Tales of London's Docklands

by Henry T Bradford

  Who was I to argue with that belligerent old blighter? ‘Yes, OK,’ I replied.

  I made my way onto the quayside where the Port Authority mobile tea van always parked to serve refreshments to the dockers, lightermen and lorry drivers. I found an empty mug and went back to the baggage gang where the old grousers were assembled in a small group, sitting almost in silence, except that is for the slurping of tea and the munching of sandwiches, at which they were gnawing with badly fitting false teeth. It was an experience that was best appreciated with closed eyes. Then one could imagine, without too much effort, that one was listening to a team of Spanish flamenco dancers going through one of their more energetic and rumbustious fandango routines, with the full use of castanets and the occasional accompaniment of intermittent bursts from the rumbling of kettle-drums (or even a runaway horse clip-clopping downhill at high speed).

  One of the old grousers looked at me several times with half-closed eyes before he finally spoke. ‘Old Ted’s boy, aren’t you?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Ted was my grandfather.’

  ‘I thought there was a family resemblance. You’ve got that sullen dog-in-the-manger depressed look about you.’

  ‘So would you have if you were me,’ I told him, ‘being sent here to work with you miserable lot of old sods.’

  He laughed, and then said, ‘How’s your grandfather?’

  ‘He’s all right,’ I replied. ‘He’s retired now. He left the docks in 1940 when he was 69. My grandmother didn’t want him sent to Wales or Scotland by the Dock Labour Corporation. He went to work for the general manager of the Imperial Paper Mills as his gardener when he left the docks. He packed it in when he was 75 when my grandmother died.’

  ‘Good for him,’ was the reply. ‘It must be nice to be able to retire while you’re still young enough to enjoy life.’ The old man said it with a smile on his face. ‘By the way,’ he continued, ‘my name’s Jack. The lads call me Jacko.’

  ‘Had you known my grandfather very long, Jack?’ I asked him.

  ‘Since the end of the First World War when I came to work in the docks,’ he replied. ‘I served with your father in the Royal West Kents in France during that war. We were lucky to come out of that lot alive, I’ll tell you. We were both wounded in the first battle of the Somme in July 1916. We both got blighty wounds. Your dad was hit by a splinter of shrapnel that went through the back of his hand; I stopped a bullet with my leg. Saved our lives those wounds did. If it hadn’t been for them wounds, we would never have survived the First World War, your dad and me.’

  ‘Listen to that young whippersnapper,’ said one of the two octogenarians. ‘First World War was a bloody picnic compared to the Boer War. We wasn’t loafing about in trenches out on the veldt in the Boer War, and having the odd game of football against the Boers, like you lot were doing with the Germans in France. No bloody fear. We were marchin’ across the veldt chasing the bloody Boers, and when we caught up with them, the blighters opened up on us with their rifles, and bloody crack-shots they all were. They decimated our ranks they did. Didn’t they, Harry?’

  Harry, the other octogenarian, didn’t reply, but went on gnawing, with some difficulty, at his sandwich.

  The first octogenarian shouted at Harry. ‘Are you in today, you deaf old sod, or are you trying to ignore me?’

  Harry looked up from his sandwich with some relief at being given respite from what was plainly a physical exertion on his part – the effort of simply watching him chewing was making me feel tired. But even when Harry stopped gnawing, his false teeth kept moving in his jaw, as though they were waiting for an order to stand down. As the order didn’t come, the teeth took it upon themselves to lose momentum very slowly and they finally came to a stop. Then he asked, ‘What’s that you said, Sid?’

  ‘I said the First World War was a bloody picnic compared with the Boer War,’ replied the first octogenarian.

  ‘Was it?’ said Harry. ‘I couldn’t say. I got wounded in the Boer War and was classed as unfit for military service for the First World War, but I did join the Local Defence Volunteers in the Second World War – that’s before Winston Churchill called it the Home Guard.’

  ‘I know you was wounded in the Boer War, you silly old blighter,’ said Sid. ‘That’s what I’m saying. We were both shot-up in the Boer War. It stands to reason it must have been worse than the First World War. Do you remember when we enlisted in 1899 and were sent to Aldershot?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Harry. ‘Then we were sent to join the 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment, weren’t we?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Sid, ‘the old 44th/56th of Foot, the Essex and the Wessex.’

