Call of the Running Tide by Marion Carr

tidclacy

tidclacy

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Anyone got a copy that I could beg, borrow or purchase.

The reason being is that Marion was my Father in Laws secretary and would like to have a copy for my wife.
 
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I could type you a bit from the cover but let me do this from memory. Marion decided in the 1950s as a young woman to get a job as a mate on an engineless Thames sailing barge called the Clara moving on with her skipper to two other barges as he fought to stay in profitable trade. She describes 14 years (yeap I've got the book out now) in trade and includes a full description of what it was like to work on such a barge and lots of nice little cameos like falling overboard in the Thames in the dark and on another occasion having to wait on a mooring buoy until her skipper came back to her! She includes some nice period BW images and ends her tale with a brief reference to the building of Bradwell Nuclear power station. She was a bored secretary with no experience of the sea or vessels when she applied for the job. Her writing style (for me) is excellent. No hype just a nicely told story without all that whimsy rubbish of a lost heritage; she di it for 14 years and this is how it was - tough but fulfilling. Tidclacy has ordered his copy (there were three on Abebooks).

Does this help?
 
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Now see what you've done. I've started reading it again...

"The skipper used the phone on the jetty to get our berthing orders, but he came back with the news that there wasn't yet a berth for us up at Middlesborough, and he was to phone again next day. Meantime we could lie where we were because no ore carrier was due for some days. Next morning on the phone again. Still no berth. We were getting low on grub and the skipper hadn't seen a newspaper for a couple of days (a privation which always made him feel faint). So we put the lifeboat over the side, shipped our trusty Anzani and set off up river the few miles to Middlesborough's civilisation. We didn't need to use the outboard engine going that way, because we had the flood tide and a strong breeze from the est. I sat up forward and used the skipper's large black umbrella as a spinnaker, while he steered with an oar over the stern. We made a very swift passage (and a cheap on for us, who had to buy our own petrol for the outboard) to Middlesborough - causing much astonishment and pointing out among the natives as we sped past the wharves in the upper reaches."
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to respond with both a synopsis and an extract. Yes, it seems to have both interesting content and an attractive style. And I'm sorry if I have diverted you into reading - Mrs H will no longer accompany me to a bookshop :(.
 
This sounds a really good book. Have just ordered penultimate copy off Abebooks. Hurry before the price of the remaining copy goes up...

Thanks for alerting us with the enticing extract.
 
I starting reading it again from the beginning last night. It's not a large book but I find it unique in its style and content. I am sure you will enjoy it.
 
tillergirl said:
I starting reading it again from the beginning last night. It's not a large book but I find it unique in its style and content. I am sure you will enjoy it.
Click to expand...

As stated in the OP. After her adventures on the Barges she again became a secretary for my Farther in law Robert Moffatt who was in the Health and Safety Inspectorate.

He did have a copy of her book and I enjoyed reading it many years ago. Unfortunately when he and his wife died it got lost and my wife and I have always longed to read it again. My Father in law wrote his memoirs and it was Marion who typed it up.

My wife as a child met Marion and she has fond memories of her.
 
I've read this many times and enjoyed it every time. She must have been a remarkable woman to make the change from Secretary to barge hand at a time when that was not the done thing, and the skipper a remarkable man to take an unskilled woman aboard as his only crew in those days. I wonder if modern dockworkers would have the same sensitivity as they displayed to her then. It was clearly a very hard life but had its own rewards.

A very enjoyable read.
 
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