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.
Coble smells – black varnish
"Oh smells, yes. As soon as you go under the canopy of your boat, or when you’re scraping it"
Oh smells, yes. As soon as you go under the canopy of your boat, or when you’re scraping it, there’s like, when they paint a coble, they get some stuff from coal, I wish I could get some more, you can’t it now, what was it, it was like bitumen, but it was made from, it was a by-product of coal, it was black. They used to paint the buoys with it on the river and they used to paint the barges with it and even to this day, I don’t think you would get a better preservative. And they used to heat it up, what did they call it again? Black varnish- and they used to warm it up, and went like into water, and when they built a coble, from the water, inside a coble and out they would paint it black, you just painted this stuff on and it sunk into the wood. And do you ever, do you ever see the poles on the streets and that for your cables and that and you see the pitch, the black, and you see it sort of like running down, and you smell that- it’s exactly the same, like a bitumen. And when you’re in a coble, you can smell that. And it doesn’t matter, I’ve been working on cobles 30, 40, 50 years old, and where that black varnish has been, the planks are as good as the day that they were ever put in.
Harry has 24 memories in the memorynet:
Harry's memories with a The North East theme:
Joining the tug boats- The foy boats and skulling
- Value of the tug boat apprenticeship
- Routines on the tug boats
- Leaving the tug boats and moving to the Titan Crane
- Cobles
Foy boatmen- Sculling a foy boat
- The Joffre
- The crew of the Tynesider
- The Titan crane at work
- The Royal Diadem II
Harry's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Leisure | Sounds and Smells | Traditions
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