Part 2 of Ron Drake's recollections of working life on the River Thames

On the Water

The biggest obstacle in the way of the aspiring Lighterman was the examination for his two years licence. This was a nerve wracking experience as it was a verbal examination and consisted of the Master Lightermen dressed in their robes and sitting round the big table in the room above Waterman's Hall.
The apprentice was led in with his Master and the court would fire questions at the poor lad regarding the navigation of the river, sets of tide on the bridges, names of the points and reaches etc. and it would always finish up with a description of a barge drive up river through the bridges.
The apprentice would spend days beforehand swatting for this examination and woe betide him if he failed. Not many did, but the few who did were given another opportunity to take the test again at a later date.
Luckily I passed and once again Dad and I made the trip to the nearest pub with all the other Freeman and apprentices who were now the proud owners of Lightermen and Watermen's licences.

For the first 2 years of your apprenticeship you were employed by the Lighterage Company but as soon as you obtained your 2 years licence you were no longer employed by them and became an employee of the National Dock Labour Board from whence you were hired out to any Lighterage Company that needed labour. I was lucky as I was retained by Mercantile but some apprentices were not so lucky and had to apply daily to the "pool" for work.

Having now obtained my licence a whole new world opened up for me in the tideway, the first 2 years had in no way prepared the apprentice for what lay in store, the placid waters of the dock were no comparison to the fast flowing waters of the Thames and the first thing you learnt was to hang on tight , the surge when the powerful river tugs went full ahead, especially with empty craft was in complete contrast to the small dock tugs and the pitch and roll of the barges, especially in rough weather was something that had not previously needed to be taken into account.
The learning curve was steep but it did not take long and I soon began to enjoy this new aspect of my trade. I enjoyed the river work which consisted of towing craft to and docking them at the various docks also undocking the craft which had been loaded by Lightermen in the dock and towing them to the various wharves. The area we covered was vast and ranged from Tilbury up to Chelsea and sometimes above.
I occasionally loaded craft in the docks and the cargo was varied and sometimes unusual .I once had to load 200 tons of dead goldfish from Japan which were going to be made into fertiliser , the barge turned into a vision in gold as the scales leaked from the hessian bags and made the decks like the Cresta Run.
I was once sent to London Dock to load 150 tons of reject condoms, you can imagine the delight of the dockers when they realised that by surreptitiously tearing a bale as it went over the ships side into the barge they could cover London Dock with floating French Letters, what they didn't realise was that they were a tug captains worst nightmare as they got sucked into the cooling water intakes and stopped the tugs engine until they were cleared.

Generally the cargoes we loaded were more mundane but still interesting, Tea, Bales of Rubber, Spices, Reels of Newsprint, Logs, and all sorts of interesting general cargo from exotic countries all round the world .These were distributed by barge to wharves all over the river and also up the adjoining canals.
England also had a thriving manufacturing business in those days and the barges would be returned to the docks loaded with cargo for export. The docks were crammed with shipping and I have seen ships moored 3 wide in the Royal Docks, the river would be teeming with tugs and barges going about their business and they were good days and there was good money to be earned if you didn't mind working the hours. I preferred to work in the river as it suited my free spirit , I didn't mind the travelling, and the early mornings and late nights (lots of the late nights were caused by after work carousing with the lads).
River men were notorious for their drinking ability, my excuse was that as I could not drink the polluted river water I had to protect myself from dehydration.

There was a comradeship among the Lightermen, you looked after each other , working in the river was a dangerous occupation particularly in bad weather and you relied on your work mates to do the right thing, particularly when you were making up the tow behind the tug. The tow consisted of up to 6 barges and each barge was checked into it's place in the tow by the Lightermen manipulating the ropes and moving the craft into position, a mistake could be tragic, Lightermen did occasionally go overboard and in the fast flowing river and with winter clothes on the odds would be against you, and there were occasions, fortunately rare, when Lightermen drowned.

I fell overboard once in the Albert Dock whilst loading inside a ship on the quay and hardly had time for a breath when I surfaced, before dockers strong arms whisked me back on to dry land. You were supposed to go to hospital if you went over the side but very few bothered because the river was so polluted that you felt like a pin cushion with all the injections that the medics deemed necessary.
There were also serious injuries when legs or arms got crushed when barges came together violently or limbs got trapped in ropes but surprisingly these injuries were rare considering the nature of the trade.

