Tape 20 - GOFF SHERBURN, 4 July 1991: this mp3 audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Interviewer:
This recording was made on the 4th of July,1991 with Mr Goff Sherburn of Chilton Road, Goole.
Goff Sherburn:
Oh, very good. Right. When I first started the tugs, Tom Puddings, there was steam tugs then, they weren't motorised tugs they were steam tugs. Uh, there were six in actual fact due to war activities and one thing and another. They'd cut the fleet down and cut the fleet down because the men had gone to various other occupations. When I joined they started building the fleet back up, while eventually it did go back to 13.
Interviewer:
What year did you start in? What year did you start?
Goff Sherburn:
Oh, well. Uh 1950. About 53 I would think roughly about 53, 54. I can't just say exactly when I reckon it up, and that's been too much. You take, uh. And, then you visited nearly every colliery there was on the waterways on the canal side, on the river sides. That was before a lot of modernisation. So you dropped 2 or 3 pans at different collieries instead of loads, you know. That's how it was. So at that particular time, it was very hard, very, very hard work. You could be ordered away from Goole at 4 o'clock in the morning and you'd visit places like Bottom Boat, Altofts, Sykehouse, you name them. You know, there was all separate little pits. Not Sykehouse incidentally, uh. That was a lock. But you'd leave for Wakefield, you'd call at Astley, you'd call at Fryston, you'd call at Wheldale, eh, Allerton, Whitwood, Parkhill, Bottom Boat and then up to Wakefield. Now that was a full day's job, just getting there. What did you do, you went aboard in the morning? At 4 o'clock you went and picked your empties up and your engineer had his steam ready. Soon as everybody was aboard, you went and picked your empties up and you set off. And then when you got underway, everything rigged up to any chains and all the usual things fitted up, then you. So I had a bit of a cup of tea or a sandwich or whatever, then two of you sort of got laid down for half an hour or.
Goff Sherburn:
Tiny rich with for the rest. After about half an hour or so, you would get the other one to have a lay down, you know that sort of thing. Try and play along because it was in for a very long day, sometimes from point 1 to 10, 11 o'clock at night. So you had to get what rest you could. When you got to Ferrybridge, things then became a different kettle of fish because you went out of the canals into the rivers. River Aire, in actual fact, which could be very, very tricky situation in times of fresh water or floodwater, as they call it, which made the job more and more hazardous. Eh, it still didn't alter the fact that you'd got to go to these collieries and get your empties off into these particular little basins that they had in them days. They weren't washed as they are now. There's little basins that used to put pans in. Well, eventually dropping off a few here and a few there, 2 or 3 here, so forth. And you eventually reached Wakefield. By that time it was night time, depending on time of year, whether you tried to work so far back to make it easier for next day, eh, you'd hang on, hang your jebus onto your loaded pans, whatever they were, you put your last stop. Pick them up, and then you might make your way back down canal as far as you could.....
Goff Sherburn:
Uh, to a pub that was still open. Before you finish, you always finish somewhere near a pub as you could to go in and get a couple of pints on the process of still picking up all the way down. So by the time you got to a pub, you'd maybe got half your load and you wanted 19, you'd maybe have 8 or 9 on. Uh, it's get turned in. Go and have a couple of pints and get turned in, out again next morning. By the time the lock keepers started, which at that time was anywhere from 4 o'clock in the morning, again, if you ordered them out for 4 o'clock, then they'd turn out at four. You went and continued there. You continued to different collieries picked up different, the pans up that you needed or whatever. There was a lot of these places, like you'd call at Altofts, maybe three out of Altofts, maybe six or whatever, and into Whitwood take 2 or 3 out until you eventually got your 19. Then you'd come post-haste to Goole. Now, it wasn't all as simple as that because, you'd have the traffic to contend with. It wasn't just a case of you doing that on your own because there was other traffic. So in actual fact, the amount of time that you was taking made it obvious that you was in other people's roads. So many, many times there's lots of frayed tempers.
