# Liverpool Docker



## Samsette

Phaidon Press published a collection of photographs depicting scenes that marked the events of the 20th Century, titled Century. The photo below was chosen for the year 1963 and was prefixed by the following narrative to set the scene.
“Once one of Europe’s thriving seaports and the leading handler of shipping traffic in Britain, Liverpool declined significantly both as an export and a passenger port after the Second World War. Several factors, including the diminishing importance of Britain’s industrial centres, developments in air travel, and the drop in the transatlantic shipping trade with America caused employment at Britain’s docks to fall steadily before virtually collapsing in the 1960s.
Few places were hit as hard as Liverpool. Dockers tried to hang on to the jobs still available while employers attempted to cut costs by using cheaper casual labour. During this decade industrial unrest was common.” 

I attempted to fix the caption beneath the photo but........................................

Anyway, here it is - "A Liverpool docker at a protest meeting against employers using only casual labour. Colin Jones' portrait of a man whose self-possession and general demeanour anyone might envy." Could anybody say it better?


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## IRW

In 1971 I was 2/0 on Cape Clear carrying an inaugural cargo of timber from NZ to UK. It was hoped this would be the first of many.
On loading in NZ the mate,myself and others stowed to parcels carefully 
so that on arrival they could be discharged by parcels and delivered directly to receivers. BUT this was not to be the dockers ripped out the lumber willy nilly and dumped it on the wharf where it had to be re assorted. We were advised they did not give a toss about the planned stowage but this way it gave work to the locals. Im certainty glad of the demise of such practices.


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## Samsette

Was my docker among them? I was not intending to invite any tales of the often negative behaviour of some dockers; heaven only knows how many occasions it happened, more than it should most likely. No, I simply wanted to share the opinion of the photographer in drawing attention to the strong character visible in the face of a man meeting with adversity, that this photo illustrates.


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## Barrie Youde

I agree that it is a good photograph of an angry man.

As to the virtual collapse of trade at Liverpool, I would date this more at the mid-1970s than the 1960s; and suggest that trade seemed reasonably good until about 1960. The collapse did not happen overnight. The first open and obvious sign was the development of the jet aeroplane engine, leading to the death of the deep-sea passenger trade, which struggled on until about 1970.

The number of pilots at a port is a good indicator of its trading health. I was lucky to be licensed as a pilot at Liverpool in 1966 at the age of 23 (the youngest age permissible by law at the time). My licence number was 183, which was probably the peak number since the late 19th century. Thereafter, numbers began to decline, reflecting the decline in trade, but only very gradually. Certainly, the port remained busy on any view until about 1970, even though there was much writing on the wall.

The collapse, when it came, remains painful to think about.


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## Ian Lawson

I would not agree with angry Barrie. More uncertainty & apprehension. The Liverpool situation was very much of there own making and I would suggest that the CL situation is not out of the woods ......yet.


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## Barrie Youde

#5 

As you wish, Ian.

In terms of photography, though, it is certainly a good photograph.


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## Barrie Youde

Attached is a photograph of two apprentice pilots taken in August 1962.

Uncertain and apprehensive? Certainly we should have been!


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## Ian Lawson

The only Liverpool Pilot I got to know quite well was a Cyril Lord, New Brighton. Nice guy.


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## Barrie Youde

Old Cyril was, I think, the last Liverpool Pilot to wear a bowler hat!

As you say, he was a gent. He retired in about 1966.


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## Barrie Youde

The lesson learned on Merseyside in the 1960s and the 1970s, and powerfully so, was that nothing lasts forever and, ultimately, we are all dependent on each other.


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## tom roberts

Liverpool dockers are blamed for everything by the self righteous sanctimonious pillocks of the right wing who wouldn't last an hour of hard labour.How many of them would put up with working conditions of a docker ,firstly standing in the pen hoping to get a days work,unloading carbon black cargo,wet hides etc and not a bucket of water even to wash in,toilets that were built for Victorian times.sure they had their ways of working that p""""ed the bosses of but how many ship sailings were delayed by the practice,and before I hear of comparisons with German dockers we did a turn around in Liverpool in a week but it took three weeks to do the identical job in Hamburg.Wether in Liverpool ,Birkenhead,London ,and any other British port the dockers did a great job under cir***stances and lousy management that those who wouldn't know a hard days work if it bit them in the a"se I by the way was never a docker but as there don't seem to be many who valued them I did and will have my say on there behalf.


