Avonmouth Docks And Bocm Silcocks

A Memory of Avonmouth.

In 1977 I finished a Teacher Training Course at Redland College in Bristol. I was in need of a temporary job and was to find one in Avonmouth Docks where BOCM Silcocks (who had produced animal feed from grain and molasses since the 1930's) had an urgent need to demolish the whole site to avoid paying rates on the site. A demolition firm from London were the main labour force on the job and their men would stay in B&B during the week and go home at weekends. They actually went bankrupt whilst I was working as a labourer for them. They re-started the job a few days later under a different name! One of the local firms involved was based in Bristol and they had acquired the rights for the reclamation of all the wood in a part of the mill which was entirely made of wood. It was six or seven storeys high and I understand the highest structure made entirely of wood in Europe.

What made my two or three months employment on the site was the fact that I narrowly missed having piece of a rusty girder fall on my head when it was intended to be dropped down to me on a crane chain whilst I was in the large skip to guide it into place. The crane-driver (an old soldier who drove a tank in North Africa during the Second World War) decided unexpectedly to bring the girder down outside the skip and whilst doing so it broke off the chain's hook and fell to the ground instead of on top of me. I ran over to ask him how he knew it was going to come off and all he could say that someone told him to bring it down outside the skip. There was nobody else in his cab!

I can also say that it was remarkable that BOCM Silcocks had also abandoned an entire library of black and white photographs on the sight. Several large portfolio's, which had obviously been carefully recorded and stored, contained the whole photographic history of the site. From its early development from 1934, (showing steam pile drivers), to all its production line operations in the 1930's with lorry and rail terminals to transport the sacks of animal feed around the country; to bomb damage during the Second World War; to post war reconstruction during the mid-1950's and continued expansion in the 1960's. The company finally decided that it had to build satellite mills around the country where transporting the animal feed could be done more cheaply using motorways. I rather think that grain coming into Avonmouth from America and Canada also declined as there was a greater need to be self-sufficient in growing our own crops, having been over-dependent on imports during the war. I think the company are now called BOCM-Dalgetty.

Needless to say, I manage to salvage as many of the photographs as I possibly could! Hence, I have some good examples of the site's history from 1934 until the 1960's; (I took three or four photos of my own in 1977). Some are aerial shots of Avonmouth and various ships being loaded. I guess this whole brief episode in my life was as dramatic as it was interesting. I was also very fortunate to survive because Health and Safety, even in 1977, was abysmal!



Kevin Bettany July 2018