Seaforth HQ in Aberdeen, with 9 ships alongside the quay. The modern building with the black windows near the bottom centre is the original, although the whole site is owned now

I joined Seaforth in 1974 during the formation of the company. My works number being 005. They now employ many hundreds of people and I have just become a company pensioner.

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They have come a long way since those days. They have been subject to a  major change in ownership from Finlays (famous for tea and rubber plantations) initially to Taylor Woodrow Group, then a management buy-out. Then a takeover by Brown & Root, who are major players in the oil industry, followed by a further takeover of B&R by Halliburton the US conglomerate.

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The original brief was to build 4 ships to operate in the UK sector as a Scottish company. Ian Noble the Scottish industrialist was asked by the Bank of Scotland and Finlays to set it up. He was Chairman and selected James Hann to be Managing Director. James Hann (now Sir James) was a respected businessman who was responsible for joining 'Cow & Gate' and 'United Dairies' into the mighty 'Unigate'.

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They set about a major search for experienced people to get the project going. Quite a number of the people who came, were people who were working for P&O (myself included) at the same time as they (P&O) sold off their Anchor Handling Tug Supply (AHTS) ship fleet to Tidewater Inc. of New Orleans, La. USA. It was a very attractive proposal  for us, with work periods of  6 weeks on and 3 weeks off  being traded for 4 weeks and 4 weeks off, and a generally better employment package.