David Aris
David belongs to: The Doxford Engine Friends Association
David was born in Sunderland. He served his apprenticeship at North East Marine shipyards as a fitter. After working at sea David became an Assistant Manager at Doxford's ship yard overseeing the installation and testing of Doxford engines.
David was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 8 November 2005. The interview took place at the Interviewee's living room and lasted 1 hour, 36 minutes and 40 seconds.
Role at Doxford’s
"And I was based Doxford’s quay, so, the other guys were out of the yard, but most of my work was at Doxford’s quay"
And I was based Doxford’s quay, so, the other guys were out of the yard, but most of my work was at Doxford’s quay. In other words I was working on Doxford’s ships. So the responsibility was to organise the men, and put the engines, well, not just the engines, the whole engine rooms, right from the propeller up to the top of the funnel- that was all part of the fitting out department and I had as many as 500 men working for me- mostly fitters but also boiler makers, labourers and a few electricians, not many electricians. Electricians were, it was a sub-contract job by one or two different outside companies did the electrical work. And the men would be spread around the different yards.
And there came a time when the works manager up in the factory who was actually building the engines, he left and went elsewhere and George Dunn who was the fitting out manager was promoted to become the works manager. So I was promoted to be the fitting out manager, in charge of all the fitting out departments, not just the ones at the quay. So I did that job from, how long did we do that job? That’s one here…From the end of 1957 to 1964 and I think in that time, give or take one or two, I, it was in, was responsible for the installation of machinery on about 60 ships, all with Doxford engines, up to about 15,000 horse power each. We also did repair work, there was not very much repair work but sometimes a ship would come in with maybe a bad damage to an engine and we would repair the engine. And that was a very interesting ship. A very interesting job, sorry, a very interesting job.
David has 17 memories in the memorynet:
David's memories with a Change theme:
Going to sea- Returning to the North East and Doxford's
- Role at Doxford’s
- Leaving Doxford’s
David's other memories:
- Father’s time at sea
- Apprenticeship at North East Marine
- Swimming in ballast tanks on the tankers
- Safety and dangers at sea
- Industrial action at Doxford's
- Going on sea trials
- Accident on sea trials
Workers at Doxford's- Engineer's Certificate
- Continuous Certificate of Discharge
- Swimming pool
- North East Marine Guide for Apprentices
- Sea Trials
This memory has these themes:
Change | Roles and Routines | Work
Use this form to add your comment to the memorynet: