It is affectionately known as 'Polo Mint City on account of its proliferation of roundabouts. 

East Kilbride was Scotland's first 'new town', one of five created to help alleviate post-war overcrowding in major cities including Glasgow.

Built on green fields around a small village, the vision was for a thriving town of 82,000 residents, attracted by the promise of jobs, good schools, health facilities and culture.

The town, which was officially opened on May 6 1947, was subdivided into residential precincts, each with its own local shops, primary schools and community facilities with the shopping centre bound by a ring road.

The Herald:

Unlike Cumbernauld new town, a decade later, East Kilbride was comprised almost solely of low-density housing in keeping with others in Basildon, Slough, Crawley and Stevenage which were influenced by the ideas of Ebeneezer Howard, founder of the garden city movement.

READ MORE: £100million masterplan will 'restore civic pride' in Scotland's first new town

Key cultural facilities in the town, now South Lanarkshire's largest, included the category-A listed, Dollan Baths, named after the first Chair of the Development Corporation, Sir Patrick Dollan.

Designed by Alexander Buchanan Campbell and influenced by world renowned Kenzo Tange the baths were the first Olympic sized swimming pool to be built in Scotland.

Nick Jones, who grew up in East Kilbride, said: "It was civil and social engineering on a grand scale, and it transformed lives, not just the landscape of Lanarkshire fields.

The Herald:

"We moved to St Leonards in 1976 and everything was newly-built, just pebble dash and grass everywhere.

“Everywhere we looked was modern. Wide roads with wide verges, geometric terraces, cul-de-sacs and Danish-inspired design. It looked different from the rest of tired and crowded Scotland.

READ MORE: The changing face of Scotland's new towns 

“The architects had travelled the world and brought back the best ideas for living."

Rolls–Royce was synonymous with East Kilbride, employing more than 4000 people in its heyday but last part of the operation closed in 2018.

The story of how workers prevented engines for military jets being serviced and supplied between 1974 until 1978 to the Chilean military dictatorship is told in the 2018-released documentary, Nae Pasaran.

Famous East Kilbrideans include actors John Hannah and Kate Dickie and presenter Kirsty Young.

Taggart's Blythe Duff was born 15 years into the existence of the new town and said it felt more remote and incomplete at that stage.

“There was not a lot of public transport at first and we didn’t have a car.

"You’d need to walk down to The Whirlies to get a bus to Glasgow.

“There was a feeling of being set apart, the climate was definitely different and you are set high above the city.

"I’d go into the panto in Glasgow with the brownies and see all the lights, it was quite exciting at that age, then you would return to all this new housing set amongst the green fields."

East Kilbride new town was followed by Glenrothes in 1948, Cumbernauld eight years later, Livingston in 1964, Irvine in 1964 and Stonehouse in 1972,  although Stonehouse new town was never built.