TAPE 79/SE/01
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 28th of AUGUST 1979 AT 181 BACUP ROAD, RAWTENSTALL, THE HOME OF ROY TOMLINSON, MANAGER AT SPRING VALE MILL, HASLINGDEN. THE INFORMANT IS ROY TOMLINSON AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Roy Tomlinson in his office at Spring Vale in August 1979.
Now then Roy, how long have you worked for Whitakers.
R- Forty two full years, then it's going into the forty third year, yes.
Forty-two years, so when did you start? Nineteen ?
R- Nineteen .. first of February nineteen thirty seven.
Nineteen thirty seven? Oh that’s a fairly long and honourable career.
R - A fair while.
Aye it is. And how old are you now Roy?
R- Fifty seven on Friday.
Fifty seven. So you started straight from school.
R- Straight from school, about fourteen and a half.
Fourteen and a half aye. And when you started for Whitakers what did you start as?
R - Well, I started work in the cardrooom, trainee condenser minder, jobbing piker, lap carrier, and the wage for all that was fourteen shillings, as it was in those days, fourteen shillings for forty eight hours.
Aye. Were you going to night school? (50)
R- I was at that time. I had left school and we’d moved back into the Haslingden area from away, and I started going to night school with my old headmaster Mr Holgate taking shorthand typing and book keeping, at fourteen and a half years old. But I found that I wanted to be in the cardrooom, I wanted to be in amongst the spinning, and I found that I enjoyed it having started at the job, I intended making a career of it which I think I have done. I intended sticking, and so that the shorthand typing and book keeping never really got used. In fact I didn't carry on with the shorthand and typing.
And when you started at, when you started, which mill were you working at?
R- Higher hill in Helmshore, L Whitakers just the same. Higher Mill in Helmshore.
Were they electrified then, or running on the engine?
R- It was electrified. Not as it is today, not as you can see today but on the lineshafts, one motor ran the lineshaft and each individual card was driven by a belt, a three inch belt from the lineshaft, and the same with the mules.
How long were you at Helmshore, Roy?
R- Oh a very short space of time. It so happened that after a couple of months, there was a job came vacant at Spring Vale Mills, which was about twice the money, it was twenty seven and ninepence, I have a good memory. And the manager came along, he said “Do you fancy having a go at it?” I said “I wouldn't mind.” He said “It’s more work, but I think you'll manage it.” (100) And it was, it was, instead of five cards that I had been running, it was ten and some extra lap carrying, and some bobbin piking, and I earned me twenty seven and ninepence but nevertheless I got it and me move was from Higher Mill to Spring Vale.
And you've been at Spring Mill ever since?
R- No. I was at Spring Vale until I went into the forces, into the Air Force in 1942. And when I came back in 1946, Mr Walter Hardman who was the managing director at that time, asked me if I would go, instead of going back to Spring Vale, go to Higher Mill because it was a mill that they’d had to close during the war years. They'd so many spindles to close down then. So that they'd had this mill closed about six years. So I went back to Higher Mill, I didn't bother you know, I wanted to go really. (15 min) and help to start the mill up and get it going, and I was there until I came back up to Spring Vale in 1966. I was there twenty years. Aye.
Aye. And in 1966 when you left ... Well, let's put, phrase that question in a different way. Basically, were the same processes going on at Higher Mill all the time, from when you first went to work there to when it closed down?
R - They were, just the same.
Yes. And those would be roughly in line with what is going on at Spring Vale would they?
R - Very similar. Nineteen forty nine I started carding for the firm. And the thing was at that time I had a running down machine which you’ve seen for opening the thread waste. [A jumbo] There was three rows of breaking machines, (150) we called them devils in the trade. There was a scutcher, there was twenty breaker cards, two derby doublers and thirty four finisher cards and four pairs of mules.
Was that a fairly representative proportion of breaker cards to finisher cards?
R- Yes. They used to reckon at night school that the ideal set up was one breaker card would run one and a half finishers. So that ten breakers would run roughly fifteen but in the trade they normally use ten for say sixteen and seventeen. And instead of carding the ideal sliver on the breaker cards which they would normally, they card a little bit heavier and of course get the production through that way you see.
Yes that's it, and rely on the condenser card finishing the process off won't they.
R- They relied on the finisher card stretching it out a little bit more than what it should do, you see. In order to get the production through.
Now I think it’s fairly important to make it clear on this tape that what we are talking about is the hard waste industry and condenser spinning which is entirely different fine spinning isn’t it. Well, I say entirely different, obviously you have the same raw materials but it’s actually a different series of processes from the raw material to the mule. Now, for a start off, one of the big differences is in the raw material isn’t it because what's your raw material? (200)
R- Our raw material is waste, it is waste from the fine spinners which these days you know isn’t all that easy to come by. Imported combers which is what we call it, is one of the things that we've got to put up with these days. Long since of course, we used to use the waste from the fine spinners. They would comb the cotton down and take out the length of fibre that they required for their business and the rest was waste. Now that waste, depending on how they combed it down, say they combed it down to an inch, and all below an inch was waste. That was good material to use see? Now you'll get another company who would probably comb more out of it, give it a second combing and take fibres down to say seven eighths of an inch or three quarters. That would be still fair material to use but not quite as good as the other you see.
Yes.
R - These days you've got to have what you can get and be thankful of it. comber's in short supply, we recycle thread waste. We get this thread waste and open it up and burst it. It looks very much like our opened comber to look at, much cheaper and of course it helps you to keep your price down sort of thing, by mixing.
That's it. And most of this, this is really all the stuff that you handle. Well, whether you prepare it for re-sale, I don't know whether you ever sell any comber. Do you ever sell any cotton after you've processed it? Or is it all used within the group? (10 min)(250)
R - No, the comber of course we don't re-sell, but some of the thread waste which we burst ourselves we do sell.
Yes, now that's all going for weft isn't it?
R - It is, yes.
Yes, there's none of it going for twist?
R- Oh no.
Now, what sort of cloth will that be going into, this condenser yarn, when you've spun it, what sort of cloth will it be going into Roy?
R- Well, apart from the household side of the job, which is cotton blankets, flannelette sheets we call them, pillow cases, yellow dusters etc. We do make quite a bit I understand, for industrial purposes, for the shoe trade and for the motorcar trade and as I say, just what exactly they do use all of our cloth for I haven't the slightest idea. We do sell grey cloth ['grey cloth' is loomstate and not necessarily grey in colour] to customers who just want a specific number of picks per inch of yarn at a certain width and what they uses it for, well we haven't the slightest idea.
Would it be fair to say that most of it goes for raising?
R- Not these days, it used to be so, and we used to, oh we used to raise quite a lot cloth at one time. These days we don't raise as much as what we used to do. They sell a lot in the grey state. There’s quite a lot goes to the finishers to be finished off for various uses God knows what they are. But we do sell quite a lot of cloth in the grey state.
Yes. Now what’s your finest count that you spin at Spring Vale now?
R- Seven and a half.
What was Helmshore?
R- Eights.
Eights.
R - That's getting pretty fine in this trade.
Yes. Yes, it is.
R- It's getting pretty fine. Locally, in this area you wouldn’t find a lot of eights weft. Sevens, sevens and a half but not eights. We spun eights at Higher Mill through the years. In point in fact before the war we had one (300) mule spinning nothing else only nines. One hundred per cent comber, which was the best quality material that we had at that time. For a specific use, there’d be a particular cloth that a customer wanted and it ran for quite a long time I believe.
Yes. We used to get eights condenser off you at Bancroft.
R - Yes you did, yes.
Yes. We used to get that off you, a good weft and all, Jim always had a good word for it.
R- That was at Nutters, Barnoldswick, that's right aye.
Yes aye, it was a regular order, we had a regular order for condenser cloth. Oh everybody liked it because for one thing it was a good price cloth for the weavers, they could make some money off it. But you see to us, I mean of course it's the variation in trades, that was a very coarse weft. I mean our weft went up to sixty’s.
R- That’s right, yes.
And you know probably the bulk of our weft was between thirty and forty four but we did go up to sixty. Well as I say, we used your weft from Helmshore for years. Now nowadays we get used to seeing processes going out. And when I first came to look at mule spinning I was under the impression that mule spinning, mule spinning rather was, you know, it was an anachronism nowadays and that it wouldn’t be long before it was going out but I was wrong wasn't I?
