大象传媒

My Dad worked on the Docks down at Custom house where all the ships came in to be unloaded. sometimes it was so busy down there that it would take an hour to cross Prince Regent Lane. Thats when the the Royal Docks relly worked well. My Father worked for the Port of London Authority and was a member of the home guard. One night he was on watch and saw someone moving about on the deck of a ship morred out on the dock. In those days ships were moored 2 or 3 abreast. so armed with nothing more than a pocket knife he and his mate went to investigate, they didn't have a gun between them - weapons weren't issued to the home guard. Thinking that the intruder was probably a downed german airman or even that the germans had infrilatrated the wharfs my father anhis mate climbed over the frist ship and made there way stealthily to o the next ship where the suspicious man was still rooting around. Dad says it turned out to be a durnk cook but it did give them a scare and made them think how close it could have been.

Another story dad told was of a shift he worked when the bombs were falling. he was on fire duty and was watching the bombing of london from atop a warehouse. He saw the bombs fall and from that distance could make out that his st 'Royal Road, Custom House' was on fire. Mum always asked at this point why he didn't come straight home to check if his wife and children were ok. But dad always said that he was on shift, he couldn't let the docks burn, what was coming in and out of those docks was much more important than what was going on that minute on Royal Road. Dad never left a shift early in more than 40 years on the Docks.

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