HIS name was Bobby Todd and in August 1962 he was a union representative at Prince’s Dock in Glasgow. “He is”, observed the Evening Times writer, Jack House, “small, dapper, and wears a Tyrolean-type hat, a neat suit, and well-polished shoes”.
Mr Todd, second from left in the main image, watched as dockers unloaded cargo from ships' holds, including bags of cottonseed cake from Burma. In the dock shed there was a musty smell, and a light brown powder seemed to hang in the air. The dockers, covered in sweat, worked without cease.
“This”, Mr Todd said, “is officially a dirty cargo”, consulting a book that provided for extra payments for such cargo in the Port of Glasgow. “The extra payment here is 2½d per ton”. House pondered this. If his calculations were correct, the three dockers and the checker (the man who recorded the weight of each sack) would receive an extra 5s 2½d for their morning’s labours. “And, judging by the working conditions”, he added, “I’d say that they’d have to spend that on beer. I certainly would”.
Jack House could have visited the docks in Glasgow at any point over the decades and witnessed similar scenes. The picture above was taken in 1932.
On one of the days he saw that August, there were a dozen ships waiting to be loaded or unloaded, ranging from coasters to Atlantic liners; their cargoes included everything from pitch, sugar and canned fruit to boxwood, timber and paper, whisky, and miscellaneous items lumped together as “sundries”.
The dockers’ day began early. Three voluntary canteens, at Prince’s Dock, Shieldhall and Yorkhill, had to be ready at 6.30am as the first of the dockers were on their way, and they needed a hearty breakfast.
Port officers were already assessing the demand for dockers in the various docks. By 7.45am Prince’s Dock was packed. Union officials on platforms faced crowds of dockers holding up their union cards. This was the time for “free booking”, when the men tried to pick their own jobs.
“You should see this place on Saturday morning”, remarked one middle-aged docker. “That’s when the Sunday jobs are fixed ... They fight one another for jobs”.
Read more: Herald Diary
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here