R- I think so. At one time I was, probably agreeing with you. I thought it would too. But these days, I don't know, our customers seem to want this particular cloth made from mule spun yarn. We know that this open end, we’ve always had the ring frame, ring yarn of course, we know that this open end yarn has started to come on to the market, it's been on for two or three years but people are finding out that it’s limited in its use. Three years ago everybody was saying that in (350) three years, or five years time it will have ousted the ring frames, it will have ousted the mule, it will have done this that and the other. But it hasn’t done anything yet except it's proved itself to be limited. Very good yarn for certain things but limited. When it comes to be raised they have difficulty raising it and the weft or the yarn is not as full as what a mule spun yarn is and when it's in the cloth it doesn't fill the cloth up the same. In other words it’s like a little bit of a sieve, in other words you can see through it whereas on a mule spun yarn you can't.
Is that what they call, have I heard people call it break spun as well as open end?
R - Break spun yarn, yes.
Break spun, yes. Yes I know at Bancroft Jim had very little good to say about break spun. He did use some of it but it was always for the cheaper cloths and for certain constructions. When it came to condenser it was all mule that we used, all mule.
R- Yes. It's a very good yarn is a mule spun yarn. My old boss used to tell me that it was the best yarn you could buy. It didn't matter whether it was condenser or whether it was fine weft spun on a fine mule, the best yarn that you could possibly get was done on a mule. Aye.
Now then, you are in a position at Spring Vale where you are running what are in effect museum pieces. I mean those machines, the ones that I've been doing the pictures of Jim Riley on are what, 1902, 1903? We are talking about machines which are getting on for eighty years old.
R - Yes.
How long can you keep machines like that going?
R- I would say indefinitely. The thing is that those mules over the years have been serviced regularly. When I say serviced, we've had Taylor Langs of course, the Taylor Lang’s mules and Taylor Langs have been out of business many, many years. But Platt’s have owned them of course, took them over, and through the years we've had Platt’s fitters come along, go through the mules, renovate them sort of thing, put a fresh shaft in here and there, put fresh bearings in where they've been needed, and in short (400) they've been kept up to scratch. And although as you said they're seventy or eighty years old, I’m quite sure that if they were required, they'd last another seventy or eighty years with the same kind of treatment you know. Well if you look after something, of course it'll last, that's it.
Yes. But that is a philosophy that nowadays is regarded as being completely out of date. A piece of machinery is something which you scrap every five years because it's unreliable.
R – Aye, or you work it into the ground.
Yes well that’s it.
R- Or run it round the clock seven days a week sort of thing, and at the end of five years it's earned its keep so you buy another one. I don’t know, all that I know is that you are saying that these mules are eighty years old, which they are, and I would honestly believe that with the same usage, you know being looked after properly, they'd last another eighty years, I can’t see any reason why not.
Good.
R- Not to say that they will of course.
No. Well that raises the question. I mean I agree with you, I agree with you, don’t think I don’t Roy. I think that mules are old fashioned pieces of machinery which were made to last, you looked after them and they lasted. But, which raises the interesting question of how long can the mule spinners last. What’s the position nowadays with training new spinners and getting hold of mule spinners anyway.
R - Over the years we've more or less trained our own. Now you've met most of the Spring Vale spinners. There's fifteen of them there and out of the fifteen I would say that nine or ten, which is going to be two thirds, we’ve trained ourselves from being school leavers. They came to us looking for a job in the mule room and we found them one. You are familiar with the tubing set up that we have. Well long since we used to start these boys, these school boys from school on this tubing, learned them how to tube and of course they were working in the wheelgates along with the spinners, and when they were straight, they got their tubes straight in the boxes then of course they’d go into the wheelgate and help the spinners. And then eventually, after a period of time they would be introduced into the wheelgate as a Piecer, and perhaps, we had one very short pair at Grane Road at Holme Spring Mill, Grane Road Mill and what we used to do is have a very good spinner take one of these lads on, and sort of share the wage which came off the pair of mules on a sixty forty basis. Which made a fair wage for the spinner made it well worth his while to train the (450) lads you see. And that’s how all these lads were trained up and you know we are fortunate, they’ve stuck with us. [When Roy talks about ‘tubes’ he means the Northrop pirns onto which the yarn was wound on the mules. The lads helped with doffing and re-tubing and keeping the empties and full tubes tidy. It’s worth mentioning here that one of the things about mules which many academics state with certainty is that the weft produced on them couldn’t be used on Northrop looms and this explains why ring spinning was so popular. All Whitaker’s weaving was on Northrops and the yarn, instead of being wound on to the plain paper tubes was wound straight on to the Northrop pirn and was ready for the loom.] (20 min)
When you say short mules how many spindles would that be in the pair?