Goff Sherburn:
People weren't prepared to hang about maybe an hour while you got your pans down a particular lock or that sort of thing. So there's always arguments. Not a lot of fists, but always arguments. Eh. But then again, at the end of the day, you're still good friends. It was one of them sort of jobs, but it wasn't, it wasn't easy and it wasn't as simple as what it sounds. When you were light, only light when you'd light pans on the least little bit of wind blew at least two thirds amongst them to the canal banks, you'd craft moored to the canal banks and yachts moored to canal banks and all sorts of objects, all obstructions. And you had to be able to manoeuvre your pans around these yachts and things, which made it extremely difficult. Eh, I've seen actually people jump ashore scared to bloody death and then get back aboard again. Eh, because the pans looked so going to hit them. Um, we did very, very little damage in that area, in fact. I would say in 25 years, if I damaged two yachts, it would be more, one more than I knew about, quite frankly. But that would be say because I was good at it, that the yacht was lucky. But that's how it was. It was very, very difficult. It's very difficult job to define.
Interviewer:
What about lock-keepers when you was going up and down there?
Goff Sherburn:
Well, lock-keepers, Gez was... they was then they was paid a very, very minimum wage. And they also lived in tied, tied cottages. So therefore, what we used to do, we'd sort of give them a bit of coal towards the fire because they had no coal allowance. We'd give them a bit of coal towards a fire. We'd also throw them a couple of pennies, what we call lock pennies. Now that was never compulsory, but it was a recognised thing amongst boatmen because it sort of made the wage up, because in actual fact they was on half wages to what everybody else was on for a basic wage, and that's all the money they was on because they lived rent free. So the lock pennies, they was all sort of, looked on as, I don't know, a bonus, I would think. And I know if you didn't give them one, by hell, they made sure lock weren't ready for you when you come back, you know, they got it back in one way or another. But they was, in general, they was a good set of chaps. Eh, I knew the job that that wasn't an easy job because it was all manpower. Then there was no hydraulics. Everything was done by hand. Uh, and on top of that, in them days, if the lock-keepers were required to work down the banks anywhere, repairing a bank job, then his wife would work the lock. While he was employed somewhere else, that again was protected allowance for them. And they had to do that. I mean, they were so short of money in them days that, you know, they did anything that they had to do. I've actually seen a lock-keeper digging holes down at canal bank, his wife down same canal bank, looking after a bridge, and his son or his daughter actually working the lock. Uh, so that was 3 out of 1 family, all at different posts on the canal. And yet the old man was supposed to be the lock-keeper. But, you know, it's one of those things. But as I said, there was a great crowd. It was good. Good.
Interviewer:
What about life on the tug itself, then? You know, you only had a small cabin. You didn't have toilets on board the old steam tug.
Goff Sherburn:
And in them days, it was very, very primitive, Gez. Very primitive. You had no toilet facilities at all? No, water taps of any description, you'd a water cask on deck. Uh. You had no privacy at all. You had a coal stove in the cabin, a bench to sit on and some wooden planks to lay on. And that was your cabin, a cabin. A kettle was the whole equipment that the firm supplied. Didn't supply anything else but a kettle. Uh, I don't know who made these songs about making soup in pans and things like. Well, in actual fact, it was in kettles. It was actually, it was true. I've seen stews made liquidised, you'd liquidise them in the kettle and not a liquidiser as you do in these days. Uh. It was a good life. You, you had a freedom. That was the thing. You, you was never your own boss. No, that would be wrong to say that. But you was always in charge of the situation which made you the person that mattered at that moment. Uh. You had to make decisions. You had no boss to do that for you at that particular time. You couldn't get on a telephone and ask him what you had to do.
Goff Sherburn:
You'd to go and do it. And the same with floodwater. You had to make the decision yourself. So, it, it gave you a freedom if you made the wrong decision. Unfortunately, you know, you come unstuck. You made the decision yourself, and that was a good thing. I liked that, I liked that challenge. I couldn't do I don't think you would do with that, that job with anybody on end of a ship to shore telephone or whatever saying put you with the left, put you with the right sort of thing. I think that would be the way to do that job. You needed that. But it was a way of life, Gez. It's hard to describe it. It got into your system. It's very, very hard work. But it got into your system. You argued like hell all day and drink like bloody trojans at night, you know, everything was forgotten the minute you tied up. You would, you could argue all day, but the minute anybody was in trouble, everybody was there to help. You never, ever refused to help. Another tug whatever you could have been arguing all day and all night, but you still wouldn't leave them.