  ‘Yes, 1899, or was it 1900 when we sailed for South Africa from Liverpool? Or was it Southampton? My memory isn’t as good as it was.’

  ‘Mine neither, but it was one of those two ports, I think,’ said Sid.

  It was then that Sid went into a sort of daze or daydream. A period of absolute silence descended over the baggage gang, except for the slurping of tea, burping stomach gasses, gnashing teeth and the passing of excess wind that escaped through some rectums as loudly as if it were being discharged from a jet aircraft engine. Then Sid came back to reality.

  ‘I think it was 1899 that we embarked on a White Star liner at Liverpool docks, bound for the Cape. I remember there were other regiments aboard – the Gloucesters and the Scottish Rifles and a field hospital of the RAMC. If I remember correctly, we were at sea for three weeks before arriving at Cape Town. When we had docked Lord Kitchener came aboard to inspect his troops before we were allowed to disembark. Do you remember? We were drawn up in ranks of four on the quay, and then we were marched to a transit camp, where we spent several days before being entrained at Cape Town railway station. Our destination, we thought, was to be the Orange River where we were supposed to arrive after two days’ travelling.’

  ‘Yes,’ piped up Harry. ‘What a bloody horrible journey that was, Sid, wasn’t it? But at least it had one consolation.’

  ‘Did it?’ said Sid in utter surprise. ‘What was that?’

  ‘Now who’s a silly old sod,’ said Harry. ‘Because we didn’t have to march all the bloody way there, did we?’

  ‘No, I make you right there, Harry,’ said Sid reluctantly (apparently Sid never liked Harry to be one up on him). ‘Anyway,’ he continued, ‘we were dropped off the train at a station somewhere along the railway line to join Lord Roberts’s forces, just as he was preparing to close in on a place called Paardeberg, wasn’t we, Harry?’ said Sid, seeking confirmation as to the factual contents of his tale. It was a statement to which Harry nodded his agreement, although I’m not sure he had heard one word Sid had said, and Sid himself was obliviously lost in his past as he continued talking about the events that culminated in the battle of Modder River.

  ‘We was with a troop of mounted infantry, not far from Paardeburg Drift, when the Boers began sniping at us. But they couldn’t have known we were within the sound of gunshot of the 6th Division, who instantly came to our assistance when they heard gunfire. When the 6th Division came up to us the Boers took off, and we waited about for some time before our CO, Colonel Stephenson, marched us (the 1st Battalion, Essex Regiment and the 1st Battalion, Welch Regiment) right out onto the veldt, and had us deployed opposite the river below Koodoosrand Drift. There were some of the best fighting soldiers on this earth in the 6th Division – the West Yorks, and the Highland Brigade who had come down onto the veldt from of the Kliproal Road. We were ordered to spread out on the left of General Knox’s brigade with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders on the right, the Black Watch in the centre, and the Seaforth Highlanders on their left. The Highland Light Infantry was left at Klip Drift to protect the lines of communications.’

  ‘Tell them about Kitchener’s bold plan, Sid. You know, his Iron Fist theory.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Sid, ‘the Iron Fist theory; well, that’s what the army lads chose to call it. In fact the object of K
itchener’s plan, if it could be called a plan, was to throw all his available infantry into a battle. The Boer commander was a bloke we called Old Cronje, and unbeknown to us, the old sod had almost got his Boer Army encircled. Lord Kitchener wanted to close the only gap through which the Boers could escape, but of course we Tommies weren’t privy to Kitchener’s plans. What’s more he wasn’t too concerned how many of us Tommies he got killed in the process. From our experience of fighting the Boers, we all knew it was going to be blood, flesh and bone against well-aimed bullets from their Mauser and Martini-Henry rifles.

