:00:08. > :00:10.The general synopsis at midday. There are warnings of gales in the
:00:10. > :00:16.forties, chronometer fourth. North- westerly backing south-westerly, 5-
:00:16. > :00:21.7, decreasing for a time. The sea has always been a source of
:00:21. > :00:25.our prosperity. For centuries it's provided jobs for fishermen,
:00:25. > :00:27.dockers, labourers and thousands more. Now, as a new future beckons
:00:27. > :00:37.in wind energy, this history of struggle, adventure and tragedy
:00:37. > :00:41.
:00:41. > :00:44.reminds us How the Humber Changed Fish and chips had been a family
:00:44. > :00:46.staple since the mid 1800s, but with the railways came opportunity,
:00:46. > :00:54.Humber fishermen were perfectly placed to supply the growing
:00:54. > :00:57.industrial cities of the North and Midlands.
:00:57. > :01:01.For the first time it allowed quick, fast, cheap transport of fresh fish
:01:01. > :01:05.inland. Overnight, almost, fish became an article of cheap mass
:01:05. > :01:09.consumption. Virtually the fishing industry grew from that demand for
:01:09. > :01:13.fish in the inland industrial areas. It grew first at Hull and then
:01:13. > :01:18.Grimsby. Through the 1920s and 30s, business
:01:18. > :01:22.boomed. Fishing became not just a job, but a way of life.
:01:22. > :01:24.You see, I was born into the heart of the industry. All my friends,
:01:24. > :01:32.relations, everyone I knew was surrounded by fish, fishing and the
:01:32. > :01:39.trawling industry. It never entered me head to do
:01:39. > :01:42.anything else. 1937, I went to sea with me granddad. I always remember
:01:42. > :01:47.my granddad was pleased with what when on, so he called the lads up
:01:47. > :01:53.and gave them a tot of rum. I was watching all this and he said to me,
:01:53. > :02:00."Do you want one, kid?" "Oh, please, granddad". I'm one of the lads, I
:02:00. > :02:06.thought, like. It was a little tin mug with a little drop of rum in.
:02:06. > :02:10.As I got it to my mouth, he hit it. Me mouth started to bleed, like. He
:02:10. > :02:18.just bent down to me and he said, "Aboard this ship I am skipper, not
:02:18. > :02:27.granddad". It was a lesson in hardship, just one of the many in
:02:27. > :02:36.this cruellest of industries. I first sailed in 1945. I was a
:02:36. > :02:39.sick as a dog. I went to sea for my first trip, I
:02:39. > :02:43.was in the Navy. A week after my 16th birthday, I'll be quite honest,
:02:44. > :02:47.out of the 14 days I must have been seasick for 12 days of them. But,
:02:47. > :02:51.thankfully, that was the last time. # When the north winds roughly blow
:02:51. > :02:58.and I lay right snug below. And I open the pane and they pop out the
:02:58. > :03:03.flame, to see how the wind do blow The best fishing grounds were in
:03:03. > :03:06.Arctic waters, but that inevitably meant freezing conditions.
:03:06. > :03:10.And the ships appeared stranded as if marooned on a gently moving
:03:10. > :03:15.sandbank. Sometimes your ears bled and your
:03:15. > :03:20.nose. If you were gutting in a pound and you wanted, like, pass me
:03:20. > :03:25.the steel to sharpen your gutting knife. It had frozen. It's really
:03:25. > :03:35.hard. It was. Now and again skipper would give you a dram of rum to
:03:35. > :03:36.
:03:36. > :03:40.It was at Bear Island, right. I slipped and it was Christmas Day.
:03:40. > :03:44.It was about minus 40 and I slipped in the water and me boots was full.
:03:44. > :03:48.They all come and look after you and look out for you, give you rum
:03:48. > :03:50.with something in it to sort you out. That's what people are like at
:03:50. > :03:56.sea. In a largely unregulated industry,
:03:56. > :03:59.you had no choice but to rely on your shipmates.
:03:59. > :04:03.Health and safety was none existent. The only health and safety you had
:04:03. > :04:07.was yourself and your crew mates, as well. You had to rely on them
:04:07. > :04:09.for your life, more or less. If they pulled on a wire when they
:04:09. > :04:13.shouldn't have done, they could cripple you.
