Posted by Davie on 8/31/2006, 6:02 pm, in reply to "The Dockers" --Previous Message-- Like you, my family were long line of dockers too, with others in the merchant marine. There was deep routed bitterness in the labour relations, and all this was due to the employers not unions. Unions were not very effective in representing the dockers until the later years when the days of dockers were nearly at and end. Casual labour was in use up until 1967. If they were effective, elimination of casual labour would have been 40 years earlier. My family did not educate their kids to full potential, which was free, and expected them to follow on doing labouring work on the docks. Education was not valued. This was common and not just particular to my family. The view was that the docks were a lifestyle and culture all of their own and superior to other forms of work, and they may have been right in a way. To not encourage your children to excel in education to me was strange to say the least. I went against the family and did well and never worked on the docks, although I would have liked a job there, except any labouring work. ;-) This is all nostalgia and is important to the heritage of the docks. How the docks are to be used for us and our children is the important aspect, so best we don’t lose focus of what we have been left.
: Keep up the good work John, a lot of
: Liverpool history there!!
:
: My father was a Docker, so was his father
: and so was his father. Three generation of
: Dockers.
: My father told me that on the docks men used
: to be herded into a pen like animals where
: they stood in a mass hoping to be selected
: for a job unloading the ships. It was said
: that if you bought the foreman a drink in
: the crowded Dock Road pub, you stood a
: chance of being taken on and taking wages
: home for the family. The proud ones did not
: get taken on. The bitterness engendered in
: those days poisoned the labour relations on
: the Liverpool Docks for many years. My dad
: was one of the proud ones, but we survived.
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