Tales of London's Docklands Read online

  TALES OF

  LONDON’S

  DOCKLANDS

  TALES OF

  LONDON’S

  DOCKLANDS

  HENRY T. BRADFORD

  Half Title Page: The Zealandia, formerly Empire Winnie, in Gravesend Reach, 1946. (Author’s collection)

  First published in 2007 by Sutton Publishing Limited

  Reprinted in 2010 by

  The History Press

  The Mill, Brimscombe Port, Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

  www.thehistorypress.co.uk

  Reprinted 2011, 2012

  This ebook edition first published in 2013

  All rights reserved

  © Henry T. Bradford, 2011, 2013

  The right of Henry T. Bradford to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5318 4

  Bayron and Grev27 stop stealing my books from a private site and putting them up on AvaxHome without putting anything back, not even a thanks. I shall be putting this message in all my books from now on so people will know what you are like.

  CONTENTS

  Foreword by Dr Colin Smith

  About the Author by Philip Connolly

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1.

  Dockers or Film Stars?

  2.

  Kippers – Have a Box on Me

  3.

  The Teaboy’s Apprentice

  4.

  Big Dave and the Ferry Boat Incident

  5.

  Big Dave and the Former Yeoman of Signals

  6.

  Big Dave and the Tug-of-War Team

  7.

  Doc and the Sugar Boat Incident

  8.

  A Beautiful Passenger

  9.

  A Cheap Lunch

  10.

  The Ship that Never Loved Me

  11.

  Arthur and the Steam Train Incident

  12.

  Jim L., Joe B. and the Lamb Incident

  13.

  ‘What heroes thou hast bred, England, my country’

  14.

  George’s Last Wager

  15.

  Old Dave and the Scotch Whisky Incident

  16.

  ‘Rats, rats, as fat as tabby cats’

  17.

  The Tale of the Reticent Elephants

  18.

  ‘It’s just like those bloody Jerries’

  Glossary

  FOREWORD

  One of the delights and privileges of being a general practitioner is that of getting a glimpse into other people’s way of life. In the late 1970s, I was taken on a working visit to Tilbury Docks by the author of this book, just as the docks were in transition between the old ways of working and the new.

  There was, inside the perimeter fence, a chain-link fence that cut the dock in half, on one side of which there were pale-faced, miserable-looking men, towing containers around on carriers, and on the other side were rumbustious, red-faced men, standing around and arguing between frenzied bouts of physical action. I was invited to help load bags of cement onto rope slings from high piles in a barge, so that they could be hoisted aboard ship, and soon learned the back-breaking nature of the work.

  Best of all, I learned something of being a citizen of that closed male world, inside the walls and gates, where the dangerous nature of the work imposed its own discipline and where mutual support and cooperation were essential to avoid serious injury, or even death.

  In the old days, each hatch on a ship would have a gang of twelve or thirteen men to load or discharge it, and these gangs became like alternative families, in which each member, utterly to my surprise, had gained expertise in some unexpected pursuit, such as playing chess, bridge, mending sewing machines, studying Greek mythology or interesting themselves in philately or as numismatists.

  Most of the men had left school young (at 14 years of age) and served in the war, and possibly because of this there was constant arguing, intellectual ferment and a desire by many of them to learn. If anyone was sick or injured, the other gang members would cover for him within the limit of their powers. This chivalrous behaviour had to go, of course, in the perpetual drive towards ‘greater productivity’, and the gang system was broken up.

  It has all gone now: the excitement and drama are no more; no one will tickle the back of your neck with a crane hook, just for the fun of it. The containers have won. That, as they say, is progress.

  Dr Colin Smith

  February 2007

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Henry T. Bradford was born in Gravesend, Kent, in October 1930. His father had been a regular soldier in the Royal West Kent Regiment before and during the First World War, serving in the trenches till he was wounded in the battle of the Somme. Mr Bradford met Henry’s mother, Eliza Reynolds, in Aldershot. They were married in the village church in Pebmarsh, Essex, and settled in Gravesend, where they had nine children, Henry being the eighth.

  As a child Henry had a sparse, primitive education because of poor teaching methods and because he was evacuated during the Second World War, once to Dereham, Norfolk, in September 1939, then to Totnes, Devon, in June 1940. In Devon he was injured in a farm accident and this necessitated his spending a year in Torbay hospital and Exeter orthopaedic hospital before being returned home to Gravesend, disabled for life.

  Soldiers of G. Company, 1st Battalion Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, resting after having been in the front line for nineteen days, c. 1916. (Author’s collection)

  The ten last remaining soldiers of G. Company, 1st Battalion, Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment, after taking Hill 60, April 1915, France. (Author’s collection)

  After leaving school in September 1944, Henry was employed in numerous jobs before following his father into the port transport industry in March 1954 as a registered dock worker. Then, having been severely injured in a shipboard accident in April 1960, Henry attended night classes for two years before applying and being accepted on a post-graduate diploma course at the London School of Economics and Political Science. After graduation, he returned to the docks, where, during 1964–5, he wrote a comprehensive labour plan for the permanent employment of all registered dock workers.

  Henry was married in December 1955 to Iris Kathleen Mann. They had two children, Dawn and Roland. Henry retired from the port transport industry in December 1986 on account of injuries sustained in dock accidents. He had spent thirty-four years employed in the industry, working in every conceivable job both on the docks and in clerical work. After retiring, Henry was advised by a literary friend that he should write stories about his experiences and vast knowledge of the docklands. Except for a story called ‘Those Revolting Animals’ and some short pieces, his memories appear in print only here, and can best be described as historical tales of dock work in the middle of the twentieth century.

  Philip Connolly

  September 2006

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to take this opportunity to thank the following family and friends for coaxing me into writing this book of stories and making it possible for me to do so. Foremost among t
hem are my former workmates in the Port of London, men with whom I worked in the docks, on the wharfs and deepwater anchorages on the River Thames, dockers and stevedores, OST clerks and ships clerks, Freemen of the River, lightermen, bargemen, tugboat men and lock gatekeepers. Without their wit, humour and shenanigans, strength and skills, and in some circumstances their courage, these stories could never have been written.

  Then, of course, there were the mobile canteen tea ladies. What would we have done without their sometimes cynical comments and rapturous laughter – especially when they saw us plastered in cement dust, moving towards them as if we were concrete statues, or when we were covered in Rhodesian blue or Canadian white asbestos fibres that gave us the appearance of being large lumps of mouldy cheese, or plastered all over with carbon black or red or yellow ochre powder, or stinking to high heaven of fish meal, or reeking from the stench of a cargo of wet animal skins. Even I have been known to blush at some of their witticism.

  Then there is Mrs Denise Leppard, without whom these stories wouldn’t have been written; Mrs Christine Morrad, who has read through them; and the late Daniel John Foley MBE JP, the venerable Welfare Officer of Sector 3, Dock Labour Compound, the London Dock Labour Board, Tilbury Docks. He was my friend and mentor without whose gentle, forceful and persistent persuasion I should never have received the further education necessary for me to be capable of compiling these stories. The late Mr J.B. Allen, the Principal Education Officer at the Adult Education Centre, New Road, Chatham, understood my reluctance to attend adult education classes because of my semi-literacy. He gave me separate lessons and the confidence to carry on with my studies – a wise and good friend. The late Keith Thurley (Professor of Industrial Relations and Personnel Management) was my very extraordinary, patient and ultra-academic tutor at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I often sought his wise counsel. Mr Philip Connolly, my shrewd and knowledgeable friend, watches over my work and was responsible for the publication of a book of my poems.

  Then lastly, but most importantly, I must thank my wife, Iris Kathleen, whose patience with me is quite simply beyond belief. She has nursed me through numerous accidents and tends to my injuries still. What more could one ask of anyone? Bless her.

  INTRODUCTION

  It is difficult for me to know where to start with these Tales of London’s Docklands. The period covered in this book is 1954 to 1960 when a shipboard accident put an end to my active days as a docker crane driver. Arguably the tales should begin when I was a child, not really knowing what ports, docks, dockers and stevedores were or what they represented. Nor was I any the wiser as to what was meant by certain snippets of conversations that took place in our home.

  The first major clue to my father’s occupation came when I was 7 years of age and attended Church Street School, Gravesend. The school overlooked the Thames and Tilbury Docks on the far shore. The schoolmaster was looking across the river. Without turning to face the class he said: ‘Henry! Your father is a stevedore, isn’t he?’ (He always called a boy by his Christian name when he was in the mood to cane him.)

  ‘No, sir,’ I replied. ‘I don’t think so, sir. He’s a docker, sir.’

  ‘I said,’ he repeated, ‘your father is a stevedore, isn’t he, Henry?’

  Because I was ignorant as to the difference between a docker and stevedore, and had no particular wish to get thrashed, I simply replied, ‘Yes, sir!’ The master turned and faced the class, ‘Yes, sir!’ he repeated, ‘and one day you shall all be working over there’ (the you bit meant he was referring to the whole class), ‘for you are what is generally known in polite society as nonentities.’

  As I lived with my family on a council estate, I had already learned what was meant by polite society, but not about ‘nonentities’. At the time his snide remark went over my head, but I had already discovered that polite society was about as polite as most civil servants were civil to people they considered to be beneath them.