:04:13. > :04:17.Rough, tough, wise and friendly. A father figure to the crew, they
:04:17. > :04:20.will fight for a place on board his ship.
:04:20. > :04:25.It was the skipper though, more than anyone, who felt the real
:04:25. > :04:28.weight of responsibility. You have got to make decisions up
:04:28. > :04:34.where lots of men in their working life ashore would never have to
:04:34. > :04:39.make. You're under pressure to catch fish quickly. To return it to
:04:39. > :04:43.the market place, fresh. So, when you have gales and storms and
:04:43. > :04:49.fishing amongst the ice, you have very little time for saying, "stop
:04:49. > :04:55.fishing." # Haul away the bowling. Kitty is me darling. Haul away the
:04:55. > :04:58.bowling. Haul. #. Everyone depended on the catch
:04:58. > :05:02.for their living. All at the mercy of fortune and the
:05:02. > :05:06.weather, never knowing how much you'd earn once you got home.
:05:07. > :05:12.I did three trips on one ship and I picked up tuppence. That's sixpence
:05:12. > :05:16.for ten weeks. That's all. There was too much fish and they couldn't
:05:16. > :05:22.sell it, you see. Another time you'd have a good trip it was all
:05:22. > :05:26.right. You would work 18 hours a day for
:05:26. > :05:31.14, 15 days at a time and it was tiring, it was hard work. But, I
:05:31. > :05:35.was lucky most of the time and I earnt a lot of money. I spent a lot
:05:35. > :05:36.at well, that was the only problem. I tended to spend more than I
:05:36. > :05:42.earnt! # Brylcreem in your hair, three
:05:42. > :05:46.time millionaire After weeks away at sea came just a
:05:46. > :05:54.couple of days ashore. With wages to be spent, the trawlermen were
:05:54. > :05:58.dubbed the three-day millionaires. # I shall get meself a suit made to
:05:58. > :06:00.show I'm in the fishing trade. You had loads of cash, it was like
:06:00. > :06:04.Christmas every time. You had something like two-and-a-half days
:06:04. > :06:07.to spend your money and it was a race to make sure you spent it
:06:07. > :06:11.before you went away. Very few fishermen sailed with any money.
:06:11. > :06:14.Usually it was gone, so you tended to drink heavily. You were always
:06:14. > :06:18.well-dressed, fishermen were always smart. You had the spare cash so
:06:18. > :06:21.you'd go out and get a suit made. They was all handmade suits and you
:06:21. > :06:24.tried to get your suit different from anyone else's. You know,
:06:24. > :06:28.different material, different design, and all such as that. I had
:06:28. > :06:32.25 suits and 18 pairs of shoes, I did. When I came home I used to go
:06:32. > :06:36.dancing every night. I loved it. I loved music and I used to do myself
:06:36. > :06:39.up and think, "Sod it". I've got to work, come home, don't go out,
:06:39. > :06:42.don't drink, don't do anything. At the end of three weeks, say "right,
:06:42. > :06:52.here's your three weeks money and you've got two days". You aren't
:06:52. > :07:20.
:07:20. > :07:23.To go to church, are you? A lot Tying up at home port was also the
:07:23. > :07:26.time for family reunions, but being the wife of a trawlerman brought
:07:26. > :07:30.its own challenges. We've been married 57 and in our
:07:30. > :07:34.58th year. If ever a woman could have left me, it was my wife. I
:07:34. > :07:38.never kept her short of money. What you want, is there. Then I used to
:07:38. > :07:43.go with the lads for a drink and we used to get legless. But, I've
:07:43. > :07:46.never hit her. Never hit one of my kids. My kids have never heard me
:07:46. > :07:51.swear. You were either a strong woman or
:07:51. > :07:59.you wasn't. You had to be strong because you had to be mother and
:07:59. > :08:02.father to your children. At the time when you're growing up
:08:02. > :08:05.in a fisherman's family, you don't think, "I am growing up in a
:08:05. > :08:08.fisherman's family, it's different". It was a different way of life, it
:08:08. > :08:12.was an accepted way of life. My mother virtually brought us up,
:08:12. > :08:17.there were seven in the family. My dad, the couple of days that he was
:08:17. > :08:27.ashore, he wasn't home very much. He did a lot of pubbing and
:08:27. > :08:33.
