Ian Lallow on Boatbuilding

Tracy: So, you were saying you had a lunchtime, so I presume did you just take your nammet with you or did you …?

No, I used to go home. I only lived two minutes up the road, and I used to go home, and father would come home as well, have some lunch and get back to work.

Later on when I sort of became more involved with running the business, it was sort of 20 minutes in the Duke of York, which is the Pub opposite the Yard, for a quick pint before you go home to lunch, and then back to lunch and you’d quite often take a customer or trades people over there and have a drink with them.

Father was always well-known for taking trades people over there and they’d go over there and do their business, you know, buy his rope or whatever it was.

Tracy: And how about your staff when you’re related to the boss? Did they eat on the site or did they …?

No, most of them used to … some of them ate on the site because they didn’t necessarily live local but on the other hand lots used to go home. They all lived sort of within a mile or so of the Yard, but some lived in Newport. They used to bring their own, as you say, their own nammet, sit down and eat it and drink it or whatever the case may be and then back to work at a quarter past one.

Sometimes we would have to work through the lunch hour because the tides were such that you had to use the high tide so you’d say, “Alright lads, let’s work through the tide, have your lunch after we’ve finished tide work” you know, and they’d all knuckle down and that’s what you did.