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## TonyAllen

my dad was a docker and hated the welt ,and when he did get picked it was always for the dirty jobs as tom Roberts said, the one that finish him off was soda ash in sack the it rained but still had to work ,I remember him coming home and it had penetrated thru his clothes ,and he said Annie I am done with docks .she said ok tom what will you do .hors and cart job of I can get one sir enough 2 weeks later walking up and down the dock road.he saw on man with a load try to secure it and dad said need any help and the mas said looking for a job yes said my dad if you know if one is going .right here said the man my other man gave up on me yesterday ,and thats how his life change for ever .then steam wagon .the Liverpool corporation tram sheds as a 2nd fitter untill he retired .was alway god with his hands.on days off he would take me and twin on the overhead railway to see all the ships and he siad the this kind of thing will die out ..how right he was


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## Pat Kennedy

I was a docker Tom. at least, I was a crane driver on the docks at Birkenhead and Liverpool, and everything you say is correct. It was all casual labour until the early 70s and nobody knew from one day to the next, if they would be picked for a job or go home empty handed. 
The working conditions were horrible, H & S non-existent, no protective clothing, cargoes were often toxic or foul smelling and germ laden (bones and wet hides), and yet ships were turned round day after day month after month, and ship owners and all the associated shipping businesses made vast profits.
The practice of the welt which you refer to was introduced to Liverpool docks by the American military command in the port during the war, to ensure that cargo work continued without any breaks. The port authorities continued it after the war was over and it continued until decasualisation in the early 70s, (except for crane drivers, we had a billycan of tea hauled up on a rope(Jester))


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## Samsette

It is dockers I drew attention to, exemplified (or not) by the man in that Phaidon Press publication, not the problems faced by IRW in post #2 or the pilot service. They occupied a place situated above that of dockers and the miserable conditions of employment that dockers faced each day - IF they were lucky enough to be picked for work. I never worked as a docker but, had two of them in our extended family.

One does not require a good education to be a docker but, those who had one and filled the positions as managers and captains of industry all too often failed in their chosen field. Did they contribute, to a higher level than the dockers, to bring Britain to its knees?


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## tsell

Barrie Youde said:


> Attached is a photograph of two apprentice pilots taken in August 1962.
> 
> Uncertain and apprehensive? Certainly we should have been!


Barrie, who is the lad on the right??

Taff


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## Aberdonian

Whilst IRW’s dismay is understandable, I respectfully suggest he may not have been fully aware of the cir***stances under which a decision was reached to discharge the timber consignment in this fashion. Discharging multi-parcels of Rajang timber “to mark”, for example, is a slow process where a gang would be compensated in a piecework situation. The order to discharge “willy nilly” would almost certainly have been given after the Shipowner or his Agent had consulted with interested parties. Turning a ship around is a priority, paying for quay sorting labour may have beens preferable to extending the ship’s stay alongside.

It is not part of a docker’s brief to make such operational decisions. If the Mate suspected anarchy he had the choice of turning off deck steam/power.  

Keith


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## dannic

Port Nicholson Liverpool 1979 loading deck cargo, after loading in Glasgow - not surprisingly dockers had accessed the whisky in forward lockers! First trip junior I was surprised, when the dockies had located deckchairs, glasses, and sat having a dram or three between each sling of cargo. Mate said nowt we can do as need to sail by Thursday, cannot afford to have them stop work!
Dannic


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## Samsette

dannic said:


> Port Nicholson Liverpool 1979 loading deck cargo, after loading in Glasgow - not surprisingly dockers had accessed the whisky in forward lockers! First trip junior I was surprised, when the dockies had located deckchairs, glasses, and sat having a dram or three between each sling of cargo. Mate said nowt we can do as need to sail by Thursday, cannot afford to have them stop work!
> Dannic


(Gleam) Dockers with a sense of entitlement - deckchairs and glasses; now that is gracious living.