:08:33. > :08:36.clubbing and stuff like that. always say the industry itself at
:08:36. > :08:40.sea was a rollercoaster existence, good weather, bad weather, lots of
:08:40. > :08:43.fish, no fish. It was, to a certain extent to the families ashore, just
:08:43. > :08:47.by virtue of looking after the family. My wife she was mother and
:08:47. > :08:57.father to my two girls and it was the same all around.# Oh, you won't
:08:57. > :09:01.
:09:01. > :09:03.Not all fishing jobs were at sea, there was plenty of work on shore
:09:03. > :09:08.but conditions there weren't much better.
:09:08. > :09:11.I was filleting on the fish dock at 14 and it was an awful, awful job.
:09:11. > :09:15.When you think about it nowadays, if you were the youngest, you
:09:15. > :09:23.filleted on the foreshore. When the snow and rain came it ran down your
:09:23. > :09:27.neck and you just stood there, just Winter times was terrible, wet,
:09:27. > :09:33.thick ice and it was running water all the time. You had to wear clogs
:09:34. > :09:37.because you were in an inch of running water all the time.
:09:37. > :09:41.You could always hear these It was probably the lumpers coming off the
:09:41. > :09:45.docks, clogging down Freeman Street. You could hear them before you
:09:45. > :09:51.could see them. It was like another life walking down onto the docks.
:09:51. > :09:55.It was manic. It was absolutely manic.
:09:55. > :10:01.The hustle and bustle of the fish docks was mirrored in the
:10:01. > :10:04.development of the Humber's commercial docks.
:10:04. > :10:07.In the early 20th century, Britain was the greatest maritime nation in
:10:07. > :10:10.the world. Hull was its third port. You know, it was of global
:10:10. > :10:14.significance in maritime terms and then there was Grimsby. Then you've
:10:14. > :10:19.got the building of Immingham which opened just before the First World
:10:19. > :10:22.War. In 1939, there were more than 5,000
:10:22. > :10:28.registered dock workers on the Humber but this was an entirely
:10:28. > :10:31.casual workforce without any guaranteed income.
:10:31. > :10:36.Anybody could just go for a job on the docks. There was no
:10:36. > :10:40.registration. It was like most jobs in those days, they picked you up
:10:40. > :10:44.as they went along and you used to get paid, day by day. When there
:10:44. > :10:53.was no more work, that was it. They didn't get any more pay and they
:10:53. > :10:56.went on their way. In 1945, the National Dock Labour Board was
:10:56. > :10:59.supposed to bring control to what had been an employment free for all,
:10:59. > :11:02.but the dockers still vied each morning to get work. Everyone
:11:02. > :11:06.fighting for a job. You would go into the control and
:11:06. > :11:09.the foreman would come up onto the stand, and put their hands out for
:11:09. > :11:12.the books and you'd be there putting your book up and people
:11:12. > :11:16.were pushing and shoving. There used to be some right performances
:11:16. > :11:20.in those days. If there was no work, they received
:11:20. > :11:26.a fall-back wage of �9 a week. Few knew whether they'd make �9 or �20
:11:26. > :11:29.in a week. When the men did get work they were
:11:29. > :11:32.expected to do so without any safety equipment.
:11:32. > :11:38.It was hard work, you was sweating and you cringed at times with the
:11:38. > :11:42.pain but you couldn't stop. Like anything else men grew into it, but
:11:42. > :11:49.like many men who come, couldn't hack it and just chucked the dock
:11:49. > :11:53.They used to get lots of timber ships in, mostly from the Baltic,
:11:53. > :12:00.of course. That's where the wood came from. They used to have guys
:12:00. > :12:04.who carried the timber off the ship manually. It was hard work. They
:12:04. > :12:08.used to walk down a gang plank and it used to sway. They carried huge
:12:08. > :12:12.pieces of timber on their shoulders. It was really, really hard work.
