Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past History Information Request Did anyone go to any Lairds launches?

I went with our School to see the Esso Clyde launched in the early 70's Anyone else see any?

http://images.google.co.uk/images?h...mp;um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

My sister worked at Lairds and I went to see a couple of launches -one was the Pinewood Star in '69 0r thereabouts and more poignantly the launch of the last sub, the Unicorn in '93 - a sad day.

Some of us actually worked on the launch of the ships, me and Jimbob i know of for sure, i can't even remember which ships i done, became a bit of a matter of fact and we thought nothing of it.

I went with my father to the launch HMS Revenge in 1968. I'm not sure why he was invited, he had nothing to do with Lairds or ships.

He may well have been invited or he could have been given tickets by a friend who worked in Lairds. If you were there by invitation, the likelihood you would have been on the launch platform, if you were in the crowd, the chances are you recieved tickets from a Laird worker.

As bert1 said, involved with that many launches over the years they became part of a normal days work.

How often would a ship get launched in the days you worked there?

It would be interesting (from my point of view )if say it was once every 3 months in say the sixties , then less in the seventies and eighties. Sorry if this sounds a bit soft but I don't have a feel for it and am interested .

As a lad growing up in Bebington I do remember seeing a lot of fella's on there way to the bus stop for the morning shift at Lairds and felt very sad when it finally shut down. It's great to see it involved in the making of the new Aircraft Carrier decks

I started in 1967 and left in 1984 and in that time the building of ships and the amount of men that worked there decreased. Some ships were longer on the slipways than others, depending on the size. It would also depend on how keen Lairds were to receive part payment, some contracts drawn up with shipowners allowed lairds to receive some payment after launch, payments were made at various build stages of ships.
I would think in my time there, it wouldn't be more than 2 launches per year, if they had the work in, towards the end of my time, they were few and far between.here's a link you may be interested in
http://oceania.pbworks.com/Cammell%20Laird

great , thanks for that bert1

Yes i went to the launch in the eighties of a war ship carnt remember which one though.....my dad worked there ....he was involved with the sovereign explorer oil rig ...he was on it till they had a labour disspute with the french.....

I do remember (probably late 70's or early 8o's ) a Chilean family living about four doors down from us for quite some time. I think it was something to do with with the commissioning of a (or some?)Chilean Naval vessel from Lairds.

Woodchurch Road Primary School took us to a launch at Lairds, big ship, I have always wondered which one it was.

In went to see the sub HMS Unicorn launched in the early 90's

First one I remember the name of was the Winsor Castle about 1958. My uncle worked there and used to get tickets to all the launches.
I worked there from 1962 till 1970. So saw quite a lot.
Remember one ship that was launched without being named because of a strike i think it was shipwrights.They had to do it the old way by knocking away the supports, and as launching party was making its way up to name the ship, it went down the slipway into the Mersey. It was later named when they brought it into the wet basin.
Some of the ships i remember are HMS Devonshire, Sepia,Opalia,HMS Ajax,HMS Oracle,Overchurch,Mandarin, PinTail,HMS Renown, HMS Revenge,HMS Conqueror,Siglion

A lot of the launches at lairds are on this site.
http://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=7323