Peter Hedley on Shipbuilding

Lisa: Do you remember the launch of any of the vessels that you worked on, when they were completed and how that happened?

The actual launch, they weren’t in a completed state, at that time um, they, the hull was completed and as I said earlier, when they were launched they then came over to the West Cowes side for fitting out but at the launch I do remember watching from the end of Medina Road and this ship came down, I think it was one of the Susan Constants, it was quite a big ship and she caused the tide to suddenly come up and the water was round our ankles at the bottom of Medina Road, ‘cos she displaced so much water.

There was always a big ceremony when that was taking place but we, as mere workers, were not invited of course but they had the dignitaries and then lunches and things around that.

Somebody always smashed a bottle of champagne over the bow and then when they were accepted by the Admiralty there was another ceremony.

We did trials on those ships before they were accepted, and all the Admiralty inspection people were down to take over the vessel on behalf of the Navy. We weren’t involved in those, we were sort of on, could see it from the sidelines.