Thomas was a hard working
coal heaver but Margaret was known for her drunkenness.
"Such ones generaly make good sport for the men," wrote
coal heaver Charles Poole.(30)
The cast of characters is seen alongside numerous river craft including barques, barges, tugboats, wherries, steamers, schooners, oyster smacks, sail boats, skiffs, colliers,
coal heavers, rowing boats, paddle steamers, passenger ferries, yawls, and all manners of sculls.
The exhibition follows the journeys of the keelmen who ferried the coal along the River Tyne; the
coal heavers who spent their working lives moving coal from the ships to London's docks and those who delivered coal to individual homes by lorry.
Twenty-nine thousand Blacks--one out of every four Union sailors--served on Union ships as
coal heavers, stewards, boatswains, firemen and gunners.
In "The Little Man at Chehaw Station," for example, he tells of his meeting with
coal heavers who spoke in the idiom of formally uneducated Afro-American working men, but who employed their vernacular to discuss operatic technique with an expertise gained from years of experience as extras at the Metropolitan Opera.
'There were still some reserved occupations, not least at Liverpool's docks where it was ruled men in 16 professions - including dock labourers,
coal heavers, carters, ropemakers and shoeing smiths - could only be put in the Army Reserve.