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## Barrie Youde

#15 

C'est moi! On the left is David Hodgson.

The occasion was the day when the dredger LEVIATHAN was towed away from the Mersey for scrap. Number 1 Pilot Cutter (the Sir Thomas Brocklebank), aboard which the photograph was taken, happened to be lying at Wallasey Cattle Stage that afternoon for some minor repairs. The LEVIATHAN (believed to be the largest suction-dredger in the world) had given almost fifty years of service and the Liverpool Echo wished to take a photograph of the scene of her departure, showing the Liver Building in the background ("The Leaving of Liverpool" etc.) - and so the photographer came aboard our boat to take some shots of the river from the Birkenhead/Wallasey side, capturing two (thoroughly idling and irresponsible!) apprentices in his camera whilst doing so.

With the great benefit of hindsight, the writing was on the wall for everybody on Merseyside at the time - and not only for the docker shown in the original photograph - but few of us wished to recognise it. It is now a matter of history which is only too well do***ented. The whole of Merseyside took the hit, in the years to come. The recovery today is a thing to be marvelled at, although as Ian points out, the lesson has been learned that nothing is certain.

Another feature of the time was that Beatlemania was about to strike Liverpool - which phenomenon did much to bury the bad news which nobody wished to believe would ever happen. In consequence in the next thirty years a whole generation grew up believing that the City of Liverpool was founded by the Beatles - and the dockers and the entire Port of Liverpool were consigned to the dustbin of history (together with the pilotage-apprenticeship system, which had served well for hundreds of years).

When the station-keeping pilot-cutters were withdrawn from the two sea-stations in the years to come, the apprenticeship system itself could no longer be maintained.


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## Barrie Youde

As to the tough conditions under which the dockers worked, would anybody wish to see a return to those conditions?

The answer is that it is only those of us old farts who remember the meaning of the term "general cargo" and the (sometimes beautiful) general cargo liners in which we served who might ever begin to wish for it - and even then we all recognise that it will never happen.

I am grateful that today there is peace in the docks which continue to operate.

As to the pilots, called upon to shunt ever bigger ships into ever smaller spaces, their work is tougher than anything I was ever called upon to do, and I salute them.


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## Barrie Youde

Google tells me that LEVIATHAN worked until 1963 and was towed away for scrap in 1964. If that is, right, then I have got my dates wrong, which is entirely possible; but the photograph of the two apprentices was certainly taken within a year either side of 1963.


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## Ian Lawson

Barrie, Ref your #20 penultimate. Is that not why the job is so interesting and challenging. I used to enjoy 'running moors' on ULCCs with no tugs to assist.


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## Barrie Youde

Of course you are right, Ian.

It is the reason why there is any work for pilots, at all.


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## Petertherock

IRW said:


> In 1971 I was 2/0 on Cape Clear carrying an inaugural cargo of timber from NZ to UK. It was hoped this would be the first of many.
> On loading in NZ the mate,myself and others stowed to parcels carefully
> so that on arrival they could be discharged by parcels and delivered directly to receivers. BUT this was not to be the dockers ripped out the lumber willy nilly and dumped it on the wharf where it had to be re assorted. We were advised they did not give a toss about the planned stowage but this way it gave work to the locals. Im certainty glad of the demise of such practices.


I would like to support the Liverpool Docker.
As a shore Radio Engineer for Marconi in early SixteesI use to see them waiting in their Cage to be picked for work. Some of them I beleive use to put money in their book to be picked.
In the Dock canteen at lunch time, I never saw a more happier bunch of men. Their work was renowned around the world for making a well stowed ship.

