Foreward
For over three hundred and fifty years the Tyne in the North East of England had built ships. When you consider that in the 19th Century, Britain built 50% of the world's total shipping, of which 65% was built in the North East of England, that's an incredible 32% of the World total. In that same period she also built superb ships especially for the Royal Navy. Wherever the royal Navy floated, or as Napoleon once despairingly said "wherever there is a pond to float there you will find the Royal Navy". Wherever the Royal Navy fought the nation's enemies, Napoleon, Washington, Emperor Hirohito, and Hitler, you would have found a warship built on the Tyne. It is therefore ironic that what those dictators, despots, and idealists, could not do in those three hundred and fifty years; the UK Thatcher government cynically did on their own sinking without a trace in the 1990´s.