The Inews UK website (
visit link) reported the following on 6/26/2017:
"The Clyde Clock: how Glasgow’s famous sculpture ran out of time
Anyone who has been to Glasgow’s Buchanan Bus Station will have spotted the striking Clyde Clock. The cube shaped clock perched on top of a pair of stainless steel legs, 20 feet high – reminds locals to run on time every single day.
Twelve years after its installment, though, the clock suddenly stopped – and it took the power of Glasgow’s people to get things ticking over again.
The origins of the clock
The iconic clock is actually a sculpture know as Running Time, and was created by the late George Wyllie, the Glasgow-born artist.
In 1999, Radio Clyde decided to commission a statue to celebrate 25 years of independent broadcasting, and employed Wyllie to create it.
Ironically, the installation of the sculpture ran late. It was meant to be in place by December 1999, in time for the Millennium.
However, construction work at the nearby Lang’s Hotel meant that the installation was postponed until the New Year.
The clock was designed to chime only once per day, at 8pm – the hour thought to be the perfect meeting time.
George Wyllie the ‘scul?tor’
George Wyllie’s work, both witty and inventive, helps us notice the things around us.
He described himself as a ‘scul?tor’, as he wanted his work to make us question our surroundings.
Wyllie was born in Shettleston, in the east end of Glasgow, on 31 December 1921.
After being educated at Bellahouston Academy and Allan Glen’s School, he became a customs officer and went to live in Gourock.
When he became an artist full-time, he created many distinctive and thought-provoking works of art, including the famous Straw Locomotive.
This artwork consisted of a full size steam train made from straw, which was suspended from the Finnieston Crane by the River Clyde in 1987.
The sculpture was built at Springburn, which had formerly been a locomotive works.
The straw locomotive was suspended from the crane for several months, until it was finally taken down and ceremonially burnt at the Springburn site.
Another of Wyllie’s most famous works is the Paper Boat. This sculpture was 80 feet long, and displayed at The Tramway in Glasgow.
The boat was also taken to the Hudson River in New York, carrying quotations from Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Wyllie was awarded an MBE for his work in 2005, in the New Years Honours List.
The clock stops
George Wyllie passed away in May 2012, aged 90. In a superstitious turn of events, the Clyde Clock stopped working shortly after the artist’s death.
The clock had been adopted by the Glasgow City Council for maintenance, but its power supply had been disconnected, and was only partly functional after being reconnected.
From November 2012 to February 2013, the Mitchell Library hosted a retrospective exhibition of George Wyllie’s work, In Pursuit of the Question Mark.
This encouraged Radio Clyde and MSP Drew Smith to launch a campaign to get the clock working again, and they called on the council to make it happen.
The campaign was successful, and the Clyde Clock is now back in full working order."