One of my favourite tows in the early days was the 6am and go start from Charlton Roads, the tug was the steam tug "Ruler"and there was always a good card school going on this long tow.The steam tugs were comfortable tugs because they had a coal fired stove in the cabin and were always warm,there was a zinc bucket of water on the stove to wash hands and the kettle was always on the boil for tea.
Tug tea was a special brew made with condensed milk and tea obtained by the lightermen, after delivering a cargo of tea there was always leakage in the bottom of the barge from damaged chests and we used to save this in a bag for the tug's mate. There were sometimes unidentified objects floating on top of this brew and it paid not to look too closely as sometimes the barges harboured furry creatures, however it went down very well on a cold and wet winters day.
The stoker on the Ruler loved a game of cards and while the tow was being made up he would shovel as much coal into the furnace as it would take so that he could join in the game and the poor old boilers would be at bursting point. When we got head down and full ahead the old tug would go like a speedboat with a bow wave which came up through the hawse pipes but by the time we reached Tilbury 4 hours later the stoker would still be playing and the tug would be struggling to get into Tilbury Bay with 6 barges and an engine doing about 1 r.p.m.

Sometimes all would not be sweetness and light between the members of a tug crew, there was one particular tug where the Mate coveted the Skipper's job, the Skipper knew that the Mate was only waiting for him to pop his clogs so that he could take over ,and this led to conflict. Also I think the Skipper was suffering from high blood pressure as he used suffer from tremendous rages.
Of course the wags amongst us played on this and used any excuse to play tricks for which the Mate always got the blame. I remember an occasion when a Budgerigar dropped onto the deck and expired, somebody, realising that the Captain's dinner was in the oven gently rested the unfortunate bird between the meat and two veg. needless to say all hell broke loose when the Skipper came down to dine.
On another occasion with the same crew I was towing down from Chelsea to Charlton Roads and we picked up my pal George at Hays wharf, there were only two barges in the tow so we slid down the towropes and made our way down to the cabin It was a Saturday morning and all the cafes were closed so George had bought himself a steak and kidney pie . "I'm absolutely famished" said George (or words to that effect) as he put his pie in the oven. Unbeknown to us the Skipper had asked the Mate to put his dinner in the oven before taking over at the wheel .The Mate had forgotten and the captain came down below for his meal ,he opened the oven ,saw the pie and presumed that the Mate had ignored his request and put in his own dinner instead.
George looked aghast as the Skipper removed the pie , placed it on the floor and proceeded to jump up and down on it until the cabin was completely redecorated.

The distinctive uniform of the young journeyman lightermen was a suit, (ex best and made to measure) with the turn ups turned up a couple more times so that the bottoms didn't get wet when you pulled in the towropes and the cuffs turned up for the same reason, all this was topped out with a collar and tie and sometimes a cap. My dad used to tell me that before the war when they had detachable collars they used to carry a clean, spare collar around their ankle fastened with an elastic band. This smart outfit was very useful for our after work entertainment in the various riverside Pubs and looked respectable when we travelled on public transport to get to the various wharves and docks.

As well as knowing the river we had to have a good knowledge of the transport system to enable us to get from one area to another .After we had towed our barge to it's destination we had to 'phone the head office and inform them of our whereabouts and they would then send us to another job.
For example you might be at Wapping and have to make your way to Purfleet to pick up your next barge. I didn't mind the travelling as it added variety to the day and we were paid our travelling expenses.
At the end of a weeks work you had to fill in your Wage Bill and enter a daily report of what you had done, name of barge and tug and number of hours worked and also include your travelling expenses, this was sent to the city office and was checked and authorised and forwarded to the N.D.L.B. and then processed as your next weeks wages.

On a bright summers day the job was perfect, we sometimes had water fights to liven things up and it wasn't unusual to see a tug plying up through the bridges with our clothes hanging from the masthead to dry, but it could be uncomfortable in winter, sometimes you would get soaked early in the morning and be in wet clothes all day, or on a freezing day you would never get warm and the cold would eat into your bones. Most of the old Lightermen suffered from bronchitis and rheumatism.

In 1957 my Dad died, I was devastated as he was my pal as well, he died of bronchitis at the age of 62. His father died after contracting pneumonia after falling overboard . My parents were in their forties when I was born, and my Mum, in her sixties had to go with me to Waterman's Hall to have the remaining year of my apprenticeship assigned to her .She then became my master.
A year later my apprenticeship ended and Mum and I went to Waterman's Hall for me to be made a Freeman of the River Thames, I kept the tradition and we went to the pub but somehow it wasn't quite the same. I was proud that day to be made a Freeman and I'm still proud of it to this day .

In 1967 I left the trade to take a Pub, I was given the opportunity to try another career and I could see the demise of the Lighterage trade looming and I took my chance. I spent 30 years in the Licensed trade and that's another story altogether. I must end this now and give somebody else a chance,

I hope i've aroused a few memories and maybe caused a chuckle and also given an insight into our trade for those who don't know what we did. I also hope that I havn't been to frivolous because we were highly skilled and professional tradesmen. l still think that being a Lighterman was the best job ever and I would like to thank all my old colleagues who helped to make it so enjoyable and I wish them well wherever they are.

I'm still afloat, I now live by the waterside in W.A. and I have my own jetty, I also have a boat which was named before I bought it .It's called "Aqua Viva", which translates as "Water of Life", very apt, I thought.

Ron Drake.

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