Your Cape Clear comes to mind also, I was on her as Radio Officer n the late fiftys running Cars to the States and coming back with Timber from Canada.
We all took part dismantling all the scaffolding in the holds, which we use to get paid in Dollars when we sailed from Seattle to Vancouver, how anybody was not killed amazed me.
Got to go now Lunch calls
I still think we had the best time in the world 
Petertherock


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## Pat Kennedy

Samsette said:


> (Gleam) Dockers with a sense of entitlement - deckchairs and glasses; now that is gracious living.


I saw a similar set up in Glasgow, where the dockers loading cases of whisky into #3 tween deck on the Peleus, had built themselves a nice comfortable space amid the cases and hidden from view behind a false front. (Known on the docks as a Glasgow face)
There they lounged in comfort drinking the finest single malt, accompanied by cans of McEwans liberated from another stow.


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## tom roberts

Pat when on the docks in Birkenhead did you come across another crane driver George Upton he worked for Clan line ,also did you ever meet Doug Jardine he was a bosun in Blue Funnel and in the shore gang?.


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## Pat Kennedy

tom roberts said:


> Pat when on the docks in Birkenhead did you come across another crane driver George Upton he worked for Clan line ,also did you ever meet Doug Jardine he was a bosun in Blue Funnel and in the shore gang?.


Tom, I worked at The Clan a few times, they were a law unto themselves, known as Garrison's Guerillas, they were pretty militant to say the least. I never came across George Upton.
As for Doug Jardine, again, I don't think I met him, although I worked in the shore gang for a few months, but there were over sixty men in that crew and some of the old hands kept very much to themselves and grabbed any cushy jobs that were going, perhaps he was one of them?
Pat


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## Samsette

Makes me almost wish I'd a been one; almost but, not quite.

"Who wouldn't be for all the world a jolly docker lad"


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## spongebob

Most of us have witnessed, experienced or heard of these "them and us" industrial changes or disputes and while the bias is easy to form when one is just observing there is no doubt that history proves the working man almost always takes the fall whether it be due to industrial progress, economic downturns , essential shortages or what ever.
The pictured Docker could well represent a married man with a family to support and his countenance could be seen displaying mistrust, anxiety, caution or anger and all blended with a touch of despair . 
Never mind the most valid arguments as to why the changes are needed , he cannot contribute any real feeling other that the suggested expressions on his face . Acceptance is a form of surrender or defeat that is as near to death when real unemployment stares you in the face.

Bob


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## Samsette

My 28 was ref Pat's 25, about the fancy Glasgow dockers, not the BF shore gang.

Nice post Spongebob.


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## Aberdonian

Barrie Youde said:


> The lesson learned on Merseyside in the 1960s and the 1970s, and powerfully so, was that nothing lasts forever and, ultimately, we are all dependent on each other.


Wise words, Barrie, in that we rightly mourn the passing of our once great merchant fleet but the reduction in our traditional seaborne trade also had a widespread adverse effect on the livelihoods of thousands of port workers.

The D-day for decasualisation on 18 Sep 1967 was followed by strikes in some parts of London and Liverpool but gradually the new order took effect. During the previous 12 months, operations in London, Liverpool, Glasgow and N.Ireland saw my firm Scruttons Maltby handle cargo on more than 10,000 ships. In a normal working day 80 to 100 vessels were being worked, the great majority of these in London.

Immediately after decasualisation, Scruttons Maltby employed 1,118 varied staff members plus 4,918 registered dock workers, the total of 6,036 employees making it the largest independent port employer in the country. 

Keith


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## Barrie Youde

#29-31 

Thank you for these posts of eminent good sense.

This post started with the interpretation of a photograph, from which a thousand different views could be formed. It is called art. Long may it continue!

My guess was that the man was angry. Others have suggested, self-possessed, uncertain, apprehensive and numerous others. None of us really knows what was in the man's mind when the photograph was taken.

We can be fairly sure that what was in the photographer's mind was to take the best picture he could, to try to make a bob or two. The docker in the photograph might well have been thinking, "Eff off, out of my way, you little squirt. I'm going for a pint."

All else is idle conjecture.


