Features / Bristol Harbour
Reliving the history of the docks
An oral history project bringing the docks to life, Bristol Dockers is a soundscape taking listeners through the history of the area from the perspective of people who lived experienced the area as a working harbour.
The soundscape is a free, downloadable resource, that can be listened to while working along the docks, imaging the harbour in its working days through the stories of those who worked there.
Bristol Dockers is a project by Amy King, 32, a senior teaching associate in Italian at the University of Bristol. After completing a masters in memory studies, she started a PhD and came to to the city in 2017.
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Arriving in Bristol, her interest in memories combined with her interest in the Harbourside cranes – “just these beautiful, elegant structures”- led to further investigation into their history.
“They’re actually a symbol of this really dangerous industry that no longer exists,” says Amy. “The harbour is a place of leisure now but is used to be this really smelly and dirty symbol of manual life.”
The cranes are a lasting symbol of the docks’ working past. Photo by Vivien Nagy.
With funding from her PhD, Amy used her talents in linguistics and memory to create a sound-based project, telling the stories of the people who experience the docks in their working days.
Looking further into the stories of the docks, Amy found that there has been a play performed at the Bristol Old Vic in 1997 called Up the Feeder, Down the Mouth. Written by Bristol-based A. C. H. Smith in the late 1990s, it was based on interviews he had conducted with ex-dock workers.
The tapes were archived at M Shed and were “absolutely amazing”. The sound quality was poor however, so Amy contacted A. C. H. Smith, who she describes as a “new friend, he’s so lovely!”
Her conversations with the writer inspired her to get in contact with any former dockers who were still alive to add their voices to the project.
She used local organisations such as Underfall Yard and M Shed, as well as a double page spread in the Bristol Post, to find individuals willing to tell stories – finding that social media wasn’t a productive method when contacting older people.
“They’re the most spirited, lively individuals,” says Amy. “It was important for me to have their voices, not actors. Wapping Wharf is now quite an elite place, it’s no longer a working class space, so I wanted to ensure these working class voices were heard.”
After collecting the interviews, Amy worked with sound editors and clipped the recordings into themes, with sound effects adding to the atmosphere. Tess Redburn, an illustrator, also got involved, creating artwork for the project.
London-based illustrator Tess Redburn created a series of artworks for Bristol Dockers
Having begun the project in January 2018, it was complete by August last year. Launching in time for the Heritage Docks Weekend, Amy worked with the Bristol Ferry Company to make a short puppetry show based on the project, saying: “We’re lucky to live in a city with organisations that really want to help.”
Amy will work with the Heritage Docks Weekend again in 2019, created an updated version of the Up the Feeder, Down the Mouth play from 1997. A collaboration with M Shed, it will be an hour long show with old and new stories.
Looking to the future, Amy hopes to one day create an app for Bristol Dockers and is working on another soundscape project. Working with other linguists at the University of Bristol, they will use 5G technology to create a soundscape of the docks’ different languages, celebrating the diversity of the area, saying: “It was a real hotspot of nationalities. When I spoke to dockers, it was a pleasure to hear how positive and diverse this area was.”
Find out more at www.bristoldockers.co.uk
Read more: Shipbuilding to return to historic Albion dockyard
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