by teesships » Sat Jul 07, 2012 1:59 pm
I mentioned that one of the "perks" of working with TCC was to go out on the wages run and I note my first such trip was 13 August 1964, only two days after starting, going out on the TEES CONSERVATOR. In those days wages were paid in good old £sd and we had to visit all the individual river craft where-ever they were located in the river. Can't now remember the starting point for the trips (might have been Transporter Landing as have vague recollection of walking along from Queen's Square carrying briefcases full of cash - no bodyguard, etc., and the Chief Wages Clerk was smaller than myself!). Whatever, during the trip we ended up at the Graving Dock for a steaming hot mug of strong Oxo (which, sorry to say, was not, and is not, one of my favourite drinks!). For what it is worth, I have a note of another wages trip on 25 February 1965, and a trip on the old WILTON on 18 May 1965, with another wages run exactly a week later, 25th. I have a note of about a further 6 trips in the next 18 months, but I think they all stopped with the integration of TCC into the new Tees and Hartlepools Port Authority from 1 January 1967.
Over the intervening years there have been occasional runs on the river, some of them were work related, but mostly organised on behalf of the Ship Society. After the first one or two wages trips I always made sure I had my camera of the day with me!
Ron