Interviewer:
What about some characters then at work? Then, there must be some.
Goff Sherburn:
Well, you had all sorts of eccentric people, but on the tugs and on the canals and waterways and locks. They all had their little oddities. I mean, I remember an instance where we was once in a lock called Whitley Lock, and there's a chap, there's a tall, a tall boy in a barge. And we was laid, we was penning down the lock alongside of them with us Tom Pudding. Anyway, as the tug went out, they must've went out towing the barge as the tow rope tightened it got the mate's foot. Put the mate overboard. The wire chopped his foot off. Now we got the mate out of the lock. He was dead. But, you know, we couldn't do about that when we get him out like he'd passed away. But his foot was still missing. Now, that wasn't a funny situation at all until when we went back the next trip and the lock-keeper gave me the block's foot, wrapped in a bag. He actually pulled it out and bloody well saved it until we went back. I mean, it weren't out to do with me? In actual fact, because I got the body out, he thought I should have the foot and all, and as far as I know, that foot is still buried on Whitley Lock. That's where we buried it. I mean, it's no good to anybody.
Interviewer:
You buried it?
Goff Sherburn:
Pardon?
Interviewer:
And you actually buried it?
Goff Sherburn:
Oh, yeah. We had to do. I mean, what could we do with it? I mean, the, the bloke himself had been buried, what, a week or more then I didn't see anybody wanting to dig coffin up, put foot in. Well, that was one, uh, we had characters aboard, you know, all sorts of superstitions came into the job, things like that. Uh, you had seamen, quite a lot of seamen came into the job, and they carried the sea traditions and sea superstitions with them. I don't know. I would say, because you'd just about every kind of oddity that there was. You know, it's, uh, we'd a chap with us. In actual fact, he finished up, to be honest, one of the big bosses in fleet, in Fleet. Uh, he actually bought a bag of sawdust for 6 pence, in old money, and borrowed a brand new barrow to wheel it home. We all know what that meant, don't we? Got a brand new barrow for a tanner. It was, you know, another bloke who was with us who was doing some guttering on one of the dock sheds, and he lived in a street called Ouse Street at that time, and he wrote on the guttering that he picked up, Goole shipyard repair yard and just carried it across the docks, took it home. And he never was stopped. Them's the sort of people I mean, they was all very good lads, really good lads, work mates, but they'd do anything. You know another lad we had, he actually drowned. He'd got overboard. Been on the gin when they found him, and a bottle, half a bottle of gin in his pocket. He was never married, wasn't Jimmy? Never. Uh. He had a funny outlook on, on life. He said he would never work anywhere else bar on water. He knew one day that water would get him. And he always said when he went, he would go drunk. And he did. And I don't think it was planned. It certainly wasn't planned. It was just the way he was when everybody else said, that's the way he would go. And that's how they found him. Dead, you know, full of gin.
Interviewer:
Where do you get your experience from then? What was you doing before you actually stepped onto a tug?
Goff Sherburn:
Well, I spent quite a long time aboard on rivers and canals, Gez, on barges. I was on barges up Trent, Humber, Aire and Calder, the Sheffield and South Yorkshire. York up the Ouse, you know. There'd quite a lot of work in that. Well, at the time that I joined the tugs, the wages on the barges was very, very skimpy, but on the tugs was very, very good money. We was paid by bonuses then and was carrying the tonnage bags of 20s. So therefore it was a good job and that's why I joined them.
Interviewer:
Okay.
Goff Sherburn:
To go back to eccentrics in the job, we'd a chap with us called Johnny Graham. Always cracked on he was well off. You know, supposed to be rich man. And in them days when anybody had a roll of money in their pockets was rich. Well, Johnny always had a wad of notes. Well, in them days it was white £5 notes. Always a wad of white five pound notes, £5 notes in his pocket. Always. You see. Anyway, I don't know how it came about, but one of the lads, once at night when Johnny had got turned in, I had a look at this wad of notes and what it was was bloody newspapers, one £5 note wrapped round them. So, uh, another one was, Albert Terry used to, in them days be collier and collier was rationed. So therefore there was always a good market for a few eggs, you know, for yourselves. And used to share them out. Count them out like, a dozen for you and a dozen for you, you know. So .
