Prior's Barges and the days before Docklands

It now looks likely I won't make this year's official London Boat Show, but my earlier posting on the subject put me in mind of my time as a bargee on the London River, and my promise to enlarge upon the subject.

I'm pretty sure it was the summer of 1980 that I was in the Peter P. In the argot of the Thames, one is not 'on' a barge, but 'in' it. Personally, being 'in' something sounds inherently safer than being 'on' it, and as those barges plied the Thames in anything below a Force 9, 'on' sounded like a great probability of falling 'off', whilst 'in' meant being deep loaded nearly to the gunwhale and surprisingly cosy in a seaway.

I had just finished my 'sandwich' year of college, when I worked at Burlingham's Seeds in Bury St Edmunds. I had qualified as a crop inspector (perhaps more of that year later, there are stories to tell) but spent the last couple of months working in the lab, and was, as I remember, flat broke. As I remember, I worked an academic year at Burlingham's, and whilst I was in no way a model employee, I seem to remember that my resignation was well received and certainly not discouraged, so I started in September 1979 and finished in Bury in July 1980, leaving me free to earn some serious wonga before going back up (ho ho) to college.

I'm not saying that Burlingham's weren't fair payers for a next to useless student, but I had to find my board and run a car (the trusty Rust Bucket, an E reg Vauxhall Viva)and knew that my final year at college was going to be equally bibulous as my first, so I needed to have six weeks of hard cash-earning potential. My first call was to my old friend James Juniper, builder to the gentry of Tollesbury. He had been my employer from mid school years, and a fairer boss I have never had. However, there was a haitus in the building trade that probably coincided with the beginning of the Thatcher years, and no work there was.

So, I went down to Woodup to see my new best mate Dudley Padgett (of whom a great deal more later) to ask him if there was any chance of getting a berth in Prior's Barges, for whom he worked. He made a call, and there was indeed a mate's berth in the Peter P, the barge on which Dud was the engineer. These barges sailed three-handed, and the master was Rodney Hucklesby of West Mersea. Now we Tollesburymen don't have any truck with they Merseamen, but needs must when the Devil drives, and I was delighted to sign up as mate.

Mate!!!!! On a Sand barge? How cool is that? I drove over to Fingringhoe with Dud one Monday morning in July and climbed down the ladder onto the Peter P. Down in the foc's'le (I always have to work out where the apostrophes go in that one) I met Rodney Hucklesby and liked the man immediately. He was a man of few words, and when I say that, I mean he didn't waste words, as he talked slowly and in a considered manner that lent weight to his opinions. I was in turn respectful of his rank, and used the same MO as when I started work on the sailing barge three years previously by knowing nothing, as I had seen that self-presentation worked best with professional seamen. I asked Rodney to show me the ship and what did what, and what he expected from me.




The Bert Prior, very similar to the Peter P





As was the James Prior


The first job was heaving the hatches back into sea-going position, as the ballast freight had already been loaded. Then it was made waterproof by hauling the large green tarpaulin over the hatches, and made watertight by placing battens down the hatch sides (to pin the tarpaulin) and then banging the wooden wedges with a mallet into the retaining bars spaced every three feet down the side of the hatch. Wedges always pointed aft, which was obviously the best way as a running sea would force them further in, rather than washing them out if hammered in for'ardways, but I quickly learned that the latter was 'bad luck', the first of three misdemeanours I committed concerning superstition.

Whilst I helped Rodney with the hatches, Dud was doing what engineers do, which is I guess like that mad looking geyser in Das Boot, listening to his diesels talk to him through his screwdriver. Dud sported a surgeon's operating cap and mask, and in chalk on top of his toolbox was the monicker 'Doctor Dudley'

Hatches secured, we came off the berth about a couple of hours before low water, with the skipper at the helm, and I was amazed that the deep-laden barge stayed afloat in a near empty River Colne. She drew nigh on nine feet, and there isn't a lot of that sort of water in the river at that state of tide. As the river gave way to estuary between Mersea and Brightlingsea the throttle went down, and we rode the last power of the ebb down to the Bar buoy, then shaped to port for the red and white striped buoy I knew well as the Wallet Spitway. Once round the Spitway buoy, it was straight for its twin on the edge of the Swin channel. That was another surprise, in that during spring tides, the depth was ....... nine feet. Going aground doesn't slow down the Swin Rangers, as the Priorsmen were otherwise known, just shove the throttle down harder and grind the nuns off the bottom! Another delicious synonym, this time for barnacles.

