About Me
Hi,
My name is Ian Hillbeck, but friends call me Merlin or Bleblet. I've been called a lot of other things too, but they weren't my friends. :)
I'm married (x2) with kids (x3) who are now adults with kids of thier own.
I was born in Barrow-in-Furness in 1960 (I'll leave you to work it out) and was an active member of the Scouts and later followed my older brother into the Air Training Corps. After being rejected by the RAF on leaving school I did what most Barrovian school leavers did, I went to work in the local shipyard which back then was still known as Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd.
This was the start of a 46 year career building ships (mostly subs) for Her Majesty the Queen. I started out on September 9th 1976 as a Plater doing heavy steelwork and worked my way down through Planning, Project Engineering and Managment before descending to the depths of Information Technology, (Have you tried turning it off and on again? ). I finally retired from IT Progamme Management in 2022, still relatively sane and just about in one piece.
When I wasn't swinging a big hammer, I was a Scout Leader before I joined the TAVR. My sports were Judo and Speedway and my hobbies were Computers and Boats. I was secretary of the local boat club before we had kids and took to inland boating, we kept a cruiser on the Lancaster Canal for many years.
The four Upholder Class boats awaiting reactivation in Buccleuch Dock, Barrow
In March 1997, while I was the Planning Team leader of the Upholder Class reactivation, I was coming to the end of a HNC in Comuputing at the local college and needed to find an end of course project. A work college and former submariner suggested I create a webite to help the local submariners association branch promote the upcoming Submarine Centenary in 2001 and thus the site was born.
Originally known as submariners.co.uk. It included a forum for members to chat and swap memories. It was like lighting a touch paper and the site exploded. Ex-submariners from across the world joined in. By the time the centenary events were over, there was so much material it would have been a shame to close the site down, so I set about organising everything and recording stuff into databases. Several people came along and started contributing to the site and it's beeen growing ever since.
2000
2003
2005
2013
Vickers and Barrow are names synonymous with the development of the submarine. Hundreds of submarines covering virtually every class have been built for the Royal Navy and foreign Navies. I have dedicated this site, not only to those who have served on Her Majesty's Submarines but also to those employees past and present whose skills and efforts have given pride to the phrase 'Barrow built' and made the name Vickers known and respected throughout the world.
The site has been through many iterations over the years. The forum was dropped as Twitter and Facebook grew and old style web forums fell out of favour although links with the local branch of the Submariners Association remain, the site has grown way beyond its original remit to become the premier UK internet resource for Submariners and anyone interested in Royal Navy Submarines.
Besides looking after this site, my other interests are following my local Football and Speedway teams and rediscovering gardening, having bought a holiday home where I spend most of my retirement relaxing and watching the wife entertain her grandchildren, (I'm still too young to be a grandfather). I've also taken up Geneology and spend rainy days researching the family tree.
