Ebb & Flow

Over the past weeks of lockdown, I have had the chance to discover more about Eric Carpenter’s wide-ranging work along the Thames. It seemed from our initial meeting and following email exchanges that he held his time with Cory in particular affection. From 1984 until his retirement in 2008 Eric was employed by Cory Waste Management based at Charlton.

He joined the tug RECRUIT and clearly bonded with the crew “who were all principled men, who pulled their weight and could be relied upon.” One day he was asked by “a good friend to join a crew on another tug, the GENERAL VII, based at Gravesend” but he was happy where he was, sailing upstream through the bridges to the London wharves every shift.” He remembers the tragic sinking of the GENERAL VII a while later, after a collision with a ship adjacent to Tilbury Dock Lock, with the loss of the lives of his friend Colin Baker, and three other members of the crew. Those who work on the river have to be constantly aware of the dangers and safety is of prime importance.

Eric describes life and camaraderie on board the RECRUIT. “Summertime was pleasant towing up through the bridges, returning down with the bridges illuminated on a summer’s night. But, as any Waterman will tell you, it is totally different in the winter months, coping with the wind and the rain, dropping light barges and picking up the loaded ones is not a bundle of laughs.” However, smiling, he continues, “The highlight of the shift was lunch, or as we called it dinner. It could be two chickens (rooster boosted), roast potatoes – my speciality, par boiled and given a good shaking to rough up the outsides, making them crunchy when cooked – or a leg of lamb, a piece of beef and all the trimmings. Nothing got thrown away. We had our mishaps though: the chicken falling out of the oven when the tug nudged the barges; the day we tried to make Yorkshire pudding and it turned out like an inch thick rubber mat. One day the designated cook for that shift wanted to add a sprinkling of pepper to the mashed potatoes but the top came off the pepper pot and everything went into the mash. But it was all eaten anyway.” Fellow crew members at that time were: Jackie Franklin, Gerry Musset, Tommy Lewthwaite and Eric Everest. They trusted and relied on each other and became good friends.

From 1992 to 2008 Eric transferred from the RECRUIT to become a ‘Mucking Boatswain’. All the barges loaded at London’s refuse stations headed to Mucking jetty, where there was a major landfill site, now transformed into the Thurrock Thameside Nature Park. Eric explains that “the site was equipped with three container cranes that unloaded the containers to be taken to the landfill site, emptied and returned to the barges. As the jetty received all the barges from London it was imperative that there was twenty-four hour cover.” Operating there wasn’t simple as “the exposed position of the wharf in the Thames estuary, made it vulnerable to delays caused by bad weather, specifically fog and wind. If the tug missed the daytime tide it would have to bring the barges ashore on the next high tide.”

And the tides were a further complication as the location of Mucking jetty meant that the barges were only afloat for roughly four hours. “This made the shifting of the craft quite hectic, also there was not much run in the tide, so the wind direction was more of a consideration.”

Eric’s responsibilities as a boatswain, along with two others of equal rank, were to “do a safety check of the jetty, checking lifebuoys, the ‘eyes’ of the mooring ropes, safety railings, the capstan ropes, and the access ladders to the barges.” They had to liaise with the tug captains via V.H.F. radio, the operations manager at head office and the jetty manager, in order to arrange and assemble the tows, which could vary in the number and size of barges from one tide to another. But it was not without difficulty. “It was fairly straightforward in the summer months when it was daylight and the weather was calm, not so easy at 2.00 am in the winter with the wind blowing from the east at force 5 !”

Eric describes his last working day, “It was a normal shift. I remember the tug pulling the tow off for the last time and feeling nostalgic. As we were finishing mooring up, I noticed the tug coming back ashore ‘light boat’, that is not towing. As they approached the jetty I saw that the whole crew were on deck: they had come to say their final farewells and to wish me luck. Gary Anness, the captain, then presented me with a bottle of something special!” Eric adds that he was “fortunate to work with two fine tug captains during my time at Mucking, Tim Keetch and Gary Anness, honourable men who could be relied upon.” He also remembers with affection Tom Huggins, Mike Trowbridge, Bill Cook and ‘Buzz’ Bullock, colleagues who became friends.

