0:00:18 > 0:00:22When I went in a shipyard, the scales fell off my eyes -
0:00:22 > 0:00:25or my eyes popped open for the first time, so it seemed,
0:00:25 > 0:00:29just to see the sheer majesty of the ships that were being built.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31It was akin to sculpture.
0:00:31 > 0:00:35These fabulous shapes, just the noise that the place made,
0:00:35 > 0:00:37the scale of it, it was incredible,
0:00:37 > 0:00:41just to experience something like that.
0:00:41 > 0:00:45It's the cut edge of steel, it's fire, it's flame...
0:00:45 > 0:00:49It's the enormous powers that are used to mould steel
0:00:49 > 0:00:52and create beautiful things.
0:00:52 > 0:00:59Building and fitting out a ship like the QE2 took more than 4,000 workers four years.
0:00:59 > 0:01:02You see the fragments being pieced together.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04It's like a great huge jigsaw.
0:01:04 > 0:01:10And you never actually see the picture in the jigsaw until the last piece is clicked into place.
0:01:10 > 0:01:16Because you're either in it, or outside it, or you're under it, and it's that close.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20You've actually got to wait till it's launched before you can actually see it.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27And in that instant, there's this massive affinity.
0:01:27 > 0:01:31Everybody has done their wee bit to actually produce this magical moment.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36A ship is the most wonderful product to produce.
0:01:36 > 0:01:40I cannot think of anything better, because at the end of the day,
0:01:40 > 0:01:43it's a live object - it goes away - it exists.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46It's a wonderful thing to produce.
0:01:46 > 0:01:48When things are going well.
0:01:48 > 0:01:53As a shipbuilder, when things are going badly, it's hell..
0:01:55 > 0:01:57Hell.
0:01:57 > 0:02:01The noise. The clanging.
0:02:03 > 0:02:08Whatever else there was in the construction of a ship, there was also danger.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14Some of the most beautiful ships - the Queens from Clydeside, magnificent -
0:02:14 > 0:02:17people died building it. Dangerous.
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Building great ships was an activity of extremes.
0:02:21 > 0:02:26Out of some of the harshest working conditions in manufacturing history, crippling industrial relations
0:02:26 > 0:02:34and economic upheaval, came some of the most magnificent artifacts Britain has ever created.
0:02:50 > 0:02:56Just over a century ago, British shipyards built 60% of the world's merchant and naval fleets.
0:02:56 > 0:03:00All over the country, from the Thames to Belfast,
0:03:00 > 0:03:06from Tyneside to Merseyside, there are towns and cities with great traditions of constructing ships.
0:03:06 > 0:03:12But the shipyards of the River Clyde eclipsed all in tonnage and fame.
0:03:14 > 0:03:17The Clyde was responsible for probably more famous iconic ships
0:03:17 > 0:03:20than any other place in the world.
0:03:20 > 0:03:23You only have to read out the names -
0:03:23 > 0:03:30liners, say, start with Lusitania, Aquitania, Empress Of Britain, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, QE2.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33They're all famous and iconic ships.
0:03:33 > 0:03:36But at the same time, the Clyde was also producing some
0:03:36 > 0:03:41of the most famous warships that the Royal Navy ever commissioned.
0:03:41 > 0:03:44These are the remains of John Brown's, the yard that built
0:03:44 > 0:03:49the Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, the QE2 and many more.
0:03:49 > 0:03:53Brown's was just one of 33 shipyards that once supplied
0:03:53 > 0:03:58a quarter of the world's shipping, from the banks of the Clyde.
0:03:58 > 0:04:01At the foot of John Brown's surviving Titan crane
0:04:01 > 0:04:06lies a canvas collage celebrating those who worked in the yards in the early 20th century.
0:04:06 > 0:04:10Many of the craft gangs seen here worked in family teams.
0:04:10 > 0:04:13Their descendants followed them into the trades.
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Your uncles work in the shipyard.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17Your father works in the shipyard.
0:04:17 > 0:04:23His pal works in the shipyard. The man next door works in the shipyard.
0:04:23 > 0:04:27It weaves itself through the very fabric of the society that you're in.
0:04:27 > 0:04:29It's an entire community
0:04:29 > 0:04:34that's involved in the creation of this single thing - the ship.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39This concentration of skills, together with the innovation
0:04:39 > 0:04:42and entrepreneurial vision of the shipyard owners
0:04:42 > 0:04:48once fuelled the expansion of Glasgow, which for a while became the fourth-largest city in Europe.
0:04:48 > 0:04:55Whole boroughs were created around shipyards, that at times employed up to 100,000 people.
0:04:55 > 0:05:00Shipbuilding companies put up their own tenements to house their workers' families.
0:05:00 > 0:05:06Born in 1916, Alex Morrison grew up within sight and sound of the yards,
0:05:06 > 0:05:10in a world where Clyde-built liners were paragons of global travel.
0:05:11 > 0:05:13I was at school
0:05:13 > 0:05:16at the time and in my last year,
0:05:16 > 0:05:20and I went down
0:05:20 > 0:05:25to the launch of the Empress Of Britain.
0:05:25 > 0:05:28That was about 1929.
0:05:28 > 0:05:35And from there, I watched them building,
0:05:35 > 0:05:37and getting fitted out, and that,
0:05:37 > 0:05:44and I went to see the day she was sailing and leaving Clydebank.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48I always mind, it was a Sunday.
0:05:48 > 0:05:51April, 1931.
0:05:51 > 0:05:53I was there with my brother,
0:05:53 > 0:05:55and...what a sight!
0:05:55 > 0:06:02I always mind the tugs that took the Empress Of Britain away.
0:06:03 > 0:06:07The Paladin, the Flying Eagle, and the Flying Kite.
0:06:09 > 0:06:16The Empress Of Britain was one in the famous sequence of liners made at the Brown's yard on Clydebank.
0:06:16 > 0:06:20As the detail in original plans of the liner Lusitania show,
0:06:20 > 0:06:23John Brown's craftsmen were expected to build vessels
0:06:23 > 0:06:26with enough engine power to supply a small town,
0:06:26 > 0:06:30as well as creating the fixtures and fittings to rival the Ritz.
0:06:32 > 0:06:36Building a ship is a hugely complicated process.
0:06:36 > 0:06:40You've got millions of bits that go into each individual ship,
0:06:40 > 0:06:44and these start as small components, and then they are welded together
0:06:44 > 0:06:46as they would be today,
0:06:46 > 0:06:51in the old days, they'd be riveted together to make sub-assemblies, and then join them all together.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55A ship the size of Queen Mary, which was pretty exceptional, admittedly,
0:06:55 > 0:06:58had 10 million rivets in it.
0:06:59 > 0:07:06Building ships like the Queen Mary involved thousands of men working in over 20 different crafts.
0:07:06 > 0:07:11These involved the designers and draughtsmen, shipwrights and loftsmen.
0:07:11 > 0:07:16Carpenters and joiners worked on the keel blocks as well as the interiors.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18There were the engineers and electricians,
0:07:18 > 0:07:23and specialist trades who added the final touches during fitting-out.
0:07:23 > 0:07:28Each jealously guarded their specific craft and their wage differentials.
0:07:28 > 0:07:32None more so than the men of the steel trades - the black squad.
0:07:32 > 0:07:34All the people
0:07:34 > 0:07:39who erected steel were known as the black squad. That included platers,
0:07:39 > 0:07:45welders, riveters, caulkers. All the steelworking trades.
0:07:45 > 0:07:47were in the Boilermakers' Union.
0:07:48 > 0:07:52The compartmentalisation of different trades, each represented by a different union,
0:07:52 > 0:07:58would one day blight the industry, but originally it had suited both workers and management.
