There must be a better way
It is not unusual for shipbuilding yards to experience either "feast or famine". It has long been that way and - because of the politics involved - probably always will be, unless the Government introduces and sticks to a long-term defence procurement policy.
The immediate future for Swan Hunter is, however, looking a little brighter with hopes that a £50m shipbuilding contract may be coming its way - safeguarding the yard and more than 600 manufacturing jobs.
The key is the conversion of one of four Royal Fleet Auxiliary landing ships - currently under construction - into a floating hospital ship.
That would plug an orders gap until work could begin on a £3bn aircraft carrier contract in 2008 - which is expected to create up to 3,000 jobs.
While that is to be welcomed, it still has the whiff of a "stop-gap" measure in a key manufacturing sector.
It is to be hoped the confidence being expressed becomes a reality.
But, surely, there is a better way of running an industry where the main customer is our own Government.
Not such encouraging news on the other side of the river, where it was confirmed yesterday that McNulty Offshore in South Shields will "almost certainly" be sold.
Administrators, called in last week, have been renegotiating the contract which put the company in jeopardy and it is to be hoped this makes the firm more attractive to a new owner.
It has to be admitted, however, that this is not a particularly good time to be selling an offshore yard.
TUC regional secretary Kevin Rowan is correct in his view that the industry on the Tyne is currently in a "vulnerable and precarious" position.
Considering the river's history - and the skills which have been retained despite decades of decline - that is a worrying prognosis.
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We need to go back to nature
In the grand scheme of things, not being able to correctly identify any particular species of garden bird may not seem that important.
But a survey today represents another indication of the increasingly strained - and some would say already broken - link between everyday life and the natural world.
And that is exactly what a conference in Newcastle will discuss today - the fear that people are becoming more removed from the natural environment.
Some will find the results of this survey surprising - given that "the environment" is often cited as such a key political issue these days.
The findings have echoes of those shock surveys some years ago which indicated that many children did not know that milk came from cows and eggs came from hens.
That said, the fact that even science undergraduates these days are said to struggle to recognise mammals, sea fish and trees, would indicate that knowledge of the natural world has decreased.
And that cannot be a good thing.
If we are creating a generation of youngsters who are not learning - or questioning - the things that surround them, it does not auger well for anyone.
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