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Colour on the Thames – footage from the Thames dating back to 1935
Here’s a sweet piece of film of the River Thames years ago spotted by ‘Carl’, who belongs to the Dinghy Cruising Association’s splendid Openboat YahooGroup. If you’re a small boat sailor I recommend it for all sorts of practical reasons, and this kind of thing is a real bonus.
But back to the film, which has been put up by the British Film Institute. Check it out for steam ships and tugs, busy bridges, some nice old footage of sailing barges motoring and under canvas in the Pool of London, and some very coolly-dressed up-stream watermen in suits and hats working some small steam boats.
PS – Do have a look this splendid footage of oyster fishing at Whitstable in 1920 that I’ve just found: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v8pFfqfL4D8 Isn’t YouTube fun? It’s certainly better than the telly is most evenngs.
I liked this video so much that I copied the link to my blog and of course gave you accreditation.Your blog is one of my favorites and I have a RRS feed to it
River Thames, 1935, in 1979 I worked on the Thames as the deckhand on the 1927, 450 h.p British Polar diesel, ex steam tug Sheen, it may be her in the film with the Ham,she was one of 6 tugs named after London boroughs, Putney, Barnes & 2others, my sister Sas was the engineer on the bridge telegraph controls, it was owned byAndy her boyfriend, we spent a fun summer dodging the violent deranged licensed watermen who claimed the river as their own, a policy which destroyed trade on the beautiful river, the only way I could survive London was to be on the river, the Thames River police are the nicest cops in the world, it chills them out, we did one job oxy-gas cutting up a first world war german munitions steam barge lifting derrick 150 foot high at Grays ,various towing jobs, & some boatbuilding in steel & wood,before I started a shipwrights apprenticeship with John Woolley who rebuilt Irene, Marigold, Aello Beta, etc.
Peter Radclyffe
I used to live in london from 1967 to 1973 and on a weekend went down to the isl of Sheppy. To my pals mothers at Qeenborough her partner Bill Mayhue used to own the Tug Ham as well as the Hebert clark and the bankside we used to pull scrap lighters from London to qeenborough scrapyard at the old coalwasher, I have made many trips in the Ham. The last I had herd she was lost some where off sheerness in the 198tis?.
Regards les todd