This letter is from William Whiteway who owned the London Wharf at Greenwich and for whom my Dad worked since age 14 in 1922. My granddad had been Night Watchman until his death that same year. The name of his company was Whiteway and Jackson and the additional photo is of my Dad standing beside one of their lorries, having become a lorry driver as soon as he could legally drive.
My Dad progressed to becoming the Steam Crane Driver which meant that he was in a Protected Occupation and thus not eligible for call up when the War started. However in 1943 he deliberately accepted promotion to Foreman so that he would be eligible. It also meant he would legally be entitled to get his job back when he was demobbed.
You can see from the tone of the letter that they had a very friendly relationship, surprising as the Whiteways were a wealthy family with many business interests and Dad came from a very poor family with 8 siblings. He always said that if he wanted to go to school that day he would have to get up early so he could get the shoes!
Dad was conscripted into the Royal Engineers as a crane driver, he was involved in D-Day and spent most of the time after in Belgium. He did not return to the UK until demob in late 1946, when he was sad to find that Whiteways had sold The London Wharf to Lovells Wharf next door. They already had a Foreman so Dad had to accept the job of Assistant Foreman. In practice for many years he did the job of Foreman because the actual Foreman was on long term sick leave, but they would not promote Dad to a staff pensioned position until the Foreman actually died. This meant that when he retired in 1973 having spent the whole of his working life with one employer, he only had a pension based on 10 years service.
