Making her way out of Avonmouth past Battery Point in a strong westerly wind on 20th September 1968, fifty years ago yesterday, an early example of the eleven 1959/62 Bird Class of BP tankers, albeit the only one not given the name of a bird, it is thought due to the builder misreading BP's instruction to name the ship BRITISH THRUSH.

Completed by Lithgows at Port Glasgow in October 1959 the BRITISH TRUST, along with all but the last two of her sisterships, was delivered to the newly formed Clyde Charter Company Limited. Transferred to the BP Tanker Company Limited in 1972, she was sold in 1976 along with three sisterships to China and placed under the management of the Ocean Tramping Company Limited of Hong Kong.

Renamed TINGJIANG (sistership BRITISH GANNET became HANJIANG, BRITISH KESTREL the SUNJIANG and BRITISH CURLEW the WENJIANG), she was absorbed into the mainland Chinese fleet in 1979 as DA QING 235 and broken up locally in 1995.

This photograph can also be seen in my book Bristol Port and Channel Nostalgia, published by Coastal Shipping of Portishead.