Transcript

All we were concerned with was with the excavation and while that was going on they were actually concreting the side walls of the dock. Sand, gravel, cement was brought in by the lorries and they had their own concrete mixer, so that any concreting jobs – no matter where, what they called the pour – that is the continuous supply of concrete had to be continuous, with, even now they have to have backup plants; so the concrete is able to be poured continuously you see. Now the men, well first of all the walls of the dock they were shored up with huge staunches. The timbers were easy about 12 to 15 inches square, they were enormous and they did the pour in sections and they had men actually standing in the, in the concrete and they would stamp it in to get the air out – they didn’t want any air bubbles in the concrete, which was detrimental to its structure you see. It had to be solid concrete. Well many times to finish the required height they would work double shifts to keep that going y’know and they used to stamp it in and they used to use these compressors to get the air out and there was one or two accident occurred in the process, but just to add, we didn’t have much time to watch other operations on the dock. Our business was muck shifting and it was ding dong - you had to keep going you see!