Tales of London's Docklands (5 page)

Charley C. was well into his fifties. He was short and stocky and as physically fit as any man half his age could be. He had been a regular soldier before and during the war, first in the Essex Regiment, after which he had transferred into an Army Commando unit. Charley had a mind like a razor, and knew every trick in survival techniques you could think of, plus a lot more besides. Charley didn't suffer fools gladly, as I was soon to find out when the ganger asked me if I would make the tea. Like a fool, I agreed. ‘See Charley. He'll tell you what to do.'

Charley was busily in transit, almost running, with two chests of tea on his wheelbarrow. ‘I can't stop,' he called out. ‘The tea box and stores are in the cooper's workshop. Get the hot water out of the Port Authority foreman's office.'

I waved to let him know I understood, and set about my task. When I opened the tea box it contained thirteen mugs, three large tins of Libby's milk, and a 2-pound bag of Tate & Lyle sugar, but no tea. I did no more, but got on my bicycle and rode out to the local general store to buy a quarter-pound packet of tea. I quickly returned to the transit shed with my purchase. It was getting near tea-up time, so I got more than a few dirty looks from the gang as I rode past them. I retrieved their battered old aluminium, gallon-sized teapot from the cooper's workshop and went into the shed foreman's office to get some hot water. I put about 2 ounces of tea into the pot and poured water from a wall-mounted heater onto the leaves before returning to the cooper's shop. As I left his office, the PLA shed foreman gave me a quizzical look, as though he thought I was either stupid or mad, but he said not a word. I wasn't to realize till later that I had broken a golden rule. I simply walked back into the transit shed where the gang had rigged up a table with some tea chests and cheerfully called out, ‘Tea-up!'

As each man emptied his wheelbarrow onto the tea board at the barge he made his way to the cooper's workshop, picked up a mug and filled it with tea, took a mouthful, spat it out and cried out.

‘Gowd help us! What the bloody hell is this?' or words to that effect came from all directions.

‘What's wrong?' I asked in all innocence.

‘This isn't bloody tea. It's mouthwash. Where did you get it?'

‘There wasn't any tea in the tea box so I went to the shop outside and bought some.'

‘You did what?' Charley cried out in despair. He began to wave his hand up and down the transit shed.

‘What do you think is in these chests? Why do you think they are called tea chests? No, then let me surprise you. It's because they're full of tea-leaves. We can't work all day on this rubbish. It's what office workers drink.' Then turning round to face the other members of the tea-delivery gang, he said, ‘You lads go back to work and I'll teach him', he waved his finger at me, ‘how to make a real cup of tea. I'll give you a shout when I've made a fresh cup.'

The gang, still mumbling all sorts of vile and violent threats against my person, continued their tirade till confidence could be restored by the production of the genuine substance as brewed by Charley, who should have been crowned ‘King of the Tilbury Docks Teaboys'.

‘Now,' said Charley, giving me my first lesson, ‘this is our tea caddy in which we keep our loose tea-leaves.' He produced a large tin from behind a pile of chests. ‘These', he said as he spread a hand around the transit shed which held thousands of chests of tea, ‘are tea chests. Each tea chest has a number marked on it and that number indicates which tea garden it came from. Now, when we ship these chests of tea to the auction rooms, buyers from different companies purchase them by the tea garden mark. Then they are sent to a tea tasters' laboratory, where the different teas are brewed. Tea tasters, or whatsoever they may call themselves, then take a mouthful of each different brew, swill it about in their mouths, spit it out, wash their mouths out with fresh water, and then taste the next brew, and so on. The idea is that retailers may continue to sell the same-tasting product, such as Brooke Bond Divided Tea, Tetley's Tea, and the various teas sold by the Co-op retail grocery shops.

‘Well, we haven't got time to sod about doing that so what we do is: take two handfuls of tea-leaves from chests marked numbers 1 and 7; four handfuls from chests marked 3 and 10 – those teas, by the way, come from Assam tea gardens and other north Indian tea plantations; then we need a couple of handfuls of number 21 from Sri Lanka. Now, notice how I shove my hand to the bottom of the tea caddy and stir all the different teas. That's my way of blending it. Right! That's it. That will do. Our next job is to get the water. Come on,' he said, ‘follow me.'

He led me back into the Port Authority shed foreman's office. ‘Sorry about this, Gov,' he pointed at me. ‘He made a cock-up just now with making the tea. I've got to make a fresh pot.'

Charley took a sixpence from his pocket and placed it in a battered old Oxo tin that had a hole punched in the top, watched very closely by the Gov.

‘That's the second pot you've had this morning,' said the Gov.

‘Didn't he pay when he came in earlier?' said Charley.

I butted in. ‘I wasn't aware we had to pay for the water. I bought the tea, you know.'

Both of them looked at me as if I was raving mad. Charley said, ‘We know you bought some tea, you idiot. Now for Christ's sake just put another sixpence in the tea kitty or we won't get a cup of tea this morning.' I did as I was bid.

