‘Dock Life Renewed – How London’s docks are thriving again’ is a collection of photographs by Niki Gorick that show how the docks, which were once the lifeline that connected London to the rest of the world, have recovered from their 70s demise and subsequent decade of desolation, writes Michael Holland…
Thankfully, Dock Life Renewed does not revisit those old tales of the ‘good old days’ of overworked and underpaid dockers and stevedores risking life and limb in a dangerous industry to put food on the family table. It has all been done before.
With Gorick’s background in photography, a foreword by Michael Heseltine, the former Tory MP who was at the vanguard of the London docks’ redevelopment, and an introduction by Matt Brown (Londonist), you get a book that is not looking back with mundane before-and-after images, but a book that shows the docklands now.
None of the contributors has ever lived within a working dock community where the whole area survives on the employment the docks and associated concerns give to the locals, and have never had to witness seeing the heart ripped out of that community when the docks and all the businesses who depend on them curl up and die. It is not their job to look back but to embrace the new dock life and the future ahead – The new docklands that are more about lifestyle than commerce.
In reality, very little of the old docks still exist. What was retained was basically to be a water feature for the rich newcomers to look at, rather than for any import-export kerfuffle, and very nice they are too, with ample room to skim around on a paddleboard, or a kayak, and even a small sailboat. Gorick catches them all, plus, with a glorious 21st-century backdrop of dramatic skyscrapers and billionaires’ superyachts. But, more importantly, she has caught the thriving, though much less crucial, community of boat dwellers, and the small businesses that serve that community.
And Dock Life Renewed also educates. Who knew that the small houseboats in the various marinas needed 5-year checks required by the Port of London Authority(PLA)? Marine surveyors are continually checking hulls for signs of degradation and potential leaks, while generations of skilled artisans continue to pass on their boat-repair skills. Landlubbers could live their whole lives ignorant of dock gates and locks needing to be maintained, and water levels having to be kept up.
Gorick has captured all the various maintenance and refurbishment jobs being carried out, snapping people busy at work: Patagonian sisters who create upholstery and boat covers; Bill and Phil the welders both in their 70s; Rebecca making bespoke furniture; Nick and his apprentice Frances taking on marine carpentry jobs… All the right people are there to keep the residents and their boats afloat in these water-based communities that seem a world away from their urban surroundings.
And there are ample images of people at rest and at play: local schools kayaking; windsurfing students; Paddleboarding yoga groups and floating hot tubs.
Even though the London docks died in their former guise, the remaining waterways and their current usage remain as a permanent reminder that docks were once there, and Niki Gorick’s Dock Life Renewed proves that what came to a sad and quite devastating end for many people has been reinvigorated to come back in another form that fits the future.
ISBN 978-1-911397-31-1 Unicorn Publishing
Out April 4th. RRP £30
Now available for pre-order: https://www.unicornpublishing.org/page/detail/dock-life-renewed/?k=9781911397311