:12:12. > :12:16.Guys used to tell me they used to get their wives to pick splinters
:12:16. > :12:23.out of their shoulders at night time. Not only was it hard work, it
:12:23. > :12:27.was cruel work as well, really. You didn't have forklifts until the
:12:27. > :12:31.back end of the sixties so everything was what we used to call
:12:31. > :12:34."hand-draulic", meaning you picked it up and carried it. I mean you
:12:34. > :12:39.had many people with broken hands, fingers and limbs because stuff
:12:39. > :12:42.used to move about. It wasn't secured.
:12:42. > :12:45.Life expectancy for a docker was one of the shortest in the country
:12:45. > :12:51.Sickness and injury were an occupational hazard, all treated by
:12:52. > :12:56.the dock's nurse. They used to say, "Sister, can we
:12:56. > :12:59.have some lotion because we've got a sulphur ship in". They didn't
:13:00. > :13:05.have the goggles so they used to get sulphur in their eyes and were
:13:05. > :13:12.red raw. I used to say, "right, just go off for ten minutes and
:13:12. > :13:18.I'll have it really for you". I just brewed some tea and strained
:13:18. > :13:22.it and it was their magic potion. It was like teabags on our eyes.
:13:22. > :13:25.For those who didn't work on the docks, they were a source of
:13:25. > :13:29.fascination. An ideal school trip for pupils at Hedon Primary School
:13:29. > :13:36.We were there when a ship was in and it unloading and there were
:13:36. > :13:39.lots of boats. It was just a hive of activity.
:13:40. > :13:43.It was just when you see them lifting the timber up, it was just
:13:44. > :13:47.a chain and that was it. The sack barrows they used and now it's all
:13:47. > :13:57.forklifts. It's certainly changed. I would hate to think what it's
:13:57. > :14:00.
:14:00. > :14:02.like now when you go on there. the 1960s, change was on its way.
:14:02. > :14:06.Containers meant fewer men were needed but the dockers weren't
:14:06. > :14:08.giving way without a fight. The docks had become one of the most
:14:08. > :14:12.unionised workplaces in the country and relations with employers were
:14:12. > :14:16.at rock bottom. We always fell out over money and
:14:16. > :14:20.we always fell out over manning. They'd always need twice as many
:14:20. > :14:25.men as they really could get on the ship and use. They'd only work half
:14:25. > :14:27.a day, two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. It was
:14:27. > :14:34.always very frustrating for management and for customers, of
:14:34. > :14:40.course. # You won't get me I'm part of the union
:14:40. > :14:44.The National Dock Labour Board was the best thing that happened
:14:44. > :14:48.because you had a job for life, you couldn't get the sack. You could
:14:48. > :14:51.not get the sack for stealing and things like that but there wasn't a
:14:51. > :14:56.right lot of cargo that was worth pinching. You don't go pinching
:14:56. > :15:01.cement, you don't go pinching bricks.
:15:01. > :15:05.It was a case of power to unions and that power was absolute.
:15:05. > :15:09.We didn't even put a picket line out, that's how good it was.
:15:09. > :15:13.Everybody was 100%. I'm not saying that everyone was agreeing with it,
:15:13. > :15:17.but nobody went across that picket line.
:15:17. > :15:20.Goole would be the last port to come out on strike. They would
:15:20. > :15:23.usually send a couple of busloads of Hull dockers through to Goole to
:15:23. > :15:29.intimidate. Of course, when the intimidation came, the guys came
:15:29. > :15:33.out on strike. It all came to a head in 1972 when
:15:33. > :15:38.the use of ports, that weren't part of the National Dock Labour Scheme,
:15:38. > :15:41.sparked a national strike. The main fight was from the none
:15:41. > :15:46.scheme ports. People thought we fighting because we were selfish,
:15:46. > :15:50.fighting for our own jobs. We were not. We said, as far as we were
:15:50. > :15:53.concerned, they should be on the same par as what we were.
:15:53. > :15:56.You was met by mountains of police. They wanted confrontation because
:15:56. > :16:00.they had their leather gloves on and they took their name numbers
:16:00. > :16:03.off the thing so you couldn't identify the names. A few would
:16:03. > :16:07.start braying the dockers and the dockers retaliated by braying the
:16:07. > :16:10.police. The police came from all over the
:16:10. > :16:13.country to defeat us. They didn't defeat us because Hull dockers was
:16:13. > :16:23.incensed and insisting they was going to win The strike ended with
:16:23. > :16:26.