Once round the Swin Spitway, it was shape away for the Whittaker Beacon, where Dud took the helm, the tide was on the turn and Rodney repaired to the foc's'le. I stayed in the 'wheelbox' with Dud for the duration on the Swin, until we breasted the Blacktail Spit buoy, east off Southend, and start of the Thames proper. During Dud's trick, I learned the radio routine....... 'Thames Coastguard, Peter P, inbound for Deptford, 300 tons of ballast' or somesuch, I really can't remember.

Then I took the wheel of the barge, and my first trick took me right past the supertanker berths of Coryton and Shell Haven and with sea traffic driving on the right, it was within half a mile of the biggest ships I'd ever seen. I was gripping that wheel, ears riveted to the wireless for tanker and tug movements, eyes peeled for smokestacks and movement, but I was blessed with a challenge-free passage past the huge refineries, with the fast progress of 9 knots of boatspeed and a couple of knots of fair tide.

Then it was fairly calm, round Mucking Flats and up to the Ovens buoy at Tilbury, which is where Rodney appeared again to take the barge for the final stretch and onto the berth. That berth was in Deptford Creek, and we brought chaos to road traffic whilst the road bridge was lifted to let us through, a manoevre complicated by a corkscrew turn in the creek immediately prior to the bridge. Then the warps went ashore and were casually made fast. Mooring yachts has always amused me since learning the ways of workboats, with the cat's cradles favoured by various yachting universities, and knots that Alexander the Great would struggle getting a sabre through.

Once we'd secured, it was straight out with the wedges and the battens, hatchcloth off, and then the wooden hatch covers were stacked at each end by means of a hook and a handle, obviously with one man each end. And that was it, my first freight delivered and I was pretty exhausted by this time, and tried to turn in to my bunk in the foc's'le. BANG! What was that? BANG! Dud, what was that? BANG! I shot up the companionway ladder and saw the grab going in for the fourth bite. I then learned that no one sleeps whilst the grabs are working, even in exhaustion, it is impossible.

So, whaddya do when you're at a loose end in London of a day? And it was mostly days, as the London end was union controlled and the Fingringhoe end was not, so it was usual to load at night and discharge by day. In a poor week, we got two freights in, an average week was two and a half freights in (yes, a railway trip home on a Friday, or trip up on Monday) and three cargoes was a lottery win. That is of course because the work was paid piecerate to encourage maximum productivity and speed of turnround. That incentive was very strong, as it overwhelmed the need for sleep, of which more later.

This was also the occasion of my second transgression against Poseidon, Neptune, Bill Nighy or whoever is in charge of superstition down there. I took off my cheesecutter cap and put it top downwards on the foc's'le table, and was shouted at immediately by both master and engineer. I'll get the third one off my chest now. Don't ever, Ever, EVER say the word 'Rabbit' on a boat. I don't know why, just don't, you get shouted at very loudly, it is bad luck of the very worst kind, and you will be blamed for everything that goes wrong, large or small (and the large ones are difficult to live down, as you quickly acquire Jonah status).

Whilst we're in the foc's'le, it is probably best to describe it. It is the smallest area possible, by dint of allowing the largest area possible for the profit-bearing carrying hold, and is not an ideal shape for modular living. These barges are pretty bluff bowed, and the first provision inside the stem is the chain locker for anchoring. Immediately behind this bulkhead is the living quarters, with the 10' long ladder coming down the port side, with a small, very basic galley fitted on the starb'd side. The table sits in the middle, with three chairs, between the four berths, two on each side, one atop the other. Privacy is afforded by means of a curtain hung inside each berth cubicle. The foc's'le was a pretty grubby place, as it remained the responsibility of the ship's company to keep it clean. One memory sticks in my mind most particularly, as it has to do with smell. One freight, we had another Tollesburyman shipped aboard, Guffie Lewis, and he basted himself in Brut 33 or similar to disguise the stench of shipboard life before a run ashore, the purpose of which I can only guess at.

And so to a run ashore, as sleep was impossible on the berths in London. My favourite was getting up Brick Lane for a curry. Dud would order a plethora of dishes, some dangerously hot, and slowly work his way through them, sweating profusely because of the chili rush, and this ritual would take up most of an afternoon. Other pastimes were more earthy, this being the East End, and it was customary for the some of the rowdier pubs on Commercial Road to lay on strippers for lunchtime entertainment. There was a lot of talk about a recent incident when Rodney's pipe was misappropriated by one of the lady entertainers, and that pipe sat in a jar of disinfectant in the wheelhouse window for three weeks before it was used again. I can remember bumming pipe tobacco off Rodney, Clan, I think it was, and hand-rolling smokes, but they were vile to inhale. I was emulating one of the other Prior's skippers that allegedly smoked the pipe tobacco Gold Block as cigarettes, getting rid of a pouch a freight.

The problem with coming back down the London River was the coinciding of the barge being so high out of the water and the necessity to leave on the top of the tide, and when the third factor of a spring tide high water was brought into play, it was positively dangerous. I remember being scared witless heading towards one of the low bridges, Westminster, I believe, on a trip a year later, when Rodney was on holiday and a character called Blackie had command. The tide was phenomenally high, and the fierce ebb had already set in, and to give better manoeverability, the barge was going full chat, so the combination of a high-riding barge, about 12 knots of speed over the ground, a black night with the backdrop of city lights and a very low bridge getting closer extremely rapidly, I was convinced there was no way under God's heaven we could get under that bridge alive. Blackie quietly asked me to lower the radio mast on the wheelhouse roof, which I did short order. The last thing I remember in the moments the bow went under Westminster Bridge was Blackie saying 'Sometimes it takes some bottle to do this job'. Before the end of his sentence, the wheelhouse should have been ripped off the superstructure with no one in it left alive to tell the tale, and I swear I have never seen such large rivets, but somehow, no part of the barge touched the bridge, and we passed underneath unscathed.

Other times were more levitous. It was a sunny day, and we were upbound, passing under the bridges, when Dud was on his way aft from the foc's'le with a mug of tea. He glanced round and saw a group of American tourists taking photo's from a bridge, so he put the mug down on the hatchcloth and danced the hornpipe, the delighted tourists failing to see the intended insult.

Prior's head office was at Orchard Place on Bow Creek, which was also their shipyard. I loved going up there, as we had to pass the Pura vegetable oil refinery, and the smell of palm oil hung heavy in the air. I spent fifteen years thinking that was the smell of lard, as Pura only registered in my mind as being lard, and there was a coaster tied up alongside called the PL Trader, and I was told the PL stood for Pure Lard. It was only when I went to work for Anglia Oils in Hull (now AarhusKarlshamns)that I remembered that redolent smell in Bow Creek. Sadly, Orchard Place, the refinery, and probably even the strippers in the Commercial Road pubs are all gone now.

The other berth we serviced was up at Nine Elms, near Battersea, and that was a bitch of a berth to get onto, as it was the only one athwart the stream, so warps had to be constantly adjusted to allow for tide.

And so back to my first freight, to close the story. When we returned to an empty barge at Deptford, it was customary to leave the hatches open unless it was draughty and therefore expedient to make the ship safe for a seaway. They had water ballast tanks fitted so the light barge could be lowered further into the water for an easier motion at sea, but I don't recall this being done as a matter of course. The bridge was of course raised again to let us out, and very soon we had rounded the Ellis & Everard corner and were back out into the Thames, Rodney at the helm. It was evening time, probably about 9pm

Rodney took her down through the Woolwich Barrier, which was still very new in those days, and on down to Tilbury, where Dud took his turn. I was trying to get some sleep in my bunk, but it seemed only minutes before the foc's'le bell rang, telling me it was ten minutes until I was due on. Sleep, or chronic lack of it, was the cruellest feature of being a Swin Ranger. I reckoned I got between two and four hours sleep in every twenty four, and I have always been pathetic if sleep-deprived, so I found that aspect very difficlut to live with, and thus the weekend became a sleepfest, with at least two twelve hour sleep periods.

It was the Blacktail Spit buoy where I took over, but it being my first trip, I wondered if Dud would stay with me. He knew I knew the Swin channel, so without a word, and with inherent trust, he went for'ard, leaving me with the dark, the flashing buoys, a chart and a wheelhouse light. I was in heaven and heaven above looked beautiful.

I learned to drive barges a couple of years before, and knew the fundamental rule well; that is, just give her a spoke or two, and she'll answer soon enough. The common mistake that the novice makes is turning tentatively, deciding too quickly that she isn't answering, and then give her a whole revolution of the wheel. Then she careens round, whilst you give it two turns the other way, and there is a crazy path left in the water and great embarrassment for the rookie helm. So I was able to conduct my sea trials as I was alone for the first time, timing how long she took to answer to one spoke, different either side, interestingly. I also brushed up on my chartwork, putting her on course and having a good look round for sea room, then turning the wheelhouse light on to work out compass courses between the Swin buoys and correcting them for variation and deviation. One one later occasion, I steered a compass course on a black night from the Wallet Spitway to the Bar Bouy at the mouth of the Colne. Quite remarkably, and I promise this is true, but as late as 1980, the turning mark for commercial shipping heading up Colne was not lit! Unbelievable, doubly so as less important buoys such as the North West Knoll and Eagle were lit, but true. That made my compass course all the more dangerous, and as I had timed the three mile leg from the Wallet Spitway, I was both relieved and alarmed to see the Bar buoy slip past the starb'd rail no further than a barge's length away. The buoy bore the scars of being clouted by bigger vessels than ours, and I'm glad to say it was lit soon after, and of course remains lit to this day.

So, I charged down the Swin with the ebb still under me, shaped up from Whittaker to cross the Crouch and rounded the Swin Spitway. As we were light, there was no depth trobles, but I still studied the echo sounder trace with a need to know just where the Spitway was at its shallowest. When I rounded the Wallet Spitway, I rang the foc's'le bell to stir Rodney for the last few yards from the Bar up to the ballast quay. It was now a pleasant early summer morning, low sun and little breeze, as I rounded the Bar. I shaped her up for Brightlingsea, but there was no sign of Rodney. I figured he was making a brew, but still there was no sign when I passed the Inner Bench Head buoy, so I put the helm on lock and shot for'ard and down the companionway ladder. There was Rodney, fast asleep in his berth.........

And that is the finest compliment I have ever been paid. I wasn't told of it until later, and then only by Dud, as it seemed Rodney was a compulsive worrier, and would never sleep when a new hand was aboard until he was sure he could trust them, and even then he would sleep lightly and notice even the smallest change in teh ship's motion. And there he was, fast asleep on my first trick, I felt ten feet tall.

We rounded onto the berth, tied up, and what happened then I remember not. All I knew was that when payday came around, I received riches untold, and as I was on student rate tax, I was paid more than Dud. He was absolutely furious!

I do pine for those simple days, and keep promising myself I will look up Rodney in Mersea one of these days, God willing he's still with us, as sadly Dudley isn't........... but I'll save his story for another day.

And finally, I was gratified to Google Prior's, and found them to be alive, well and seemingly thriving at http://www.jj-prior.co.uk/index.php?content=welcome

Good luck to them!