  Captain Davis (right) taking over as the river pilot from Captain Brown, the sea pilot, of the RMS Highland Brigade, c. 1938. (Author’s collection)

  ‘The 1st Essex and the 1st Welch were part of Stephenson’s 18th Brigade, and our job was to hold the Boers with a frontal assault from the veldt to the south, but as far as we infantrymen were concerned, we wasn’t sure whether we were holding them down, or they were just using us as target practice. Whatever it was they didn’t escape past us, that’s for sure. Wasn’t it, Harry?’

  ‘What’s that you said, Sid?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter, Harry. Give it a miss.’ Then he said, ‘The bloody deaf old sod. He’s been like that since the Boer War. Deaf as a post in his right ear. God only knows why.’

  ‘Could it have been due to the constant firing of his rifle alongside his right ear?’ I tentatively suggested to Sid.

  ‘Why should it have been?’ Sid barked at me. ‘I’m not like it.’

  ‘Aren’t you,’ I said, lowering my voice to almost a whisper.

  ‘What did you say, sonny,’ Sid grunted, his eyes lighting up with indignation.

  I raised my voice a couple of decibels and repeated. ‘Could it have been that firing his rifle from his right shoulder brought about his deafness?’

  ‘Why should it have been?’ said Sid. ‘I’m not deaf like him.’ Then he went on, ‘Anyway, what was I saying?’

  ‘Something about crossing the veldt,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Yes, the open veldt. We were ordered to press on across the open veldt. We were tired, hungry and thirsty. We had been on half-rations for days on end, and we’d been on the march since five o’clock (1700 hours) the previous day without even a chance to fill our water bottles. Then, as we came over a rise, below us in a great circle was Old General Cronje’s wagon train. The sight of those covered wagons bucked us up no end. We thought that once we got down among them, we’d at least get some fresh water and grub. Didn’t we, Harry?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Harry agreed, as he prepared to set his jaws in motion for another concerted attack on his almost impregnable sandwich.

  ‘Why don’t you dip that sandwich in your tea, you stupid sod?’ one of the other old grousers suggested. ‘At least it will soften up the bread and lubricate those teeth of yours.’

  Harry appeared not to hear the remark (or chose not to), and he continued to gnaw away at the slowly diminishing sandwich in his hand; a sandwich that had started out as two slices of bread and something, but was now a round ball of what appeared to be dough and something. He was gnawing away as though his life depended on it. The spectacle was enough to make any weak-stomached person vomit – including me.

  Sid, in the meantime, had continued with his narrative: ‘We (the Essex and the Welch) were the first to be sent into the attack, but the Boers were ready and waiting for us, and we suffered heavy casualties from their snipers who pinned us down on the open veldt, picking us off one by one – that’s when Harry and me stopped a bullet each. Didn’t we, Harry?’

  Harry looked up from his bread and something through half-closed eyes, eyes that now glowed with menace and hatred. ‘Yes, Sid,’ he replied. ‘Those bloody generals were so intent on winning the battle, they didn’t give a damn about how many of their own men they got killed. We were lucky though, weren’t we, Sid? We were shot in the chest, both of us. We’ve both shunted along on one lung ever since. Generals they called themselves; assassins more like. They were so keen on winning battles, didn’t care how many men they got killed, did they, Sid?’

  ‘No, old mate, they didn’t,’ Sid said.

  After Harry’s verbal tirade there was a deep silence. It was a silence occasionally broken by the sound of tea being slurped from refilled PLA mugs and the rumbling of ancient stomachs. There was also the painful creaking of old bones that were soon to be reactivated when the old grousers returned to the tedious task of unloading more baggage from more railway trucks. Until then, all was as quiet as the graves these old grousers would soon be occupying.

  I couldn’t help but look along the line of them with admiration. What terrible sights they had seen and been party to. What privations they had been through in wars, and the old sods would still take you on in a fight. Here they were, still working in the docks, all because there was no occupational pension for them and the state pension was insufficient to live on. A hymn that I sang during assembly in my school days came into my mind:

  What heroes thou hast bred, England, my country,

  I see the mighty dead, march in line,

  Each with undaunted heart, playing his gallant part,

  Made England what thou art, Mother of mine.

