Tom Elliot
Tom was born at Fellview, Crawcrook on 19 October 1919. His father was a butcher and his mother worked in the haulage business. In 1939 Tom joined the army and served for six years. Afterwards, Tom re-started the haulage business, and they began to buy ex-army vehicles which were good for the work at the Neptune Yard. Tom worked as a haulage contractor excavating the Wallsend Dock.
Tom talks about his experiences of excavating the Dock and working as a haulage contractor on Tyneside.
Tom was interviewed by Laura Brown on 21 February 2007. The interview took place at the participants home and lasted for 46 minutes.
Tom Elliot's Memories
In order to view this file you need to use the flash player.
Transcript
So how and when did you come to be at Swan Hunter?
After the war I bought these ex-army vehicles, which proved to be very robust and ideal for rough work, but Smiles for Miles, who I’d often worked for asked me to put two tippers into Wallsend dock. It was Sir Robert McAlpine was doing, was the main contractor and he wanted about, well the manager rather wanted about ten vehicles working there. Eventually Smiles for Miles terminated their contract owing to the damage and the rough work that it was, so the manager approached me and asked me if I would take on a nightshift work and get other vehicles to make up the number you see, he wanted about ten. He offered me reasonable terms for nightshift, guaranteed work and a bulldozer – a D4, which is the smaller version of a bulldozer to operate on the tips and two men to assist drivers in case of any deliveries. In all he didn’t want any stoppages and he wanted the job to be kept going and any other help that I wanted he was there. Well I couldn’t refuse such terms like, I’d never been asked, or given terms like this on any job y’know, so I worked nightshift for nearly 12 month.