glasgow 'keelies' who terrorised rival cricket fans on Glasgow Green