R- There was four hundred and seventy six per mule, that were a thousand, just under a thousand spindles to the pair you see. It were ideal for that particular job you see.
That’s about what they are at Spring Vale, isn't it?
R- No, in the top room at Spring Vale you'll find five forty spindles and in the middle and bottom five hundred and ten per mule.
Yeas that's its aye.
R- Not a lot longer, but they are that little bit longer you see?
Yes, that’s it, which makes a difference.
R- Of course if you went into the mule room at Higher Mill at Helmshore and saw those mules, the top room mules there have seven hundred and fifty six spindles per mule so it gives you an idea of the length.
That’s it, there are fifteen hundred spindles in a pair.
R- It's a fair length to the, looking from one end to the other.
They're a big mule actually for a condenser mule aren’t they because aren't they broad gauge, the spindles are further apart there?
R- At Spring Vale they're broad gauge, what we call broad gauge, at Higher Mill they’re narrow. They’re an inch and three eights gauge at Higher Mill.
What, what distance are the ones at Spring Vale?
R - Inch and thirty five sixty fourths, which is very much wider you see?
Yes that's it, aye. Just over an inch and a half yes. How many spinners, now those mules at Grane Road have gone haven't they?
R - Yes.
The only mules that Whitakers are running now are the ones at Spring Vale.
R- At Spring Vale, that's true.
So how, is anybody being trained now, Roy? (500)
R- Not at this point in time no. It would seem that this last five or six years we have been in a very fortunate position whereby if I've needed a spinner there’s been one working for somebody else who would, was ready for coming to L Whitakers you see? And it's, well Jim for instance, he is one you see, Jim Riley.
Yes, Jim Riley yes.
R- Jim is one for instance and one or two more, Tommy Smith he is another who came, and we've had, as I say we've about five or six.
Taking that as an example Roy. Jim, do you think that the fact that you've had relatively little difficulty in getting hold of mule spinneret has anything to do with the fact that Whitakers have never gone on to the shift system?
R- I wouldn’t know. My predecessor, a chap called by the name of Ernest Whitaker, was a very, very good mule man. What he didn't know about mules, it wasn’t worth knowing, it would have done you good to meet him because, as I say, he was a very, very excellent man and what he did was to make sure, he’d three mills, he had Spring Vale he had Higher Mill, and he had Holme Spring. And what he did was to make sure that he had enough spindles on an ordinary day shift to cover the needs of the weaving shed without working shift work. And although they did try to get him to adopt the shift system, he thought that the advantages, or should I say the disadvantages to it were too great. The advantage in other words as far as Ernest was concerned weren't worth accepting. The mules as you've just suggested were eighty, are eighty years old now. Then they would be about sixty years old you see and to go from a single day shift to running a double day shift on a machine that's already sixty years old, there isn’t much sense in it is there?
Not really.
R- No. Not if you can cover the amount of yarn required in a single day shift, by having an extra mule or two knocking about. So that's precisely what he did, he put the required number of spindles in to cover all the needs of the weaving shed, and he succeeded.
Would it be true to say that a lot of firms now, well obviously a lot of firms have gone out, but how many of the firms that are left in still have devils in and do the complete process like you do?
R- Very very few I would think. There are some devils knocking about I’ve heard. (550)(25 min) I haven't seen them, I don't even know which firm it's for but I’ve heard there's some Rochdale way. Whose they are I have no idea but those are the only devils locally that I know of.
Now if there are so few devils about, who is condensing the thread waste, who is working with thread waste?
R- Well like I say, obviously somebody is somewhere but probably the fact that there aren't the number of devils as there used to be, knocking about like they used to be, makes it so that we can get our thread waste that little bit cheaper. There isn't the demand for it you see.
That's it, yes.
R- And not being the demand it brings the price down and of course as I say .. at one time we’d three row of devils at Higher Mill and three rows of devils at Grane Road as well, we'd nine rows altogether.
Yes, that's it.
And in those days the amount of comber that we used was perhaps ten, fifteen per cent, and these days it's you know it's about seventy. We use about seventy per cent of comber, probably slightly over.
