50 years ago.

[j.sabourn]

Due to the good services of one of the members as suppose others may do. I receive a copy of The Pulse. One small item caught my eye entitled as per heading.
The Merchant Navy workforce totalled 107,175 at the start of the year, including 21,732 deck ratings, 9,443 ER ratings, and 26,352 in the catering Dept. Source The Telegraph , April 1968.

Anyone have a confirmed number of same as of today ???

JWS

[robpage]

There is a total of 20,060 employed in 2016 according to government figures on the following government website

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...536XcE96tMFh3X

[Doc Vernon]

Yes JS
The Pulse is sent to quite a few by Dave,and is an interesting Magazine .
I now however receive my own Copy thanks to asking for it in Person (via Email of course) from the Editor Direct!
Its well worth the readings!
Cheers

[happy daze john in oz]

John, pleased you received it OK.

Any figures put out by any gov to me are always suspect, though the figures you quote for numbers in the 60's is most likely correct.
But as there is no British MN of consequence now compared to then I would expect the numbers to be well down.
It would be of greater interest to find out the nationality of the crews

[Bill Morrison]

This from a copy of Shipbuilding & Shipping Record October 1967. The writing was on the wall then though we didn't know it.

[robpage]

I think the writing was most certainly on the wall and I think a lot of us who were then still enjoying what was basically a tramp cargo trade like you didn't know what the ports were until you saw the labels on the cargo and then you could end up spending weeks in some quite pleasant ports seven weeks in Genoa comes to mind and I still remember the last of the liners I left Union castle in 1973 when that particular trade had already got the Sword of Doom dangling over it , I had a quick should you on in a tanker trade just to see I've gone to some exotic places that you can actually see through binoculars on a clear day from the ship and then I ended up on Ferries and saw the end of that trade as well . We were let down by trade unions government and of course the Good Old Ship owners , but I don't know about the rest of you but I'm certainly left with some fabulous fantastic memories

[Lewis McColl]

Surely the colonies gaining independence would also have had an effect on the demise of British shipping. The formation of companies like Nigerian National Line and Ghana Black Star line(both gone bust sometime ago) Saf Marine!! , the Gulf states forming tanker companies. The formation on the National Shipping line of India. Even the likes of Kuwait shipping Company ,now known as UASC.
Our shipping companies have also been poorly managed especially when you look at what happened to Ocean Fleets, P&O Group ,Overseas Containers Ltd.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Although I try not to get involved anything political, I think you may find that a programme was established under Harold Wilson where-in recently so called developing/independent countries were assisted by the British Government in them gifting vessels which were due to be replaced by new vessels by various owners to enable them to establish their own Merchant Navies, (These vessels were due to be sold for scrap, but the owners replacing them were allowed tax concessions on the new buildings if they didn't scrap the old vessels, however it was only sometime later that the owners realised they had cut their own throats).

The recipients of this largess included Pakistan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Nigeria and a couple of others, these countries soon established a system where-in imports into their respective countries had to be carried in their own flag vessels, they tried to establish the same rules for their exports but this back fired in as much that they didn't have sufficient vessels to enact this policy and soon realised that they would also be losing valuable foreign exchange.

The same Govt also sold our old car manufacturing plant/machinery to Iran and India, where the Morris Oxford was then manufactured locally under the name of 'Ambassador' in India and still being made to this day, someone may recall that in Iran it was the Hillman Minx and Hillman Hunter machinery that was sold to Iran and they are still manufactured today, someone may recall the Iranian name for these cars, they escape me for the time being.

Not only did this action contribute to the contraction of our Merchant Navy it also lost us many export markets for the motor industry.

[j.sabourn]

In 1968 Ivan ,I must have had a sixth sense of foreboding about the British MN as I had made poste haste after the seaman’s strike to go elsewhere. On coming back into British Ships in the 70s this was soon confirmed and think most could see how shipping in the merchantt and fishing industries had been totally let down. I was working out in Canada in 1968 from the shipping office at 1060 University Street Montreal. At that time was the Expo in Montreal and Wilson had a limit on what amount of currency one could leave the UK with, 50 pounds I believe. There were plenty British citizens staying in the city at the time for the festivities and 50 pounds may have lasted them a day or so if they were lucky. So for those with money it was business as usual. A very good socialist was our Harold and his sidekick George Brown who always reminded me of a slow learner. Party politics are for the ignorant, they are all the same , all like to think of themselves as the ruling class , others see them as thieving grasping baskets. On the other hand Thatcher in the 80s resurrected an old Law as she said , was that seamen were taxed on their travelling expenses , this only applied to seafarers and not business people , the target it seems of all politicians of whatever faith is the ordinary working man , and has always been so since serfdom, in fact it is serfdom just continued. JWS.

[Lewis McColl]

The likes of National Iranian Tanker Company , 1955, Ghana Black Star line and Nigerian National lines were formed in 1957 & 1959 respectively. The machine tool line for the production of the series 3 model of the Morris Oxford also took place in 1957 and the Ambassador production started in 1958. . a bit before the Wilson Governments, that would have been under Harold McMillian.

The Hillman Hunter was known as the Paykan, it was eventually fazed out in 2005.

It seems to be a practice that the UK has done over the years, I think after the war years were gave the Japanese the toolne for the Austin A30 and the likes of the Standard 8 & 10 as well. The most recent one that springs to mind was the Mk 3?version of the Vauxhall/Opel Astra, which became a Dawoo something or other.
# 8 I take your point though Harold Wilson did give away a lot of UK know how. He also scraped the TSR-2 which was muted to be or become the best out there at that time, but having just briefly read the wiki version of why it was scraped , yet again we find cost over runs. The link attached may be of interest to some. Certainly was a nice looking aircraft and you can see were the design for the later Tornado came from.