Ok kids, grab your buckets and spades, we are going for a day by the Clyde!

Great days out by the seaside have been enjoyed by happy hordes up and down the coast since the holidays started – helped by spells of glorious weather.

Largs and Millport have been the chosen destinations for thousands of families as the kids enjoyed the seaside, and the grandparents recalled the glory days of the Clyde.

Sounds, idyllic, doesn’t it? You just can’t beat trips on the Waverley, a wee paddle in the sea, ice cream to cool off, or getting your picture taken at the Crocodile Rock if you have sailed overseas to glorious Millport.

Oh, the River Clyde , the wonderful Clyde – to quote the song – has been holiday Mecca for many generations.

But all is not well. This grand old dame of a river is ailing, and although the views are just the same and she still has the ability to charm and inspire, if you delve beneath the surface, so to speak, the signs are worrying.

Like seas the world over, the Clyde is suffering on two fronts – from horrendous amounts of rubbish floating on, and under, its surface and from historic over-fishing.

The problem with marine litter, which is mainly plastic, became evident after the winter storms. The wind and rough seas threw enormous amounts of rubbish onto the shores in and around Largs and many gallant efforts were made by residents to clean up, as did squads of council workers.

And recently, Largs Community Council organised a blitz on beach rubbish, helped by eager volunteers who filled bag after bag with junk. Well done to them for a brilliant initiative just two days before the Queen’s Baton relay arrived!

The more you hear about the effect of marine rubbish the more depressing it gets. Marine wildlife gets entangled in litter and accidentally ingests it. Seabirds mistake floating plastic litter for food, and over 90% of fulmars found dead around the North Sea have plastic in their stomachs.

Plastic litter on beaches has increased 140% since 1994. It never biodegrades. It just breaks down into small pieces but does not disappear. The Marine Conservation Society says litter is from many sources - the public, fishing activities, sewage pipes and shipping, but it is all preventable.

Scottish Water, who have spent many millions upgrading sewage treatment, have a commendable “bag it and bin it” campaign to encourage us to stop flushing plastics.

Thankfully, a number of moves are under way to make the Clyde a sustainable fishery once again after a tumultuous decline over the past 50 – 100 years.

Among them is the Scottish Government’s Clyde 2020 initiative, the recently launched Revive the Clyde campaign, and moves for a marine protected area to the south of Arran.

At a meeting in April, Clyde 2020 heard a marine ecosystems expert state that fishing has contributed to the reduction of commercial white fish stocks in the Clyde and of those that remain, 90 per cent of the white fish are below minimum landing size.

Meanwhile, Revive the Clyde is urgently calling for public support to revive the Clyde marine environment so that a diverse fishery can be re-established to boost jobs and the local economy. They also want a fisheries management based on local input and scientific advice.

It’s in the interests of everyone who loves the Clyde as a brilliant place in which to work, rest and play that these aims succeed.