Cumbernauld is situated 15 miles north east of Glasgow, with the smaller and older town of Kilsyth a near neighbour to its north across the river Kelvin.
Cumbernauld grew to accommodate the overspill of Glasgow's population and was granted new town status in 1956. It is typically uncompromising in appearance, made up of concrete and council estates. Both towns are predominantly working-class, and both are home to varied light industries including computer and engineering businesses. A bottling plant for the Irn Bru soft drink was recently built on one of Cumbernauld’s greenfield sites.
Cumbernauld’s name derives from the Gaelic Cumar-nan-Alt, "the Meeting of the Waters", thought to be due to the town’s proximity to the tributaries of the major Scottish rivers the Forth and the Clyde. The town’s fifteen minutes of fame came when it was used as the setting for Bill Forsyth’s Gregory’s Girl in 1980.
Kilsyth’s name is derived from that of the river Kelvin, and the town is also the reputed home of the first Scottish potatoes, early in the eighteenth century.