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.
Value of the tug boat apprenticeship
"Because it was such a good training ground"
Because it was such a good training ground. And most lads that went that went to sea from the Lawe Top or from North Shields or anything like that, you could bet your life, they started off on a tug. They would do, you see, six months, if you had done six months in a tug as a galley boy, it qualified you to go down to the pool and sign on, and get away to sea. But if you didn’t you used to go down to pool and he used send you to sea school. But if you went there and you told him that you’d been in the tugs, you were away straight away. Because the training ground for the tugs, I mean you had done sea work and coastal work, seamanship on the river, handling small boats and everything, things like that, just you couldn’t get anything better.
Harry has 24 memories in the memorynet:
Harry's memories with a Training theme:
Cabin boy's routine- Progress through the tug boats
- Value of the tug boat apprenticeship
Sculling a foy boat
Harry's other memories:
- Joining the tug boats
- The role of the tug boats
- The galley
- The foy boats and skulling
- 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
- 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:
The North East | Training | Work
Use this form to add your comment to the memorynet: