Tales of London's Docklands (10 page)

The first set of sugar that came down the hold was lowered to the deck and made fast with two chocks of dunnage and a sisal rope, which was then lashed to a steel stanchion. The stanchion was welded to the deck floor and ceiling to support the ship's upper deck when she was carrying deck cargo. The first set of sugar was used as a base for a table on which a cargo running board was placed, and when future sets came down the hold, they were landed on the running board, at the back of which the gang had laid two sacks of sugar. When the bottom sacks at the back of the following sets landed on the two bags of sugar, the set was tipped over, leaving all the sacks standing upright. The down-holders formed a line, then one by one they carried the bags on their backs to the stowage, where the down-hold foreman and his mate stowed them.

Now, I must explain that gangs working over the jetty were made up of two crane drivers, one top hand, a down-hold foreman, a change-over man (who worked on the jetty and took the rope off one crane hook and placed it on the second crane hook), four bargehands and five down-holders. (One crane driver and the change-over man were paid pro rata to the gang's piecework earnings.)

The second set having been landed on the running board, the physical hard work of stowing the sugar cargo began. Most of the backers (the men carrying the sacks) had managed to get pieces of canvas or old paper cement bags to put over their shoulders to stop the sugar chafing the skin off their backs and drawing blood. The dockers formed themselves into a line, and as his turn came, each one took hold of the ears of a bag and carried it to the stowage. Doc was the last in the line, having held back so he could see what the procedure was. He picked up his first 2-hundredweight sack of sugar and staggered forward across the deck to the stowage. His second effort saw him buckling at the knees. With his third bag, he stumbled a few yards, his knees gave way under him and he fell, face down on the 'tween deck hatches with the 2-hundred weight sack of sugar pinning him to the deck. Unfortunately, it looked quite funny, seeing him spread out, lying down there, looking like a huge tortoise whose shell was too heavy for it to carry about.

The dockers went on working, walking round him to get to the stowage. One jokingly said, ‘I hope that lazy sod's not on the tick note. He's bloody asleep on the job already and we've only just started work.'

Another one said, ‘By the way he's lying there, do you think he's bedridden?' To which someone replied, ‘It looks more like sack-ridden, to me.'

The gang continued to clear the sets of sugar as poor Doc lay prostrate, halfway between the landing table and the stowage. None of the gang spoke to him as they continued to carry the sacks of sugar to the stowage. It was some time before the barge bay was cleared and they removed the offending bag from his back. The down-hold foreman called up to the top hand and told him he was swapping Doc with the change-over man on the jetty. Doc objected bitterly, saying he would master the job if it should kill him, which it would have done. However, there was a compromise. Doc swapped places with one of the loaders on the landing table. He saw the job out to its conclusion and it was just as well for him that he did: the Docklands were no place to lose face.

I
N
C
ONCLUSION

In the mid-1950s, the trade unions negotiated a rise in the piecework rate with the port employers for loading and discharging bagged sugar. It rose to 3
d
per ton. The tabloids carried a story that went something like this: ‘Dockers demand an increase in the price paid for discharging sugar. Sugar prices are set to rise by a penny per pound.'

Dockers and stevedores were awarded an extra 3
d
a ton for their labour to share between twelve men; the sugar processors got an extra 237
d
per ton. The media never did publish that piece of news. Well, they wouldn't would they? Not to exonerate those ‘bloody dockers'.

8

A B
EAUTIFUL
P
ASSENGER

T
he Orient liner SS
Orion
was returning from its voyage to Australia. It was in the New Lock Entrance, Tilbury Docks. The ship's captain and pilot were waiting for the lock to fill and the inner lock gates to open so that Port Authority steam tugs moored close to the dock side of the inner lock could cast off to assist the Thames river tugs, which had towed the ship into the lock from the river, to take her to her allotted berth.

Baggage gangs had been picked up in the Dock Labour Board compound on the 7.30. a.m. free call to attend on the ship's passengers, and they were standing by, ready with wheelbarrows, to carry passengers' personal effects to their private cars or taxi cabs. (Those vehicles were parked in the space between two transit sheds.)

A railway engine, with eight carriages, was on the track at the rear of the transit sheds, slowly hissing steam. It was waiting to take third-class passengers to Fenchurch Street station in the City of London, from where they would have to make their own way to their final destinations.

Low tables, constructed from cargo running boards set on trestles (trestles that would soon be used for discharging the ship's frozen meat cargo), had been put up in a cargo shed. On them, customs officers would examine the contents of passengers' suitcases and any other such paraphernalia – packages that had either been carried ashore by cabin stewards, or put ashore from the main deck in cargo nets by quay cranes or with the ship's own derricks. The effects would be placed in rows close to the customs examination tables; passengers would have to find their own baggage and then present all of the items to a customs officer.

It was the practice of customs officers to appear on the scene, at their benches, shortly before the first-class passengers began to disembark. I was always of the opinion that the reason for this policy was that it meant the customs officers would not have to demean themselves by rubbing shoulders with those of us who were overtly considered to be socially and intellectually
personae non gratae
in their eyes during those class-conscious days. We of the common herd, that is.

As the water in the lock drew level with that in the dock, the lock gates slowly swung wide open. Tug crews unhooked the ropes securing their vessels to the quayside bollards and steamed astern to take up pre-allotted positions from which to draw the huge ship from the lock to her berth. Ropes, with Turks' heads woven into them, were thrown from the liner onto the tugs' sterns. The tugs' deck crews hauled them in and attached the wire hawsers which the ropes held onto the tugs' towing hooks. Signals were given by hoots from the liner's siren. The tugs slowly drew the vessel from the lock into the dock and onto her discharging berth. As the last of the mooring ropes and wires was secured onto the quayside bollards, I climbed up the three 20-foot vertical steel ladders into the Stothert & Pitt crane cabin and swung the jib over a gangway that was lying ready.

