Dad's stepfather
George Pokham was a merchant seaman who worked mainly on the ships
carrying various items between the London Docks and the Baltic ports.
Only short runs and he was rarely away for more than a week at a
time. 
With her somewhat difficult experience with her
first husband, our Grandmother did not trust the second one to come
straight home after being paid off and she would regularly be at the
dock gates and often inside waiting for George to leave the ship.
Security was not as great in those days, there were only the Dock
policemen on the gate, it was quite a regular occurrence for wives
with their children to wait inside the gates for their husbands to
come off the ships with their pay.
Gran usually had a couple of the
younger boys with her on these occasions and they would run up to
George to be lifted up and swung round with great shows of paternal
affection. He was also stuffing their pockets with contraband cigars
during this process. He would always speak to the dock police at the
gate and offer his bag for inspection. Ironically this was at the gate in Pennington Street now being used for the upmarket event venue called Tobacco Dock.
Dad was never sure if Gran or
even the policemen for that matter was in on this minor smuggling,
but it seemed to happen every time. The blind eye may also have been related perhaps to the fact there was a small block of Police flats in Pennington Street at that time, so many of the regular gate police were neighbours as it were.
