John Burn
John belongs to: The Coble and Keelboat Society
John grew up in Tynemouth. He spent his spare time as a child sailing. John followed his father into piloting ships on the Tyne.
John was interviewed by Kylea Little on 3 March 2006. The interview took place at Discovery Museum History Office and lasted 1 hour, 0 minute and 12 seconds.
The pilot watch house
"Well, we, what used to happen as you were getting close on turn, you would go across to, well, we had a watch house in North Shields and we had a watch house at South Shields"
Well, we, what used to happen as you were getting close on turn, you would go across to, well, we had a watch house in North Shields and we had a watch house at South Shields, and mainly the, by the time I got back the North Shields watch house had finished. This was because about a third of the pilots used to live on the north side and about two thirds on the south side. And I mean really, they lived more or less very close to the job, in a small confined area in fact.
In fact it was, you know, it was, they lived as a community on their own, virtually, you know. But the thing was you had to be close to the job to, to be able to, to manage the job- it was no good living miles away where you couldn’t get because there was lots of times that, well, it might during the night or day, it didn’t matter, but the phone went, “how quick can you get on, down onto that pilot cutter?” And, you know, it was frowned upon if you weren’t down within 15 minutes or 10 minutes to board that boat.
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Community | The North East | Work
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