ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges the extent to which deindustrialisation in Britain was an unexpected process in the eyes of the workers and communities it impacted by returning to the fragments of vernacular, everyday speech captured in a late-1960s social-scientific investigation of shipbuilding workers on Tyneside. In the eyes of many shipbuilding workers, the process of deindustrialisation was not one that arrived suddenly and unexpectedly; with the onset of industrial change, it was fairly well-established within their late-1960s workplace culture. Understandings of the extent and nature of industrial change were heterogeneous and complex, often mitigated by generational dynamics, levels of place attachment, and perspectives on the future of work. The chapter highlights how the perceived bleak future of the shipbuilding industry led many to consider leaving Tyneside or seeking alternative sources of employment. Despite the flux associated with these changes, they were often seen, paradoxically, as important to enable workers and their families to live more stable lives. The chapter ultimately argues that deindustrialisation is not just a story of “loss” but one that enabled some workers to consider how a sense of self and community could be “remade”.
