The fate of shipbuilding on Tyneside has been in the balance for years. Another few weeks, while Swan Hunter breathes its last, won't make a difference. Perhaps it is time to accept that the yard is doomed to close.

THE END of shipbuilding on Tyneside and the loss of 900 jobs at Swan Hunter looked likely last night after the Ministry of Defence gave a vital refitting order to the Rosyth dockyard in Scotland.

Pupils at Grinling Gibbons Primary School have designed, written and illustrated a book on the area's history. Called Through Children's Eyes, it has sold 700 copies and tells how historical figures such as Peter the Great and Samuel Pepys visited the area, which once boasted one of the world's important dockyards.

THE ROYAL Navy's newest warship, HMS Somerset, a Type 23 frigate, was launched at Yarrow Shipbuilders on the Upper Clyde.

WORKERS at Devonport dockyard were preparing a battle plan last night after being told that 850 jobs are to be axed.

VOSPER Thornycroft, the shipbuilder that saw annual profits rise 13 per cent to pounds 21.5m, must rethink its succession strategy after the man tipped as the next chairman resigned from the board yesterday, writes Russell Hotten.

THE rain fell greyly and steadily, as it so often does in the North East. I manoeuvred the car cautiously through the deepening puddles of the narrow back streets of South Shields, heading for the river. And suddenly there it was: the romance and faded glory of the Tyne.

SWAN HUNTER, the Tyneside shipyard that went into receivership a year ago today, should be conditionally sold by the end of the month, one of its receivers said. Gordon Horsfield of Price Waterhouse said he expected to sign a contract with Constructions Mecanique de Normandie (CMN), but that it would be triggered only if Swan won a pounds 30m order to refit a landing ship, the Sir Bedivere, for the Royal Navy. The result of the bidding will not be known until mid-July.

HMS Westminster, the Royal Navy's newest and most advanced Type 23 Duke-class frigate, will be commissioned at a ceremony at the Tower of London on Friday. The 4,000-ton ship, built by troubled Tyneside shipbuilder Swan Hunter last November, has already begun trials.

The Ministry of Defence has asked us to point out that contrary to our report on the Defence White Paper in Wednesday's issue, Devonport dockyard has been invited to tender for the refits of both HMS Birmingham and HMS Cornwall.

CORRECTION (PUBLISHED 29 APRIL 1994) APPENDED TO THIS ARTICLE

His Majesty's Customs Cutter Vigilant sailing up the river Tyne at Newcastle, on 31 August 1904. HMCC Vigilant is the only surviving revenue cutter with sails and the sole surviving vessel from the 1911 Coronation Spithead Review. It is the seventh customs vessel to bear this name: the first, on coming to the end of her service, was sold in 1774; the 11th, launched two years ago, mainly works to prevent drug smuggling. The Vigilant Trust, which bought this vessel two years ago after she was discovered being used as a house boat in Shoreham, Kent, is urgently appealing for pounds 25,000, to be raised by the end of March, to prevent the boat being scrapped.

THE GOVAN shipyard on the Clyde made a profit of about pounds 1m last year - its first in 30 years - and is expected to make about pounds 3m in 1994.

PENINSULAR and Oriental, the transport to housebuilding group, has ordered what will be the largest cruise liner in the world from the Fincantieri shipyard in Monfalcone, Italy, writes John Murray.