Fred Tate
Fred was born in Hebburn, County Durham on 20 October 1926. He grew up in Wallsend because his father came across to work as a pitman in the G-Pit at Swan Hunter. The family lived in Laurel Street, Wallsend.
After leaving school at fourteen in 1940, Fred got a job at Swan Hunter as an office boy. He stayed there until he was twenty-one and then went to sea with the Merchant Navy. After a year at sea he worked at Parsons Marine for eight years. After that, Fred went to Wallsend Slipway Company which had been taken over by Swan Hunter. Fred worked at Swan Hunter until 1985 when he took redundancy and retired.
Fred talks about his experiences at Swan Hunter and living in Wallsend during the Second World War.
Fred was interviewed by Alex Magin on 23 February 2007. The interview took place at Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths and Museum and lasted for 46 minutes.
Fred Tate's Memories
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Transcript
So, as an office boy what was a normal day like? What did your job involve?
Well, there was about 10 chargeman platers. There was 3 cabins in the west part of the yard and Mr Campbell was in an office by himself, which was the middle one, and then there was about 6 in one, and about 4 in another. I used to make sure that their tea or coco – whatever they wanted was made for them at a certain time, ‘cause we were only allowed a certain time and any messages that they wanted – anything the Mr Campbell wanted – if he wanted to see someone he would send me to get this particular person and I had to respect – you learn to respect people. The strange this was meeting people who I live beside and when I was calling them Mr they said ‘Don’t call us ‘Mr’ here son – call us by me first name, but you can call us ‘Mr’ outside again!’ It was the same with the women – the lady next door to me – she worked in the yard as a, what we call a slabby – slabby was the lady who put paint on roughly like and when I used to call her Mrs the other ones used to laugh ‘cause her name was Ester, as it happens, but I used to always respect her! I would have got wrong off me mother if I called her Ester – she wouldn’t have minded like!