Tales of London's Docklands (7 page)

A ‘block ship' off Arramanches, used in the construction of the Mulberry Harbour,
c
. 1944.
(Author's collection)

The
Zealandia
, formerly
Empire Winnie,
in Gravesend Reach, 1946. Master: Captain Jim Fryer DSC and Bar.
(Author's collection)

‘Dash dot/dot dash/dot dash dot dot.'

‘Cut that out,' Big Dave ordered. ‘What does it mean?'

‘It simply means “calling”.' Alf cupped his hands round his eyes and began. ‘Calling Gravesend Trinity House pilot station, stop. Urgently request you send a river pilot immediately, stop. I have previously explained about my urgent appointment in London, stop. This message is from the captain of the USS
Idaho
, stop. Message ends, stop.'

Big Dave's eyebrows knitted together. ‘Are there two Yankee ships down there?'

‘No,' replied Alf, ‘just the one.'

‘You told me earlier that ship was called the USS
Texas.
'

‘I don't think I did, David,' said Alf as he turned towards the other gang members for confirmation as to the accuracy of his previous statements.

Big Dave glared down at Alf with one eye closed and grunted. ‘Right!' he said, and continued to stand by the ship's rail, forever watchful. Alf returned to his seat on a bollard and began to read a
Daily Mirror
he had borrowed from one of the gang.

As Big Dave stood watching, the fog started to fall away slowly, like an ebbing tide. The sun began to grow in circumference as it showed itself above the murk. It looked like a large ball of ice that was slowly turning itself into an orange circle of glowing embers. He then began to see the high landmarks as they emerged slowly through the thinning fog. It was not dissimilar, he thought, to watching objects being revealed on the seashore as the tide recedes. First, ships' masts, then the funnels, bridges and derricks of the vessels closest to the dock entrance came into sight, slowly followed by ships' superstructures as the whole of each vessel began to emerge from the sticky, clinging gauze that had enshrouded them. The tops of dock transit sheds also began to show themselves through the fog blanket. Ships' sirens, which had been wailing mournfully only a few hours beforehand, now took on a melodic note as the fog no longer muffled the shrill warnings from their horns. The rattling of many anchor chains being hauled inboard by capstans heralded the resurrection of Old Father Thames. London's great river was once again coming back to life as vessels of many nations began getting under way to ply their separate routes to every sea port on this earth.

Big Dave was suddenly awakened from his stupor by a sight he had never contemplated. ‘Alf!' he called out without turning his head. ‘Come over here! I'm sure you will never believe this.'

‘What is it?' he asked as he ambled his way over to the ship's rail.

‘Your American cruiser is on show, Alf.'

‘Oh, where is she now?'

‘She's still in the same place as she was before!'

The other members of the baggage gang gathered themselves along the ship's rail to watch. Alf acted as though he had no idea about what was about to unfold.

‘What is it, David, old mate?' Alf asked in mock surprise.

‘I've just spotted that American naval signaller of yours. He's sending coded signals as fast as he can. He must be on piecework the way his Aldis lamp in flashing away.'

‘Really?' said Alf with a smile on his face. ‘Where is he?'

‘Where you knew he would be all the time, on the top of the Riverside jetty welding a radar mast into place. I'll give you to kid me you was a yeoman of signals in the Royal Navy.' Then, without due ceremony, Big Dave grabbed Alf by the scruff of his neck as if he was a cat about to be put outside the house for the night. He lifted him over the side of the ship so he was dangling some 60 feet above the water in the dock. Then he said, ‘You have been extracting the proverbial urine out of David, haven't you, Alfred?'

‘Yes, David,' Alf replied. ‘I
was
only joking, but I was a yeoman of signals.'

Big Dave breathed out a long, exaggerated sigh and said, ‘That would be “retired”, of course, and now it could lead to your becoming the late Alfred J.'

He was about to let go of the miscreant when one of the gang shouted out, ‘For Christ's sake, Dave, don't drop him. There's a barge down there under the bow.'

Dave hauled Alf back onboard. ‘Some people have all the luck, don't they!' he said. Then he promptly turned Alf over and smacked his bottom as one would a naughty small boy. ‘That'll teach you not to poke fun at David, you little sod,' he said.

Of course the rest of the gang stood and roared with laughter. Well, wouldn't you have done?

6

B
IG
D
AVE AND THE
T
UG
-
OF
-W
AR
T
EAM

Y
ou have to believe me when I tell you that in the docks in their working clothes, wearing their tattered and torn ex-service uniforms, covered from head to foot in cement or asbestos dust, lamp black or charcoal dust, they were as fearsome looking as they had been when serving their king and country during the battles of the Second World War and the Korean War. Although, had you, reader, seen them in the flesh, you might have mistaken them for a drunken troupe of Black and White Minstrels.

They were, however, eight tall, broad-shouldered men, plus one giant. The eight were all over 6 feet and each weighed not less than 14 stone. There was no surplus fat on any of them: they were all bone and muscle. The ninth, Big Dave, was different, for he was 6 feet 6 inches tall and tipped the scales at 25 stone. He would often joke that when he weighed himself on a set of talking scales they would say to him, ‘Don't play about. One of you get off, or one at the time please.'