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## Barrie Youde

As to other thoughts on Merseyside in 1963 (when we are told that the original photograph was taken) these have already been aired at length and will no doubt be aired further. The very existence of a site such as SN invites such airings.

We are all subjects of time and cir***stance, affected at least to some degree by events beyond any personal control. For my own part I'm only too grateful to have been born the son of a pilot and the grandson of a lawyer. Otherwise I would in all probability not have known that to join the Pilot Service in 1959 it was necessary to make written application between the ages of 16 and 16-and-a-half. It was never advertised. Only those youths who were already in the know, therefore, had the opportunity to apply. I applied and I thoroughly enjoyed it for almost thirty years; until some changes in the law began to loom in the 1980s, when personal cir***stances (including the death of my wife, without children) suggested that a rethink might be in order.

Why didn't I become a lawyer in the first place? Because I didn't think that I would be good enough is one reason. Because I wanted some broader adventure is another reason. For all of those reasons I am hugely grateful for the opportunities which life has chucked at me. 

But never again would I wish to witness the decline of the Port of Liverpool as it was staring every Liverpool docker in the face in 1963, as reflected by the expression on the face shown in the original photograph.


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## tom roberts

Barrie when I lived in Ruthin as a child a lad from Merseyside moved there for a while his name was Alan Downes? I believe he became a Mersey Pilot ,did you know him? I maybe wrong but I think his dad ran a pub on the Wirral side of our great river.


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## Barrie Youde

Hi, Tom,

Yes, I knew Aland Downes very well.

He was about seven years my senior; and he was a young First Class Pilot when I was still a junior apprentice. I was with him on one occasion then aboard a Greek liberty ship which he was piloting into Garston - an exacting job for any man. He was cool as a cu***ber.

He retired in 1988.


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## tom roberts

Barrie Youde said:


> Hi, Tom,
> 
> Yes, I knew Aland Downes very well.
> 
> He was about seven years my senior; and he was a young First Class Pilot when I was still a junior apprentice. I was with him on one occasion then aboard a Greek liberty ship which he was piloting into Garston - an exacting job for any man. He was cool as a cu***ber.
> 
> He retired in 1988.


Thanks Barrie for that info he would be about my age eighty I guess.


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## Barrie Youde

Records show that he will be 82 this year, which scarcely seems possible.

I have not seen him in about thirty years, but I still think of him as about 32!

Tempus fugit.


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## John Dryden

*Photograph*



Samsette said:


> It is dockers I drew attention to, exemplified (or not) by the man in that Phaidon Press publication, not the problems faced by IRW in post #2 or the pilot service. They occupied a place situated above that of dockers and the miserable conditions of employment that dockers faced each day - IF they were lucky enough to be picked for work. I never worked as a docker but, had two of them in our extended family.
> 
> One does not require a good education to be a docker but, those who had one and filled the positions as managers and captains of industry all too often failed in their chosen field. Did they contribute, to a higher level than the dockers, to bring Britain to its knees?


Don't be disheartened,Samsette,by some of the posts on here.I think the caption to the photo you quoted just about nailed it and that is without any idle conjecture,as Barrie would have us believe to be the yardstick of art interpretation.
As for the managers and captains of industry failures I 'd say you could include the dockers,miners and every man or woman who ever fought for their rights and still have a few quid in change from the damage they did and continue to do.


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## Pat Kennedy

Here's a nice little clip about the tricks Liverpool dockers got up to to do a bit of cargo liberation.


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## Aberdonian

*All that glisters....*



tom roberts said:


> ....Before I hear of comparisons with German dockers we did a turn around in Liverpool in a week but it took three weeks to do the identical job in Hamburg....


Often, when discharging Canadian packaged timber using ship’s gear on our Tilbury terminal, the Agent would flourish an example of a German tonnage report showing a much superior rate of discharge than our own. A cursory glance at the figures was enough to convince that something was amiss. 

Anyway, when the 19,500 dwt Dutch bulk carrier _Putten _came alongside with a full cargo of timber it was decided that when our consignment had been discharged, using 5 ship’s cranes, I would be flown to Bremen to learn from the German mode of cargo handling. Reasons for enhanced German output soon became apparent.