Yes. Comber of course is comber waste, it's what's left after they've taken out what they want.
R- That's right, yes.
One of the things that I hear in the industry as I talk to people is the fact that standards in weft and twist would seem to have declined. In other words I know that Jim Pollard, weaving manager at Bancroft told me many times that it wasn't possible to get the qualities of weft that they used to he able to get, even at the price, even if they were prepared to pay the price. For instance we had a cloth once that we had to use super comb for, we had to use some really good weft and twist and I know that Jim had no end of trouble with it, and he complained bitterly about it because he said that if it was super comb it should be super comb. I mean we were getting super comb twist in on back beams that still had seeds in it.
R- Yes.
And would you say that there was anything in that? Well one more thing that Jim used to say, he used to say that the trouble was that the industry had geared itself to production rather than quality. Would you say that there was any truth in that? If so, has it affected the quality of the waste that you get? (600)
R- Our weaving manager tells me that the twist, which is the warp or weft leaves a lot to be desired. It's not very good. Sometimes it’s a little bit better than others, but generally speaking it's not all that good these days. But as far as our own particular yarn is concerned, I would say our own yarn in as good today as it's ever been. In fact I would say it's a lot better than what it was many years ago. I can remember before the war and at the beginning of the war when the number of ends breakages per draw was sometimes one and two, sometimes three ends per draw coming down. So much so that the spinners just couldn’t keep up to the end breakages. And in those days instead of being two men to the wheelgate like there is today, there was three. I can remember it being so bad on occasions when they've actually swept the waste from the boards on the mule, on the carriage of the mule, because they just hadn't time to pick it off by hand. Well I mean, you don't get that these days. So I would say that looking back to those days and looking to the present day, I would say that our own standards, I don’t know about other peoples, but I would say they are very much higher than what they used to be. But the weft yarn, the warp yarns they do, Ronnie does tell me, the weaving manager, that he does get trouble, he does get trouble. And like you say - little bits of seed and leaf and stuff, little bits of aye, bad spinning.
Yes, and thick and thin shops, bad spinning, bad piecing. Yes. And bad beaming, a lot of bad beaming as well.
R- Bad taping and etcetera.
Yes, that's it. Do they tape their own at Holme Spring or do they get them in ready taped?
R - We get, we do some. We do get some in ready taped and we do some ourselves you know.
Yes. Well, we’ll not enquire too much about taping. Now, Spring Vale, that’s a weaving shed where the cards are isn't it?
R- That's true. It was a shed full of Lancashire looms until after the war, until after the second world war.
So that would be a completely vertical set up, from the thread waste through to the cloth in one mill.
R- Yes that's true. And of course in those days they used to send the weft up from Higher Mill as well and indeed some weft from Grane Road as well. In fact Spring Vale Weaving Shed was the weaving shed. And though we had some, we had a few Northrops there weren't very many, I don't think there was above twenty, two dozen at the most at Grane Road that was all. (650)(30 min) As I say all the weaving was done at Spring Vale. They were all Lancashire looms. I remember them, I remember them quite well.
And were they electrified then?
R- No, they were run from the steam engine. Spring Vale was run from the steam engine, oh yes. And I remember very well the engineer, firebeater engineer was a chap called Stansfield, dapper little chap, and Freddie Stansfield, he used to have a helper who did part of his time in the warehouse and part of his time shovelling coal, and he used to come early in the morning and get his head of steam and then he’d be going into the engine room. We were only ever allowed to look through the window, we were never allowed inside. Tiled, a tiled engine room, spick and span, and that was his castle and he was as I say spick and span, beautifully clean. And that engine run the whole of Spring Vale, it was there until, I believe until they took the looms out, after the war. And then when they put the card room in, the new card room in its place, they started to electrify it and that was it. But until that time the engine, the old steam engine had run the mill. And apart from anything else it had its other uses as well by having a steam all the time. In other words twenty four hours a day, we never knew what a cold mill was. Provided heat from the boiler you know, provided heat for the mill as well as steam for the engine. And it was always nice and warm and of course the manager used to make sure that the material was quite damp. You know what they say, wet and warm and it’ll spin.
That’s right.
