Listening to Aberdeen’s Shipbuilding Past
Stories recorded by volunteers bring a fresh perspective to Aberdeen’s maritime history
A small group of volunteers at Aberdeen Maritime Museum have spent years helping preserve the city’s shipbuilding legacy. Now, their voices are part of it too.
As part of the Festival of the Sea, four volunteers with the Aberdeen-built Ships project – Donald Alexander, Colin Heling, Richard Leavett and Finlay McKichan – have recorded a new series of audio stories exploring the history of Aberdeen-built vessels. The recordings are available through the free Bloomberg Connects app and draw on their own experience and research, much of it rooted in the shipyards and maritime trades that shaped the city.
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Join Open Road for a raft of Festival of the Sea events, including The Sea Salt Shore, an evening of sea songs, shanties and storytelling from Joss Camerin, steeped in coastal tradition.
There’s also plenty for families, including a rockpooling morning at Aberdeen beach with the Countryside Ranger and magical maritime tales from storyteller Andy Cannon.
The stories behind the ships
The Museum’s database holds records of around 3,000 vessels built at local yards like Alexander Hall & Co and Hall, Russell & Co. These new recordings focus on the human side of the collection. There’s the tale of the Thermopylae, built in 1868, which famously beat the Cutty Sark in two separate races from China. Another story follows the steam yacht Fox, later bought by Lady Jane Franklin to search for her missing husband and crew in the Canadian Arctic. One object featured is the bell from the RMS St Helena, the last ship built at the Hall, Russell yard.
Adding lived experience to the archive
Finlay McKichan, one of the project’s volunteers, says the work has given him a chance to explore a long-standing interest. “Volunteering for the Aberdeen-built Ships Project gives me the opportunity to follow up on my interest in shipping with research which, through the website, may be read by enthusiasts and genealogists across the world.”
You can listen in at the Maritime Museum, which will stay open late on 19, 20 and 21 July during the Tall Ships Races. The recordings are part of a wider month of sea-themed events across the city, but they feel more personal: a detailed patchwork of knowledge, pieced together by people with a lived connection to what they’re helping preserve.
