Letter: Where is father’s fish sculpture?

I WAS very interested to read Terry Duncan’s letter (Debate, 1 April) about my father George Wyllie’s “lost” Bumper Fish sculpture, which once graced the main bar of the Bay Hotel in Gourock.

Mr Duncan asked if the sculpture, made from old chrome car bumpers, ever survived the demolition of the Bay Hotel. This is something which we, as a family, are keen to find out, too.

The Bumper Fish are examples of very early work of my father’s, made around the mid-1960s, after he bought a pile of old car bumpers. The sculpture consisted of three very large fish of varying sizes with glass eyes. They were displayed behind the Bay Hotel bar.

My father played regularly with his band, Pauline and The Clubmen at The Bay Hotel. Sadly the hotel, which was sited at the pier head in Gourock, was demolished in the 1990s. It was a busy hotel. Apart from the steamer and railway passengers who passed through, famous guests included band members of The Merseybeats, The Applejacks and Deep Purple, who played at the Cragburn on Gourock’s seafront.

We have often wondered what happened to the Bumper Fish and would love to track them down for the George Wyllie retrospective exhibition, which opens at The Mitchell in Glasgow in November.

There is a similar style Bumper Dolphin, which surfaced recently through our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/ForTheBurds). It was previously housed in the Dolphin Cafe in Dunoon and the present owners have agreed to lend it to us for the retrospective. If anyone has any information, they can contact me through [email protected]

Louise Wyllie, Boat of Garten