0:07:58 > 0:08:02To begin with, it was very necessary to split production down
0:08:02 > 0:08:06into these various compartments, and to have these different trades.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10It suited employers to have that because it would mean that when
0:08:10 > 0:08:15the particular part of a ship contract was under way,
0:08:15 > 0:08:18they could perhaps pay certain people off
0:08:18 > 0:08:21to ensure the job was done on cost, and so on.
0:08:21 > 0:08:28So having discrete groups of tradesmen was very helpful and useful for the trades themselves,
0:08:28 > 0:08:34but also for the employers because it did give them flexibility in terms of hiring and firing.
0:08:36 > 0:08:41This ease of hiring and firing was seen with the building of the Queen Mary.
0:08:41 > 0:08:45Started at the onset of the Great Depression in 1930,
0:08:45 > 0:08:49construction was halted 18 months later when her owners,
0:08:49 > 0:08:52the shipping line Cunard, ran out of money.
0:08:54 > 0:08:58When work on a vessel ceased, the workforce was laid off too.
0:09:00 > 0:09:04They started on Queen Mary.
0:09:04 > 0:09:07Well, the "534" - we didn't know the name then.
0:09:07 > 0:09:09She was the 534.
0:09:09 > 0:09:1118 months, she lay idle.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Not a thing done to her.
0:09:14 > 0:09:17It was really sad at the time.
0:09:17 > 0:09:23My brother was a carpenter in Clydebank at the time. He was laid off, you know.
0:09:23 > 0:09:30On one day alone, 2,000 newly redundant John Brown workers applied for the dole.
0:09:30 > 0:09:35Altogether, tens of thousands of workers were laid off on the Clyde during the Depression.
0:09:35 > 0:09:37It was the same story across the country.
0:09:37 > 0:09:43South of the border, in Jarrow, 75% of the workforce lost their jobs.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45The shipyards where they worked never re-opened.
0:09:45 > 0:09:51Shipbuilding's vulnerability to the swings of the economic cycle left a bitter legacy.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54Insecurity in an industry
0:09:54 > 0:09:58is not a stimulus to productivity.
0:09:58 > 0:10:01If workers
0:10:01 > 0:10:04are encouraged, "Come on, let's get this job done!"
0:10:04 > 0:10:08ship away, launched, that's it gone,
0:10:08 > 0:10:12the guys are looking over their shoulder, saying, "What's coming behind?"
0:10:12 > 0:10:15If there's nothing coming behind,
0:10:15 > 0:10:19they're not madly enthusiastic about finishing the work in hand.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23As soon as they completed the job, they were unemployed.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27What kind of incentive is that to production?
0:10:27 > 0:10:29It's a disincentive to production.
0:10:29 > 0:10:32In 1934, work recommenced at the John Brown shipyard
0:10:32 > 0:10:37with the help of generous Government loans to the Cunard Line,
0:10:37 > 0:10:39which had ordered the Queen Mary.
0:10:39 > 0:10:44The return to work on hull 534, as she was known, was an international event.
0:10:44 > 0:10:48For many, it symbolised the beginning of the end of the Great Depression.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51REPORTER: 'Sirens blare out on the Clydebank, a message of good cheer
0:10:51 > 0:10:55'to scores and hundreds who have been unemployed for many weary months.
0:10:55 > 0:11:00'Work on the new Cunarder, number 534, is to be continued
0:11:00 > 0:11:03'after she has been lying idle for nearly three years.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06'Hope springs anew in the hearts of 600 men who have already
0:11:06 > 0:11:09- 'been taken on.'- 'The piper's band leads the men back to the yard.'
0:11:17 > 0:11:20When Queen Mary came to name and launch her,
0:11:20 > 0:11:24250,000 Glaswegians turned up in the driving rain
0:11:24 > 0:11:27to watch their ship slide down the slipway into the Clyde.
0:11:27 > 0:11:31By 1936, when the Queen Mary had been fitted out and set sail
0:11:31 > 0:11:35from the Clyde, John Brown's workers were already building
0:11:35 > 0:11:37a new Queen - the Elizabeth.
0:11:37 > 0:11:41REPORTER: 'Here, week by week there is taking shape the 552,
0:11:41 > 0:11:46'sister ship of the Queen Mary, the finest ship that has ever come out of a British yard.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49'A vessel of which British seamen will be proud!'
0:11:49 > 0:11:54Now all the nation's shipyards were working at full tilt, building warships,
0:11:54 > 0:11:58as the Second World War loomed.
0:11:58 > 0:12:04But with the war came the shipbuilders' Nemeses - the submarine and the torpedo.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08Four years' work and hundreds of people could be destroyed within minutes.
0:12:08 > 0:12:14The liner Athenia was sunk by a U-boat on the conflict's first day.
0:12:14 > 0:12:16I remember when she was sunk.
0:12:19 > 0:12:22My mother woke me up that morning
0:12:22 > 0:12:27on 2 September and says, "Hey, Alex, one of your boats is sunk."
0:12:27 > 0:12:29I said, "What one is it, Mother?"
0:12:29 > 0:12:32She said, "The Athenia."
0:12:32 > 0:12:34That's honest.
0:12:34 > 0:12:40The attachment of shipyard workers to their vessels is a phenomenon that Jimmy Reid later observed
0:12:40 > 0:12:45when the Queen Elizabeth caught fire and then sank in Hong Kong in 1972.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49I went over to the pub and had a pint and a meeting.
0:12:49 > 0:12:54Suddenly I looked across and there are some of the old guys...weeping.
0:12:55 > 0:12:58I thought, "What's happened here?"
0:12:58 > 0:13:02And I thought, somebody's died in the yard, which can happen.
0:13:02 > 0:13:06So I went over. "What is it? What's up?"
0:13:06 > 0:13:11One of the ships they'd built had sunk
0:13:11 > 0:13:14in the Far East.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17And these were old guys that worked on that ship.
0:13:17 > 0:13:21And there were tears in their eyes.
0:13:21 > 0:13:23They identified with their product.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27These hardened men,
0:13:27 > 0:13:30sometimes not pretty,
0:13:30 > 0:13:36in the superficial sense of the word, you could see them... weeping.
0:13:39 > 0:13:42During the war the Elizabeth and Mary
0:13:42 > 0:13:45fulfilled another role for which they had been specially designed.
0:13:45 > 0:13:50As converted troop ships, they helped convey 2 million GIs
0:13:50 > 0:13:52across the Atlantic to fight in Europe.
0:13:52 > 0:13:57Churchill once suggested they cut a year off the duration of the conflict.
0:14:00 > 0:14:02The war kept the yards working at full capacity.
0:14:02 > 0:14:07When hostilities ceased British shipbuilders anticipated a recesssion.
0:14:07 > 0:14:09Instead, they experienced a prolonged boom
0:14:09 > 0:14:14as the world's merchant fleet set about replacing lost vessels
0:14:14 > 0:14:17and maritime trade recovered.
0:14:17 > 0:14:21One shipbuilder that had survived the 1930s recession
0:14:21 > 0:14:25and was now thriving, was Alexander Stephen & Sons.
0:14:25 > 0:14:30Sandy Stephen belonged to the seventh generation of the family to join the company.
0:14:31 > 0:14:36When I was 18 my father asked me what I wanted to do.
0:14:36 > 0:14:39And I said I wanted to be a shipbuilder.
0:14:39 > 0:14:44He advised me to go somewhere else if I wanted a decent, quiet life
0:14:44 > 0:14:46and a prosperous one.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48He said that if I were a shipbuilder
0:14:48 > 0:14:51I'd have nothing but union worries and money worries.
0:14:51 > 0:14:54I didn't believe him at the time but he was dead right.
0:14:54 > 0:15:00The SS Canton, a passenger liner built for the Far East service to Hong Kong and Japan,
0:15:00 > 0:15:05was one of nearly 1,000 vessels built by Alexander Stephen's
0:15:05 > 0:15:08during the company's 200-year history.
