A typical day working at Tilbury Riverside station

In the late 1940’s and 1950 I worked in the Shipping and Forwarding Department of Thos. Cook who had an office inside Tilbury docks and I have fond memories of working in the docks meeting passengers arriving on the Ellerman Line’s ‘City’ ships, Brocklebank line and the very first ship I met the Bibby Line’s ‘Worcestershire’.. I also remember when the Clan Line canteen opened as an alternative to the PLA mobile canteens.  But I also spent a lot of time at the Landing stage..and a typical Saturday would start taking business on board one of the P&O ‘Strath’ liners from Australia. This might be followed by a Union Castlle boat operating the ‘Round Africa’ service which was different to the Royal Mail service ships from South Africa which docked in Southampton.  All of these passengers and their luggage were cleared through Customs and then were taken to platform 4 of the Riverside station from which the trains ran to St Pancras. Some of the passengers with lots of luggage used cars hired form local taxi operator George Rickett who had a number of suitably large cars.  Later in the day a boat train would arrive with passengers for the Swedish Lloyd service to Gothenburg or the William Muller’s line service to Rotterdam on the small ship the Batavier II..but before they loaded they might be preceded by one of the Royal Mail Line’s ‘Highland’ ships heading for South America.  Such was a typical Saturday at Tilbury Riverside ..and if there was a brief interlude there might be time for a swift cuppa and a pork pie from the station’s buffet………..Oh those were the days ..and I loved my job