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Some time after decimalisation, but well before hyphenation, this item appeared in 'The Times' for 19th June 1980, as the lead story in Alan Hamilton's 'London Diary' column, with the title - "The sinking of another Ark Royal."
"THE SINKING OF ANOTHER ARK ROYAL"
A last-ditch rearguard action by a group of ardent preservationists to save that grand old lady of the fleet, the Ark Royal, from the breaker's yard, has run into heavy weather from the top naval brass at the Ministry of Defence. Unless there is an unexpected turn of events, the ship's fate will be sealed irrevocably in little more than two weeks' time.
Since the Navy first announced its intention to pension off the 50,000-ton aircraft carrier in 1978, a group of campaigners has been battling for possession of the vast hulk, now stripped of its equipment and rusting at anchor in Devonport. The Ark Royal National Preservation Campaign, undeterred by the Commons announcement last March that the vessel had been sentenced to the cutting torch, is now accusing the Defence Ministry of making smoke and taking evasive action.
Barrie King, director of the project which hopes to refurbish the vessel and moor her at Greenwich as a floating museum, conference and maritime research centre, told me yesterday: "We have offered to cap any purchase price offered by a ship breaker, but MOD have said they will not sell to us even then. It is quite clear that certain admirals of the fleet and senior civil servants have assumed the divine right to prevent her preservation at any cost."
King's campaign is backed by a number of eminent trustees, including the Earl of Kimberley, a liberal defence spokesman in the Lords, Lord Ritchie-Calder, and Admiral Empson, a former Second Sea Lord. King insists that the project's backers will be able to raise the £13.5M needed to buy, repair and run the ship. But, he said, by a legal technicality they could not form themselves into a full-fledged trust until they actually had possession of the hardware they are seeking to preserve.
The Ark Royal's present owners are not impressed. "We have been negotiating with these people for nearly two years, and we are still not satisfied that they will be able to come up with the required money," said the MOD's spokesman on the Navy. "We feel it important that any plan to preserve the vessel should be fully in keeping with its past. Do they realise it would cost £100,000 a year just to keep her painted?"
The two sides do not have long to continue their arguments. Tenders from the breakers are already coming in, and offers close at the end of this month. The Navy is anxious to have her away to the breaker's yard during this year's summer towing season.
And besides the fifth Ark Royal, an advanced anti-submarine carrier, is already building on the Tyne.
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