Merle!!Love you Miguel!!❤😘🍀🇧🇷

me Dad was a Lighterman, worked for Uinion Lighterage until the work dried up an ended up in Essex still on the River. he died last year God rest His Soul

One must be really sadistic to organize this race upstream :)

Watched my uncle and cousin competing in this many times

that was an experiance i will never forget

Remember my dad doing this in the 70's & 80's

Great To See you all ! 60 Years ago In London"s Docks Ex MN / R,N 😊

😅ted hunt was agood guy ,l was at lighterage school when he was teacher, I'm a freemen of the river Thames and met other young lightmen , it was a good time, the best job in the world for me .

I believe that my father ROY GRANT, was Chief Engineer on this vessel sometime in the mid 60's. My sister and I would occasionally be allowed to accompanying him (Chief's privilege) on some of his trips up and down the Thames. We were only youngsters then so it was all the more impressive to see huge ships towering above us, although we were strictly instructed to avoid the stern area whilst towing was taking place in case the cable snapped.

Absolutely superb. Loved seeing so much detail of the actual manual work, the banter, the lack of H&S! I'm from New Zealand and was in and around London last Summer - walked the Thames Path, including Thamesmead to Purfleet/Dartford Creek. Ugly industrial fly-tipping wasteland? Not on your life - history, graft, Estuary, birdlife, the out of sight stuff a city needs, like building waste sorting. God bless em all. Madness, the Jam, The Smiths...would've been on the radio on them lighters

Seen them all in 1961

Great...times..

Lost, lost! The old working class, salt of the earth, backbone of the nation.

Makes me feel all melancholic 😢 joined 1976 ... & all over by 1983

Sehr schön zu sehen!!!

My dad was a lighterman working on a tug also called the General, They moored up and worked out of Charlton.

Peter's daughter is my children's grandmother...absolutely amazing beautiful lady xx

Anyone remember Bill Lester ? fell off a ladder ! deed !.

What isn't explained in the video is what does lighterman mean? Obviously it is a man who works on a lighter. But that leads to asking what is a lighter? A lighter is a small vessel that takes some of the cargo off of a deep-draft ocean going ship in order to lighten the ship enough that it may enter the shallower water of the port in order to reach the docks. In those days of shipping, and in some places in the world today, it was (is) common for small ships and barges to take the loads from large vessels and disburse them to the various ports and docks in the area of the larger port or anchorage facility. There was even a class of ships built in the 60s and 70s where the lighters were carried by the ocean going ship. These are called LASH (Lighter Aboard SHip) vessels. Today's cargo is containerized, and discharged at massive docks especially built with giant gantry cranes, and the containers are hauled to their destination by semi-tractor trailers.

Please turn that ghastly music off.

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.

Excellent Video I knew vaguely of Dolly from mentions In a couple books on sailing barges of the East Coast.. Certainly a tough lady and very big hearted who worked to improve life for those around and associated with the Docks,

my great grandfather was a Lighterman.This is facsinating,thank you.

Spent all my.life.in the east end.my.people.stod.unloading boats with Hitler dropping bombs on them.my.grandad took.his own.finger off with an.axe for the dock payout and for what to all be told fuckoff once the money moved in.no pubs left its not the london i know.smack.crack.and.blades nice a for 200.years of graft happy old fucker i am haha

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.

Happy memories of London Docklands in the 60's when I was with the Ben Line. Life was hard, but good.😁

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.

Mv Brit (now coronia) was also a Dunkirk little ship. Was renamed HM Tender- Watchful, was mounted with a gun on her bow. Saved 900 personnel. Capt. Got distinguished war medal

That fella looks and sounds like davvy hunt the long fella

I knew a great man by the name of Johnny read who worked for peter off and on over the years

So happy to see this. Keith was my grandfather but I never got to meet him, he died before I was born but I remember my dad showing me a tape of this but we lost the tape so I’m so happy to see it here!

Well I have been on the barge Tillman working for Interserve Construction, and my dad used to work on General VIII back in the day.

The refuse from these barges was never dumped on Canvey Island but at Pitsea land reclamation and land fill site. Which now days is nearly full.

Great movie very interesting thanks for sharing cheers 😂

The Will of the Everard line should have been there but was late being unloaded, I used to see her still trading as the last sailing barge in and out of Kings Lynn port , sadly her sister vessel was lost on the beaches so I have read .

*1950's*

*1950's*

5.07 that’s my dad. I’m older now than he was then.

Sailed aboard SS KENYA from there to Durban in Oct 1965..

What wonderful times Looks like

Shipped out of K G 5 in the 60s

Old lion running on 3bless her❤❤❤❤

Thanks for this history and the photos. This would be a great project to build as a scale radio control model boat. I am going to look for any plans or hulls that are available to make a start.

Could anyone tell me the name of the white Ship please at 4.20 cheers.

More info about where she is and is open to public yet

It was great to see the old girl again, i had pleasure of serving under captain speirs. From 1973 to 1975, then moved to sun 22.

Excellent. Thank you, and good luck.

When I was a boy, I used often to go on the Tayra. Sam Weller was the engineer. The skipper's name was, I think, Clive. These men were highly skilled and they were real gentlemen. We went up as far as Hammersmith Bridge on one trip and down to the Medway on another. That meant sleeping on board. Mostly we met ships coming up with the flood and took them to their berths. I remember a timber ship being towed to the Surrey Commercial Docks and another being towed through Tower Bridge, turned round and berthed near where H.M.S.Belfast is now. I remember the Tate and Lyle factory smelling like fried bacon while we waited for a pair of barges to come off the bottom. They were great days. The Thames was so busy and so interesting. The boy made tea every two hours on the dot, except at 11 when it was coffee. The skipper had strong vies about washing your face before you went ashore. Being 11, 12 and 13, I wasn't so keen.

Much unsaid but what a complete gem of a film about Mr Duggan and his life by David Kew....deeply evocative...melancholy....that life-style now long-gone on the Thames. (Particularly moving as we have just purchased a Dutch Barge....)

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