Stephen Parkinson

“Do you know, it was horribly good. Bloody good. It was cold in the winter, it was very aggressive at times, people would be, but that was the dock life. If you went down the dock and there was something wrong with you, there was no sympathy. If you was ill, they’d say ‘get your finger out and get the work done’. The smells, you went home and I didn’t smell it, nobody smelt it on the dock. I’d take money into the bank and they’d say ‘argh this smells’ and I’d say ‘look at it this way, it may smell, but this money pays your wages, every pound that comes across here…”