THE Scots writer, Neil Munro, creator of Para Handy, penned a fictional piece for a newspaper in 1908 in which he imagined the German airship fleet attacking Rosyth naval base and the Forth Bridge, then bombing the Clydeside shipyards.

Fortunately, this apocalyptic vision did not materialise during the First World War, which began just six years later.

Britain's airship production lagged behind that of the German Zeppelins.

The 643ft long R34 airship, above, built at the Inchinnan site of William Beardmore's massive complex of armaments manufactories, was launched at the very end of the war, and took its maiden flight in December 1918.

It crossed the Atlantic in 75 hours the following year but was destroyed in an accident in 1921.

In 1917, Weirs of Cathcart converted its pump factory, Albert, to the manufacture of airplanes. It produced 300 B.E.2c (Blériot Experimental) single-engine, two-seat biplanes for the Royal Flying Corps, as well as 800 other aircraft, making it the foremost warplane manufacturer on the Clyde.

Three more of Weir's factories produced munitions.

Flanders turned out 300,000 six-inch shells per year, while Mons and Marne, both named after trench battles, made hundreds of thousands of eight-inch shells and field gun shells, as well 1140 tanks.

The Mons engineering factory was staffed entirely by women – except for the roles of foremen and managers.

By June 1916 there were 18,500 women in the metal trades in Glasgow, and half of the city's munitions workers were female.

However, trade unions fought what they saw as "dilution" of skills and wages by the introduction of (allegedly less-skilled) women into jobs previously done by one skilled man.

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