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I started work as a Catch and Rivet Boy at Victoria Yard, Harland and Wolff, Belfast in 1945 - just as World War Two was ending.
'Catch and Rivet' was one job. Another one was the 'Heater Boy', who heated the rivets in a furnace and then threw them along the deck to me, where I caught them in a catching pliers. I, then, put them into the hole along the plate we were working on and the 'Holder Up' person would have another machine which put the machine dye on top of the rivet. This made the rivet flush with the plate and then the 'Riveter' pushed the handle and squeezed the hydraulic. This pushed the machine top on bottom, so that the rivet was flush with the deck. I was fourteen years old. During this time, I had the honour of presenting flowers to a lady called Mrs Leigh Jones, daughter of the Managing Director of the Anglo-Saxon oil company that was launching a ship called the MV Naothyris.

I served two years doing this job as 'Catch and Rivet' and then I went to serve my time at sixteen years of age as a French Polisher, polishing the made ship furniture. That took an apprenticeship of 5 years and cost me 拢5. I used to earn 19/3 a week at that time and I was twenty-one years of age. I was then made a journeyman. I went to work in Liverpool for Harland and Wolff. I worked on the Empress of Scotland, the Empress of Britain and the Empress of Japan. These boats had been used in WW2 as troop carriers and were now being refitted. The Empress of Scotland was a German ship and had been called the Potsdam before she was captured.
I went to Southampton then and went to the Queen Mary and the QE2 and then came home. I was now 25.

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