THE BRICKYARD PART 2

I had been working at the brickyard for about two months and today it was pouring with rain. We were all congregated in the lobby, the fire was merrily licking up the chimney and a sooty black kettle on the hob was trying to blow its lid off but could not quite manage it. The small lid would lift and a jet of steam escaped, then the lid, as if it had a mind of its own, decided that was enough steam let out and slammed shut again. It crossed my mind it was a bit like a wrestling match that could only end when the kettle boiled dry. A bloke about fifty years old had a corned beef sandwich on the end of the toasting fork which looked like it had been made from old bits of wire twisted together and the ends bent to form a three pronged fork, the opposite end was formed into a loop. He was offering it to the coals glowing orange and red through the iron bars of the grate. As the toasted bread began to smoke some one quipped, “ which God is gittin’ an offerin’ tu’daey then Jim?”
Jim replied “don’ mek’ mi laugh, ah’m evvin a bloody job keepin’ it on’t bloody ferk tu start wi”.

Then as the bread began to curl with the heat some of the corned beef fell out of the sandwich on to the ashes below.
The small piece of corned beef gave off a thin wisp of smoke as it began to shrivel with the heat from the hot ash it had fallen on. The bloke with the fork said “ stuff it, that’ll ev’ta do” and rescued the remainder of the sandwich from the end of the wire toasting fork as it appeared ready to fall off. Hanging the fork on a nail at the side of the fireplace he then lounged back on his plank seat.  Eyeing the sandwich as if it had just dropped from outer space he suddenly bit into it like a hungry wolf killing a rat. He sucked air into his mouth as he chewed, hoping to cool the portion of hot toast he had just bitten off. Not having the success he had hoped for he grabbed his bottle of cold tea, and with the tea bottle in one hand and the sandwich in the other, he crooked the little finger of the hand with the sandwich round the cork and removed it. He took a hasty swig, belched, and said “that’s berrer, that bloody samwich were ‘ot!
A voice said “ ah thowt tha’ wu why yu wus toastin it?”
“wot?”
“tu mek it ‘ot”
Someone else volunteered “ yea well app’n it’s ‘eat wot does it”
“Does what?”
“mek’s toast, well ah meen it’s a bit like when it raens ent it,  it’s ’t weather app’n ‘an every thin’ gets wet.
Some of the blokes looked a one another a bit blank faced, then some one broke the deadlock with, “So yu got yu new wireless from Pinchbecks then Fred?”
“aye” said Fred, “I wus listenin’ tu music frum Hivershum an’ by ‘eck it wer good”
“ weer the bloody ‘ell’s ilveershum?” queried a voice
“tuther side ‘ot watter” said another.
“Aw yu meen neer ‘ull (Kingston-upon-Hull.Yorkshire)
“naw yu silly sod, app’n it’s o’wer in Belgium sum weer.”
A mixed chorus of, “coors it is” and “aw is that weer it is” accompanied by nodding of heads and meaning glances.

The bloke had a greying beard, well it would be a beard eventually if he let it grow, but as he said when accosted about not having a shave today, “couldn’t find me razor, a’think me missus ‘as bin shaevin’ ‘er legs ag’in”
“A’ve gor an owd sythe am not usin’ yu can ev it fer two bob app’n” spoke up another bloke”
“ah keep oot road when she is carvin’ Sunday roast, replied the unshaved bloke, “give ‘er a bloody sythe, app’n an she could lose control al’tergither an’ cut me bloody eerd off”.
“Then yu wouldn’t need tu shave at all, look at money yu wud save”, drawled a voice from the back of the lobby.

Everybody was quiet because there was always a punch line, and no one wanted to miss it. And sure enough the voice continued “Ah gits me ‘ammer an’ knocks all t’ ‘airs back in an’ bend ‘em ower inside, naw wot ah meen?”
Some blokes chuckled, but some had heard it before.

Then the door opened and the foreman came in. He did not usually join us if we were rained off, he would cycle up the lane to his house at the end of the lane. He had done so today but now he had come back through the rain and I wondered why he had bothered to return, getting wet through in the process. A silence had descended on the lobby as all the blokes looked at the foreman expectantly.
Then a voice ventured, “Don’t tell us Henry,---yuv’ won aiyf a million quid on’t football coopon?”
I think they were thinking as I was, why had he come back all this way in the rain?
Then it was cleared up as he began with, “Ave just ed a phone call frum‘t boss,”
“We could ev’ a coal ship at end of jitty in’t mornin’”
“Ah wanted tu catch yu’s all afore yu went ‘ome so’s yu could mek arrangements wi yu missuses”
And as he turned to go, he half turned back and said, “If’n I ‘ad won ayf a million d’yu think ah’d be sweatin’ me bollocks off doon ‘ere” in this shit ‘ole.

