Crime, Punishment and Courts > HM Customs and Excise related stuff

Dover Eastern Docks

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Nemo:
One of the things I recall about working in the Eastern Docks during the late 70s was the difference in handling imported booze between East B (the Preventive/passenger station) and East A (the commercial imports station).


Booze in excess of tourists' allowances invariably ended up in the Queens Warehouse, making East B a 'dry' station. East A was somewhat wetter.


There were several trades in bulk wine, imported in roadtanker for bottling here, and whose duty depended on quantity and strength. Now the strength was determined in those days by taking a bucket of wine and putting brass instruments in it, before tipping the bucket back into the tanker. The Revenue Assistants tended to be ex-servicemen and polished the brass. After a couple of incidents where the Brasso contaminated whole tankers of Blue Nun or whatever, the importers pleaded that the buckets should be tipped away. And so the sampled wine went down the common sewer. Via the large and small intestines.


(Wine was stored in buckets under the Sample Room sink pending 'disposal'. Sadly Nemo spilled some Heavy Oil he was sampling into a bucket of Nuits St George and wasn't terribly popular for a while.)

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