7. The Docks in the Twentieth Century
Tasks 7.4

1. Compare Jack Dash's description of the call-on in Source A with that of Henry Mayhew (the dockers - Chapter 5) a hundred years earlier. How has it changed?

2. What do the interviews in Sources A, B, C, D, E, F, and H tell you about the working practices and conditions of work for dockers in the middle of the twentieth century?

3. In what ways do these interviews contradict the picture of the increasing mechanisation in the docks? How can you account for this?

4. Why would you have to be careful about using accounts like the ones above as historical evidence?

5. What is the particular value of these interviews for anyone studying the history of the docks?