SCRAPPING QE2.

Hi Eifion ,
thanks for the reply.
I have sailed on many Cunard liners in the last 60 years and the old ones, that were built in the 20s and 30s, were certainly Opulant and very well furnished in the manner of the day, Lovely ships that the world will never see again, apart from the last one, Queen Mary, I usualy go on her every year, I was last on her this year, the year before twice and so on now for many years. I just love that ship. with its Art Decor and 48 different woods that make up the paneling and so on.
But the QE2 is a different animal, designed as a Trans At Liner, with occaisional cruising as the trading patterns changed.
Then later cruising all the time, Also designed to be converted for trooping.
She was altered many times to up grade her from the original design, Decks alterd in lengths and shapes, additional decks added , new design of the funnel, engines replaced with diesel, and many other changes so she was always evolving, not the same ship as built. But as the other Liners of the pre war era disapeared she became an Icon of passenger shipping. Nothing could touch her for elegance both inside and out.
The "liners ?" of today are just boxes and full of plastic fun boats. QE2 was the last true Liner.
I sailed on QE2 every year from 1995 to when she was disposed of in 2008, even then she changed in style over that period.
So obviously she could not have been built in the same design as the Queen Mary with the same decor, after all it was some 35 years later.
As regards the refits in Hamburg instead of British ports was because the Germans [ who I have no love for as my mother was blown up by a German bomb, in the Blitz,] guaranteed a price and a delivery time. they stuck to it.
The British yards were always being interfered with by the Unions, with walk outs Delays and increases in bonus payments or else and so on banging up the final costs and cruises having to be cancelled.
Cheers
Brian.

Brian,when you think of shipbuilding today as to yesteryear it is a far different ball game.Imagine the conditions when the Titanic was built,they were out in the elements.Now they work under cover the ship is built in sections and the method of building is far different.I often think the amount of money that we pay into the EU if we were'nt in it we could subsidise our shipbuilding industry upto the hilt and then we would be more competetive and be the best in the world.If we dont do it soon all the skills that we have will be lost,many of our engineers on this site served their time in the yards.
Regards.
Jim.B.

You are right Jim, but as regards the Unions a number of years ago they helped to break Lairds,
An American ship owner oredered 15 fruit boats and then the Unions stepped in, The joiners who were drilling holes in the holds to fix the wooden battens for the insulation were stopped by the other Union who insisted it was a steel workers job to drill holes in steel. So every one came out on strike, the ship owner pulled out and cancelled the order for the 15 ships and went elsewhere to have his ships built.
A lot of Unions in the 50s and 60s were hell bent on destroying jobs and industries.
Then again on the other side, the QUEEN MARY 2 was going to be built by Harlands in Belfast, a £550.000.000 order, they asked Tony Bliar for a subsidy to commence the work until the first stage was built and then they would get a cheque from Cunard. Bliar said NO, and to improve his plans to be President of europe he recommended that a bancrupt yard in France, Chantillieres in St Naziere to build it. They did and have never stopped building ships ever since .
Meanwhile Harlands closed, 4,000 men out of work, the skills lost, no apprentices starting to learn the skills , and that was that.
So no one pulls together for the better good of all.
Then again. a lot of money and investment from the US, to modernise German ship building, Italian shipbuilding and Korean shipbuilding, all under cover, 24 hours a day non stop regardless of the weather and with the new equipment ships were built like lego and just fitted together, So we could not compete without the Investment.
As you say if we were not in the EU all the money we spend keeping europe afloat would have built many fine ship building yards to compete against the world. Now we have nothing.
A combination of Unions and successive Governments and Politicians have destroyed British Industry which was once the envy of the world.
I am afraid it can never come back. We have lost all our skills and no one is coming up who are training.
Cheers
Brian.

