Dock

Um, yes, I'll tell you a little bit about that.

Basically, I was commissioned to write a community play based on-- which was called We Are the Docks.

So it was based on the fishing industry in Grimsby.

And in order to find out about this, I interviewed about thirty fishermen, and lumpers, and filletters, and all sorts of people associated with the docks, most of whom were probably in their eighties, some were in their nineties, and they were really pleased to be able to tell me their stories.

The Albert Dock was filled with East Indiamen discharging their cargoes of sugar, jute, and linseed, and tea clippers from China.

They loaded their outward cargoes in the Salt House Dock, which adjoined.

Further south again, the King's and Queen's Docks were occupied by small foreign vessels trading to the continental ports.

The old New York liners, sailing ships, loaded in the Bramley Moor Dock, and the docks further north, the Canada being the most northerly, were filled with steamers trading to the Mediterranean and the Cunard and Inman lines of steamers.

Today one may hunt from one end of the docks to the other without finding a dozen sailing ships larger than a schooner.

The clipper with her taut spars and snow-white canvas, and the small coaster with her tan sails, all went to make up a picture of wonderful color and infinite beauty.

The Dock Board.

There is no branch of the public service of which Liverpool people are more proud than the administration of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

So you've Sorting things out a little bit, you've then been asked to sort out a goblin encampment, which was stopping trade coming into town, and generally being given jobs that are going to make the town get more prosperous and bring a bit of joy to the people of the town.

You're still living in the rough end of town in Docks, and they're tangled, saying it was staying at Soots and Sparrow in...

And every adventure, every week, you kind of come back to the Soot and Spyro Inn and meet up with Martha Feldring, who's the lady in the pub.

And you shake it to

The Albert Dock was filled with East Indiamen discharging their cargoes of sugar, jute, and linseed, and tea clippers from China.

They loaded their outward cargoes in the Salthouse Dock, which adjoined.

Further south again, the King's and Queen's Docks were occupied by small foreign vessels trading to the continental ports.

The old New York liners, sailing ships, loaded in the Bramley Moor Dock, and the docks further north, the Canada being the most northerly, were filled with steamers trading to the Mediterranean, and the Cunard and Inman lines of steamers.

Today, one may hunt from one end of the docks to the other without finding a dozen sailing ships larger than a schooner.

The River Mersey, at all times beautiful with its wonderful alternations of light and its brisk flowing waters, has never been so beautiful since the old sailing ship days, when at the top of high water the outward-bound fleet proceeded to sea, and the entire river from the pier head to the rock light was filled with shipping of all sizes working their way out to sea, tacking and cross-tacking.

The clipper with her taut spars and snow-white canvas, and the small coaster with her tanned sails, all went to make up a picture of wonderful colour and infinite beauty.

The Dock Board There is no branch of the public service of which Liverpool people are more proud than the administration of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

Wharves, landing places, dock gates, waterside stairs follow each other continuously right up to London Bridge, and the hum of men's work fills the river with a menacing, muttering note as of a breathless, ever-driving gale.

The waterway, so fair above and wide below, flows oppressed by bricks and mortar and stone, by blackened timber and grimed glass and rusty iron, covered with black barges, whipped up by paddles and screws, overburdened with craft, overhung with chains, overshadowed by walls making a steep gorge for its bed, filled with a haze of smoke and dust.

This stretch of the Thames from London Bridge to the Albert Docks is to other watersides of river ports what a virgin forest would be to a garden.

It is a thing grown up, not made.

It recalls a jungle by the confused, varied and impenetrable aspect of the buildings that line the shore, not according to a planned purpose, but as if sprung up by accident from scattered seeds.

The absence of picturesqueness cannot be laid to the charge of the docks opening into the Thames.

For all my unkind comparisons to swans and backyards, it cannot be denied that each dock or group of docks along the north side of the river has its own individual attractiveness.

Beginning with the cosy little St. Catherine's Dock, lying overshadowed and black like a quiet pool amongst rocky crags, through the venerable and sympathetic London Docks, with not a single line of rails in the whole of their area and the aroma of spices lingering between its warehouses with their far-famed wine cellars, down through the interesting group of West India Docks, the fine docks at Blackwall, on past the galleon's reach entrance of the Victoria and Albert Docks, right down to the vast gloom of the great basin in Tilbury.