I'm hoping someone can help... My dad started working for Cammell Lairds as an apprentice (welder) around 1961; he's retiring this year, and I thought it would be nice to find some photos of the ships, he was likely to have worked on at the time.
I've contacted Wirral Archives Services and they're going to do some digging around for me, but if anyone has ship names from the time - that an apprentice welder would have worked on - or even photos of the time, that you would allow me to copy for him. I would really appreciate it!!
Birkenhead market - the bookstall on the outside part has loads of pics of ships. How long was he there for. My brother Steven was a pipe fitter there also an apprentice
Thank you! I'll pop down there to see what they have!
He transferred to work over in Germany and the Netherlands, I think mid 70's, so he was there for a fair amount of time! He (Cliff) started when he was 15 I think(so around 1961).
On the right hand side, Downloads, Attachments, List of Cammel Laird ships, the list of ships your dad may have worked on will be amongst them. To give you a time scale, Windsor Castle, Lairds number, 1287, that would be around 1959, Hms Birmingham, 1973 ish.
If he started serving his apprenticeship in 1961 at 16 years old, the chances are he wouldn't have been on a ship until he was 18. Its also possible he spent his time in the yard in the assembly bays and never actually worked on the slipways where the ships were constructed. Even so he still would have been involved in building a ship.
If he's anything like me he won't remember half the ships he's worked on, or want to.
God help us, Come yourself, Don't send Jesus, This is no place for children.
Worked in Lairds as an office boy in the EDO, I can remember going on a new Birkenhead ferry boat just getting finished off in the fitting out basin went to to deliver something and I think I can remember the Windsor Castle getting launched, but I don't remember if that was from school, I wanted an electrical apprenticeship and that's what they promised but they wanted welders at the time and neither of us would budge, so I buzzed off elsewhere, you could do that, at the time as jobs seemed to be plentiful .
The book "Cammell Laird Vol.1" by Ian Collard ISBN 0-7524-3267-2 is good, with many pics and details of ships built. There's a Vol.2 also, covering the naval ships (although there are several naval ships in Vol.1). Available on Amazon.
Thanks guys!! I've been down to the archives in the Cheshire Lines building - the staff were brilliant!! They have nearly all the Cammell Lairds magazines, up to when it was stopped in '65 - actually found an article about my dad and two of his friends in there, so that was amazing!!!