Sadly Jim I think that day has already gone where the skills required now are in very short supply in the UK , The shipyards in Britain really were strangled by archaic practices . I have dry Docked in te UK in yards in Avonmouth , Glasgow, Tyneside , Teesside , Southampton , and in yards in Northern Europe in Holland and Germany . In the early 1970' to get a hole drilled in a bulkhead in the UK required a Marker out , and his mate , a driller and two mates , an inspector , in Northern Europe the fitter drilled a hole ,. UK yards had many examples where there were five men to do a job requiring one man , and stupid inefficiencies , take a 1 1/2 " water valve the UK yards overhauled it at £ 100.00 , Northern Europe replaced it at £50.00 . It was not just the men in the yard , it was the management too , they all worked in practices learned pre World War II . I cry a sad tear when I see the wastelands where our docklands once stood , but in 1970 was happier docking abroad , for ease of working and efficiency . If you wanted to overhaul a boiler valve as a routine during the shut down that a dry dock brings UK Yards would not allow it , Amsterdam did not care less . We lost forever our skills , the last of the dockyard trained apprentices must now be over fifty , and sadly probably not in engineering any more . The modern practices in automation and fabrication , have probably overtaken them too . The subsidies that went on UK based industries , I am thinking British Leyland and a few other to my mind never worked., Manufacturing output by value has constantly risen in the UK whilst manufacturing employment has fallen , this is a World Wide phenomenon , as automation has one lathe operator with a CNC set of equipment doing the work previously done by twenty men It is a reflection of what happened to agriculture over 200 years ago when 80% of the population were employed in feeding the rest of the country , now it is done by 2% . Our manufacturing output I believe is similar to that of France at around 12% of GDP , which is near the World Average . Portsmouth Dockyard is threatened with closure again , that is populated with quite a few European workers making up the skill base . I am afraid that it is all too late to ever get that once proud tradition back .

Brian,no matter what you say the conditions that these people worked under for the money that they were paid was atrocious.I wonder what the labour cost was to build that ship.
Regards.
Jim.B

Very true Jim,
But there was no investment in those industries, I also worked in similar conditions when Steel erecting, climbiing high steel with a coat of frost or ice on it or wet, steel is very slippery, I saw some men come down the shortway , attend the funeral next week and then wage stopped for taking time out, nearly did myself at times. very dangerous job, I was injured a few times with broken ribs and squashed fingers etc.
I know in ship building there are a lot of small compartments with welding and riveting and full of fumes destroying the lungs,
But the workers seem to be powerless with the Unions on one side and the Bosses on the other and Governments who dont give a damn about anyone.
So now there is no work, no industry and so are they any better off.? Maybe with a little more cooperation between everyone and more investment that other countries got we could have survived.
It is too late now it has all gone and will never come back to what it was.
Cheers
Brian

We all harp on about the Union practices employed in British industry and compare it with the Germans
What doesn't seem to be widely known but is a fact that after the War the TUC was instrumental in setting up working methods in Germany. They set up a system where it was nigh on impossible to strike at the drop of a hat, rigorous negotiations took place to try and solve the dispute and strikes were a very last resort. Compare that with over here (UK) in the sixties and seventies were every other day.
The TUC refused point blankly to negotiate any change in bargaining power and as result Maggie changed the law for them making it harder to down tools in an instance.

I still strongly agree that without Unions we would be flayed by the employers , The working practices that were so stupid always seemed to be bought in by the politically ambitious in those unions , we stood back and they stabbed us in the back . Our complacency let the loonies in , I think people like British Leyland's Red Robbo , Derek Robinson , He was eventually sacked by British Leyland in November 1979 and the union called a strike ballot 14,000 against and only 600 for , pity because by then the damage was done . He went on to become the president of the British Communist Party . I took little interest , so I am as guilty as the rest . One of the classics I remember well in this region was a Ford Van Strike , now sadly off to Turkey en bloc , The company offered 5% the unions demanded 10 % , every week they were out the management saved 2% of the wage bill and te overheads like light and electricity , there was an overcapacity in the market , so after five weeks and a saving to management of 10% and the running costs , they went back for 5% more than that which was offered , effectively reducing their annual earnings by 5% that year , Pity !

It is every mans right to withdraw his labour, for this some huddled under the umbrella of the TUC for support and strength. A lot were disappointed by the support and the results of such. As some on this site have shown that they have similar beliefs that unions were necessary as there has to be some restrictions on what the employer can do to the employee. I think in my working life I only once had recourse to call on same, and this was to ask for legal advice at a court of enquiry. Maybe I was in a different position than those shoreworkers in unions, but my approach to life was if I didnt like the job I used to move on, and if the owner wasnt paying enough did not take the job, free enterprise you might say. However the situation today is different due to lack of employment and the power is back in the hands of the employer, which means to me there is a distinct need for a trade union to keep standards status quo. This political law as such making striking illegal in some cases, smacks to me of a totalarian state, as as I stated I beleive it is every mans God given right to withdraw his labour. Regards John Sabourn