This book contains an edited collection of sixty interviews with the major players in the British shipbuilding, ship repair and marine engine-building industries, as well as those in government and the civil service responsible for this sector, from the 1960s to the 1980s. The tale that unfolds in their own words is set against a background of the long-term, relative decline of an industry that easily led the world in output from before the First World War until it was successfully challenged, and then surpassed, by international competitors from the mid-1950s onwards. The participants range from the managing directors of family-owned firms and public companies to national trade union leaders, senior politicians and civil servants. All witnessed or were intimately involved in a hitherto unparalleled downturn in the industry's international competitiveness which eventually resulted in the end of volume shipbuilding in the United Kingdom before 1990.

The interviews were undertaken in 1991 and 1992. They were informal, with no time limits. Indeed, some of the transcripts stretched to over forty pages, with the average being twenty-two. Questions, inter alia, covered the interviewees’ experience of the industry, the firm, marketing, industrial relations, relations with shipowners, modernization and investment, attitudes to international competition, views on the role of the state and the government's response to the industry under pressure.

Of the sixty participants, forty-three were directly involved with shipbuilding, marine engineering or ship repair. Of these, eleven were directly involved with state-owned British Shipbuilders Plc from 1977 onwards. Five were national politicians, three were trade unionists, four were senior civil servants, three were members of shipbuilding organizations, one was Chairman of the Shipbuilding Enquiry Committee of 1965-1966 and one was a civil engineer involved in shipbuilding projects. All participants had wide-ranging educational and occupational backgrounds. The largest professional group interviewed were naval architects (thirteen). Nineteen participants rose to become managing directors. Seven participants were chairmen, of whom three chaired British Shipbuilders. Eight participants had engineering backgrounds. Five began as ship draughtsmen. Three became finance directors, and two were industrial relations/personnel directors. Of all the participants only three - Sandy Stephen (Alexander Stephen, Linthouse), Harold Towers (Readhead, Tyne) and Paddy Christie (Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Tyne) - had family connections, and all for varying periods became managing directors. Four participants served apprenticeships, and one of these, Bob Easton, rose to become a managing director.