Hello you Mersey Lurkers,
My dad was a docker for about 40 years and was a gang leader. He built up quite a reputation just after the war when men used to go to the 'PEN' to try to get a days work to put food on the table. He knew all of the local men even though there were hundreds of them and what he used to do was to select men for work if he knew that the family was short of food and in a desparate situation. He was well respected for this and apparently nobody ever complained when not selected for his gang because they all knew the main reason for selection.
He was a very quiet man and had numerous nicknames one of which was 'the mouse'. The men who worked alongside him worked hard because he used to get stuck in and do his share of the work and they seldom complained because of this.
When they had lunch break in the pub, they would all go in and throw their 'carrying out' on the table. These were butties containing jam or spam or cheese or bananas with sugar, sometimes real meat. Anyway, they would all choose a butty that was not their own because they were fed up getting the same one from the wife every day. None of them said anything during this process and when I used to watch this it was amazing team work and spirit. they all munched away contentedly swilling an odd ale.
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My dad died of cancer in 1998 and before he went to the Woolton hospice, he was in the Liverpool hospital. Just before he was moved to the hospice I was talking to him about the docks and I noticed a man about 50 years of age watching us. He eventually came over and asked me was my dad dying and I told him yes. He told me that he had been listening to us and asked me had he heard right and was this man Johnny Wallace, the docker. When I replied yes, he told me that his father and his brothers were all dockers and that my dad was held in a kind of awe by lots of dockers for the method of selection that he had used in the pens during hard times. His family used to whisper a word of thanks for the bread on their table some days because of a man called the mouse. He told me that I should be proud of my dad because he was a kind of folk hero among many of the older dockers. Anyway, this chap asked me could he shake my fathers hand which he did and then he smiled and walked away with a little swagger in his stride. I have never this chap again and I wonder what he tells his mates about this encounter.
As my dad was wheeled out of the cancer ward I stopped the porters by the window(5th floor) and told my dad to take a look at the Mersey. When he looked at me I knew that he was aware that this would be the last time that he would see it and he smiled a look of thanks. He then said, 'come on John, get me to the hospice' and off we went.
He died a couple of weeks later and I often wonder what other stories he took with him.
My dad was one of thirteen kids and all of the men were the old breed of Liverpool Dockers and do you know what, I am so proud to be a dockers son because of this hard working quiet bunch of hard men. I don't think that anyone could be prouder.
They lived between the Anglican cathedral and the docks and got bombed continuously during the war. The family were bombed out of Great george Square and were moved to Alfred Street about 200 yards away and just carried on working.
What else can I say except they were scousers.
John
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