Father was a dredger, and grandfather afore him;
grandfather was a dredger and a fisherman too.
A'most as soon as I was able to crawl, father
took me with him in the boat to help him to pick
the coals, and bones, and other things out of
the net, and to use me to the water. When I got
bigger and stronger, I was sent to the parish
school, but I didn't like it half as well as the
boat, and couldn't be got to stay two days
together. At last I went above bridge, and went
along with a fisherman, and used to sleep in the
boat every night. I liked to sleep in the boat;
I used to be as comfortable as could be. Lor
bless you! there's a tilt to them boats, and no
rain can't git at you. I used to lie awake of a
night in them times, and listen to the water
slapping ag'in the boat, and think it fine fun.
I might a got bound 'prentice, but I got aboard
a smack, where I stayed three or four years, and
if I'd a stayed there, I'd a liked it much better.
But I heard as how father was ill, so I com'd
home, and took to the dredging, and am at it off
and on ever since. I got no larnin', how could I?
There's on'y one or two of us dredgers as knows
anything of larnin', and they're no better off
than the rest. Larnin's no good to a dredger, he
hasn't got no time to read; and if he had, why it
wouldn't tell him where the holes and furrows is
at the bottom of the river, and where things is
to be found. To be sure there's holes and furrows
at the bottom. I know a god many. I know a furrow
off Lime'us Point, no wider nor the dredge, and I
can go there, and when others can't git anything
but stones and mud, I can git four or five bushels
o'coal. You see they lay there; they get in with
the set of the tide, and can't git out so easy
like. Dredgers don't do so well now as they used
to do. You know Pelican Stairs? Well, before the
Docks was built, when the ships lay there, I could
go under Pelican Pier and pick up four or five
shillings of a morning. What was that tho' to
father? I hear him say he often made 51. afore the
breakfast, and nobody ever the wiser. Them were
fine times! there was a good livin' to be picked
up on the water them days. About ten years ago,
the fishermen at Lambeth, them as sarves their
time 'duly and truly' thought to put us off the
water, and went afore the Lord Mayor, but they
couldn't do nothink after all. They do better nor
us, as they go fishin' all the summer, when the
dredgin' is bad, and come back in winter. Some on
us down there [Rotherhithe] go a deal-portering
in the summer, or unloading 'tatoes, or anything
else we can get; when we have nothin' else to do,
we go on the river. Father don't dredge now, he's
too old for that; it takes a man to be strong to
dredge, so father goes to ship scrapin'. he on'y
sits on a plank outside the ship, and scrapes off
the old tar with a scraper. We does very well for
all that – why he can make his half bull a
day [2s 6d] when he gits work, but that's not
always; howsomeever I helps the old man at times,
when I'm able. I've found a good many bodies. I
got a many rewards, and a tidy bit of inquest
money. There's 5s 6d. inquest money at Rotherhithe,
and only a shillin' at Deptford; I can't make out
how that is, but that's all they give, I know. I
never finds anything on the bodies. Lor bless you!
people don't have anythink in their pockets when
they gits drowned, they are not such fools as all
that. Do you see them two marks there on the back
of my hand? Well, one day – I was on'y young
then – I was grabblin' for old rope in
church Hole, when I brings up a body, and just as
I was fixing the rope on his leg to tow him ashore,
two swells comes down in a skiff, and lays hold of
the painter of my boat, and tows me ashore. The
hook of the drag went right thro' the trowsers of
the drowned man, and my hand, and I couldn't let
go no how, and tho' I roared out like mad, the
swells didn't care, but dragged me into the stairs.
When I got there, my arm and the corpse's shoe and
trowsers, was all kivered with my blood. What do
you think the gents said? – why, they told me
as how they had done me good, in towin' the body in,
and ran away up the stairs. Tho' times ain't near
so good as they was, I manages purty tidy, and hasn'
got no occasion to holler much; but there's some of
the dredgers as would holler, if they was ever so
well off.