Disc 5 - The Port of Goole.mp4: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.
Narrator:
We all love messing about in boats or with boats, but Goole and its ships have a far more serious purpose in life than this tiny yacht.
Narrator:
There is something dramatic as one stands on the riverside to watch the arrival and departure of ships, many of them well over 2000 tons. There is in all of us, we suppose, a touch of the sailor and to watch the tide come sweeping up, bringing with it ship after ship, right into the heart of the town, with the broad waters of the river Ouse carrying them safely to the end of their voyage from across many of the seas of the world and into dock has a fascination that never seems to end. Goole, as a port, was born out of the Industrial Revolution, but it has an interesting history, for the river on which it stands, the River Ouse, was the highway for all the Viking raids that followed the end of the Roman occupation.
Narrator:
Day by day, ships reach Goole on a regular liner service from Amsterdam, Delfzijl, Harlingen, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Boulogne, Dunkirk, Bremen, Hamburg, Wismar and Copenhagen, and every ship, as it arrives, has its place in one of Goole's eight docks, which among them have three miles of quay length, all of them served by railways, 25 miles of track altogether, and linking the port with the country's main railway systems.
Narrator:
Such scenes as this are commonplace in the working life of Goole docks, and in the lives of the men who man the docks. There's no need to worry about how to get heavy machinery or equipment into or out of a ship. We can do it for you, with the help of dockside cranes. The cranes plunge deep into a ship to haul out the machinery. It is all handled speedily and smoothly, handled with the efficiency that is the result of experience, because Goole has been handling heavy lifts for a long, long time.
Narrator:
This 33 ton lift is part of a consignment of 90 pieces, weighing a total of 80 tons of road making machinery destined for the Midlands.
Narrator:
The hinterland extends to the industrial areas of both Yorkshire and the Midlands, and services available to these areas by road, rail and canal can be compared with any in the country. If you look at a map, you will see at a glance the wonderful natural advantages of this port, its geographical position almost 50 miles from the open sea, the gateway to the continent for the industrial West Riding and the North Midlands. Linked to the very heart of the country by a unique canal system yet sitting astride the main east to west road links and earmarked as the very hub from which will radiate the motorways of the 1970s. It will open up Humberside to vast industrial and economic development.
Narrator:
Lifts of up to 50 tons are almost a daily job, and at the last count it was found that Goole had dealt with 1700 heavy lifts in 20 months.
Narrator:
And even this oversized and overweight knitting machine, bigger and heavier than any housewife's dream, can be lifted bodily into the ship without fuss or ceremony, and sent away by sea to the firm which ordered it. This particular machine is destined for Milan, sent from Goole by sea to Amsterdam, and then to be taken by road to the far north of Italy.
Narrator:
And each of these dumpers weighs nearly nine tons. They are going to Yugoslavia.
Narrator:
It is dockside scenes like this, which typify the mixed and varied cargoes that the port handles day by day, discharging overside into waiting lighters or onto the quayside into waiting lorries.
Narrator:
The port is perfectly equipped to send your goods by road, rail or water in a cheap, quick operation which reduces your costs and which, at the same time, gives Goole its enviable reputation as one of the country's best ports for quick handling.
Narrator:
Watch, if you will, these hundreds of tons of breakfast bacon being unloaded, all of it prime Danish bacon destined for the tables of the vast northern market being hurried out of the hold of the ship and into the lighters waiting alongside to be taken to a bacon factory not many miles away, or onto the docker's barrow, out of the slings from the hold through the dockside sheds, and so to the waiting lorries. Every week for nearly a hundred years. Danish bacon, butter, eggs and all its dairy produce have come to Goole and have been sent quickly on their way. The port's trade links with Copenhagen have withstood all the economic changes of the years. Goole and its butter boats, as they are affectionately known with their refrigerated holds, are firm links with Denmark, which will never be broken.
Narrator:
Here in West Dock, lies the very heart of the port filled day by day, with ships flying the flags of almost every country in the world. All nationalities are represented. Big ships, little ships. Their flags flutter in the docks and Goole welcomes them all. Dutchmen. German. Swedish. Polish. Belgium. And when Russian timber ships come into port from the White Sea or the Baltic, their crews always look for a game of football, and Goole dockers oblige and beat them in the nicest possible way. So they should, for Goole dockers are the national champions at soccer and at cricket too.
Narrator:
West Dock is the largest of Goole's eight docks. There are seven acres of water in it, with dockside cranes, electric cranes, and a 40 ton heavy lift crane, all linked with the railway tracks running alongside the quays, with the wagons waiting to receive the bulk cargoes grabbed from the ship's hold. All these cranes are soon to be replaced by an even more modern battery, as part of a £1.25 million improvement scheme, scheduled for completion within the next two years.
Narrator:
Every cargo is handled by a labour force with a reputation most dock managements would give their right arm to boast of, a labour force, among whom strikes are unknown. It is a solemn fact that in the last 20 years, 20 years remember, Goole dockers have been on strike only once for half a day. And that was a mistake put right in a matter of hours.
