More should be done to remember forgotten Dumbarton aircraft works скачать в хорошем качестве

More should be done to remember forgotten Dumbarton aircraft works

“During the Dumbarton bombing and the Clydebank Blitz workers used to sit on the floor of the factory and pray that nothing hit them. “  “It’s incredible when you think that there is nothing to commemorate these people and their stories.”  The former Blackburn Aircraft factory on Castle Road now lies cleared and ready for a new housing development but more should be done to mark its history, according to former Dumbarton resident Donald Chisholm.  Only the old slipway which Short Sunderland aircraft would roll off and into the Clyde remains, with nothing marking a site which once employed 4000 people locally.  Kenneth Bannerman of the Airfields of Britain Conservation Trust is keen to mark the rich history of the location which lies in the shadow of the Rock, having extensively researched it and other flying boat factories throughout the country.  He explained: “The factory was built not long before World War Two by Blackburn, who built land planes as well.  “There was no land plane airfield in Dumbarton so they were tested at Abbotsinch Airfield, which is now Glasgow Airport, and it was then that they started to produce Britain’s most famous flying boat, the Short Sunderland.  “By the end of the Second World War hundreds of these large flying boats that had been built.  “The first was tested at Dumbarton in October 1941 and production continued until the autumn of 1945, with the last flying boat departing Dumbarton in 1945.  “After that the factory carried on. It stood for many years making prefabricated housing and then was used by the local whisky distillery before it was demolished in the second half of the last decade.”  Donald, an exiled Son of the Rock who now lives in Oban, said: “I’ve got four Facebook groups in Dumbarton and I had family who worked in the Blackburn.  “I came across a few pictures and decided to share them online and I couldn’t believe the response we got.  “Near enough everything in Dumbarton from that era is gone. Apart from the Denny Tank there’s next to nothing that commemorates the town’s industrial past.  “A lot of people were coming to us with stories from their families from working in the factory.  “During the Dumbarton bombing and the Clydebank blitz people used to sit on the floor of the aircraft factory and pray that nothing hit them.  “It’s incredible when you think that there is nothing to commemorate these people and their stories.  “I can only imagine the fear that someone kneeling down in a factory and hearing all the sounds of war around them must’ve felt and now nobody remembers them.  “Denny’s doesn’t have a memorial and the Blackburn doesn’t have a memorial.”  After getting in touch with Kenneth, the two agreed that something had to be done, with hopes high that a commemorative marker could be in place by the summer.  Kenneth continued: “The way that former airfields have been treated is absolutely disgusting. Imagine Dumbarton Castle had been left to go to rack and ruin like this when it’s s