THOSE who worked on board ships over choppy seas and loaded cargo from the quayside did not all sport whiskers and manly grins.
Many of those toiling at one of the country’s biggest ports hid more feminine figures beneath their heavy work shirts, stained with oil from the docks.
It is the forgotten stories of these women that interests Liverpool-based writer and researcher Dr Joanne Lacey, herself the granddaughter of a ship’s cleaner.
She has interviewed more than 50 people, aged 19-97, from dockers to social workers, port police to sex workers, to create an archive of their memories.
Extracts from the recordings’ transcript will be displayed alongside photographers of some of the women, taken by Michelle Sank, at the Open Eye gallery on Wood Street, Liverpool.
“For me, there’d always been a fascination with the docks, and with the port, and with the river, and with the sea,” explains Dr Lacey.
“The stories in my family were very much about my grandfather, who was in the Merchant Navy, so the stories we heard were ones of adventure and leaving and men’s stories, really, and important stories.
“But it wasn’t until after my grandmother died that I’d learned that she’d worked on the docks as a ship’s cleaner, and I started to think: all that time we’d sat in their living room, she’d never spoken of it.
“I started to think about the stories that weren’t told – women’s roles on the waterfront and the work that they do.”
Research into the history of the Liverpool docks and appeals in local media led her to find the 50-plus women who feature on the archive, called Working at the Edge of the World.
