A Brief History
‘A Brief History’ is the work of two men both involved at Carlight. It is a monumental undertaking of research and collation, they received no professional help in compiling this story and neither profess to be writers or journalists but we think this story is all the better for it.
Both men are extremely modest and it has taken months of persuasion to get Percy to let us have a brief history about himself which is reproduced below and their story ‘A Brief History Continues on from it.
Percy Leeman.
A Short History.
Born in 1935 at Tilbury Essex. I had little formal education owing to moving several times during WW2, as well as helping in the operation of the family business. Mother finally settled down to run a fruit and green grocery business in Grays Essex. Father was a horse and general dealer, an occupation he took up again once he was demobbed from the Army in 1945.
I spent a lot of my early years in the London Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Markets, mainly Stratford, Spitalfields and Covent Garden. At this time I regularly frequented The London Horse Repository situated at The Elephant and Castle, in the Old Kent Road, where weekly auctions of horses were held. These venues coupled with Fathers hobby, Trotting or Sulky Racing, meant that I met a quite a varied cast of characters growing up.
Most of my time was taken up with various chores, helping prepare stock for the shop or seeing to the various horses and cleaning harness etc. Leisure time was a precious commodity for me so whenever the opportunity arose, I quickly disappeared to my favourite playground, down by the Grays waterfront. This was a busy area with various commercial wharves, a busy shipyard, who were also sailing barge and ship builders, as well as owning a sizeable fleet themselves.
Most weekends there were usually several Thames Sailing Barges and Motor Coasters anchored or moored off Grays and their crews on coming ashore would leave their dinghy’s moored in one of the adjacent creeks. It was among these craft that I along with a group of friends learnt all about boat handling. Some of the more friendly barge and coaster crews would let us boys use their boats in return for running errands, especially going off to the moored vessels late afternoons and lighting the riding lights. The whole of this group of boys at one time or another after leaving school, worked on these vessels. Indeed, three of this group eventually made it to skipper.
At age fifteen, just as I was leaving school my father decided to sell the family business and enter into partnership with his half-brother in his already established local Scrapyard. I was now thrown into a quandary, I had always assumed I would work in the family business, and eventually along with my younger brother in later years gradually taking it over.
I tried working in the Scrapyard, but I soon realised it wasn’t for me, and after discussing things with my parents I decided to move on and make my own way in life, a decision I have never regretted.
I spent a couple of years working in engineering, where as well as motor vehicle and plant engineering I was taught basic lathe and milling machine skills. I enjoyed this work but after getting married at a rather young age the need to earn a better wage saw me moving on to a position with a company named Universal Welding & Building Co. Ltd., which was the civil engineering arm of the London Graving Dock group of companies.
LGD was a large ship repair company with the main base in the West India Docks on the Isle Of Dogs. The subsidiary companies were, The Ayr Engineering Co., with premises at Ayr in Ayrshire, another at Orchard Wharf on the Thames near the East India Dock, which consisted of offices, a small dry dock and machine shop, as well as another machine shop at Purfleet in Essex. Another company that was part of the group was Thames Welding which had premises in Tilbury Dock and Millwall.
While at this company I was employed in many roles, on numerous projects, often being seconded to other companies within the group. I worked on numerous construction projects, oil storage tank erecting, jetty building and repairs including pile driving, both on shore and afloat. Owing to previously having gained a good working knowledge of plant and machinery I soon became the designated driver of the Scotch Derick that was a permanent fixture on the jetty at Harrison’s Wharf Purfleet, a site the that LGD had taken a five year lease on.
The company bought the 120 ton crane barge. “The Topmast 12” from McAlpine, and although she never had a permanent crew, I soon became one of the crew that would be assigned to her whenever her services were needed. The company also had a small fleet of river craft, two motor launches, and a collection of tank lighters and dumb barges for the storage and transport of contaminated oil/spirit/water, which I soon was involved with.
I then spent several years in the road haulage industry. Starting with the transportation of various kinds of aggregates I then transitioned to firstly, general haulage, then to machinery and other large and abnormal loads before moving on to the transport of bulk liquids.
An old acquaintance, one of the bargemen from years ago whose boat I used to borrow when a schoolboy, and was now a Captain in what was known as, ‘The Home Trade’, had been offered a ship with a new company that was just being formed. His problem being he had no crew, would I join him as mate? So, I joined him as mate of the Irish registered, the MV Tyronell. So started another career change which I continued to pursue until joining Carlight in 1988. After a couple of years under the Irish flag, a London company, Sully Freight offered me the Masters position in the British registered MV The Subro Victor.
In 1985 my wife and I had decided to move from our home in South Essex to somewhere adjacent to the East Coast Main Line. The decision for this was because the bulk of our trade had moved from the Thames and Medway area, and was more focused on the East Coast Ports, from Kings Lynn, Wisbech, Boston, Goole, Selby, right up to the Firth Of Fourth. This meant that whereas previously I had enjoyed the odd night or weekend at home whilst the vessel was either loading or discharging cargo, this perk was now no longer available.
We eventually settled in Sleaford in August 1985, and when after a couple of years, I decided to leave the sea I was fortunate enough to be offered a position at Carlight. As the saying goes, the rest is history.