R- And it did. But of course time goes on and we've got to go along with the changes and of course these days we have the oil fired boilers which, they’re off for so many hours per day, and then they're on for so many hours day and from time to time, although they're supposed to be fully automatic we do get trouble with them, not coming on when they should do with the result that at half past seven in the morning when the mill's starting sometimes, it's not as warm as it should be. But this is progress. (700)
Yes. I know just exactly what you mean, I’ve tapes and tapes and tapes about that Roy.
R- I’m sure you have, yes.
I could tell you some gory details, I could tell you some gory stories about people who took their engines out and found out they were burning more coal when they took the engine out than when they had it in, but ...
R- I can well believe that yes.
Yes, aye, yes.(35 min)
R- The thing is of course, when you come to cold conditions in a spinning room, we're talking about weak places in the yarn, you see. We just mentioned it when we were talking about twist for warps. And the thing is that those mules, I don't know whether you've noticed it or not but they do four draws to the minute.
That's the speed is it, four to the minute?
R- That's the speed, four draws to the minute, and there's seven thousand three hundred spindles in that mill. And if you reckon it up that’s thirty thousand draws in a minute. and the thing is that means thirty thousand weak places, or potential weak place under cold conditions. Non-spinners and people that haven't been brought up in amongst mules don't appreciate this fact you see, but every time the mule starts from the roller beam at the back, that is the one place on the yarn that is potentially the weak shop. When you get cold conditions it accentuates that thing you see. That’s a fact.
Yes, just after it's backed off, when the first, when it's starting to move off.
R- Just when it moves from the roller beam.
Yes and the first bit of roving's just coming through and that’s taking all the stretch with no twist, that's it yes.
R- That's it. That's the weak shop, the weak place. Where the mule's cold and the straps are not gripping as they should say and the ropes are not just doing their business as they should do. Under cold conditions then of course you’re getting this number of weak, potential weak places.
What’s the ideal spinning temperature Roy?
R- About seventy.
Seventy.
R- Sixty eight to seventy two.
Yes. That bears out something which I have been told, that .. an old spinner told me that cotton spins best and weaves best at the temperature and humidity at which it used to grow.
R – Yes, he is probably right at that, not a million miles out.
Aye. Because when all is said and done it is a natural fibre isn’t it?
R- Oh of course it is, of course it is.
And of course the other thing about the stuff that you are spinning at Spring Vale which doesn’t help the job is that it's being spun weft way which is actually the wrong way for cotton isn’t it.
R- It is…
It’s against the natural twist of the fibre.
R- This is, this is true.
You are adding, how can I put it, you're compounding the hazards there, aren't you? (750)
R- That’s true. This is done for a reason. I know Whitakers long since, most of the cloth that were woven were for raising. And of course weft way yarn in cloth will raise better than twist way yarn in cloth. And it's a system that's been adopted through the years and it's one to which they've kept and that’s it.
Yes. Yes I know that. Now well I know that at odd times I've known Jim specify twist way for certain cloths at Bancroft but they were usually, this is for weft and they were usually very strong cloth like twills that had to be used for things where they were going to stand very hard wear. They weren't going to be raised, they were going to stand very hard wear and they wanted a very hard weft to put in. They'd get it spun twist way but obviously the main of ours were spun weft way. Yes. Now see if I've got it right, weft way is oh, anti-clockwise isn't it, is it?
R - Weft way's anti-clockwise.
Yes and twist way's clockwise isn't it?
R - Twist way's clockwise that's right.
Yes. I'll make a spinner before I'm finished I’ll tell you!
R - Well now, any time you wish to come along, and you'll be very welcome indeed.
Well, I’ll tell you…
R - I've seen you with your jacket off. In point of fact I never see you with your jacket on, you are a hard working man, it needs a hard working man in the wheelgate.
I’ll tell you what I think about it, what the problem is. The reason why I asked you about mule spinners .. I think that nowadays .. I don’t know whether you'd find many people who would be willing to work at the pace that mule spinners work at. I realise that probably as you say, there aren't so many breakage as there used to be. It's perhaps slightly easier in some ways than it used to be .. but even so it is still a hard job compared with most jobs nowadays.