  Now England had deserted them, her sons, left them to work out their last years doing hard labour till the day they died. There was no Elizabeth Fry of the Society of Friends (the prison reformer), or Jeremy Bentham (the eighteenth/nineteenth-century Utilitarian philosopher) to argue their case for socio-economic justice. There was a trade union, but that organization was under continuous attack by the press and other media for trying to improve their lot. So, like the old soldiers they had been, and the old grousers they had become, they worked on and on till in God’s own good time, one by one, they faded away.

  I shall always remember Sid and Harry. The thing I recall most vividly about them is that after their long tirade about the Boer War, the two old fellows, sitting side by side, began to sing this song, which had been written by a couple of their comrades in Carnarvon Hospital, South Africa. They called it ‘It Takes a Lot to Make a Fellow Smile’, and it went like this:

  I don’t go in for sentiment, it isn’t in my line,

  ’cause it only makes a fellow get the hump.

  Especially when he’s fighting and a-bobbing up and down,

  Lucky not to get a Boer bullet in his rump.

  But sometimes I get to thinking, of the missus at the tub,

  Where I guess as every day she can be seen.

  A-washing shirts and such like, to buy a bit of grub,

  To feed our kiddies, the children, of the soldiers of the Queen.

  Chorus

  No! It isn’t the blooming fighting, or the laying out at night,

  With ants a-crawling all around your blooming dial.

  But it’s wondering if the missus and the kids can be all right,

  That’s why it takes such a lot to make a fellow want to smile.

  Now here’s a letter from my Sarah, of about a month ago,

  And it seems as if she’s writing in a blooming tiff.

  For she wants to know the reasons, why they’re making such a fuss,

  And how she’d like to talk to this ’ere ‘Lady Smith’.

  She was always kind o’ jealous, but she’s still a proper mate,

  And when I writes explaining to her what is what.

  And tells her there’s no ‘Lady-Killing’ out here at any rate,

  Why, with joy she’ll go clean fairly off her dot.

  Chorus

  No! It isn’t the blooming petticoats, they’re things we never see,

  And to go a-courting of the locals isn’t just the style.

  But when I think as how the missus might go divorcing me,

  Why, it takes a lot to make a fellow want to smile.

  Now she tells me that the people, living round our show,

  Have started calling me such nasty names.

  And they
says that I’m an absent-minded beggar, which of course,

  Makes her up and want to know their little games.

  Why, I’m always thinking of her and our chubby little kids,

  And I’ll write and let her know I’m just as straight.

  As the day that we were married, and I’ll send her home some quids,

  Just to show her I don’t forget my dear old mate.

  Chorus

  Course it kinds of hurts my feelings, and a lump gets in my throat,

  To say I’m absent minded isn’t quite the style,

  And when it comes to thinking, I may never make the boat

  That’s due to take me home, why it takes a lot to make a soldier smile.

  Sid and Harry’s venture back into memory lane was soon ended by the arrival of a lorry carrying the heavy lift that I had been sent to deal with. It turned out to be a vintage car in a wooden crate and it weighed about 2 tons. It took me no more than a few minutes to climb up the three flights of steel ladders into the Stothert & Pitt quay crane, slew the jib over the wooden crate, and lift it off the lorry and lower it onto a low-loader ready to be put aboard the SS Arcadia. I then, without so much as a by-your-leave to the baggage gang, made my way to Scrutton’s office and retrieved my attendance book. I never ever saw the old grousers again. But over the years I’ve often thought of Sid, Harry, Jack and the other old fellows I worked with, and of what they had gone through in their long lives; of how much their country had taken from them, and how little it had been prepared to give them back in return, to its everlasting shame.

  14

  GEORGE’S LAST

  WAGER

  ‘Is it still raining, George?’ The question came from Bert, the ship’s down-hold foreman, and was addressed to one of the bargehands to Bert’s ship’s discharging gang. George was standing inside a transit shed doorway, leaning against one of its steel support stanchions, holding his docker’s hook in his left hand, swearing and cursing the weather, as he watched the raindrops falling in an almost continuous sheet across the quayside, running in a stream down the ship’s derrick before bouncing off the deck and the hatch covers of the SS Ebo, a vessel owned by the Elder Dempster shipping line.