When I started work in Barrow the town was dominated by the employer VSEL – which produced nuclear submarines. Although by 1992 you did bump into people who had been made redundant from the shipyard. One of my first assignments was the launch of the latest Trident submarine.

I was dispatched to Walney Island to get this shot of it being towed out to sea for trials which made the front page but unfortunately I have lost the cutting.

I will always remember one of my colleagues returning to the office with their films and one of the sub editors shouting across the newsroom: “What shape is the picture?” to which the response was: “It’s fekkin’ submarine shape what fekkin’ shape do you think it is?”

So that introduced me to the sweary culture of the newsroom. Having said that, considering the high pressured nature of the job, you could forgive that.

However, due to the nature of the yard’s output, It did attract opposition from various groups such as these Buddhists who were protesting at a later event in August 1993.

And then, in 1996, there was the pilgrimage across Britain which poured Hiroshima water in Barrow around the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

From the North West Evening News in 1992, 1993 and 1996.