Australian minister loves Barrow
AUSTRALIAN defence minister David Johnston has declared his love for Barrow.
Mr Johnston was a guest of UK defence secretary Philip Hammond during yesterday’s visit to the shipyard.
Mr Johnston revealed in an interview with the Evening Mail he had grown up and spent much of his early career thinking of Barrow as being a key place for submarine building.
“Barrow has a magnificent reputation in Australia,” he said before describing how the Royal Australian Navy’s first submarine HMAS AE1 was built in Barrow.
He added: “Barrow is a name I grew up with. It is a very significant visit for me to come to this famous town to see the manufacturing skills we have only read about.”
Mr Johnston’s visit had been organised to allow him to witness the UK’s leading submarine-building capabilities and he appeared to be very impressed.
“It’s my first time in Barrow,” the senator told the Evening Mail.
“As a young man I grew up with Barrow, through the Vickers name. When I first went to Kalgoorlie where I was a lawyer, representing the gold mining companies, there was a firm called Vickers Keogh, part of the same Vickers which owned the shipyard here.”
Mr Johnston also revealed that two of Australia’s P-3 Orion surveillance aircraft had been involved in the so far unsuccessful mission to locate the missing Malaysia Airlines plane which disappeared on Friday.