0:15:08 > 0:15:15'The launch of the ship Canton. The christening ceremony is performed by the Honourable Miss Thalia Shaw.
0:15:15 > 0:15:20'15,000 tons of steel to be slipped safely into the Clyde within the space of a few seconds.'
0:15:28 > 0:15:32With hindsight the post-war boom years were the period
0:15:32 > 0:15:35when British shipbuilders should have been modernising
0:15:35 > 0:15:38and developing new markets for when demand subsided.
0:15:38 > 0:15:41After the war life was too easy.
0:15:41 > 0:15:46The British ship-owners held the roost.
0:15:46 > 0:15:51The colonies were still going, ships ran backwards and forwards to the colonies.
0:15:51 > 0:15:53And there were plenty of orders coming in.
0:15:53 > 0:15:57When things turned, we were ill-prepared for it,
0:15:57 > 0:15:59I have to confess.
0:15:59 > 0:16:03Some long-standing critics of the shipyard owners condemn above all
0:16:03 > 0:16:05their failure to invest.
0:16:05 > 0:16:07After the war
0:16:07 > 0:16:11a lot of the shipbuilding industries had been destroyed.
0:16:11 > 0:16:15It was a bonanza for British shipbuilding just immediately after the war.
0:16:15 > 0:16:21Ours was intact, but it was intact with the technology and machinery of the 1920s,
0:16:21 > 0:16:26but nonetheless the argument was there was no time to stop production -
0:16:26 > 0:16:29here, we've got a market, get the ships out with the old technology.
0:16:32 > 0:16:36Another area which also remained inadequate was the working conditions.
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Health and safety regulations were not a management priority.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44There had only been piecemeal improvements since the First World War.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48Quite frankly,
0:16:48 > 0:16:55it was amongst the worst possible circumstances in which to work, at least in Scotland.
0:16:55 > 0:16:59Working in a yard is a very, very unpleasant place to work.
0:16:59 > 0:17:04You literally are working outside and you're working on steel and you're working in all kinds of weathers.
0:17:04 > 0:17:09And during the winter is is absolutely, utterly unbelievable.
0:17:09 > 0:17:14Outside it was a hard life. It was all right inside the sheds and that,
0:17:14 > 0:17:17in the shelter, but outside working,
0:17:17 > 0:17:19it was a cruel job in the winter time.
0:17:19 > 0:17:24The words health and safety had never been introduced to each other. There wasn't any health and safety.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28I worked with guys that had fingers missing.
0:17:28 > 0:17:33And one guy would put the stump of his finger up his nose as if he was picking his nose.
0:17:33 > 0:17:38And he'd laugh at you and tell you, "You won't be a journeyman till you've got a few fingers missing."
0:17:38 > 0:17:41You talk about the cost of a ship,
0:17:41 > 0:17:45and everybody talks about it in terms of pounds, shillings and pence.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49We used to measure the cost of a ship sometimes
0:17:49 > 0:17:53by...the maiming and crippling
0:17:53 > 0:17:55and deaths
0:17:55 > 0:17:57of our mates.
0:17:57 > 0:18:02It's always been an issue, I mean, right from Victorian times,
0:18:02 > 0:18:08when they used to occasionally rivet spaces up and leave a chap inside,
0:18:08 > 0:18:13and find the skeleton when the ship was scrapped 50 years later.
0:18:16 > 0:18:20This was a world before the introduction of the hard hat.
0:18:20 > 0:18:25If workers wore headwear at all, it was the cloth cap - known in Glasgow as the bunnet.
0:18:25 > 0:18:31The idea of maybe wearing a hard hat, for instance, was frowned upon.
0:18:31 > 0:18:35I mean, basically, you wore bunnets - that was fundamentally it.
0:18:35 > 0:18:40And if you were young, you wore nothing. So you'd constantly get your head split and folk would say,
0:18:40 > 0:18:44"It's time you put a bunnet on." "No, I'm not wearing a bunnet."
0:18:44 > 0:18:48The managerial headgear of choice was the bowler.
0:18:48 > 0:18:53Managers and foremen were often referred to as hatters, or hat men.
0:18:53 > 0:18:58The bowler hats, actually, were really rather better. If you banged your head on a steel plate,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01it was a very, very good hard hat.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04And just as I was leaving the industry,
0:19:04 > 0:19:07the safety helmets came in, everybody wore safety helmets.
0:19:07 > 0:19:11Which were much colder if you had a bald head, so I'm told.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Another aspect of working life that had not changed
0:19:15 > 0:19:18since the early 20th century was the toilets.
0:19:18 > 0:19:22As these designs show, the so-called industrial conveniences
0:19:22 > 0:19:24were overseen by a timekeeper
0:19:24 > 0:19:27to ensure there was no slacking on the job.
0:19:27 > 0:19:31When I started Brown's, you were allowed seven minutes to go to the toilet.
0:19:31 > 0:19:37The attendant would mark that in the book, your number, look at the time, that's it.
0:19:37 > 0:19:42Give you two pieces of newspaper. No toilet rolls! And...
0:19:42 > 0:19:49and if you spent over the time, or any great length of time, you used to get fined.
0:19:49 > 0:19:53I remember I went in one time by mistake. I was down the yard,
0:19:53 > 0:19:58and I went and opened this door and I went, "Oh!" Back out again!
0:19:58 > 0:20:04It wasn't till I worked in offices, I realised you could actually get soft toilet paper.
0:20:04 > 0:20:07It was quite nice to use.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10There weren't individual toilets. It was a trough.
0:20:10 > 0:20:12That only flushed every so often.
0:20:12 > 0:20:15And the stories were true.
0:20:15 > 0:20:18We had a newspaper, the newspaper was in the trough.
0:20:18 > 0:20:23When it was ready to flush, some of the apprentices or young people
0:20:23 > 0:20:27would set the newspapers on fire and it would sail down!
0:20:28 > 0:20:32Camaraderie and humour seem to have risen out of adversity.
0:20:32 > 0:20:35They were a feature of the yards.
0:20:35 > 0:20:36It was a funny...
0:20:36 > 0:20:41parallel of a nasty, horrible, dreadful place to work,
0:20:41 > 0:20:43but sometimes it was really funny.
0:20:43 > 0:20:49It's a bit of a trench-mind attitude towards that - you know, the humour.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51A good joke would start at the west end of the yard
0:20:51 > 0:20:55and would have travelled two miles in 10 minutes if it was a really good joke.
0:20:55 > 0:21:01All the comedians in Glasgow were ex-shipyard workers, right up to Billy Connolly.
0:21:01 > 0:21:04Yeah? I don't know if we...
0:21:04 > 0:21:07We produced a lot of ships, but we produced more comedians.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10There was also - it sounds terribly noisy and uncomfortable -
0:21:10 > 0:21:11but there was also humour in here.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15As far as you can see at that end, the frame-benders used to work.
0:21:16 > 0:21:20A very, very dangerous occupation for the hands!
0:21:20 > 0:21:23And legend had it in here that you can spot a frame-bender in a pub
0:21:23 > 0:21:25because he says, "Five pints, please!"
0:21:25 > 0:21:30And there's some kind of logic in that, because to work in the shipyards,
0:21:30 > 0:21:33particularly in November and December and January,
0:21:33 > 0:21:38going in there at 7.30 in the morning, bitterly cold, and you're working outside,
0:21:38 > 0:21:40you had to be a bit daft!
0:21:43 > 0:21:49One great shipyard icon, butt of jokes and a perennial source of pranks, was the tin can.
0:21:49 > 0:21:51They used to bring a little box in
0:21:51 > 0:21:54with tea leaves and sugar mixed.
0:21:54 > 0:22:00And you poured it into the tin, filled it with water and put it on one of the rivet fires.
0:22:00 > 0:22:02And that was how you made your tea.