These men were the dockers tug-of-war team – seven men plus one reserve and Big Dave, who was the team's anchor man.

The Tilbury Dockers' Social Club always entered teams in sporting events on Regatta Day at Gravesend promenade. The tug-of-war team practised anywhere on anything that was considered immovable, pulling with their combined weight and strength in order to achieve unity of purpose, both physically and mentally.

There were also dockers' rowing crews who trained on the river off Gravesend in whalers. Whalers, for the benefit of the uninitiated, are large, heavy, clinker-built rowing boats of the type that were once used for whale hunting in the southern oceans. Whale hunters worked in similar open boats equipped only with oars and rowlocks, harpoons, boat hooks and long lengths of coiled rope that were used in pursuit of harpooned whales.

Although it may be difficult for any reader of this tale to believe, or for that matter to accept, dockers' teams didn't treat training for entry into sporting events in the Gravesend Regatta as a boozing spree. They operated under a strict code of discipline, both the men in the tug-of-war team and the boat crews. They went all out to win once they arrived on the battlefield (or, as sportsmen prefer to call it, ‘the sporting arena'), and, as has already been explained, they trained hard.

When the tug-of-war team were in the docks training for Regatta Day, they could often be seen attempting to pull the cast-iron quayside bollards out of the concrete and granite dockside walls. Such training performances would most certainly have engendered in any intrepid stranger the thought that they were watching a party of escaped lunatics, especially as there may have been a ship tied onto the other end of what was, after all, nothing more than a mooring rope or spring.

Another of the implements the tug-of-war team used in training was an old railway shunting engine that rested on a track behind the Port Authority rolling stock repair sheds; the engine was being slowly dismantled by the authority's own railway engineers, who were cannibalizing the parts to repair other engines of the docks' antiquated, clapped-out rolling stock. The tug-of-war team could actually pull that engine along on its track, against its own dead weight, and over the virgin rust that had encrusted the unused railway lines. Believe me, that really did take a combination of weight, great physical strength, brute force and, above all, will-power, qualities the team did not lack. But, as one of their number was heard to remark after a strenuous session under their redoubtable trainer, Eddy L., ‘It's a good job they've not taken the steel tyres off that engine yet, isn't it?'

To which another of the team was heard to reply, ‘Haven't they? I thought they bloody well had!'

Unfortunately, there seemed to be no other tug-of-war team who trained near the docks against whom they could pit themselves. If there was such a team, they kept firmly to themselves (some people are far more intelligent than one gives them credit for).

Of course, who other than the redoubtable Eddy L. could have been the self-appointed talent-spotter, selector, trainer and manager of such a team. However much anyone might have wished to criticize Eddy's motives or methods, it reluctantly had to be admitted (I have to emphasize the ‘reluctantly' bit because the team's success did appear to increase Eddy's head size) he was the best man for the job for three reasons: first, no one else ever offered their services; second, it is doubtful if anyone else in the docks could have done the job; third, and more importantly, he enthused a passion into his men for the skill, the comradeship and the teamwork essential to win matches.

Eddy was always ready to tell ‘his' team (and anyone else who would listen) how he had advised Colonel What, What! during his wartime army service that Big Dave was the soldier best suited to take on the wrestling champion of India, and how he had ‘guided' and ‘trained' Big Dave into becoming the Unofficial Heavyweight Wrestling Champion of the Indian Sub-Continent. But he told them this, he would hasten to explain, in order to get them to understand that, if he could do that with a talentless, oversized lout such as Big Dave, ‘who had a brain that could easily be fitted into the eye of a needle', he was sure that, with such obvious athletic material as their goodselves displayed in training, it would beggar him no problem to turn them into tug-of-war champions. Big (good-humoured) Dave usually put a damper on Eddy's denigrating statements with follow-up comments such as, ‘That maligning midget carried a bucket of water and a sponge. He didn't even have to use them. If I'd listened to that moronic, pathetic excuse for a human being to “get stuck into it”, that “mobile Buddha” they'd put me into the ring to fight would have killed me. It's no thanks to him I'm still alive.'

The King of the Belgians public house, East Street, Gravesend,
c
. 1950.
(Author's collection)

‘Bodywise you may be, but you're brain dead just the same. It's a pity I didn't let it polish you off,' Eddy would mumble under his breath.

‘I heard that!' Big Dave would say, and the team would all laugh.

That was how Eddy had moulded them into a force to be reckoned with. So it is of little wonder, therefore, no one denied Eddy's commitment to the team. However, the methods he used to instil enthusiasm and discipline were those he had learned as a physical training instructor during his service in the army, with a few notable refinements, of course, for he knew from experience how far he could push men, and, more importantly, how far they would be pushed before they began to push back. He also knew that humour played a major role in all training procedures, so he not only joked with the tug-of-war team, but by also making references to their stance, he drilled them into a concerted movement of body, limb and, what he knew was more important, mind. The result of his training endeavours was that the team in action had the appearance of being a single machine. They had been mentally and physically welded into a fighting machine with one simple objective – victory. Eddy had taken every possible known factor into account during the training schedules – except one.