SCHIFFAHRTGESELLSCHAFT.

Back in early Nineteen Ninety a German shipping
Company set up shop on Boothferry Terminal in a
Blue portakabin that was barely bigger than a coffin.
I started with them a few months later and was made
The Operations Manager aged twenty three with no
Operations to manage: we had two ships a week
With forty boxes each and six trucks set to deliver
Them; suffice it to say our margins weren’t stunning.

So I said to the gaffer why don’t we go after the rest
Of the show; our line charters these ships so we should
Attend to their needs. He persuaded our paymasters,
And by early June we had started. I did the agency,
Manifest, Customs and stevedoring arrangements
With ABP, and on the eve of our first cargo we realized
We needed walkie-talkies for the quay, so we got
Them last minute; we were just about winging it.

Our first load was a barge with six hundred tonne
Of wire rod, with Watto on a forklift, six stevedores
And me and the guys from the office conducting.
We tipped it on a tide into 6/7 shed and delivered
It all in one week, and from then on were away,
And if not in the office that summer we were in the
Wheatsheaf or Ivy’s Den, where Big T saw boys turn
Into men, and the craic was as good as it gets.

And I was down on the dock or in the shed earning
Respect from working men or back in the office for a
Kip on the floor. There were truck fairs in Pickering
And sex in Fiestas and ponytails grown for the hell of
It; bonuses trousered and Vauxhall cars wrecked and
One evening Chris got a ticket on the way to the Vikings,
Where we sank a gallon an hour, and Merv and Mattie
And Ronnie and all of them boys were immortals.

And like any retelling you may think I’m embellishing,
But in truth I don’t have the room to enumerate all,
Though by August I’d met a fine lass down in London
And the writing was on the dock wall. I devoted less
Time and come five on a Friday was down the M1 and
In Dalston by eight for a pint, and my mind drifted
Sideways and work was reduced to a bit part in my
Schedule and therein lay the start of the end;

As by the fifth of November the Dock Labour scheme
Ended and we had to poach dockers of our own, and
I lost control of arrangements two weeks later on,
Whilst being misinformed, and told the boss I could
Do it no more. It was a hell of a feat and we learnt
More than business and the company’s still going
Strong, and as Germany won the World Cup that year
They gained more than most as all their ships came in.