Taking the biscuit

 

Last night I chaired the meeting of Sunniside History Society at Sunniside Social Club. The speaker was Dr Paul Stott who used to work as a naval architect in the shipbuilding industry in the North East before moving into the world of academia where he lectured on the industry of which he had lots of practical experience.

Paul's presentation looked at the decline of UK shipbuilding from its peak in the late Victorian period to the current state. Restrictive practices, inadequate management, failure to invest long term, challenging working conditions, failure to retrain and the resistance to switching from riveting to welding all had their part to play.

Meanwhile, at the interval, I drew the raffle and the first ticket out belong to, ahem, a certain Jonathan Wallace. I won a packet of chocolate chip cookies!