We made our way back to the shed and the cooper's shop. Charley opened a tin of Libby's evaporated milk and poured the whole lot into the teapot, then added a mug of Tate & Lyle sugar. He stirred the lot together with a piece of wood, then called, ‘Beer-oh.'

The barrows went to the ground, tea chests and all, as the gang hurried to get their first drink for three hours. They sat sipping the brew with relish and I have to admit it was the finest cup of tea I had ever tasted.

‘Well, son,' said Charley, ‘what do you think of that? Now that's a cup of tea, isn't it?'

‘Marvellous!' I had to admit. ‘Marvellous!'

‘Then there ends your first tea-making lesson,' Charley said. ‘Now you can go back up in the crane and do what you're best at. The lighterman is waiting for you to put the barge beam back on.'

So I did.

4

B
IG
D
AVE AND THE
F
ERRY
B
OAT
I
NCIDENT

H
e was known as Big Dave for one simple reason: he was big. But he was also immensely strong. Some of the dockers who knew him well, and worked with him quite often, said he was as strong as a horse, and I, for one, wouldn't doubt it. Big Dave was an easy-going, genial bloke, but he was not a person to be put upon, or to be made a fool of either. No one had ever seen him really upset, but it had to be assumed he could get very nasty if agitated.

He was 6 feet 6 inches tall, broad in the shoulders and weighed 25 stone. You would not think anyone in their right mind would ever be so rash or foolish as to rub him up the wrong way, not a giant like Big Dave. But I would not be telling you the truth if I were to say such things never happened to that benign and lovable man, because they did.

Tilbury-to-Gravesend steam ferry in mid-river with passengers, 1950s.
(Author's collection)

Gravesend-to-Tilbury steam ferry loading vehicles to be conveyed to Tilbury Riverside landing stage, 1950s.
(Author's collection
)

Big Dave, like hundreds of other men who worked in the docks, crossed the River Thames each day from Gravesend to the Tilbury landing stage by the steam ferry. Many of the ferry passengers were artisans and labourers who worked for ship repair companies in the docks, while most of the others were dockers, making their way to the call stands in the Dock Labour Board compound in the hope of finding employment on the free call – or free-for-all as it was more commonly known to the registered dockers. Another group of ferry passengers were permanently employed dockers, that is registered dockers who were full-time employees of the Port of London Authority or of labour contractors to the shipping lines.

Five ferries sailed back and forth from Gravesend to Tilbury each day, two passenger vessels and three carrying vehicles. The passenger boats left every quarter-hour, the vehicle boats every half-hour. This meant that, if passengers missed one ferry, they could hurry round to the other terminal and catch the next boat.

Big Dave always caught the vehicle ferry because he rode a bicycle to work. It had been a police bicycle and it had 26½-inch wheels – a big, upright, hard-wearing bicycle, built to carry a heavyweight police officer. It could just about manage Big Dave's huge weight.

Big Dave rode his bicycle to work every day, summer and winter, rain, snow or shine, and he always caught the 7.30 ferry boat. On the day of this tale, the vehicle ferry was loading cars. Small vehicles were placed in the bow and stern spaces so that the larger ones, such as coaches and lorries, could be driven straight onto and off the vessels when they berthed on the Riverside passenger jetty on the opposite side of the Thames.

Big Dave was walking along the driveway towards the ferry entrance, pushing his bicycle, keeping up with the car in front of him. The car driver coming up behind him was in a Morris convertible. There was not much of the driver to be seen, except for his shoulders and his head, which was large, round and bald. He had a handlebar moustache, which gave people the impression he had served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, he was wearing steel-rimmed glasses, and he was smoking a pipe. Unfortunately, he was driving faster than the people in front of him and he struck the back of Big Dave's bicycle.

Big Dave looked round, then down to the rear of his cycle. There was no apparent damage. He then looked up at the driver, who stared at him for several seconds. The man raised his right arm in front of him with his fingers pointed downwards; he raised them twice towards Big Dave, intimating to him to get out of the way.

Big Dave slowly placed his cycle against the wall of the ferry cashier's office, purposely blocking the roadway to stop the driver from passing him. Then he turned round and lifted the front of the offender's car up to hip height before letting it drop to the ground. The car driver's pipe flew from his mouth, his steel-rimmed glasses fell down over his nose, and his head struck the windscreen. When he looked up he saw Big Dave staring down at him. The Big Man was showing no sign of emotion whatsoever. He put up his hand and waved his index finger at the car driver, winked his eye, turned round and retrieved his cycle. Then he calmly walked off down the vehicle ramp towards the ferry boat. The car driver wound down his window and, in a hurt tone of voice, said to one of the dockers making towards the ferry entrance, ‘I say, old chap, did you see what he did to my car?'

Passengers aboard a Tilbury-to-Gravesend steam ferry approaching Gravesend town pier in the 1950s. (Author's collection)