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I
have just been on your fund raising trip round Garston Docks and I thought
it would be good to share a few memories of the Danny.
I
was employed on the Traffic Tugs between 1966 - 1982. And went on her as
crew on numerous occasions first as lad (number 2 deckhand) then
later deckhand and then mate. There was no regular crew aboard her during
the season only the Skipper. I can remember Tommy Kelly and Reg Hallwood
but the names of others escape me. The Chief Engineer in the late 70’s was
Eric Boardman who was responsible for painting the large cartoon Minnie
Mouse warning visitors to ‘Mind Their Heads’ in the passageway between the
engines and the boilers and Brian Owen was second engineer.
Trips (or inspections as they were called) usually took place on a Thursday
which meant the crew for that trip would come aboard at about
9:00 on the Wednesday morning. As soon as steam was up we would
head off for Manchester. It
wouldn’t take long to get steam up as the engineers would have been on board
the day before to fire her up. With luck the Skipper would take most of the
‘tricks’ up to Manchester allowing the deck crew to scrub of all the decks
with a hot solutions of soda, and paint anything that didn’t move grease,
anything that did, and polish up all the brasses. We would usually berth
her at the end of 6 dock and carry on cleaning until everything was
gleaming, it was then a shower via an improvised shower in the boiler house,
changed and then off into Manchester
for a very drunken night out.
At
around 7:00
next morning we would finish off the cleaning with a very bad hangover. For
some reason I use to end up cleaning the brass whistle, not easy with a
hangover as it was very high up and very hot due to the steam having been
built up
I
remember one time I was cleaning the brass name on the bow by standing on
the belting, I slipped off and was hanging off the bulwarks trying to decide
which was the best thing to do, shout for help and loose face or drop into
the water, I’ll call it water but in those days you could flick your ciggie
into the water and it didn’t go out. Luckily while I was deciding the lad
came along saw me and helped me back aboard.
Later the caterers would arrive and we would help get all the drink and
food on board (making sure enough went into the crew's cabin) to last us for
the trip. Then it was time to wait for your guests to arrive and set off
down the canal
The ‘inspection’ would always start well touring around all the docks and
then off down the canal but with liberal amounts of free drink being served
and must people not being use to it, by the time we got to Latchford there
were usually some ‘not very well’ guests. The crew had their moments too.
You would try very hard not to bump when entering a lock so as not to
disturb the deck golf or spill any drinks but just as you got her lined up
the engineer would speed up one engine and slow the other, and just as you
counter that he would swap it round, you would look round to see a laughing
face popping up from the engine room. Another trick was the engineer
setting fire to a piece of oily waste in the blow pipe up to the wheelhouse,
filling the wheelhouse with smoke and shouting that there’s a fire in the
boilers. I got my own back though by blowing down to the engine room,
giving them time to put their ear to it and pour a cup of water down and
shout were sinking. What would H&S make of that now.?
We
would stop at Bridgewater House while the guests went for dinner and usually
a dinner was brought down for the crew to enjoy on board. After the dinner
the guests would come back and we would continue onto Easham with lots of
sleeping passengers who would then disembark onto their coach to return
home..
The Danny would then make her way slowly back to Old Quay as we wanted to
loose her steam pressure by the time we got back to Runcorn to make it
easier to shut down.
I
have some very happy memories of The Danny and the pay wasn’t bad as from
17:00 you went onto time and a half then from midnight to 19:00ish when you
finished you were on double time so it was well worth missing a shift on
your normal tug
They were really happy days and I would like to wish you every success in
restoring The Danny to her former glory.
Al
Buckley |
