HMS Glasgow, launched on14 April 1976, seen here outfitting at Wallsend on 4 June 1976. Just over three months later, on 23 September 1976, a flash-fire, caused by oxygen leaking overnight from an incompletely isolated burning torch, cost the lives of eight shipyard workers as they started their day's work. In a completely unrelated incident a ninth worker slipped and fell into the river overnight and drowned. The blackest day on the river in my lifetime.

I was working on Hms Cardiff at the time when the evacuation hooter went off. It seemed to go on forever so we knew that something serious had occurred, little knowing how tragic it actually was.

I went to several fires in the shipyards but not the Glasgow. The problem with HMS Glasgow was that the fire was so deep seated that the firemens breathing sets were running out of air before the crews could get to the victims and return to the open air. Photo is a Tyne & Wear Fire Brigade officer, a good friend of mine being taken to hospital having been overcome by fumes on the Glasgow. He did survive and lived to his eighties, only dieing last year. R.I.P George.

Dave's page on Glasgow.

http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/G-Ships ... w1979.html

See also: viewtopic.php?f=129&t=18675

Glasgow being moved to dry dock on 11 November 1978.

Glasgow at Portsmouth on 24 June 2004.