The illustrious history of Swan Hunter, one of the world’s most famous shipbuilders, comes to a painful end on Saturday when the company’s last cranes leave the river Tyne for a new working life in the Bharati Shipyards in India.

The departure of the distinctive cranes, including the 90-year-old Titan 111, leaves a gap in the geographical and emotional landscape of north-east England, a region that once built two out of every five ships produced in the world but now has no shipbuilding left.