thomassmith

That is fantastic, the aerial shot has really caught the scale of the industry.

In the foreground we have the old North Shields ferry landing and as it still has the car ramp attached it must be the mid late 1960s when the picture was dated.Moving from the right hand side of the photo In the first very small dock we have a fishing boat i would say, we have the outside ship looks like a old tramper and next to her we have a tanker. In the second dock we have a mini bulk carrier ( coal coaster / general cargo ? ). In the next dock along i would say this girl was a cargo liner and in the last of the three docks we have a large bulk / general cargo carrier. The next two ships are tankers as they have gang planks running from stern to wheelhouse and bows to wheelhouse just like the first one.Again directly behind these we have two tankers inside and a possible Royal Fleet Auxillary stores ship out side. The old girl in dock ( No 8 ) is also a tanker.Smiths finaly closed its doors in 1997 and regeneration work started in September 2007 and is still going on today June 2011. brilliant picture worth its wieght in gold for memories alone.

Wonderful shot lots of memories for me thank you so much, l have a phot which l will try and get a copy for you of all the staff of smiths docks ..Best wishes Alan Ford

Thank you so much for this Alan ford

Thanks for this .. l have a photo of the sailing ship the PASSAT which l believe was under the Finnish flag at the time before ww2 in the dry dock at Smiths docks my mother went on board for dinner with my grandparents to meet the Captain at the time. The PASSAT is now in Germany as a floating museum she was the sister ship to The PAMIR which sunk in the Cannel l believe in the 50s with the loss of all hands mainly german sea cadets in a violent storm ...Alan

Another nice old picture TWAM and great to see here, thank you.

Smiths were called 'The biggest dry dock owners in the world' after the second world war. Whether that is true or not I don't know.
All my family worked there for several generations. During the war there were over 3,000 men worked at North Shields alone.
The famous 'River' frigates of WW2 were designed by a Smiths' designer and many were built at South Bank.

This is a cracking shot of No 8 dry dock. As the picture tells ypou the bread and butter of a lot of ships was the tanker trade.Out of the six ships shown 5 are tankers ahd the sixth one looke like a R.F.A. supply ship.Happy days and lots of happy memories.

Happy Friday, Have a great Weekend :D