R- Very seldom you'll see a fat mule spinner. They move about quite a lot as you suggested, they do. They work hard and they earn their pennies, but once a mule spinner, always a mule spinner. And it's true is this, I could give you an example. We have one chappie who, let’s see, he'd be forty five, forty six years of age, and he came last year and he said “I'm going to have a change, I’m going to start making pies for a living instead of weft. I think I've been long enough in the wheelgate.” So we tried to persuade him not to go but of course he did. And it's only a fortnight since word came to me ears he'd been enquiring as to me health, and he said I think I’ll go and see Roy. He said “It’s hard work is mule spinning but I must admit I enjoyed it. I’m seriously thinking about coming back now.” You know we do get people, or we've had people in the past who have left and who have come back for mule spinning. It’s something that they were taught when they were young, they have it as you say at their finger tips, and to most of them it came easy. It comes easy having left school more or less to become a mule spinner. Then the thing is that they don*t know anything else, and when they come to middle life they try to change their job and it's not all that easy so they decide to go back to something that they've known and they do. I’m not a mule spinner by trade, by the way, I’m a card room chap. I were brought up in the card room until nineteen sixty six, opening and carding but nevertheless since nineteen sixty six I’ve enjoyed life very much amongst the spinners and wished many a time I'd have got in the spinning room a few years before I did because I've really enjoyed it. Not starting from scratch, I've been amongst mules all me life but always occupied enough in me own particular section of the industry not to have spare time enough to amongst the mules and help to mend them sort of thing you know, and when they broke down at. From nineteen sixty six onwards as I say, I've been with the mules and enjoyed every minute of it I really have. (40 min)
Arnold will be a very important man down at Spring Vale won't he?
R- Grand lad, he knows his business.
Yes. And of course we'd better say that Arnold is the overlooker isn't he.
R- He is the overlooker.
Now is he in charge of all those mules?
R- Oh yes, he is in charge, he is the man who repairs them, fettles them, call it what you want, when they break down. On occasion he’ll need some help, which is forthcoming but generally speaking he manages on his own. He manages on his own very well indeed and it's only when, you know, various things happen, like we're selling yarn, when he really needs me, well I see to that side of it but as far as the fettling of the mules, he does it. Very important man, good lad, knows his business, and there again he's been on the job more or less since he left school, he left once, many years ago, and if you speak to him about it he'll tell you he was very glad to get back. (850)
Aye. What's Arnold’s second name?
R - Parkinson.
Parkinson, that’s it. And Brian, what’s Brian's job? Brian…
R - Brian Finney.
Yes.
R- He is the bale man, and it's his job specifically to weigh the bales in as they came in from the suppliers. Then when it comes to putting the mixings down, help to put the mixings down, get the bales out of stores out of stock; the required type and the required number to put down in the mixing room. That's his job. Then of course we go into the card room and we have Charlie the carder and we have Joe Pilling the under carder who works…
What’s Charlie's surname?
R- Gowers.
Gowers.
R- Charlie Gowers.
Charlie Gowers, yes.
R- And they each have their own job. And the admin of this, of the whole of it is taken care of by me, and I liaise with the office and make the wages up and generally I'm fully occupied. You wouldn't think so from time to time but I am, it runs me about and of course they all have their little problems from time to time, and they all come to me with them and sometimes I think they expect me to wave a wand. But I think sometimes the very fact that they've told me sort of sets their mind at rest a little bit. I help them when I can and of course they help me and I would think we've a pretty good team.
I’m sure you have. I was only saying that the other day, that's one of the things that's impressed me at Spring Vale. But looking back, you've been in it forty two years, there's been very little change as regards the machinery, has there been much change in other directions? For instance, you know the type of people you are employing or the type of work you are doing. Has the hard waste industry as it's run at Spring Vale seen much alteration over the last forty or fifty years?
R- Not really, the ways of producing the yarn are precisely the same, labour. To some extent it's altered, the type of people who are coming for jobs these days, the younger people for instance, don’t seem as interested as what they might have been thirty or forty years ago. Thirty or forty years ago it was, you went into an industry whether it’d be textiles, boot and shoes or any other trade and really it was in your own interest to learn all about that trade or job that you were in. So much so that you went to night school at your own expense in order to better your position, to get more money. These days people just do not seem that interested, and I don't know for why, they don't seem to want to better themselves, they seem to, you know, I get the impression sometimes, probably going from the sublime to the ridiculous but at the same time they seem to want to be the managing director inside about a fortnight, if you know what I mean. They're going to get to the top before they've started at the bottom.
SCG/12 June 2003
7,126 words