:16:26. > :16:31.an uneasy truce and a sense there For the trawlermen, too, there were
:16:31. > :16:38.hard times ahead It was the most dangerous occupation you could do.
:16:38. > :16:42.It had the highest mortality rate of any industry in the world.
:16:42. > :16:47.It seems hard to say that you took it in our stride because you didn't.
:16:47. > :16:52.Quite often you'd lost friends. I was only in a ship only 30 miles
:16:52. > :16:55.away when the Roderigo and the Lorella went. We listened to them
:16:55. > :17:02.on the air, turning over. That's not very pleasant, but we still had
:17:02. > :17:07.our job to do. Word has just been received that
:17:07. > :17:12.the Grimsby trawler, Laforey, has been sighted. There are no reports
:17:12. > :17:17.of the captain and the 19 men on board, at the time of the tragedy.
:17:17. > :17:24.They are now all assumed to be lost at sea.
:17:24. > :17:27.The winter, with its harsh storms, was always the worst.
:17:27. > :17:36.It was Christmas Day when the St Finbarr was reported on fire, off
:17:36. > :17:39.the coast of Labrador. It was the man from the Mission who
:17:39. > :17:44.had the job of delivering the bad news to those waiting at home.
:17:44. > :17:47.I knew with the knock. I said, "You don't have to tell me there's
:17:47. > :17:52.something wrong". He said, "The ship's afire but they haven't got
:17:52. > :17:56.news of who's lost and who's saved." I suppose in your heart you
:17:56. > :18:05.wish that it's yours. Well, everyone must wish that but it
:18:05. > :18:09.wasn't to be. Tony Harrison one of 12 men lost, leaving a widow just
:18:09. > :18:14.19 years old. Then came a tragedy that shocked the whole country,
:18:14. > :18:19.three Hull trawlers lost in as many weeks.
:18:19. > :18:29.The first ship that went down, went down with all hands, The St Romanus.
:18:29. > :18:30.
:18:30. > :18:34.So, of course, 21 men on board, 211 families not knowing for ten days!
:18:34. > :18:38.- 21.They were going out of their minds with worry. The flags at Hull
:18:38. > :18:41.flew at half mast for the men who would never return to port. By the
:18:41. > :18:50.time the second ship had gone down, The Kingston Peridot, we were shell
:18:50. > :18:54.shocked. "What's going on?" Another ship gone missing? All hands lost.
:18:55. > :19:01.That was January '68, but there was no let-up in the following month.
:19:01. > :19:06.More losses, more grieving families. To lose one ship and then two,
:19:06. > :19:14.absolutely terrible. It paralysed Hull and Hessle Road. Then, of
:19:14. > :19:16.course, the third ship which was my brother's ship on the 5th February.
:19:16. > :19:21.The Ross Cleveland was overwhelmed in high seas and capsized taking
:19:21. > :19:25.with it all the crew including a young Maurice Swain.
:19:25. > :19:29.Maurice had come in that night before he was ready to sail. I
:19:29. > :19:33.heard him say, "Has our Mike gone to bed?" Upstairs he came, up to
:19:33. > :19:37.the top of the stairs and into the bedroom still with the light off.
:19:38. > :19:43.He sat on the side of the bed and he said, "I know I haven't seen you
:19:43. > :19:48.much this trip but when I come home I'll make it up to you". He never
:19:48. > :19:51.came back. I didn't know what he meant by that, because he'd never
:19:51. > :20:01.done it before, but I never forgot what he said there. I've always
:20:01. > :20:02.
:20:02. > :20:06.Until now, deaths had always been an accepted part of fishing, but
:20:06. > :20:10.not anymore. The mood was changing and it was the women who led the
:20:10. > :20:13.way. There are women who live in fear of
:20:13. > :20:17.losing their men. Suddenly, it became too much.