0:22:02 > 0:22:08Everybody drank out of tin cans because there was no way you could drink out of a cup.
0:22:08 > 0:22:10It wouldn't survive for 10 minutes in a shipyard.
0:22:10 > 0:22:15But there was all sorts of things people used to do just for badness and just for a joke.
0:22:15 > 0:22:18Somebody would get a new can and the first thing you would do
0:22:18 > 0:22:22is throw it in the fire and get it black and dirty.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25Cos if they knew it was a new can, they'd either weld it to the deck,
0:22:25 > 0:22:30so you went to lift it and you'd break your arm, or even better, they'd nail it to a bench!
0:22:30 > 0:22:35A man's can was open for attack at any point in their life.
0:22:38 > 0:22:44By the 1960s, British shipyards faced competition from two sources.
0:22:44 > 0:22:49Passenger jets had begun to take business away from the liners, reducing demand.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52More devastating for British shipbuilding as a whole
0:22:52 > 0:22:56was the re-emergence of other shipbuilding nations,
0:22:56 > 0:23:00with brand-new yards, modern machinery and constructive management relations.
0:23:02 > 0:23:05I saw it about 1960.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07The Japanese were building ships.
0:23:07 > 0:23:14And we thought that they were just poor quality and we didn't have to worry too much.
0:23:14 > 0:23:19However, it very soon became apparent that they were providing ships,
0:23:19 > 0:23:24building ships at about three-quarters of the cost of ours.
0:23:24 > 0:23:27Their labour costs were a lot lower initially.
0:23:27 > 0:23:32And they devised an entirely new labour structure,
0:23:32 > 0:23:36completely free of all the trade unionism which we had.
0:23:36 > 0:23:40And they could build them very much more efficiently.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42It was a very depressing period
0:23:42 > 0:23:47when one had the feeling that we were doomed.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51But you had to go on managing and encouraging and trying to run a company.
0:23:53 > 0:23:59While the Japanese, Germans, Swedes and Koreans surged ahead, British shipbuilding was still bedevilled
0:23:59 > 0:24:03by the internecine struggle between management and workers.
0:24:04 > 0:24:08By now, the system of highly specialised craftsmen,
0:24:08 > 0:24:13each represented by a different union, had come to be more of a bane than a boon.
0:24:16 > 0:24:20Demarcation was a system that grew up whereby each trade would stick
0:24:20 > 0:24:22to its own area of activity,
0:24:22 > 0:24:25and would not, as a point of principle,
0:24:25 > 0:24:28cross over into a fellow-worker's area of activity.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31Of course, each one was represented by a union.
0:24:31 > 0:24:35We had 27 unions in the yard.
0:24:35 > 0:24:39Most of them were insignificant.
0:24:39 > 0:24:45I had one man all to myself who belonged to the Scottish Horse And Motormen's Union
0:24:45 > 0:24:49who was a converted driver of a horse and cart.
0:24:49 > 0:24:51He didn't cause any trouble at all.
0:24:51 > 0:24:58But there were about five or six main unions, the two principal ones being the boilermakers and the shipwrights.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01Nobody particularly liked the boilermakers.
0:25:01 > 0:25:08One of the reasons was that they'd be one of the first to hit the street, go on strike.
0:25:08 > 0:25:11Plus, they were a trade that sometimes got paid
0:25:11 > 0:25:16a wee bit more money because the job was very, very dirty.
0:25:16 > 0:25:19The unions were actually very, very interesting.
0:25:19 > 0:25:24Industrial relations were draconian, and the managerial system was horrific.
0:25:24 > 0:25:28Sackings were constant and a constant threat.
0:25:28 > 0:25:31So the unions had enormous strength.
0:25:31 > 0:25:35And there was this odd situation, when the management
0:25:35 > 0:25:38left the unions alone, the unions fought amongst themselves,
0:25:38 > 0:25:41because there was always pay differentials.
0:25:41 > 0:25:46The welders, traditionally, always got six pence an hour more than the platers.
0:25:46 > 0:25:50But when the big threats came... It was a bit like a family, they could squabble amongst themselves
0:25:50 > 0:25:52but the minute something exterior happens,
0:25:52 > 0:25:57they club together, they become very, very quickly unified.
0:25:57 > 0:26:03The thing about Clydeside, it's about the greatest concentration of proletarians anywhere in Britain.
0:26:03 > 0:26:08And large numbers of workers, once they get unionised,
0:26:08 > 0:26:15have got a kind of self-assurance and confidence in their own...power.
0:26:15 > 0:26:20The most amazing things you would see in your life would be the mass meetings.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23They were usually held in a local football park.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27The guy would arrive in a van with a megaphone.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30"Our meeting was convened last night
0:26:30 > 0:26:33"in the Boilermakers' Club.
0:26:33 > 0:26:38"And the Amalgamated Union of the Association of Ironworkers met..."
0:26:38 > 0:26:39This would go on for 10 minutes.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44"And at a quorum meeting, during the meeting an amendment was called..."
0:26:44 > 0:26:46You'd have 20 minutes of this.
0:26:46 > 0:26:50And people would be thinking, "What the hell's going on here?
0:26:50 > 0:26:52"What's he talking about?"
0:26:57 > 0:27:04One source of rancour for the union leaders was the failure of shipyard owners to invest in new technology.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08Everybody's wanting ships with all the ships that have been lost.
0:27:08 > 0:27:15We can't afford to stop now and modernise, so we'll use just use the old equipment since 1905.
0:27:15 > 0:27:16And you go on and on...
0:27:16 > 0:27:23And if you use the equipment of 1905, you then have the craft divisions of 1905, you then have
0:27:23 > 0:27:27the employer's mentality of 1905 - that's what happened to British shipbuilding.
0:27:27 > 0:27:33But management saw obdurate unions as the barrier to modernisation.
0:27:33 > 0:27:35If you bought
0:27:35 > 0:27:41a new machine which would reduce, say, the labour from, say, 15 people
0:27:41 > 0:27:47to two people, it was a very good investment even though it cost a lot of money.
0:27:47 > 0:27:52But the unions were not prepared to allow two men to work it.
0:27:52 > 0:27:57So if we did well, we might be able to work it with six people.
0:27:57 > 0:28:01Now, working with six people is not such a good investment.
0:28:01 > 0:28:05These opposing perspectives still endure today.
0:28:05 > 0:28:08And then they started blaming the workers.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12They did, you know. Aye, it was because of the Boilermakers' Society.
0:28:12 > 0:28:17I mean, I'm not a member of the Boilermakers' Society, but that's absolute.. nonsense.
0:28:17 > 0:28:22As state-of-the-art foreign yards captured the lion's share of the business,
0:28:22 > 0:28:27British yards remained crippled by appalling industrial relations.
0:28:27 > 0:28:30There was definitely a realisation that things had to change.
0:28:30 > 0:28:35The trouble was that we were locked into a system of confrontation.
0:28:35 > 0:28:38And it was very, very difficult to get out of.
0:28:40 > 0:28:46During the 1960s, lack of investment, union disputes and late delivery times
0:28:46 > 0:28:50all contributed to mounting losses among the majority of British yards,
0:28:50 > 0:28:52John Brown's among them.
0:28:52 > 0:28:57The ocean-going liner business also suffered from the expanding airliner market.
0:28:57 > 0:29:03Yet in 1964, Cunard, the owners of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth,
0:29:03 > 0:29:07decided to invest in one more great transatlantic passenger ship.
0:29:07 > 0:29:10It was to be an up-to-the-minute liner that could also
0:29:10 > 0:29:17perform as a cruise vessel, and, like her predecessors, be converted into a troop ship in times of war.
0:29:17 > 0:29:24John Brown's outbid four other yards and won the contract to build what would eventually become the QE II.
