My father in law was an industrial blacksmith at Palmers shipyard. He actually lived in Howdon directly opposite Jarrow across the Tyne. I believe he travelled over daily by ferry (Howdon was only 5 or so streets and was demolished when they built the Tyne tunnel - the northern exit is close to where his street (Barresford Street) used to stand). His name was John Edward Scorer (aka Jack), born in 1907.
Everyone was badly hit when Palmers closed, including Jack, and so he joined the men on the march, though his name isn’t on the list. He got as far as the outskirts of London when he collapsed (I suspect not just from exhaustion but from malnutrition as well). The family all told me what a state he was in when he returned home, and it took him several months to recover. The family were all very proud of him being a marcher, and he did tell me something of it too, but I was very young then and didn’t take much notice as I should have.
As you know Palmers did re open later as a result of the march, as they were subsequently given two ships to scrap, the Olympic (sister ship to Titanic) and the Mauritania. They removed the interior fittings which were sold off, and stripped out the hull prior to the ships being towed to Inverkeith in Scotland for final dismantling. Jack was well enough to return to the shipyard in time for the start of the work, and he worked on dismantling both ships.
Jack was allowed to keep a small amount of the teak decking and a piece of the copper pipe left over from Olympic. Many years later he used them to make me a table lamp, which I still have.
Sadly Palmers did later close but that brief time of work really did tide them over a very difficult patch.
Jack then moved back to work nearer home. Unfortunately the noise from his blacksmithing work led to deafness, and the heat burnt his retinas, so he ended up both deaf and blind in old age, but lived until he was 94.
I don’t think today we have any comprehension of how tough life was for them. The boys in his house growing up didn’t even have a bed to sleep on, but rolled themselves in a blanket on the floor. Jack started work aged 7, taking out a donkey cart to sell milk for the farmer to the locals early every morning, before going to school (Stephenson’s Memorial School, I think it was at Willington).
He was a lovely man, very kind, and a very hard worker.