It was a Bremen port regulation that all conventional vessels must use quay cranes so the _Putten’s_ own cranes could be used only for double banking. As it happened, 6 electric cranes of 7.5 ton capacity were employed plus 4 ship cranes at the 5 hatches. Now, in the UK the daily tonnage report would show 10 gangs involved whereas the Bremen report indicated just 5 gangs utilised; hence the disparity. Back in Tilbury we had achieved a nett discharge rate of 54 tons per gang hour - which included the more awkward deck cargo - once we got below near 400 tons per 6 hour shift for each gang would be looked for. Capt Mackie, port manager for the Heinrich’s stevedore firm, said he would be happy to have the same rate of discharge. 

Keith


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## Pat Kennedy

Re the above post;
I worked at the Canada Dock timber berth in Liverpool from time to time.
There were 4 quayside cranes, Stothert and Pitt 10 ton capacity.
Four gangs working four of the hatches, with eight ten ton stacker trucks on the open quay. 
We routinely lifted five or six ton per sling from the ship and averaged around 12 slings per hour.
I forget the tonnage rate we got for packaged timber, but it was easily possible, working flat out, to double your hourly pay.
It was a long time ago, and I am guestimating the figures, but I'm pretty sure they are accurate.


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## Aberdonian

*Bremen*

Your recollections mostly chime in with my own, Pat, our main difference on the terminal was the use of Douglas Tugmasters and Mafi trailers in addition to forklifts to and from the ship’s side pitches in the bedding out process. Tom’s post has triggered off memories from my 2 days in Bremen in Nov 1973. 

To continue with impressions of working practices in that port, Heinrichs, with a permanent labour force of just 300 men, was the largest stevedoring firm out of 20 outfits. Sluggish recruitment meant the bulk of labour consisted of indigenous farmhands along with imported Portuguese. A full German driving licence was required before training on any plant. I was told the Portuguese handled the more physically demanding cargoes.

The labour allocation system was similar to that in the UK before decasualisation where there were “perms” and “casuals”. Timekeeping was normal dock standard. Apart from helmets dockers had to supply their own work clothes. The wage scale was based on 6 main categories. A widespread abuse in the private sector was to pay selected men a category or two above their qualification so as to attract the best men to their books. At the time, a fully skilled docker earned about £404 per month.

“Old Spanish customs”, such as granting incentives of unearned overtime would be used where necessary. Leisure incentives ((“job and out”) were commonplace. In a nominal 7.5 hour shift a quota of 100 tons of bagwork per gang was considered satisfactory; 120 tons for heavier bags. Loading general cargo, about 70 tons per gang in a shift was the norm. 

The Bremen visit confirmed my opinion that the British docker, despite occasional bouts of militancy, stood up well in any comparison with those in other ports.

Keith


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## Pat Kennedy

Keith, 'Job and finish' was common practice on the Birkenhead docks. We often had drums of caustic to load from an ICI barge into #5 hatch on Harrison boats, and the target was 90 tons, job and finish. I knew from long experience that working flat out 90 tons was just about achievable by around twenty to five. So the gang got away from the ship about 15 minutes early but were totally knackered. So was I, up the crane! The ship's boss at Harrisons at the time was nicknamed 'The Bleeder' and he certainly deserved it.
Pat(Pint)


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## Aberdonian

Pat: I freely admit in London we had our own workaday “ways and means” to expedite cargo handling. The gist of my post was to suggest that practices in Bremen were not much different from our own and in my opinion fell a little short of what UK popular press of the time would generally have us believe. 

A common “job and finish” situation prevailed at Z Shed meat berth, Victoria Dock. (Noomonia Corner). Due in part for the necessity to prearrange scores of delivery reefer vans, from memory a daily total discharge quota of either 4,000 quarters of beef or 12,000 lamb carcasses was agreed. Those hard working gangs would fulfil that obligation and be up the road by mid afternoon.

