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
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Transcript
When I first went down to the dock I was worried about how they were gonna keep the Tyne out of the dock when we were excavating. But I soon found out that they were already busy building a copper dam, which alleviated my fears. So they had this drag line loading the trucks and at first we tipped at Denton Burn, but this proved to be too far to carry the material. Time – well wasting time really travelling! So numerous tips were found around the Wallsend area, namely Bigges Main various off shots off the coast road. Anywhere where there was a valley or depression – we filled it up – levelled it out and then finished off at Woolington Quay viaduct. I was on the dock nearly 12 month, nightshift. It was tough and
rough work and it got that I didn’t know weather I was coming or going as the saying goes! But we managed the job. McAlpines – the manager kept to his word, he kept the bulldozer up there to help us and we eventually got the job finished as far as the excavation work went.