Yes, it was so different in those days, prior to the container ships and wharves. I was 'grey funnel line' - Australian Navy 1954-60. Sailed into Melbourne docks on the MV 'Nella Dan,' though, as late as 1977. Still plenty of fine old ships around even then. But I was born and raised in London and spent much time around Woolwich in the 1940's.
What a delight to watch the ships , tug boats , barges , cuttings , swing bridges and even a Standard motor car waiting for a ship to pass .Nostalgic . Sailed on ships like these for the first eleven years of my sea life. Never made it to the docks shown as it was always Tilbury since I went out in 1966 . Our docks here in India(mostly empty now) are carbon copies of the ones on view in the video .
This was the world I grew up in. Hard to believe that it s all gone, those wonderful ships now just a dying memory, as the poet said, they mark our passage as a race of men, the world will never such ships and men as these again.!
My late grandad worked on the London docks from a young man after WW1 until he retired aged 68. During WW2 he had to move to Bristol as a lighterman due to the heavy bombing in dockland. He was born in 1888. His father was a foreman so he followed his dad into the docks.
What a magical video brings back memories of going to work with my Dad in the Docks and on the Great River Thames I’ve been going to sea since 1978 but all the great ships and London Docks are all but a distant memory so sad how the British shipping industry has just faded away and all the shipping companies long gone
thank you for posting this video, I spent many a day in these docks with my father, we were waiting to unload his Lorry with machinery for export, now all have gone, Father, Docks, and British Exports, such a shame!
As a young lorry driver and now a very old international lorry driver your video evoked many memories...Chambers Wharf.....Dundee Wharf ....Hays wharf (Slabs of butter).Free 5rade Wharf(Tea Chests galore)...23 shed the Albert...(Frozen from N.Z.)...Milwall.Docks ..Cabbing it outside your next dock.delivery...Most drivers cabs had a PLA tea mug in it after the PLA muggo van had passed by ....Happy simple days.Douglas Vick....
Wonderful memories of a wonderful era. As an 8 yr old we rode the number 101 to Woolwich and played on the ferry all day for free, Ran across the locks as the were moving, if my mother only knew. Then as 15 yr old I sailed on the Duquesa from KGV to Buenos Aires as deck-boy then JOS then SOS. Beyond doubt the happiest albeit riskiest time of my life. Anyone who has any more videos of this era please upload them.
Me & my mates used to get the bus down from where we lived in north London to Tower Bridge, and spend the whole day ship-spotting along the docks, as best we could. We were only 9 or 10 years old....my mum would make some sandwiches for us, and off we’d go. Not a care in the world, and a great way to spend a summer’s day!👍🏻⚓️
I was a Customs Officer at KGV in the early 70's, by then only the Chinese ships were coming in...they would enter the basin with huge portraits of Chairman Mao on the bridge, and the tannoys blaring out "tatatataaaa" martial music :-) But the crews could not disembark.
When I was young in the 60s we used to go the top of Greenwich Park and look over the river and see all the ships and cranes in the Isle of Dogs now its just the soulless Canary wharf. When at school in woolwich we went on the ferry in our lunchtime to the Royal Docks to muck about Great times now sadly gone
Not sure when these clips were taken but there were still ships in the West India Docks as late as the early 1970s. I went to Polar Tech College as an Engineer Cadet with SS&A from 1971 to 1975 and could look out of the classroom windows directly at the warehouses and ships. The college had a Mirror dinghy that we could take out at the weekends and sail around the docks and the river. Happy days.
As a little 5 year old blue eyed blonde boy, I was mistaken as the son of a Swedish ship's crewman, I was actually in work with my dad!! A romantic bygone era I wish still existed.
Thanks so much for posting these wonderful films. Such a world, solong gone. I recognise many vessels and companies, even from here in Australia, And than ls also for the appropriate music. :-)
I knew a girl in the 60s whose father was a docker. He boasted that he pinched anything he needed throughout the whole of WW2. He reckoned that my father and his brothers were stupid to have joined the army. Given his religeon, I wonder what would have happened to him and his family if people like my father had not joined up.
I have just watched these,The amount of Red Dusters (British ships)in one port is mind boggling,brings home the extent of the demise of the British Merchant Navy.
not just the demise of the British merchant navy. More the demise of all merchant navies. The Surrey docks was once a sight behold. All my family were and still are lightermen. In name only now. Interesting fact. The Surrey dockers Held the world record for conventional cargo loaded in a day. Over five hundred tonnes. That was by one gang. At the Greenwich buoys. These were not men more supermen.
Sailed out from here 1960 to 1966 great part of my life used seamans mission a couple of times in CONNAUGHT ROAD that i think was the one but i could be wrong about the address
Very sad. What's more sensible, large ships going into the centre of cities, unloading massive amounts of cargo on the docks and small lorries distributing the goods from there or thousands of huge lorries transporting relatively small amounts of cargo hundreds of miles, damaging our roads and causing pollution as they go?
the golden time of british shipping.the brits ruled the waves with magnificent vessels also dutch german norwegian ships.the greeks bought all the old ships from the west and used seamen from all over the world.then came the container ships and unskilled pilipino cheap labor and end of a great shipping era.
A lost world and not that long ago, friends now live in apartment near Royals and City Airport but the number if jobs that were lost was stunning, Docks Ships Maintenence Lorry Drivers Cranes and huge internal and external railways, plus all the ancillary jobs it supported... When gone knocked the stuffing out of East London..
Hi folks, I'm looking for source material for a private project. Anything Port Line including memories, stories, videos, images, book recommendations, primary source material (eg crew lists, cargo lists etc). Also Port Line predecessors Commonwealth and Dominion Line(s). Loving all the videos online.