0:29:24 > 0:29:31Hull 736, as she was first known, was laid down on the same plot as the Lusitania, the Hood,
0:29:31 > 0:29:36the Empress of Britain, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39I went down and had a look at the...
0:29:39 > 0:29:47736, but I got taken into the yard and shown all through.
0:29:47 > 0:29:49And when they laid the keel...
0:29:49 > 0:29:51I went down and I touched it.
0:29:51 > 0:29:56They were a lovely ship getting built at that time.
0:29:57 > 0:30:03The construction of the QE2 was to be yet another Clyde built story of achievement out of adversity.
0:30:03 > 0:30:05This vessel was to break new bounds in design,
0:30:05 > 0:30:10from hull to funnel, from disco dance floors to Formica table tops.
0:30:10 > 0:30:17Yet this great late-twentieth- century artefact would be fabricated with machinery from the nineteenth.
0:30:17 > 0:30:21Shell rolling for instance - if you imagine an old fashioned mangle,
0:30:21 > 0:30:25except about maybe 200 times the size.
0:30:25 > 0:30:31They rolled shell plates in very, very complex curves, maybe in the bow of a ship or something.
0:30:31 > 0:30:36The QE2 had a big, bulbous bow, which was like the nose of a dolphin.
0:30:36 > 0:30:38All that was made on these shell rolling machines.
0:30:38 > 0:30:43Some of the people working on these machines had been working on them since they were 15.
0:30:43 > 0:30:49There was one in the west yard that I actually worked on, and it had "Beardmore 1889" on it.
0:30:49 > 0:30:53It was worked by a huge electric motor with a cage and two belts.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56The way they changed the speed of the machine was a guy would
0:30:56 > 0:31:02come up with a stick, and just stick it in the belts and heave it, and the belt would jump to another thing.
0:31:02 > 0:31:09Hull 736 was eventually launched on September 20th 1967.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12May God bless her, and all who sail in her.
0:31:17 > 0:31:23It's this extraordinary thing that when that bottle strikes the front of that ship, and the champagne trickles
0:31:23 > 0:31:28down and the thing's been named, for 10 seconds, nothing happens.
0:31:28 > 0:31:31It just sits there.
0:31:31 > 0:31:34And every single eye is focused on some part of that ship.
0:31:34 > 0:31:38To see this move, it starts from zero.
0:31:38 > 0:31:44There, she's moving! And this is the moment when we all hold our breath, underneath and around the ship.
0:31:44 > 0:31:45You can see it moving an inch....
0:31:45 > 0:31:47Two inches,
0:31:47 > 0:31:50three inches, four inches...
0:31:50 > 0:31:54There's a great friction as she goes down into the water, a cloud of dust.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57And then it really starts to pick up momentum, and you hear the logs breaking
0:31:57 > 0:32:00underneath it, because it's taking the strain of this great, massive
0:32:00 > 0:32:05weight and there's cracks and heaves, and chains, and a hell of a noise.
0:32:05 > 0:32:07And this thing literally just goes for it.
0:32:07 > 0:32:12But when you see that moving, it's like watching a mountain on the move.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19And a great wave spreading out towards the opposite bank there.
0:32:19 > 0:32:24My great mentor, Alan Lang, who was a lovely man who travelled the world God knows how many times,
0:32:24 > 0:32:29with tears in his eyes, he put his hand on your shoulder, because that was his apprentices,
0:32:29 > 0:32:36and as we watched it leaving the dock he says, "Ships like that, it's not for the likes of me and you."
0:32:36 > 0:32:38And I just knew what he meant, you know. You had your place.
0:32:40 > 0:32:49I was at the launch of the 736, and I got a wee bit of wood, I got a block of wood
0:32:49 > 0:32:51off the launch,
0:32:51 > 0:33:00and I made that wee box off the wood I got from the launch of the QE2.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04It's since been suggested that it wasn't just small wooden keepsakes
0:33:04 > 0:33:07from the launching blocks that were taken from the QE2.
0:33:07 > 0:33:14After the launch, while the QE2 was being fitted out, the work force was accused of plundering
0:33:14 > 0:33:19building materials, flooring and even carpets from the vessel.
0:33:19 > 0:33:22Many workers at John Brown's refute these stories but do acknowledge
0:33:22 > 0:33:24the time-honoured tradition
0:33:24 > 0:33:31of making household products for friends and family, locally known as homers.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34You had the homers. The idea of the homer was that if you
0:33:34 > 0:33:37were looking for something, like a new poker for the fire,
0:33:37 > 0:33:42that would be easily done. If you were looking for a garden shed,
0:33:42 > 0:33:44that went up the scale a bit.
0:33:44 > 0:33:48That required almost a kind of shipyard Mafia organisation.
0:33:48 > 0:33:53Especially on the QE2, there were hundreds of strips of Formica about this width left in the yards.
0:33:53 > 0:33:55And of course, laminate.
0:33:55 > 0:33:57Everybody wanted a laminated kitchen.
0:33:57 > 0:34:01That was your woman's ideal dream, of a laminated kitchen.
0:34:01 > 0:34:05Rather than sell it to the workers, they would burn it.
0:34:05 > 0:34:08So, people started to find ways of stealing bits of it.
0:34:08 > 0:34:12So they would shove it down their jackets and their trouser legs,
0:34:12 > 0:34:14and they would be marching out of the yard like robots
0:34:14 > 0:34:16with this strapped down their back.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19For Christmas time, if you'd a family you
0:34:19 > 0:34:25would maybe make a school desk or a blackboard, or a wee ironing table.
0:34:25 > 0:34:27- Doll's cot. > - Dolls cot, dolls house, you know.
0:34:27 > 0:34:32The hierarchy in the yard used to make furniture.
0:34:32 > 0:34:37I remember once I got an insulated rabbit hutch made, in the joiner's shop.
0:34:37 > 0:34:41I'd special insulated material cut to size.
0:34:41 > 0:34:45I had the only rabbit that had an insulated abode of residence.
0:34:45 > 0:34:50Despite rumours of pilfering on an industrial scale, and initial problems
0:34:50 > 0:34:57with the design of the turbines, the QE2 has gone down in history as Britain's last great liner.
0:34:57 > 0:35:02We should be proud of the QE2, not because she was the last ship that we
0:35:02 > 0:35:06produced in Britain at that time, but because she's one of the best.
0:35:06 > 0:35:10Because she was absolutely the best, she was a beautifully designed ship.
0:35:10 > 0:35:13She'd all the best architects and interior designers involved in her.
0:35:13 > 0:35:17And of course, she came from a very famous shipyard as well.
0:35:17 > 0:35:19That's why she's so special.
0:35:19 > 0:35:23She's totally emblematic of what we were once good at in this country.
0:35:23 > 0:35:29Even though the last of the Clyde- built Queens is remembered as a shipbuilding triumph,
0:35:29 > 0:35:31John Brown's made a loss on the venture.
0:35:31 > 0:35:36The industry failed to take advantage of its reputation.
0:35:36 > 0:35:40It's one of the great mysteries that you produce this wonderful ship, the QE2, and you'd expect
0:35:40 > 0:35:44a stack of orders for other ships like that. Didn't happen.
0:35:44 > 0:35:48The marketing opportunity that ship presented wasn't realised.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53Across the country, most shipyards were losing money.
0:35:53 > 0:35:55Some were closing down altogether.
0:35:57 > 0:36:02Britain's share of the market was less than 7%, down from 50% just after the war.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06The industry's decline had become a national issue.
0:36:06 > 0:36:12Some shipbuilders were only being kept in business with generous government loans and subsidies.
0:36:12 > 0:36:17The powerless situation of Clydeside, which was already developing the aspect of a
0:36:17 > 0:36:24shipbuilder's graveyard, spurred one well-known Scotsman to direct and present a film on the issue.
0:36:24 > 0:36:31Harland and Wolff, one of the proud names in Clyde shipbuilding, is a graveyard.
