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.
Call out routines
"Anyway, you would wait in the watch house and as ships came along you went down to the jetty and boarded the pilot cutter"
Anyway, you would wait in the watch house and as ships came along you went down to the jetty and boarded the pilot cutter, or you went to ships that were moving up the river. Sometimes you were called out straight from home to go ships up the river, ships that you had brought in, you see, so you just used public transport for that. Because motorcars, they could be handy if you were going to a ship that was just going to move at the same premises but it was no good if you were going up to Dunston and ended up at the entrance of the river because the car was back up there, so you had to use public transport.
And that was rather difficult during the night time, particularly for up river places, because transport didn’t run all 24 hours, so the ship was due to sort sail from Derwent Haugh, six o’clock in the morning, you had to go up last bus at night and sit aboard the ship and wait until the time, you see. So, but once again that was just one of those things, and if you got caught up there and the last train or bus had gone, you would just stay aboard the ship until breakfast time. Some people would just walk back from Derwent Haugh back down to South Shields.
John has 11 memories in the memorynet:
John's memories with a Clothing theme:
Pilot apprenticeshipJohn's other memories:
This memory has these themes:
Roles and Routines | Work
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