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Just came across an amazing but bittersweet video. The launch of the Sealink ferry MV St. Catherine from Henry Robb's yard in Leith on 30th March 1983. The 2nd last ship ever launched by Robb's and also therefore built in Leith.
It's filmed from the top of one of the yard cranes, so has a spectacular vantage point, but you can hear everything from the clapping and cheering of the crowds, the howl of the wind and of course the blast of the ferry's siren as she slips into the dock basin. 
Check out those brave souls in the moving cage suspended from the crane!
St. Catherine's sister, St. Helen, was launched on September 15th that year and was the last Leith-built ship. flickr.com/photos/1312323…
Henry Robb's had merged with Dundee rival, Caledons, in the late 60s to form Robb-Caledon. They were nationalised into the feckless nationalised British Shipbuilders Corporation in 1977 but the Dundee yard closed in 1981. Closure and rationalisation was the raison d'etre for BSC.
after the pair of ferries for Sealink there were no orders forthcoming for Robbs, and there followed a bitter period of protest. In April 1983, the entire yard (850 workers) marched through Leith at the threat of 50% layoffs. (photo - Evening News edinburghnews.scotsman.com/retro/nostalgi…)
But BSC wasn't for listening, they had a strategic goal of taking 9,000 shipworkers out of the industry and a small yard like Robb's was an attractive target. The workers staged an occupation in the winter of 1983/4 (picture - Herald heraldscotland.com/opinion/141350…)
Shipbuilding on the east coast of Scotland, from Leith and Granton to Bo'ness to Burntisland to Dundee and Aberdeen, had once been a thing, but never on anything approaching the scale of the Clyde. It survived off local needs and also smaller and more specialised vessels.
There was some piecework doing fabricating work, but the yard closed in June 1984 for good. With no real work forthcoming, the occupying workers couldn't stage a work in. The yard is immortalised on the mural outside Leith Library
The padlocked gates of the decaying yard also feature as a backdrop in the 1987 video for @The_Proclaimers song "Letter from America", I believe that Proclaimer Snr. may have worked there?
the yard can also be seen in the background later in the video as the Twins lead a small protest march out of the desolate docklands and into Leith
The yard occupied the area in yellow here, plus all the land to the right as far as the west pier of the docks. (note the map and image are from different times so the reclaimed land in the photo where the mills are is not on the map) Photo from Canmore - canmore.org.uk/collection/167…
It can be hard to work out quite how the yard sits in relation to Ocean Terminal given all the land changes in the area. This #nowandthen montage should help.
It's really hard to get some #nowandthen shots to work because of the changes in the area. Most I can find are taken from points now inaccessible or built on. This one is an exception.
This chart shows production at the yard in the last 20-odd years, it was a small yard so couldn't manage more than 3 or 4 hulls a year. There were peaks and troughs due to the cyclical nature of shipbuilding, but it was a long term decline.
Those 4 years with big peaks were unusual, the rare order of a larger ship. Generally the yard built 300-3000 ton ships, but there were a few biggies like the helicopter carrier RFA Engadine (6,384t) and the polar research ship RRS Bransfield (4,861t).
Engagine was the longest ship ever built at the yard, but not the biggest, that went to the Garrison Point of 1977, tipping the scales at 7,702t GRT and 12,382t DWT. She was broken up in 2000.
"Engadine" was a fine looking ship, with lines that an anorak would describe as "rakish". She was a naval auxiliary usually used for training helicopter pilots but was also a PYTHON location; where the machinery of UK government could retreat in the cold war
Despite closing in 1984, the yard lingered on until the late 1990s with bits of it used for this and that and others just left to rot. Here's a nice picture of some toilets in 1994 after a visit from the Leith Young Team (picture Peter Stubbs - edinphoto.org.uk/0_a_l/0_around…)
I get most of those tags and menchies, but no idea why the Socialist Labour Party were getting a shout out from fans of King Billy.
Footnote - St. Catherine, which is the same age as I, still looking good and going strong. We were both born in Leith too! #Forthbuilt
