Women who kept our shipyards afloat
An artist has been appointed to craft a sculpture which will honour the hundreds of Wearside women who kept the shipyards afloat during the war.
Eight decades after more than 700 women took on the backbreaking work of the ship yards, while their husbands, brothers and fathers went to war, they will finally be honoured with a new art work.
Sunderland-born artist Rosanne Robertson has been commissioned to produce the public sculpture which will stand proud near The Beam, on the former Vaux site, overlooking the banks of the River Wear where the ship yards once were.
The artwork is the vision of the Sunderland Soroptimists and author Nancy Revell, whose series of The Shipyard Girls novels have become a Sunday Times bestseller.
Their work to raise the profile of the women, and their pivot al role in the war effort, has been backed by Sunderland City Council.
Rosanne said: “I’ve spent a lot of time in Hen don, De pt ford and Pal lion since being commissionedand there’ s still such a strong energy in the area. You can almost hear the echoes of the steel being riveted. It’s palpable.”
The 35-year old artist has been able to draw on the memories of local people, as well as books in local history centres, to inform her sculpture.
“It’s amazing to read and hear about these women ,” says Rosanne.
“Fleeting references to the city’s shipbuilding women, in books I have found in SunderlandMaritime Heritage, talk of the conditions being tough. Of it not being a place for women.
“Yet, they were there. Everyday. Grafters; doing physical work and breaking the conventions of their time .”
It was reading Nancy Revell’s books that inspired members of S or optimist International of Sunderland-part of a worldwide organisation which promotes education and aims to improve the lives of womenandgirls–tofindaway to permanently remember the women.
Soroptimist member Suzanne Brown began a conversation with Sunderland City Council, making the case for a permanent tribute.
“These were women undertaking jobs like welding, riveting, burning and rivet catching, as well as general labouring, operating cranes, and painting.
“It was perilous work. Yet, history seems to have forgotten them,” Suzanne explains.