:20:17. > :20:21.You may have heard of Big Lil, started by getting up out of her
:20:21. > :20:23.armchair at home and going up and down the length of Hessle Road,
:20:23. > :20:33.getting signatures in protest against the conditions in the
:20:33. > :20:36.trawling industry. This was a misogynistic world. The women were
:20:36. > :20:41.at home doing their bit in the kitchen and looking after the
:20:41. > :20:45.children. They didn't go out and protest.
:20:45. > :20:49.We need a safety ship patrolling the areas 24 hours a day.
:20:49. > :20:53.Are you a fisherman's wife? I'm a fisherman's daughter who died at
:20:53. > :20:56.sea, four years ago. My mother was widowed with six children.
:20:56. > :21:01.The women did succeed in getting some new safety measures, most
:21:01. > :21:03.notably making radio operators compulsory on all trawlers.
:21:03. > :21:13.Whether anything else really significant changed, I don't think
:21:13. > :21:16.
:21:16. > :21:23.it did. We did win a little bit, Indeed, this remained an industry
:21:23. > :21:27.steeped in tradition, superstitious to the last.
:21:27. > :21:31.I don't think they liked women on board, did they, Dave? No. I can't
:21:31. > :21:36.really remember. If you were to say on a Monday, the
:21:36. > :21:38.wife wasn't allowed to do any washing. They used to say, it's
:21:38. > :21:41.washing them away. Green, you couldn't have green. You
:21:41. > :21:45.couldn't have birds' feathers in the house. You couldn't walk under
:21:45. > :21:51.a ladder. You couldn't say We still don't say it now and my mum's not
:21:51. > :21:55.here, you couldn't say R-A-T. You couldn't say what it was.
:21:55. > :21:59.You were never allowed to go down the dock and wave them away because
:21:59. > :22:06.you were sending them and never come back. Also, you never went to
:22:06. > :22:16.the front door with them. You never whistled on board ship,
:22:16. > :22:16.
:22:16. > :22:19.that was one. Whistling up a storm, Superstitions though couldn't
:22:19. > :22:25.protect the fishermen from what was about to come, a political storm
:22:25. > :22:27.was brewing and they were at the heart if it.
:22:27. > :22:32.I protest, on behalf of Her Majesty's government, against the
:22:32. > :22:35.measures you're taking against these British trawlers.
:22:35. > :22:42.Fishing nets were cut, ships were rammed as the third and final Cod
:22:42. > :22:45.War escalated out of control. It got a bit rough between the
:22:45. > :22:49.Icelandics and the English trawlers. There used to be a little bit of
:22:49. > :22:53.argy-bargy and tried to push them out of the way. It got very heated
:22:53. > :22:57.at times. I was fishing down at Iceland one time and a gun boat
:22:57. > :23:03.captain got a bit irate at one of the Hull trawlers and he actually
:23:03. > :23:06.shot at you. I had bullet holes in the bridge,
:23:06. > :23:09.you could actually see them. We were all stood round in the morning,
:23:09. > :23:12.the merchants, we were amazed. Iceland wanted to ban foreign
:23:12. > :23:17.trawlers from her waters, but the fishermen were prepared to fight
:23:17. > :23:20.back in any way they could. They gave us extra large bags of
:23:20. > :23:26.pepper and you told to make pepper bombs to throw at the Icelandic gun
:23:26. > :23:32.boats. Sometimes if you knew the gun boat
:23:32. > :23:37.was coming up to you, we'd have sacks of spuds and pelted at them.
:23:37. > :23:39.Or, have the hose pipes. The end came in 1976, the British
:23:40. > :23:46.Government bowed to pressure and trawlers could no longer fish
:23:46. > :23:51.within 200 miles of Iceland. One of the most important fishing grounds
:23:51. > :23:53.was lost. The majority of fishermen would put
:23:54. > :24:01.the blame on governments and politicians rather than the
:24:01. > :24:05.Icelanders. By the 1980s, the fishing industry
:24:05. > :24:15.was a shadow of its former self. Thousands of men redundant, victims
:24:15. > :24:15.
