On a grey morning in September, a series of small passenger aircraft landed at the BAE Systems’ airfield near Barrow-in-Furness, a rainy town on the Cumbrian coast of England.

Aboard were Britain’s King Charles III and defence secretary John Healey; John Phelan, the US secretary of the navy; and assorted other dignitaries. They were in Barrow to watch the commissioning of HMS Agamemnon, one of the UK’s latest Astute-class attack submarines.

It was a rare turn in the spotlight for a town that has fallen on hard times since the end of the cold war. Barrovians used to gather on the banks of the Walney channel to cheer as subs were towed out to commence sea trials. Since 1991, that ritual has taken place only nine times. The submarine workforce fell from a peak of 16,000 to little over 4,000 in the 1990s, according to the town’s mayor, Fred Chatfield.