Former employees at McDermott Scotland's Ardersier fabrication yard, a major employer for the area in the 70s and 80s, gathered at the port to unveil a new display on the history of the yard. The site is now owned by Haventus and is expected to open as one of Scotland's largest energy transition facilities later in 2025.
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00:00Anyway, welcome. Thanks for coming along. Pleased to see some old faces. How long has
00:17it been since we've been here? 25 years since we stopped. And some of us were here for 25
00:25years or at least before that. I started away back in 1973 and I was there for 11 years which
00:41are fond happy memories. It's a big experience and it's glad that we are remembering the yard
00:48and unfortunately the people that lost their lives as well which is a sad occasion. But yeah,
00:56this is very nice to see that the history is still being kept here and how Ventas are taking
01:02over and hope they have many years like we did. It's great to see and I just hope it brings the
01:12same amount of investment and opportunity to the current young people in the area that it did to
01:20me. It set me up for life. Wonderful experience. I'm delighted to be back to see what I had. I spent
01:2919 years, 7 months of my life here and I have to say it was very good and it was good for the
01:36economy of the local Inverness, Nairn, Forest and Elwynn structures. So this yard provided a lot of
01:43help for a lot of people at the right time. I enjoyed my life here. You know, it's like every
01:49other job has its good days and bad days but I enjoyed it very much. Hard work but good money.
01:58We're delighted it's been a long time. We've worked at this for nearly three years and doing
02:05things together. A lot of work went into gathering the photographs and selecting the photographs,
02:11making the boards and eventually having the boards installed here on site. Yeah, we're delighted.
02:19To see some of these guys, I haven't seen them since we closed the place 25 years ago so it's nice to see some old faces.
02:29The impact that the yard had on the local community and the economy was incredible at the time.
02:37Providing thousands of jobs. Lots of people came to the area to live in the area. In fact, a lot of these guys here today don't belong to the area.
02:46Originally they came here to work and stayed on. I think a similar thing is going to happen once the
02:53inventors get working. The bliss of the UK will come to the area. It's great, it's enriching and improves the whole area.