Online voices

STORY

A&P Tyne the last shipyard on the Tyne has launched a search for new apprentices.

David Muxyczuk: Good yard to work at, served my time there 1974 welder, used to be Palmer's ship and dock yard then British shipbuilders.

Tony Tabone: Is a great yard, glad it's still going strong, had many good years there as a shipwright.

Kathryn Moore: How sad, "The last shipyard on the Tyne", I'll never forget the sound of, 'metal on metal' through the night on the river as a bairn.

Neil Coltman: It’s great to see a firm taking apprentices on, the thing we lack is stable jobs at the end of the training. Many firms ask for experience once you are trained up and you look for work, but if you are thrown out the door after your training how are you supposed to gain experience!! Anyway we need more apprenticeships, especially in this area.

Mark Pinkney: I remember Swan Hunter group taking on 800 apprentices in 1975. That was the last big intake. It shows how times have changed.

STORY: Do you feel optimistic about having a holiday abroad this year?

Nikki Petters: Shut the borders, it would be easier.

Denise Houston: Yes, hopefully September or October.

Sandra French: Only if you have a mobile phone.

Kitty Winter: Nobody in and nobody out until Covid is dead.

Emma Stewart: No!

Linda Brown: Why would you? As long as you're alive, with family or friends, on holiday and loving life, why this year do you need to be abroad?

Meg Reid: Not at all, round the doors will do for us at the moment.

Diane Hanlon: Yes, hoping to go to Turkey in October.

Doug Gibson: No.