Goff Sherburn:
Oh, no, it's all right. But with one lad. Oh, but he used to go and measure them with his pipe stem to make sure he got biggest. Yeah, and it's true that, he measured the eggs with his pipe stem. You could watch him doing it and swapping them about so as he got biggest eggs. But another one he used to bring three cigarettes in a packet. Uh, couple of tomatoes wrapped in paper, you know that, what you call it, paper, that see through paper, I call it, and it'd come back home again. So I don't know. But I, I remember once we stopped for fresh water at a place called Lemonroyd. And we're going ashore, I don't know, this may have been mentioned earlier on, I don't know. Uh, bloke, actually, but I couldn't get his chickens, nobody could get his chickens but I'd been and got some. But unfortunately, Alf was one of my crewmen, engineer in actual fact. And when we cooked chickens next morning, Alf wouldn't have any. He said no, you've stole them? No, we didn't Alf we won them in the pub last night. You was there. And I don't know whether he was hungry or what, but he actually ate the chickens, and he knew full well that where we'd gotten them from, he accepted the fact that we won them in the pub, but them's the sort of people that were, you know, it was great, really great people. Yeah.
Interviewer:
I know one story hasn't been told, actually. That's great one about the, um, famous waterways darts team.
Goff Sherburn:
Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, it's quite a lot of stories attached to that one, Gez, you can go on all night about that, but, uh, I think mum and dad was involved in some of that anyway. Uh, quite a lot, because they were all keen supporters. But we started the team, local team with the tugmen. We eventually, eh, after 3 or 4 years, won All England Championship Cup in London in two two two club, London Road, uh, which was quite an achievement in actual fact. But the fun that led up to that was, you know, really great with some really good times out. But I think the best of it all was when we actually won the Cup. At the same day as we won the cup, it was a rugby league final in London and we was walking to the cup singing, through London, singing. "We'd won the cup", which was early morning, so was the lads from the rugby final all singing they'd won the Cup. So it looked, you know, it was a really great situation to be in, but the fact was that we'd won a weekend in Brighton. Now we was making our way across London all absolutely kaylied and we were like, uh, singing we've won the cup.
Goff Sherburn:
We've just gone on making our way across London to the electric station to get a train for Brighton. Got the train to Brighton, found out where the hotel was booked in, which was on the seafront. Uh, there's nobody there at all, nobody on duty, just one little porter. So we sort of collared him and said, well, who we were. I said. You're not in here. We are. No, no he said, you're not. He'd better get somebody else because we are booked in here anyway. He'd eventually got the proprietor out and we'd been double booked. But some of the rooms I said were still nobody in. But how they come to it, I don't know, because they was all keys. As we tried our rooms, it was different rooms had other couples in, and they'd actually given the keys to the doors so how the hell they'd worked out? I do not know. And I believe your mum and dad actually got a room with a couple in and are sleeping, all over on setees and all over. It was a wonderful weekend, but God, it was well earned. But you know, it was one of them sort of jobs. They just unbelievably a great crowd of work mates.
Interviewer:
Uh, what about the dark matter? Dart match. After the bit, a bit of, uh, skullduggery done on the canal, wasn't there? And you were, you played in Goole in the match.
Goff Sherburn:
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'd actually won the Cup and we brought it back to Goole, which was quite an achievement, Goole being a big dock area and dockers had all sorts of things going on and winning everything you see. So we won this cup and they'd asked us to give an exhibition match in the BRSA club in Goole, which was the local dockers and railwaymen's club. So we said we would. Anyway, we goes down there to play the darts. The club was there, the cup was there for on show, for everybody to see. Big massive thing like, beautiful. And we was all set in the small bar in this club having a drink they was shouting the lads through. They formed a team. We took our team and uh, they were shouting through in turn like you're on next. Anyway, uh, they shouted Mr Savage, will you come and play please? Says, no, Mr Savage. What they didn't know is they'd been in and arrested him, and this one turned right way through the team. There was two thirds of the bloody team inside, so the match had to be abandoned obviously. When we sorted it out, they actually bought some stuff that had been knocked off, but they didn't know that they'd bought the stuff off this chap, supposed to have fell off a lorry. So consequently there's, I think six out of the team was all inside for the night. [Laughs] Yeah.
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