0:36:31 > 0:36:35There are others - Henderson, Simon Lobnitz,
0:36:35 > 0:36:39Blythswood, Hamilton, Inglis, Denny's of Dumbarton.
0:36:39 > 0:36:43These shipyards have gone under with millions of pounds' worth of orders,
0:36:43 > 0:36:45and with some of the best workers in the world.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49There are some things you can't cure with deflation.
0:36:49 > 0:36:54When it's your job to sack 1,000 men at the stroke of a pen, you can't be sentimental about the men.
0:36:54 > 0:37:00When it's your job to take the sack at the drop of a hat, you can't be sentimental about the boss.
0:37:00 > 0:37:04To the worker's bitter eye, the situation looks clear.
0:37:04 > 0:37:07The boss takes the gravy when the going is good,
0:37:07 > 0:37:12but when things look bad, he sells out and takes his money and vanishes.
0:37:12 > 0:37:14And that's the crux.
0:37:14 > 0:37:17The gulf is complete, the gulf between the bowler and the bunnet.
0:37:21 > 0:37:24In 1968, the Labour government decided to back the merger
0:37:24 > 0:37:31of five of the largest slip builders into one giant company, Upper Clyde Shipbuilders.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34It was hoped that as one large concern, they would achieve
0:37:34 > 0:37:38the economies of scale necessary to compete with foreign yards.
0:37:38 > 0:37:45Among the five companies were John Brown's, and Alexander Stephen and Sons.
0:37:45 > 0:37:53By the time the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders were mooted, we were running out of orders.
0:37:53 > 0:37:58When it was finally negotiated, we felt we were better to go
0:37:58 > 0:38:05into this merger, even though we didn't like the look of it, because it would protect our employees.
0:38:05 > 0:38:08The employees would be better to go in there.
0:38:08 > 0:38:14If we'd gone on our own, we might have lasted a year or two, but ultimately, we'd have been dead.
0:38:14 > 0:38:20Primed with government subsidies, the new shipbuilding conglomerate
0:38:20 > 0:38:23won fresh domestic and international orders.
0:38:23 > 0:38:30In between strikes, advances were made in working practices and new machinery was introduced.
0:38:30 > 0:38:35Rationalisation meant the closure of the Stephen's yard.
0:38:35 > 0:38:41The family business had been building ships for 220 years.
0:38:41 > 0:38:46To begin with, I felt very guilty that I'd let down my ancestors.
0:38:46 > 0:38:49I was the 7th generation of shipbuilders in our company.
0:38:49 > 0:38:54I felt very guilty that I'd let the family down, and all the portraits
0:38:54 > 0:39:00on the walls would come out of their frames, like in Ruddigore, and curse me.
0:39:00 > 0:39:03But I realise now, there's nothing I could have done.
0:39:03 > 0:39:09If I'd been a really good shipbuilder, I might have been able to keep the company going for another
0:39:09 > 0:39:13two or three years, but the end was inevitable, I'm afraid.
0:39:13 > 0:39:18Although most of the Stephen's workers were absorbed into other yards,
0:39:18 > 0:39:22Upper Clyde Shipbuilders was struggling, despite the new orders.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25The new investments added to the company's debts.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28Wages rates increased when the different yards amalgamated.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31Even the sympathetic Labour Government, which
0:39:31 > 0:39:38had a 48% stake in the company, began to lose patience before it lost the 1970 general election.
0:39:38 > 0:39:42The money goes into Upper Clyde Shipbuilders, but you've got
0:39:42 > 0:39:44five separate shipyards being brought together.
0:39:44 > 0:39:50They have all got different ways of doing things, they've got different cultures. There are difficulties.
0:39:50 > 0:39:52It's going to take a bit of time for this to happen.
0:39:52 > 0:39:56Meanwhile, contracts are being taken on at a loss.
0:39:56 > 0:40:02Upper Clyde Shipbuilders ran for just three years before the receiver was called in.
0:40:02 > 0:40:08Within a year of coming to power, Edward Heath's Tory administration
0:40:08 > 0:40:11could stomach the financial haemorrhage on the Clyde no longer.
0:40:11 > 0:40:15Debts had risen to over £20 million.
0:40:15 > 0:40:23Although the yards had a full order book, in July 1971, the government called in the liquidator.
0:40:24 > 0:40:32It meant the possibility of thousands of men out of work, in an unhopeful year, in an unhopeful place.
0:40:32 > 0:40:35There was a feeling that clenched like a fist.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38Hundreds of workers marched on Whitehall,
0:40:38 > 0:40:43brandishing the demand that there must be no more shipyard closures on the Clyde.
0:40:43 > 0:40:45One of their leaders, communist shop steward Jimmy Reid.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49It can't be justified economically, but even more disastrously,
0:40:49 > 0:40:54it could never be justified with the social consequences of the action.
0:40:54 > 0:40:58I'm telling you, we put it to Heath - how can a government in the 1970s
0:40:58 > 0:41:01try and take economic decisions in the abstract? It's pre-Keynes.
0:41:01 > 0:41:08As I said to your colleagues there, it's prehistoric, and it belongs to the nineteenth century.
0:41:08 > 0:41:12And I think, despite their suavity, how suave and well mannered,
0:41:12 > 0:41:17and how well modulated their voice, I think we're dealing with a bunch of political cavemen.
0:41:18 > 0:41:21When I was told about it,
0:41:21 > 0:41:25the last thing in my mind at that time was that we'd any difficulties.
0:41:25 > 0:41:29We had twelve ships on order we hadn't even started on.
0:41:29 > 0:41:31You understand, a ship? It's not like a car.
0:41:31 > 0:41:33It's a gigantic...
0:41:33 > 0:41:36project in its own right.
0:41:36 > 0:41:38Years of work.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43Suddenly, we were in difficulties, yards were to close, what's it all about?
0:41:43 > 0:41:46And it was the governmental decree.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51Ian Johnston was studying art at the time.
0:41:51 > 0:41:56The son and grandson of Glasgow shipbuilders, he'd grown up close by the yards.
0:41:56 > 0:42:04When I was an art student in 1971, and the headlines hit the television and newspaper saying
0:42:04 > 0:42:10Upper Clyde Shipbuilders was bust, and that was the end of it, the shock was palpable.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12You couldn't believe that this was going to happen.
0:42:12 > 0:42:14This was what we did here.
0:42:14 > 0:42:16It was on about shipbuilding.
0:42:16 > 0:42:22My grandmother would tell me all about the wonderful ships that John Brown's had built, and so on.
0:42:22 > 0:42:23It was just there.
0:42:23 > 0:42:27We all got together, and we had a meeting of shop stewards.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35We more or less had run up some idea that we'd fight it, but how we would resist it, we didn't know.
0:42:35 > 0:42:39There was talks about a sit-in.
0:42:39 > 0:42:42I wasn't happy about that. It was rather negative.
0:42:42 > 0:42:44And various other things.
0:42:44 > 0:42:46It was in here.
0:42:46 > 0:42:50The first meeting was in here, of the shop stewards.
0:42:50 > 0:42:56Jimmy Reid, Airlie, Sammy Barr, a couple of others.
0:42:56 > 0:43:01We decided then to have a meeting of all the shop stewards on the Saturday morning
0:43:01 > 0:43:07in Glasgow. There was some discussion that we should go on strike.
0:43:08 > 0:43:13We felt that if we went on strike, we would be outside the gates.
0:43:13 > 0:43:17We'd give them the opportunity to shut the gates and lock the gates.
0:43:17 > 0:43:19So, the right to work was born.
0:43:21 > 0:43:24Both Jimmy Reid and Bob Dickie, seen here on the right, were part
0:43:24 > 0:43:29of the committee that resolved not to strike, but to occupy the yard,
0:43:29 > 0:43:33and carry on in defiance of the government.
