Harry Chamberlain
Harry belongs to: The Coble and Keelboat Society
Harry grew up on the Lawe Top in South Shields. He served an apprenticeship on the tugboats and worked on the Titan Crane. Harry is a member of the Coble and Keelboat Society.
Harry was interviewed by Carl Greenwood on 31 January 2006. The interview took place at South Shields Museum and lasted 1 hour, 20 minutes and 15 seconds.
The foy boats and skulling
"Do you know that boat I had, you were in? You know when I skulled you over to the coble the other day?"
Do you know that boat I had, you were in? You know when I skulled you over to the coble the other day? That is, that, that small boat, there’s not many of them left now, that small boat is a tug boat, original one. It’s what they made the film with. And that came off a tug called the Ironsider. I mean at one time, there were thousands, you know, they reckon at one time, about 1900, you had, in 1900s you had about 150 tugs on the river, you know, there was that much work on the Tyne.
The skulling? Well, really, it’s like a figure of eight in the water, and a lot of people don’t realise that as you’re making a figure of eight, the blade keeps coming up out of the water, and people find it hard to do. But what you’ve got to do is as you’re coming down in the eight, you’re pulling, the blade is pushing the water away and it’s keeping itself in the rollock, but you get, people don’t pull and it just floats out. A lot of people, it’s easy, you know, I’ve seen, once you pick it up. But where I lived in South Shields on what we call the Lawe Top which originally was just like a row of houses in the 1900s along the top, I don’t think there was a little kid who couldn’t skull. Because even the lasses, you know, you’d be down here on what you call the quay or the Mill Dam, you’d be in the boats, and you might have about 20 odd tugs lined up at the buoys. Now, if a tug, a lot of these tugs were off the weekend, all them little tug boats used to be moored at what they called the TDE, there used to be a big pontoon with all the little boats there- well, all the kids on weekends were, you know, on the boats, and they’re all just skulling around. And everybody, everybody, well, all the lads I went to school with, go to school before six years old.
Harry has 24 memories in the memorynet:
Joining the tug boats- The role of the tug boats
- Cabin boy's routine
- The galley
- The foy boats and skulling
- Progress through the tug boats
- Value of the tug boat apprenticeship
- Routines on the tug boats
- Leaving the tug boats and moving to the Titan Crane
- Working on the Titan Crane
- Cobles
- Coble smells – black varnish
Foy boatmen- Sculling a foy boat
- The Tynesider
- The Joffre
- The crew of the Tynesider
- The Titan crane
- The Titan crane at work
- Loading coal
- The crew of the Titan crane
- The Titan Crane
- The Mary Young
- The Royal Diadem II
This memory has these themes:
Skills | The North East | Traditions | Work
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