Then he went out and shut the door, there was quiet but for the noise of the rain outside and on the tiles. When a coal ship ties up on the end of the jetty it is very low in the water. It was not uncommon to see a barge loaded with coal and the seawater lapping over the middle of the barge. Since hatches covered the hold where coal was stored and a tarpaulin held by metal strips and wedged into place by pegs of wood the barge was water tight, more or less.
But it had been known for a peg to come loose or not fitted correctly and the whole thing could take on water and go to the bottom of the river.

A barge on the river made money by transporting goods, so the quicker the barge was loaded and unloaded not only paid its way but made a profit, but a barge sitting on the mud and not moving is not making money. Sometimes a greedy skipper would ignore the plimsole line and to make a bit extra would put his barge in peril by loading that little bit extra. So this was the reason for the foreman to come down in the rain and tell us. We fervently prayed the rain would be gone by morning. If it were still raining tomorrow we would be unloading the coal. And we would work until it was too dark to see, when for safety reasons we would have to stop. And no one with a sense of fair play would go sick if it were raining. But in the wet you had to be on your toes because underfoot became slippery when wet.
The buzz of conversation started up again.
“well ah suppose ah’ll ev tu git me runnin’ shoes oot agin’” somebody sighed
“ah’m gonna borra me dad’s owd crickitin’ boots they got spikes in em” chimed in another voice
“Ah’m sleepin’ in’t spare bedroom ter nite” said on bloke.
“”why’s that Fred, d’yu still ‘ave tu feight (fight) yu missus off at neet?”( night)
“Naw” said Fred, “ah allus ger a bad attack o’ wind wen a boat comes in, an she kicks me oot ‘o bed cos ah stink.”
“I bags the winch first” cried someone else

It appeared according to the snippets of conversation that the sooner the barge was emptied the sooner he could be away. But there was a snag. You see in the river Humber the tides vary. Some spring tides have been known to creep right up Waterside Road and flood some houses. One year it was lapping at the door of a house half way up Fleetgate a mile away. But if the tide went out before the boat was empty then it just had to sit there and wait for the next tide. There was nothing more frustrating to the skipper of a barge than to be stuck on the mud as he watches fuming the water rushing by his boat and he is not going with it. A good simile would be a miser having hidden all his paper money in the walls of his house then having to watch it as it burns to the ground.

The next morning I was part of the coaling gang. The coaling gang consisted of all able bodied men working at the brickyard. The only exception was an old bloke making tiles and his arthritis would not enable him to walk on a single plank wheeling a coal barrow. The coal barrow was a low slung wooden frame with two handles and an iron wheel at one end. From the boat to the jetty was a plank about a foot wide by about 4 inches thick and 20 ft long. On this plank and continuing into the coal sheds was a flat iron strip about six inches wide. I did not get to practice this coaling of a barge. I was thrown in at the deep end and I found myself wheeling a coal basket on a coaling barrow albeit a bit wobbly to cries of “DON’T LOOK DOWN”

I finally got to the coal sheds and tipped my first basket of coal. I preened with delight as the foreman patted my shoulder and said with a huge grin, “Well done young un”. On the way back I did look down and about fifteen feet down was mud studded with old bricks and the odd rock. I went back for more and had to wait until a bloke with a loaded barrow came off the plank. One bloke told me “if the plank begins to bounce alter your gait to offset the rhythm” Having got back onto the boat without mishap I had to wait while the two blokes on the hoist whipped up another basket of coal. As the full basket of coal came up the bloke with the barrow waiting to receive it grabbed hold and steered it onto his barrow and the blokes on the hoist relaxed their line to let the basket settle onto the barrow.

The man with the now full basket of coal on his barrow steered towards the single plank and I moved my barrow and basket so it was under the hoist. I threw my empty basket down into the hold and watched as the two men with shovels put the last bit into an almost full basket. Then one whistled and the two men on the hoist began winding.
As the basket of coal got level with my barrow I grabbed the line and guided it onto my barrow. This could go on for two or three days. It all depended on the tides. Some times when the boat is sitting on the mud the angle from the end of the jetty to the boat is so steep is is impossible to push a loaded barrow up it. But so too when the tide was high the plank would tilt the opposite way and you had to watch your step because now you had a full barrow going down hill from boat to jetty. Everybody would pause and look to a cry of “let the bugger go’er.”  If you were quick enough, you would see a basket of coal on it’s way into the river with the barrow a split second after it and a dismayed bloke having slipped on the plank picking himself up. If every thing went according to plan the Skipper and his Mate would wave us a fond farewell as they sailed off into the sunset. While a lot of weary blokes would get ready for home and a bath followed by a good sleep. So in the lobby would be a group shouldering their haversacks ready for home but just having a last yarn, one bloke was pumping up his bike tyre complaining he must have a slow puncture.
Somebody passing said, “it’s you that’s slow in mendin’it” and grinning, so all his teeth looked pearly white against his coal blackened face. One by one the weary blokes mounted their bikes and soon the brickyard was deserted as their silhouettes vanished up the lane towards the foreman house and out on the tarmack lane and home.
 

Part Three

       T.O.B.1997© Tam