0:43:33 > 0:43:36It wasn't a sit-in, it was a work-in.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39We'd a full order book, we'd all the equipment and materials.
0:43:39 > 0:43:42Why don't we continue working and producing ships?
0:43:42 > 0:43:45You're going to tell us "you're cracked."
0:43:45 > 0:43:49We'd come in again and work, and demonstrate to the world that this closure
0:43:49 > 0:43:54was based on political dogma, not economic reasoning.
0:43:54 > 0:43:58Sir John Eden, Edward Heath's Minister for Industry,
0:43:58 > 0:44:02argued there was a clear economic justification, bankruptcy.
0:44:02 > 0:44:09It's absolutely wrong for this government, for any government of this country,
0:44:09 > 0:44:12to go on pouring public money
0:44:12 > 0:44:15to back up proposals which are basically unsound.
0:44:15 > 0:44:19The last thing we wanted to have happen was that UCS collapsed,
0:44:19 > 0:44:22that it went into liquidation, that it became bankrupt.
0:44:22 > 0:44:25This isn't something that had been part of government policy.
0:44:25 > 0:44:27This isn't an objective.
0:44:27 > 0:44:32We came into this government not to...
0:44:32 > 0:44:37wreck people's employment prospects, but to secure viable projects for them,
0:44:37 > 0:44:40to give them long-term employment prospects in the future.
0:44:43 > 0:44:48Along the banks of the River Clyde, the situation was seen from a different perspective.
0:44:48 > 0:44:54An entire community felt threatened, and rallied behind their shop stewards.
0:44:54 > 0:44:59Bob Dickie is seen here preparing the way for the man who would seize the moment.
0:44:59 > 0:45:04They hit back next day with their work-in, initially at John Brown's, Clydebank.
0:45:04 > 0:45:08They were launching something new, something distant to make big waves.
0:45:08 > 0:45:14The joint shop stewards are utterly unanimous - we're going to fight this.
0:45:14 > 0:45:17And we're going to fight it with a determination that
0:45:17 > 0:45:22Britain hasn't seen from any section of the working class this century,
0:45:22 > 0:45:25let alone since 1945, and we'll do it.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28The pressure here,
0:45:28 > 0:45:30we want to tell them
0:45:30 > 0:45:35that we were serious, we weren't bluffing and we are taking the first step today.
0:45:35 > 0:45:40The shop stewards representing the workers are in control of this yard.
0:45:40 > 0:45:47Nobody and nothing will come in and nothing will go out without our permission.
0:45:47 > 0:45:51The security officers have been told that and they accept it. The gate man is there.
0:45:51 > 0:45:58We'll take the decisions, with your endorsement, that determines what comes in or out this yard.
0:45:58 > 0:46:01And we are not strikers.
0:46:01 > 0:46:06We are responsible people and we will conduct ourselves with the dignity and
0:46:06 > 0:46:11discipline that we have all the time expressed over the last few weeks.
0:46:11 > 0:46:13There will be no hooliganism.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16There will be no vandalism.
0:46:16 > 0:46:19There will be no bevvying.
0:46:19 > 0:46:24- Hear, hear! - Because the world is watching us and it's our responsibility
0:46:24 > 0:46:29to conduct ourselves responsibly and with dignity and with maturity.
0:46:32 > 0:46:37Jimmy Reid, tremendous speaker, an ability to capture that mass audience.
0:46:37 > 0:46:42Very astute and he understood the politics of it all but he understood the passion as well.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45There is this funny thing, you come in as an outsider, you see
0:46:45 > 0:46:49the cranes, you see the steel, but there's this funny kind of romantic air,
0:46:49 > 0:46:52they build ships, that's wonderful.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55But it's not, it's in the blood.
0:46:55 > 0:46:59Jimmy knew how to tap into that because he had the wonderful
0:46:59 > 0:47:02knowledge of the history of the struggles.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05In particular, the work of the trade union movement in Clydeside.
0:47:07 > 0:47:14The practical business of running the yards would be made possible by an almost unholy alliance.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18The shop stewards' committee worked hand-in-hand with Robert Courtney Smith,
0:47:18 > 0:47:22the liquidator who had been brought in to dispose of the company's assets.
0:47:22 > 0:47:26As Smith laid people off, the shop stewards' committee took
0:47:26 > 0:47:31them back on, paying them from the campaign fund.
0:47:31 > 0:47:36The liquidator says, "Bill, how is this going to work?"
0:47:36 > 0:47:42"If you sack somebody we will bring them in on the Monday and pay them." "You'll pay them?"
0:47:42 > 0:47:46"Yes, we'll pay them." "I can't see anything wrong with that," He was a good guy.
0:47:46 > 0:47:50But we embroiled the management in it because the management's jobs were at stake.
0:47:50 > 0:47:55Not at the very top of the house, but all the guys that were doing the effective work in the yard,
0:47:55 > 0:47:56their jobs were at stake.
0:47:56 > 0:48:01There was no division between managers, foremen, workers.
0:48:01 > 0:48:07As a matter of fact, the shop stewards became essentially virtually the board of directors.
0:48:07 > 0:48:09We all worked together. We ran that yard.
0:48:09 > 0:48:13We produced the ships, we launched the ships.
0:48:13 > 0:48:17The liquidator says, "I see no reason why I should intervene."
0:48:17 > 0:48:20There was a sense of romance.
0:48:20 > 0:48:22Everything was to close.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25The community was to be devastated because it depended on it.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27The workers said no.
0:48:27 > 0:48:31We had to raise money for the people who
0:48:31 > 0:48:32were made unemployed.
0:48:32 > 0:48:35We had to pay them.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38It was quite substantial sums but the money flowed in.
0:48:38 > 0:48:40We said, "Can you help us?"
0:48:40 > 0:48:42The money flowed in.
0:48:42 > 0:48:45This is one from the Home Counties Dairies.
0:48:45 > 0:48:49Dear brothers, we'd like you to accept his contribution of £7.
0:48:49 > 0:48:55Hundreds from trade union branches, £1,000 from a woman doctor in Yorkshire.
0:48:55 > 0:48:59The letters that we got and the money... It was...
0:48:59 > 0:49:01A taxi driver...
0:49:01 > 0:49:06he sent his tips from London every week.
0:49:06 > 0:49:13We had that old lady in Brighton, she sent part of her pension every week.
0:49:17 > 0:49:20Suddenly it was August for the people.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23There were pledges of co-operation from many trade unions.
0:49:23 > 0:49:27Lorry drivers said they would continue to bring in supplies, even if the liquidator tried to stop them.
0:49:27 > 0:49:34Tug boat crews said they would refuse to tow away completed ships if the shop stewards in the yard said no.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37On August 18th they were out on the streets,
0:49:37 > 0:49:4250,000 or more, marching to Glasgow Green in the biggest demonstration the city had seen since the war,
0:49:42 > 0:49:46watched and applauded by thousands more.
0:49:48 > 0:49:50And it went on,
0:49:50 > 0:49:53the peculiar euphoria of protest.
0:49:53 > 0:49:55Oh, aye. There was a press conference.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59At Clydebank at the time. I'm taking the press conference.
0:49:59 > 0:50:04One of the boys - we had lads manning the gates.
0:50:04 > 0:50:09A guy came on, "Jimmy, there's a big bunch of flowers for you here.
0:50:09 > 0:50:11"A big wheel of flowers."
0:50:11 > 0:50:18I said, "For me?" It's not a tradition in Clydeside for men to get flowers.
0:50:18 > 0:50:20"You are kidding!" "No."
0:50:20 > 0:50:22"Who's it from?"
0:50:22 > 0:50:25"It's from some bloke called Lennon."
0:50:25 > 0:50:28There's an old bloody Bolshevik in the corner, Gerry.