The Thames is certainly part of Eric’s DNA. His father was a “Journeyman” Lighterman, who as his son was to do, worked all along the river and, as a young teenager, Eric used to bike down to the Woolwich ferry with friends and ride back and forth across the river because it was free. He enjoyed his career on the Thames but doesn’t over romanticise it. Things could be physically and mentally tough and he was always aware of, and concerned about, the need for safety. Working on the river can be dangerous.

He ends his reminiscences by saying that “Although August 24, 2008 was my last day working as a Waterman and Lighterman, I shall be a Waterman and Lighterman till I die.” The love he had, and still has for his profession is clearly expressed when he adds: “I was fortunate to work on the river when I did. I worked from Isleworth in the west to Holehaven Creek in the east, and along every creek and canal adjoining the river Thames. I did not simply work on the river for fifty years, I had an adventure on the river for fifty years!” It was an ‘adventure’ that brought him much satisfaction and sense of fulfilment. He ends by saying: “I would urge any young person to embrace the job and, when they are going ‘up through’ and see office workers scurrying across the bridges to ‘push their pens, or tap their keyboards’ in some confined or crowded office, they should thank their lucky stars it is not them.”

END NOTE
With grateful thanks to Eric Carpenter for sharing his photos and for sparing me the time to tell his story and something of his expert knowledge of our constant, yet ever-changing river Thames.
Click here to discover more about the history of Thames Watermen and Lightermen

Working for fifty years on and around the Thames, Eric Carpenter has a map of the river, its tributaries and canals indelibly etched into his brain. I’m lucky to meet him in St. Katharine Docks a couple of weeks before *lockdown* as not only has he told me something of his life on, and love for, the river Thames, he has kindly helped me with my recent articles on the 1907 book The Thames from Chelsea to the Nore.

He has a jumper with a distinctive badge: the coat of arms of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen and explains, “Only Freemen of the Company are allowed to wear their badge, so I had to prove that I was a Freeman before being allowed to buy it.”

Eric went through a rigorous seven-year period of training on the Thames to become a Freeman of the Company. He was apprenticed at Waterman’s Hall in August, 1958. He was just fifteen years old. His father, William Carpenter, an experienced Waterman and Lighterman was his “Master” and as such it was his responsibility to help his son find employment and to make sure that he learnt his trade. Eric’s first job was on the tug SIR JOHN, owned by Humphrey and Grey Lighterage Co. He worked under Captain Jess Handley. “I started my career as ‘the boy of the boat’ or the dogsbody. My duties were keeping the cabins clean, washing up after other members of the crew, polishing the brass lamps and helping the mate on deck.”

The SIR JOHN was based at Battlebridge Roads, roughly where H.M.S. BELFAST is now moored, and among the myriad sounds and smells, Eric can particularly remember “the strong smell of smoked bacon coming from the Danish ships in the Upper Pool.”

There were so many new experiences and so much that he had to learn that it’s impossible to do justice to them here. However, Eric tells me two things that illustrate the practical experience and depth of knowledge of the Thames required to gain his licence. Firstly, part of his “time at H & G was spent in the Rope store”, an area at Hay’s wharf where ropes were cut at various lengths for use on the craft. Apprentices were taught how to splice ropes, some nine inches in circumference, also, to splice wire hawsers which were a bit more tricky!”

Secondly, he tells me about ‘driving’ or rowing a boat under oars – adding that another name for an oar is a ‘sweep’. “It was not obligatory for an apprentice to undertake a ‘drive’ but it was looked upon favourably by the examining court at the time of your two year licence appearance.” It was also a good way to learn to understand the river and its characteristics.

“Undertaking a ‘drive’ taught you so much regarding tide sets, where the tide ran fastest, where the ‘slack’ tide was, and how to take account of the wind factor.” This was important because “the wind would have a greater affect on an empty barge than a loaded one. Also, it taught you how to look ahead to plan where to position the barge. Rowing a barge or being in control of a vessel is like a game of chess, you have to plan ahead to position the vessel before you actually get to any situation, whether it’s passing through a bridge or rounding head onto the tide.”

‘Calling a drive’ means talking through the complexities and details of a particular drive to the examining committee, a bit like ‘The Knowledge’, the rigorous exam taken by London black cab taxi drivers. “It was handy to have several drives under your belt.”

In 1959 on the advice of his father, he moved to work for General Lighterage as they took all kinds of cargo the length and breadth of the river Thames and its tributaries. He gives an idea of the enormous variety and scope of their work: “We took grain and general cargo to Dartford Creek; timber, and would you believe it barges full of asbestos, to Barking Creek; copper bars for onward travel to Brimsdown rolling mills; bags of coffee to be taken up to Ware in Hertfordshire; zinc to the Hackney Lesney factory, makers of Matchbox toys; plywood; timber and coal all to Bow Creek adjoining the river Lea.” Some of the cargo passed through Thames lock to access the Grand Union Canal, including “bags of beans for the Heinz factory at Uxbridge, and I remember barges with slabs of marble being pulled up the canal by tractors”. He adds, “With regard to the river Lea, at 6 a.m. from Monday to Saturday at Bromley locks you would have five or six dock tugs towing four to six barges each, setting off for various wharves along the river.” Dock tugs were small tugs that could work within the docks or along the canals. Tugs often have quite punchy names. He remembered: Express, Energetic, Jamar, Valcary and Ensign.

“After two years afloat I went back to Waterman’s Hall to be questioned on my knowledge of the river, in order to gain my two years’ licence”. He was faced with questions by the Court, a wall of examiners sitting round a horseshoe table. A daunting experience but he passed. This meant that he was licenced to “have and take sole charge of any Boat, Barge, or any other vessel, used in conveying Persons or Passengers, Goods, Wares or Merchandise on all parts of the River Thames, between the landward limit of the Port of London and Lower Hope Point, near Gravesend…” However, he still would be under the control of his Master at all times, who would judge in every case whether he was competent to take on a particular task. And there was a warning that the licence would be “liable to be revoked, suspended or cancelled at any time for misconduct or incompetency”. Happily this was not a problem for Eric and at the end of his apprenticeship five years later he had to appear before the Court once more with evidence of his experience afloat and to answer questions on navigation. After passing this final test, he became a Freeman of The Company of Watermen and Lightermen.

He remembers “feeling like Superman after gaining his licence. “You could now take barges anywhere, tow to Brentford, undock out of Limehouse cut…” and he recalls, aged eighteen, “towing up to Nine Elms cold store in the middle of the night, with a barge full of cartons of butter, climbing over the locked-up wharf gates, walking over Vauxhall Bridge to Victoria to catch the night bus home. He adds that he liked his work. “I really enjoyed being out on the barges, there was more freedom in the open air.”

Eric’s career continued in much this way for his company, which had since become the Thames and General lighterage Co., until 1971, when with the advent of containerisation and changes in transportation and working practices, he transferred to Tilbury Dock where he worked for twelve years supervising the loading of the company’s barges. Work was tough and he has a wealth of stories to tell. On one occasion, “In 1975 Thames and General won a contract to transport refuse from London Wharves to a landfill site up Holehaven Creek, near Canvey island, Essex. I can remember waiting at Egypt bay on the Kent side of the river for the tide to rise on a pitch black winter’s night, and wallowing across the river, the tugs decks under water, the six barges bouncing up and down and having to watch out for inbound ships.”

Eric’s final job was with Cory Waste Management now Cory Riverside Energy, whose tugs with their barges of bright yellow containers you will probably have seen if you have ever been on a Thameside walk in central London, and you can follow his story on this site in Part 2, The Cory Years... from May 31st.