Palmers and Leslies from 1948.

What superb enlargement you get from this image (and others similar) when you click on it once, and then once more!

In the upper left quadrant it looks like the PORT AUCKLAND still on the stocks - launched 4.10.1948, completed 4.1949.

Ron

DOMINION MONARCH closest in the drydock?
The offside vessel at right with the very tall masts forward must surely be a German war prize, or possibly a Dutch-built vessel.

I think the vessel with the tall masts may be the Stanroyal, ex Isar of Norddeutscher Lloyd and renamed in 1948.

Good one Dave.
Seems we did not have a good go at this one.
Must be between 6/7/48 as PORT BRISBANE is in the water at Swans and 4/10/48 for launch of her sister at Hawthorns.
GOTHIC completed 12/48 inside PB?
One of the tankers at Swans should be BRITISH FAME lch. 25/2/48 but not completed until 2/49.

ANGOLA is I think the smaller of the 2 liners at Hebburn, launched 24/3/48.
Also in the water DUQUESA launched 24/3/48.
If the tanker inside DUQUESA is BRITISH ENDEAVOUR that would narrow it down further to after 3/9/1948.

Outstanding photograph, Manual work, skill, grafters mostly, unsung heroes, salt of the earth. The old timers of 1948 would scarcely believe how much we have lost.

Now it's a housing estate, little boxes for people with no jobs. The progress of mankind.

When I was school doing O Level English Lit we read a book called 20th Century Short Stories and the last one in the book was The Machine Stops
People lived in little rooms underground, never went out, never saw the sun, never did exercise
And then the machine that looked after them broke down and no one knew how to fix it
Familiar?

Not an easy life working in a Shipyard especially this time of the year if you were on piece/fixed price work, no getting rained/snowed off if you were working on the Deck and had to clear the snow off before you could start. Getting rained/snowed off (cabined up) did not exist in the Shipyards only for those building new processing plants. No wonder we have Arthritis, it was either that or riding motorbikes in all weathers just to get there, thank God for Barbour