Peter Hedley on Shipbuilding

The vessel I remember firstly, when I joined, was HMS Dainty. She was one of the Daring class, she’d been launched in 1950 and fitted out there.

For some reason the Admiralty didn’t seem to want her in service straight away and they cocooned her. The reason being for this is they sealed the ship up completely and they wanted to see how quickly they could de-cocoon and put it into commission and that was done whilst I was there.

We had several Argentinian, Egyptian old destroyers which we worked on and renovated. We had the Blackwood Class, three of the Blackwood Class. Then Trinity House came in with a good order for three ships which was the ‘Mermaid’, the ‘Siren’ and the ‘Steller’.

I remember doing trials one night in the Channel on the 24-hour consumption trial in an awful gale out there. I shall never forget that night and we just pressed on although it was dreadful weather.

Later, Trinity House then put in an order for another vessel which was called ‘Winston Churchill’ so then had four of the John Samuel White’s vessels.

Ironically, after I’d been at sea for seven years I came ashore and I worked for Trinity House and I dry-docked and looked after these vessels for their maintenance etc, and I was working in Tower Hill in London then as a young Inspector of Shipping, as we were called, in the Surveyor’s Office.