Narrator:
All Goole's docks have direct access to rail and road. Wagons and lorries are loaded almost side by side. Time is money. Goole never forgets that simple principle. Goole is the port with a reputation for discharging and loading ships with a speed that makes its bigger neighbours on the Humber envious. Bulk cargoes can be handled at West Dock and delivered to road, rail or canal by grab more than a tonne at a time.
Narrator:
This potash, this sand, and these coils of steel sheets will finish up in a car factory as the body for your next new car. And Goole too, this must never be forgotten, is the terminus of a canal system, the old Aire and Calder, which the British Waterways Board acclaim as the jewel in their crown because it makes a profit and Goole is the cause and reason for that profit. Here in Goole, road, rail, river and canal meet in a vast complex of communications which add up to millions of tons of cargo each and every year, handled with speed and efficiency, to ensure Goole a place high in the top 20 of the country's ports.
Narrator:
And Goole knew about special liner traffic long before the railwaymen heard about it. Here, calcined coke for graphite is being loaded into special hopper wagons, with a loading hopper straddling the wagon, an example of Goole's most recent and successful new trade. It is the introduction of such new business that has proved Goole's capacity to anticipate the changing patterns of trade, to go out and get that trade, and then to prove that it can fulfil its promises. In years gone by, Goole enjoyed a flourishing timber trade which almost disappeared because of the two world wars and the end of supplies. But once again, Goole is acquiring a reputation as a timber port. Already in the last few months, two firms dealing exclusively in timber and its products have established themselves in Goole and have been provided with sites for storage.
Narrator:
Timber once again is adding its weight to the annual total of imports. Packaged timber, so much easier for the dockside workers to handle, is becoming increasingly a feature, so that nowadays a ship carrying up to 200 standards of timber can be discharged within 24 hours. It's a far cry from the days when every single length of timber had to be manhandled, and when a timber ship might be in port for as long as a fortnight. Yet in all Goole's mixed dockland economy, it must never be forgotten that coal, once the port's very lifeblood, still has a very important part to play. Goole as a port was founded on coal shipments, and even today, when coal no longer plays such a vital part in the nation's economy, 60% of the port's trade still consists of coal shipments. So near to the rich Yorkshire coalfields, Goole is uniquely placed to ship coal speedily and without fuss, either directly out of the railway wagons into the ship's hold, or by a unique system that has never been equalled anywhere in the country, the compartment boat system. Directly from the loading stage at the colliery these huge steel floating pans, each holding 35 tonnes of coal, are towed down the canal by tugs, floating trains of perhaps 700 tonnes of coal, in many cases a ship's full cargo. Each pan or compartment boat is floated under the hoist and over a huge iron cradle, and then lifted bodily out of the water to be tipped down a chute and into the ship, 35 tons at a time, in an operation that has to be seen to be believed. Down the chute pours the coal, just like water being poured from a kettle into the teapot. In less than an hour each of these hoists, and Goole has three of them, can pour 250 tons of coal into the heart of a ship. A ship comes into port on one tide. Her cargo of coal, whether it has been brought to the port by canal or by rail, is waiting for her, and under the waiting hoist she goes straight from the river. And on the very next tide, 12 hours later, she is on her way back again to the open sea. One hears so much nowadays about the days of the big ships carrying huge cargoes. And all the visionaries, all the planners know there will always be a place for a port like Goole, so long as coal is needed for the nation's well-being. And it's worth noting that the record for this method of loading coal by railway wagon stands at 1000 tons in two hours. The whole wagon is lifted by hydraulic hoist and its contents tipped down a chute into the hold, with the wagon returned to the railway line below by a gravitational ramp. A thousand tonnes in two hours.
Narrator:
Dockland is linked to a railway system spreading far and wide from the marshalling yards at the very entrance to the port, only a few hours away from the industrial West Riding and the busy, thriving Midlands that mean so much to the nation's economy. And running almost parallel with the railways is the canal system of the West Riding, for which the Aire and Calder long years ago made Goole the terminus. Up and down the canal ply powerful barges, bringing and taking bulk cargoes of grain, petrol, potash, strawboard, sand, chemicals, fertilisers to and from the heart of the industrial north. It was only natural, as Goole grew in importance, that the dock area itself and the land immediately surrounding it, should attract industry. Here dockside industries flourish. Dextrin manufacture with its raw materials delivered directly to its doors. Flour milling, with its huge grain silo thrusting up from the very dockside. Chemical fertilisers, one of the town's largest industries, with ships discharging their cargoes at the factory's own quay on the River Don. Industries that have brought increasing prosperity to Goole and its people. Industries which are only the forerunner of many more when the banks of the River Don are opened up and more quays are built to serve the new factories, that must surely come, just as this quay now serves the factory which built it.