  Some twenty-five years later, when I was a student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, I happened to be reading through the Education Acts (that’s the sort of thing one is expected to do when being schooled at such a grandiose institute) when I suddenly remembered that word, ‘nonentities’, and reflected on what the schoolmaster had said. Then I realized why all the lads in my form at the secondary school I had been obliged to attend were consigned to remain in the ‘lower classes’ for ever. We were the sons of dockers, stevedores, coal porters and other groups of men who worked in the docks, on the river or in associated employment, and of course the unemployed were included in this lowly social group. We were, you see, the children whose parents were not in ‘full-time remunerative employment’. That, then, was the reason why we, the children of the river, were not allowed to sit the eleven-plus examination for a place at the grammar school. I suppose, therefore, that short bit of verbal enlightenment from the schoolmaster was the closest I ever came as a child to finding out where my father was employed, or what it was to mean to me in later life.

  Not that we children ever saw much of our father. This was because he left the house each morning long before we younger ones were got up for school (my elder sisters had left school and were working by the time my memory of that period came to life), and more often than not he arrived back home after we were put to bed. Sometimes he would not come in till the next day if a ship was due to sail on the morning’s early tide. Then he would be required to work day and night to complete its loading or discharging operation. This was because he was a ‘perm’, a permanently employed docker for a stevedoring company, paid a monthly guaranteed full back-wage. As such, he was committed to fulfil that guarantee by working day and night if he ‘fell into debt’, that is if he had not earned enough money within the month to repay the monthly guarantee to his employer.

  Perms were physically burned-out human shells by the time they reached 40 years of age. One old docker once told me he had been called before a stevedoring contractors manager one day and informed that his services were no longer required. When he asked why, he was told, ‘We’ve had your steel. Now you can take your old iron somewhere else.’ This was a typical employer’s attitude. Labour was cheap and abundant. Dozens of men were waiting for every available job. The situation was simply any employer’s dream.

  I did notice each day when I got up to go to school that one of the docker’s hooks that had hung on the copper-pipe picture rail in our living room the evening before was missing. I should have been able to determine what sort of cargo my father was working that day by the type of hook missing from the picture rail. But it was to be many years before I came to learn that lesson the hard way.

  Each hook was different from the others. One was short handled for use on general cargo, in other words packages, cases and cartons. These contained anything from cars to cocoa powder, ammunition, bristles, carbon black and such like. Another was a pad hook (an oval-shaped thick steel plate with short spikes on its surface designed to grip sacks and not to penetrate into the contents) to be used in bag work – for example, sacks of asbestos, cocoa beans or dried blood. The third was a bag hook (a short-handled tool with two hooks), also used for bag work where contents would not be damaged by the use of a hook. The fourth was a long-handled hook for use on wet or dry wood pulp. Wood pulp was imported in bales, mainly from the Scandinavian countries, Russia and Canada; it was bound in wire straps, and each bale weighed 3–4 hundredweight.

  Hooks were essential tools in the docks. They gave the user an extended arm and also extra leverage in moving cargo. They were also dangerous as weapons. Other equipment, such as shovels, ropes and wires, cargo nets, ore baskets, loading boards and running boards, was provided by the shipping line or the stevedoring contractor, that is the company contracted to service the ship. However, mechanical appliances such as quay cranes and mobile cranes, used in transit sheds and warehouses, were invariably the property of the Port Authority. There were exceptions, for example,
electrically operated trucks. When these were used they would be charged against a gang’s earnings as an extra man on the daily ‘tick note’. In other words, the gang actually paid to hire the truck from the employer.

  Another childhood memory that sticks in my mind is the pungent smell of camphorated oil. My mother used to massage my father’s back with it when he came home exhausted after having worked the clock round. She would then crack and whisk two raw eggs into a glass of milk and he would drink it. He then went to bed for several hours, got up, washed and shaved, dressed, had a meal and made his way to one of the allotments he kept. He would spend several hours digging and planting seeds to produce crops for his family, then come home to get ready to return to the docks and more work.

  There were eleven in our family including Mum and Dad. We children were three boys and six girls. Between the First and Second World Wars millions of people were unemployed and their families were starving. That did not happen to my family. This was entirely due to my father’s hard work. He spent forty-seven years in the docks with one good hand – the other had been shot through in the battle of the Somme.

  Those, of course, were the good old days. My father was obliged to retire from the docks on his 68th birthday in 1965. He found himself another job and worked on till he was 73 before finally retiring. He died in his 87th year. He was physically and mentally worn out by hard work, war wounds (both physical and mental) and injuries he had sustained in the docks.

  For my part, I entered the port transport industry as a registered dock worker in April 1954, through the good offices of the Port of London Authority. I was entered on the Port Authority ‘A’ list, a preference list of dockers who were called off for work by the authority’s labour master and allocated to specific jobs throughout the docks. I left the Port Authority when a traffic officer in charge of a job I was working on refused to pay dirty-handling money on asbestos. (That was before asbestos was recognized as a dangerous substance.) I then went on ‘the free call’ for employment with the stevedoring labour contractors.