0:50:28 > 0:50:32He said, "It cannae be Lenin, he's deid!"
0:50:32 > 0:50:34He thought he was talking about Vladimir Lenin.
0:50:34 > 0:50:39He said, "It's John Lennon and somebody Yoko."
0:50:39 > 0:50:42There was a big cheque in it.
0:50:43 > 0:50:46It was very nice.
0:50:46 > 0:50:53I think the work-in hit the right note from the very beginning because it was cleverly conducted.
0:50:53 > 0:50:54It did have integrity about it.
0:50:54 > 0:51:00It was so well presented that you couldn't help but go for it.
0:51:00 > 0:51:02There were any number of meetings in Glasgow, and
0:51:02 > 0:51:08I used to go along to these meetings and hear people like Jimmy Reid and Jimmy Airlie talking about it.
0:51:08 > 0:51:11You couldn't help but be persuaded by the passion that these people
0:51:11 > 0:51:14were expressing that this was the right thing to happen.
0:51:14 > 0:51:18We were sitting in the centre seeing this public reaction
0:51:18 > 0:51:22that wasn't self-seeking, it wasn't this, it wasn't that.
0:51:22 > 0:51:29That says you people are right, we've got to stop these bloody people from on high declaring
0:51:29 > 0:51:32communities to be dead, because if you destroy
0:51:32 > 0:51:35the industry of a community, you destroy the bloody community.
0:51:35 > 0:51:37That's what it's all about.
0:51:37 > 0:51:39It took off from there.
0:51:43 > 0:51:49With the active collaboration of the liquidator, the work-in lasted for eight months until February 1972.
0:51:49 > 0:51:55Ship construction continued, vessels were launched and orders fulfilled.
0:51:55 > 0:51:58Seeing the extent of public support for the work-in,
0:51:58 > 0:52:04the Government eventually backed down, providing another £35 million to keep the company going.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07It was a partial victory.
0:52:07 > 0:52:12The work-in resulted in the retention of shipbuilding, there's no question of that.
0:52:12 > 0:52:15But it shrunk.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19In the process of being saved, they lost quite a bit of it.
0:52:19 > 0:52:24The John Brown yard did continue, which was a great thing, but not as a shipyard.
0:52:24 > 0:52:27The Stephen's yard at Linthouse was phased out.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30It did effectively come down to just two.
0:52:30 > 0:52:33Where there been five yards, now it was down to two yards.
0:52:33 > 0:52:36While it was a great triumph, and it was
0:52:36 > 0:52:43and one shouldn't in any way suggest it was anything other than that, contraction was part of the process.
0:52:43 > 0:52:47John Brown's was sold to a Texan oil rig manufacturer.
0:52:47 > 0:52:52Although thousands of jobs were saved, many of the shipbuilding skills became superfluous.
0:52:52 > 0:52:56Many left in search of work elsewhere.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00You suddenly realised that what was going to happen was
0:53:00 > 0:53:04the shipyard wasn't gonna shut, the town was going to shut.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08The dominions of the world that have filled
0:53:08 > 0:53:12with ex-Clydeside workers because there was always the move away
0:53:12 > 0:53:16to Australia, move away to Canada, the move away to New Zealand.
0:53:16 > 0:53:22People just moved away because they had families, they had to fight and struggle for their survival.
0:53:25 > 0:53:30For the next few decades, the surviving rump of the industry limped on
0:53:30 > 0:53:35through a period of nationalisation and a return to private ownership.
0:53:35 > 0:53:41Vast tracts of once-world-famous shipyards were demolished to make way for car parks and superstores.
0:53:45 > 0:53:52Here's an industry which has been famous for so long and now it's effectively over, so we are told.
0:53:52 > 0:53:53What can you do about it?
0:53:53 > 0:53:58The only thing I could do was get my camera and start to take some photographs of it
0:53:58 > 0:54:04and start to record it, because I believed what they were saying that it was going to disappear completely.
0:54:04 > 0:54:07It would be redeveloped into something else.
0:54:07 > 0:54:11So I got my camera out and I started to go up and down the river and take
0:54:11 > 0:54:14photographs periodically to record the reality of it.
0:54:14 > 0:54:17That was just my...
0:54:17 > 0:54:20little futile attempt to try and retain something of it.
0:54:25 > 0:54:30I'm here with these beautifully built red-brick buildings, built to last.
0:54:30 > 0:54:3560-70 years later were being demolished - it seems such a waste of human endeavour.
0:54:39 > 0:54:44I even went in with a tape-recorder to tape-record the machine shops running, just to get the ambient
0:54:44 > 0:54:50sound of it because I thought it was so exciting and about to disappear.
0:55:02 > 0:55:09Today, ships are still being built out of two yards on a river that once boasted 33.
0:55:09 > 0:55:14Nearly 4,000 people are still employed building naval vessels.
0:55:14 > 0:55:18There are two unions where they used to be more than two score.
0:55:18 > 0:55:25State-of-the-art machinery, hard hats and health and safety are a management priority.
0:55:25 > 0:55:32It's a far cry from the brutal conditions that gave birth to the great ships of the past.
0:55:32 > 0:55:38Tom McKendrick left John Brown's shortly after completion of the QE2.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41Now a successful artist, he is building a six-metre
0:55:41 > 0:55:46replica of one of the most renowned Clyde built warships, the Ramillies.
0:55:46 > 0:55:53It will be placed 20 ft high at a Clydebank crossroads as a reminder of the town's origins.
0:55:53 > 0:55:59The idea behind the rebuilding of the Ramillies is to take this and
0:55:59 > 0:56:04put it on a stand and put it up high and say - this is the reason for your existence,
0:56:04 > 0:56:06whether you like it or not.
0:56:06 > 0:56:15Because this town was built to supply that ship, or ships like this, to the service of the empire.
0:56:15 > 0:56:20And without ships like that, this place would be a green field.
0:56:20 > 0:56:23Commemoration is being planned on an even larger scale.
0:56:25 > 0:56:31A new Transport Museum is under construction, that will celebrate the river's maritime history.
0:56:31 > 0:56:38Its vaulted metal skeleton recalls the iron and steel leviathans of the past.
0:56:38 > 0:56:43It will house models of the great Clyde-built vessels - the Lusitania,
0:56:43 > 0:56:49the Empress of Britain, the Hood and the three Queens.
0:56:49 > 0:56:56The shipyard where they were built lies in rubble, awaiting the developers.
0:57:02 > 0:57:06At the moment, all that's left of the John Brown shipyard site
0:57:06 > 0:57:14is the fitting out base and the solitary Titan crane, which has been there since 1907.
0:57:14 > 0:57:16Everything else has gone, most of the ships have gone.
0:57:16 > 0:57:23So the crane has this responsibility to the collective memory of what happened there at that site.
0:57:23 > 0:57:26It's a very depressing sight.
0:57:26 > 0:57:33There were 27 shipyards when I was young and gradually they
0:57:33 > 0:57:37were whittled down and there's practically nothing left.
0:57:37 > 0:57:40The majority of it is just waste ground.
0:57:40 > 0:57:44I'm very sad that there's nothing come in to replace it.
0:57:45 > 0:57:49The best thing to commemorate it
0:57:49 > 0:57:58is to build shipyards that are capable of producing the ships of the 21st and 22nd century.
0:57:58 > 0:58:02I think we've got to say - listen, we are
0:58:02 > 0:58:08grabbing our piece of the action and we can build new ships for the future which will become historic.
0:58:08 > 0:58:10That should be a governmental aim.
0:58:16 > 0:58:21There was something interesting in the river, it was really interesting.
0:58:21 > 0:58:25It was nice to see the yards, all the different ships.
0:58:25 > 0:58:29There's nothing like that now.
0:58:32 > 0:58:36But anyway, you've just got to move with the times.
0:58:46 > 0:58:48Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:48 > 0:58:50E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk