Clydebuilt - the phrase still resonates around the world, as ship manager Ross McLure can tell you. He has been in the yards since he was a boy. Now he has risen to the heights of being a ship manager on one of the six Type 45 destroyers for the Royal Navy which have been under construction in Glasgow since 2004. And whether you are a manager or a sheet-metal worker, a supervisor or on the shop floor, you have generally been doing this all your working life.
HMS Diamond, which has just been handed over to the Navy (sailing from Scotstoun on September 18, 2010) was the ship Ross was in charge of, nursing it every step of the way from the first cut of steel at the Govan yard of BAe systems on the south side of the river, to its completion at the Scotstoun yard, on the north side, three years later.
It's the biggest job he has ever had, but his boss, Graeme Thomson, the programme manager on the whole class of Type 45 destroyer, has also been in the yards (though not necessarily this one) all his working life, and so have many of the workers. Sheet-metal specialist Willie Clark, from Greenock, has been and so has electrician Eddie Lachlan, though not ncesarily all at the same yard.
But just like the younger workers, Wai Chung Lam and Ross Jamieson, interviewed here, they've all served their time. As Willie says, he's looking forward to when the young Glasgow-Chinese newly qualified apprentice Wai eventually becomes his boss, as he predicts he will, and the torch passes to another generation.
For Wai, completing HMS Duncan, as she will become, represents an extraordinary journey. He came to the yards on a school trip to see one of the earlier ships in the class under construction. The moment he entered the yard, he was hooked and now he is forging a career a million miles from his parents' business in the restaurant trade.
You might have formed the impression that they don't build ships in Glasgow any more. But they do. Close on 4,000 people work in the two BAe yards at Govan and Scotstoun and the wealth of skills and experience is still impressive. Men like Willie Clark will tell you it's a very different place from when he was a lad - and all the better for it. The history may have been romantic but the reality was dirty and dangerous.
Next time you hear about Health and Safety at work, think of people like Willie who, in the past, have seen their mates fatally injured in workplace accidents building ships. Not any more, he says. And thank goodness for that.