To digress, I had been told on my first day in Bremen that a Celtic European football match would be shown on TV that evening. It failed to appear because of a technicians’ dispute. The evening of departure I had to be driven to Hamburg due to a dispute involving Bremen air traffic controllers, I could have been in London. (Jester)

Keith


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## roscoes

The other skill was to drop the case of whisky onto a roller so the contents wood leak, then strain through the straw and wood into an enamel mug to be enjoyed. The more refined dockers made good use of their docker's hook to prise the metal band slack allowing the centre plank of the case to be lifted and withdrawn enough to take out the centre bottle. Then replacing centre plank for re-nailing using hook as a hammer. The next step was to place the hook under the metal band and giving it a twist to tighten same. The case was then placed in stow usually upside down so the tampered metal band was not visible. The greedy docker just took the six bottles and hid the damaged case in the stow.


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## Barrie Youde

#45 

Glasgow dockers took pride in being well-dressed.

At the end of the working day on one occasion, following cir***stances exactly as described in #45 and earlier posts, I was the last man out of the lower hold, closely following the last docker in the procession up the hatch-ladder, when I heard the man ahead of me say to his mate, in admonishing tones, "WULLY, DAE YE KEN YE'VE A HOLE IN THE ARCE OF YE'RE TROOSERS?"


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## Aberdonian

The subject of dockers pilfering whisky attracts attention not least for the often artful methods employed, but set against certain workplace abuses of the time outwith the dock gate, the occasional theft of an odd bottle or so of spirits is hardly a major issue. Not many of my co-workers were known to turn down a proffered mug containing a tot of fortifying whisky on a cold winter morning. 

Re above Post #44 : Too late for an edit, but on reflection I am fairly sure my entry ought to have read 3,000 quarters of beef not 4,000.

Keith


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## Pat Kennedy

I was driving a quayside crane at North Gladstone one day, loading a Federal boat.
The first cargo aboard was around thirty slings of whisky into the tween deck. A couple of hours later, the holdsmen asked for a tub to be sent down. When I hoisted the tub out of the hatch, lo and behold, My Uncle Dick was sprawled in it, drunk as a skunk. I hadn't even known he was in the gang.
Anyway, the quay crowd ran him into the shed on a bogie and dossed him away on some bales to sleep it off.


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## roscoes

Pat I recall at Canada 1 some of the cleaning ladies PSNC employed disembarking on sailing day being helped down the gangway. They had their buckets part filled with scotch and their cleaning cloths over them to conceal the contents. There was lots laughing, shouts and humorous comments from the helping hands seeing them safely into the shed. Mary was the name of one lady causing most concern for her safety and that of her 3 litre bucket.

Steve


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## spongebob

While in the Royal Albert Dock on Rangitane I witnessed the ruse when loading pallets of Scotch Whisky destined for NZ . The crane driver would have an 
'Accidental runaway descent on the load before sharp braking, enough to break a few bottles and allow the nectar to dribble out of the pack. Enamel mugs, tin mugs, whatever appeared out of nowhere to catch the drops and more then peace reigned again. Apparently this was tolerated once only per ship load.

Bob


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## tom roberts

When on the Newfound getting the hatches ready for unloading we used to go along the beams as the Liverpool dockers used to leave some good stuff on them I had a nice leather bound cigarette case a transistor radio but they pulled some tricks as well I found a package and when I opened it some lousy barsteward had done a dump in it great care was taken from then on when searching.


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## Winmar

Aah, I remember the Southampton Dockers best of all! 12 on shift, 4 on the ship and 8 on Southampton Municipal Golf Course! Little did they know then how much they were doing for the future prosperity of ABP in Southampton. They certainly contributed to the end of the British Transport Docks Scheme! Doesn't it just make you proud to be British?


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## AlbieR

This one's for you Pat Kennedy, enjoy!


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## Pat Kennedy

Thanks for that Albie. very enjoyable, filmed in 1941, but much like it was for me in the 1970s when I was a crane driver on those docks.
cheers, Pat(Thumb)


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