Narrator:
In recent years the shipment of Danish lager has become an increasingly important trade. Goole in fact handles a third of all the lager imported by one Danish firm into this country. Imported week by week, thirstily and on a grand scale, for distribution throughout the North and the Midlands. Only in the last few years, has Denmark made this country aware of its taste for lager and Goole sends it to you, expertly and quickly, from this huge depot on the town's industrial estate. Factory after factory has been established, only a few yards from the rivers, roads, canals and railways, taking full advantage of Goole's own advantages as a port so far inland. But Goole doesn't have all its eggs in one basket. The port and the mixed industries the port has attracted are set in the middle of a rich agricultural countryside. Less than 150 years ago, Goole was a small village with a population of 450. Today, with a population of 19,000, it is the market town for a score and more villages that surround it. Its market grew up in the very centre of the town, but its main street, Boothferry Road, lined with trees as its introduction to the town, will soon be superseded as the main shopping centre as the corporation's ambitious plans for redevelopment materialise. Goole knows it has a good deal of leeway to make up.
Narrator:
When the navigation lights on the river Ouse were put out in 1939, the port was virtually closed for six weary years of war. But now fighting to fulfil its destiny as the only port of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Goole realises that it must also provide more houses. The borough council and private developers work together. Hundreds of new houses have been built since the war. The last of the pre-war slums are rapidly disappearing. Those grim, gritty years of war and post-war make do and mend have gone. Estates such as these are springing up almost year by year. Goole welcomes newcomers into its boundaries and there is no shortage of houses.
Narrator:
The borough and port of Goole is expanding. There is abundant room for expansion, both in the town itself and just outside its boundaries to the north, south, east and west. And Goole has some fine schools too. The grammar school, with a distinguished record of successes, will soon celebrate its Diamond Jubilee. When it was built it had 300 pupils. In the last two years it has been enlarged and modernised to accommodate nearly 800, with a strong sixth form of nearly 200. You couldn't wish for a finer looking school. And across the road, again at the very entrance to the town, is the County Secondary school with a roll of 1100 pupils, the largest school in the town and providing, like the grammar school, courses that lead to higher education. No one in Goole need be an 11 plus failure. It is to these two senior schools of the town that the youngsters come, like the juniors who attend Kingsway School, Goole's newest primary school. And if you ask any football hungry youngster of school age like these boys on the playing field at Kingsway, what his greatest ambition is, he will tell you to play football for Goole Town, Goole senior football team on the pleasure grounds, home of Goole football for generations, in the shadow of the docks, the docks that mean so much to Goole.
Narrator:
Or perhaps he will tell you if he comes from the grammar school, that one day he will play for Goole Old Boys, one of Yorkshire's best known rugby union clubs, twice winners of the Yorkshire Shield and not so long ago winners of the Yorkshire Cup, the county's most coveted trophy. The club is now nearly 40 years old. Founded by a few enthusiasts, a year or two after the school changed from soccer to rugby. Now the club has its own ground, its own clubhouse and fields three teams every week throughout the season.
Narrator:
There is time to in Goole to stand and stare in the peace of a park only a few minutes from the heart of the town, but a place without crowds. An oasis of flowers and trees. A haven of rest and tranquillity. A place where children can safely play before it's time once again to return to the everyday world.
Narrator:
But it isn't everywhere that you will get such a scene as this in your everyday world. The launching of a fine ship. At Goole they have built ships for generations. Built at Goole is a proud label for any ship to wear. For Goole takes pride in the ships it builds. No matter how many times you have watched a launch, there is always a wonderful fascination in seeing a ship take to the water, her natural element for the first time.
Narrator:
Ship after ship, has slid down these slipways at Goole and into the Ouse, flags aflutter. Like this ship, the Trentonia, built to carry 850 tons of cargo, taken into tow by fussy little tugs and pulled and pushed into her berth for fitting out before she runs her trials and is handed over to her owners. The shipyard at Goole has built well over 500 ships in little more than 60 years. It's something to be proud of.
Narrator:
And for generation after generation too, google has built small ships as well as big ships, barges and yachts and just boats, for people have always liked messing about in boats and all manner of river craft, to all manner of specifications, requiring all manner of engineering and building skills.
Narrator:
Here, for example, is the midsection of a steel barge destined for work on the canals, ready to be fitted into place. Goole builds ships of all shapes and sizes and it even operates on ships. It cuts ships in two and lengthens them as you will see from this fascinating glimpse of ship surgery being carried out in one of the three dry docks. Opening her up inch by inch, cutting her into amidships, and then inserting a new section. A few weeks in dry dock and a ship like this will come out feeling a lot better, and certainly she will be a lot bigger. The latest ship to be cut down the middle like this, to feel the surgeon's oxy-acetylene burner was lengthened by 28ft, and that meant that she could carry nearly 400 more tons of cargo. Inch by inch, the gap is widened and when it's wide enough in goes the new section. Goole does this sort of thing regularly but then Goole is a town and a port that believes literally in expansion, in getting bigger. If you do too, then you and Goole have a future that lies together. Come to Goole and expand. Come to Goole and get bigger as this ship did.
Sonix has many features that you'd love including transcribe multiple languages, powerful integrations and APIs, automated subtitles, collaboration tools, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.