A Royal Mail ship of the Orient Steam Ship Company entering the New Lock Entrance to Tilbury Docks, 1950s.
(Author's collection)

It was now the turn of the shore gang slingers to attach pre-prepared wires to the crane's hook so I could raise the gangway and slew it into the forward saloon door, where it was made fast by the ship's crew, specifically for first-class-passenger priority disembarkation. The ship's gang began the task of discharging the passengers' cabin baggage, which had been brought into the forward foyer by the cabin stewards.

Once the gangway was placed in the foyer door, the hatch cover was raised and my job was concluded till the ship's gang began to uncover the deck hatches and to discharge cargo. I descended from the cabin, down the ladders to the quay and stood by a safety barrier, close to the gangway. I was talking to an Orient Line security watchman when the first passenger came out through the saloon door and began her walk down the gangway. Well, it wasn't just an ordinary walk. It was more like that of a highly trained model, exhibiting those fancy, totally useless frocks (the rag trade prefer to call them dresses because it sounds posh) to be sold at exorbitant prices to women with more money than they know what to do with.

She came out of the starboard saloon door of the ship, this beautiful creature, and slowly traipsed her way down the gangway. She was swinging her slim hips from side to side as though she was traversing a catwalk, tilting her head slightly upwards as though trying to avert her gaze from the common herd, but being well aware every eye within sight of her was watching. The men of the baggage gangs stood, leaning on the shafts of their wheelbarrows, staring; taxi drivers standing by the safety barriers were staring; second- and third-class passengers, waiting on the after decks to disembark, were staring. She was a sight to behold.

She descended the gangway with one hand on the safety rail, holding the other hand at shoulder height in a swan-neck position. She was tall and slim and had the facial features of the
Venus de Milo
. She was wearing a red summer dress, with a flower design in bright colours, which finished just below her knees. She had white silk stockings, the old-fashioned style with broad seams that ran down the back of her long legs. Her peep-toe shoes were red. Her wide-brimmed summer hat was white. It enhanced the colour of her dress, giving it a 3D effect while at the same time highlighting her facial features, which in turn were further enhanced by the elbow-length white gloves she wore. She had a white leather handbag that hung down from her shoulder to slightly above her right hip. She was wearing very little make-up, only a smattering of lipstick, the same red as her dress. Her perfume had a mildly exotic smell and it wafted after her like a misty shadow. She was, and knew she was, a beautiful woman.

As she came level with me on the quay she asked in a rasping voice, ‘Where's the khars spark'd, cobber?'

‘The what?' I said, absolutely dumbfounded by a voice that could not possibly have come from this beautiful woman.

‘Are you deaf or just bloody stupid, blue?' she said with an obvious, deep Australian drawl.

I was just about to ask her if she could speak in English, but instead I decided to humour her so I simply replied, ‘A bit of both, I think?'

She stepped towards me menacingly, then she smiled through a set of teeth that shone like pearls, put her lips close to my ear and shouted, ‘I'm sorry, mate, I wasn't aware of your affliction.' Then, as loud as she could, she yelled into my ear, ‘Where's the bloody khars spark'd?'

I put my finger in my ear to clear it and shook my head. ‘Madam,' I said, ‘I don't know what you are talking about. I don't know what a bloody khars spark'd is!'

‘It's a spark where they keep khars.'

‘Oh, you mean a car park?'

‘Christ Almighty,' she said in a lower tone of voice that I wasn't meant to hear, ‘don't tell me they've got another Pommie bloody Professor Higgins-type Eliza Doolittle elocution teacher here?'

Not wishing to pursue the khars spark'd debate any further (the illusion of this vision already having destroyed itself before my eyes), I pointed between the two transit sheds.

‘That's where the car park is,' I said. ‘But before you go to the car park, you will have to clear HM Customs first. That means let them examine what's in your baggage.'

I led her to the transit shed door and pointed to the long lines of suitcases, travelling trunks and other packages, and the low-level benches, behind which stood the customs officers. I explained to her that she had to get a porter, ask him to find her cases and take them to be seen by one of the customs officers. She bent down and kissed my cheek, patted me on the head as if I were her small son being sent off to school, gave me an Australian sixpence from her purse and yelled in my ear again.

‘I'm sorry about your affliction. It must be a big 'andicap to you, blue,' and she just seemed to drift away slowly into the transit shed. Then she was gone.

‘Well, well, well!' said the Orient Line security watchman. ‘She must be one of the most beautiful women in the world.'

‘Yes!' I replied. ‘It's a great pity she has to open her mouth.'

9

A C
HEAP
L
UNCH

T
here had been very little work about for some weeks and we had been dabbing on at the Dock Labour Board office. ‘Dabbing on' was the term used by dockers and stevedores to denote that a green stamp had been used to prove their attendance on the free call on any particular day. Another term used was ‘bomping on'. There is no such word in the dictionary, but it all came down to the same thing – there was no work available within any of the docks in the Port of London or an adjacent port, and the surplus labour had been sent home on the fall-back guarantee of one ‘turn'. (It would be one of the eleven turns that made up a working week – two for each day from Monday to Friday and a single one for Saturday.)