:24:15. > :24:19.of the cod wars and EU fishing It died, it just faded away. There
:24:19. > :24:29.was no ships and all the fishermen were more or less thrown onto the
:24:29. > :24:32.scrap heap and then it was a It wasn't any easier for the
:24:32. > :24:36.dockers. By the mid-80s there were fewer than 2,000 working on the
:24:36. > :24:42.Humber. Just two decades earlier, it had been three times that and
:24:42. > :24:46.the employers wanted more cuts. It was like a war of attrition all
:24:46. > :24:48.of the time. There was never a peaceful period. We was a bit
:24:48. > :24:53.frightened of containerisation because where before you'd had a
:24:53. > :24:56.lot of men discharging it, four men could just hang a container on.
:24:57. > :25:00.We was in negotiations all the time with the employers about reducing
:25:00. > :25:04.manning levels but we weren't quick enough for them. Where they'd want
:25:04. > :25:08.two or three men, we'd say reduce it by one.
:25:08. > :25:12.The dockers had earnt a reputation for militancy and that made them a
:25:12. > :25:16.target for the Tory government, which wanted modernisation.
:25:16. > :25:19.This scheme is out of date, there's no question about that.
:25:19. > :25:25.In 1989, employment secretary Norman Fowler called time on the
:25:25. > :25:29.National Dock Labour scheme. The time has come for it to be
:25:29. > :25:32.abolished. This scheme has outlived its purpose.
:25:32. > :25:36.Nobody was surprised when this move by the government led to industrial
:25:36. > :25:39.action. To me, as a docker the '60s, it was
:25:39. > :25:43.a backward step. The abolition of the dock scheme was the worst that
:25:43. > :25:47.had happened to Goole So you had the unions banging the drums but
:25:47. > :25:54.you'd got this feeling it wasn't the same as it was before in '72
:25:54. > :25:57.,the atmosphere wasn't there. The actual fight wasn't there. Hull
:25:58. > :26:02.dockers are not working, but the smaller port of Goole is. The
:26:02. > :26:06.picture at Immingham and Grimsby is even more confused.
:26:06. > :26:16.Without universal support across all the docks, the fight was lost.
:26:16. > :26:19.
:26:19. > :26:24.For some, the return to work prompted celebrations. All dockers
:26:24. > :26:30.were to be compensated for the end of the labour scheme. In Goole, as
:26:30. > :26:36.in every registered port, they collected cheques of up to �35,000.
:26:36. > :26:40.It signalled the end of the unions. I think it was good for all of us
:26:40. > :26:46.and it was a big change come the '90s and I was very, very pleased
:26:46. > :26:49.to be then running a port that I could manage.
:26:49. > :26:52.It's like a ghost town, you wouldn't think anybody worked there.
:26:52. > :26:55.You see the odd person walking around with his safety helmet on
:26:55. > :27:00.but you don't see any traffic. There use to be timber everywhere,
:27:00. > :27:03.stacked up and containers all over the place.
:27:03. > :27:06.The last hundred years has seen huge changes on the Humber, fewer
:27:06. > :27:16.ships and fewer workers, but it's still the country's biggest port
:27:16. > :27:19.complex. Now the 21st century offers the promise of so much more.
:27:19. > :27:23.What's always intriguing to notice about this river, it's a very
:27:23. > :27:26.adaptable river. People change from one commodity to another. We've
:27:26. > :27:30.been involved with oil in the 20th century and, of course, more
:27:30. > :27:37.recently we've got the involvement with wind farms. So, energy and
:27:37. > :27:40.adaptability goes back a long way within this estuary.
:27:40. > :27:45.It was like walking into another life, walking down onto the docks.
:27:45. > :27:49.It's sad now that it's all gone. It's all gone.
:27:49. > :27:55.I miss the old times, it was a way of life. Now it's a factory,
:27:55. > :28:01.conveyor belt system, in my opinion. The docks were gold, without any
:28:01. > :28:05.doubt. The dockers had the money and the dockers spent it.
:28:05. > :28:11.The raggy trousers of a Hessle Road kid. Lack of education, and would
:28:11. > :28:15.finally get skipper of a ship. Most blokes went to sea. Not for
:28:15. > :28:19.the money, it was a way of life and they enjoyed it. They got away from
:28:19. > :28:23.their wife and kids for three weeks, no moaning. They didn't have to