TAPE 79/AO/01
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 11th of MAY 1979 AT NUMBER 9 SACKVILLE STREET, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS JACK PLATT AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Jack Platt in 1977.
[Mrs Mona Platt was present and helped Jack out here and there. Her contributions are clearly marked.]
So what year were you born Jack?
R- 1905.
1905, so that makes you 74 years old.
R - This month.
This month, what date?
R - 29th.
29th of May, that's it and where were you born Jack?
R - Cheesden Pasture Farm, Norden. Rochdale.
Aye and what were your dad doing, was he farming there?
R- Then? Yes.
Yes.
R - Yes.
That’s Cheesden Pasture. Do you know I've an idea I know that farm.
R- Aye.
Anyway what made him move across here Jack, any idea?
R - Well I don't know really. You see when I were young I went to live with me aunt and uncle at Royton.
Aye?
R- I don't know why they shoved me away like but I went and then when I came back to them we lived at White Cottage on White Moor, Fred Cutler had the farm and we lived in the cottage there, White Moor.
Yes.
R - That's when I come back to me mother like.
Aye.
R - There were only me mother then like, you know and what you call a step-father, you know.
Aye, and they came over to Barlick.
R - And then from Barlick .... from Barlick. we came to Tubber Hill.
Aye.
R- You know from White House we came to Tubber hill.
Yes.
R - And then from Tubber Hill we went to Rawtenstall and then from Rawtenstall we come back to Amen Corner.
Which is Amen Corner?
R- Higher Lee Cottages below Lane Head, them old cottages below the water works, you know, down in the bottom there.
Amen corner lying derelict in 1979.
Aye.
R- There were four cottages.
Aye. Are they still there?
R - Well, the remnants are, you know, the walls are but they're pulling 'em down.
Aye.
R- And from there again.. I were married from there,
Yes.
R- I were married from there, and then come living at Tubber Hill. Like you know, after I were married.
Aye. Now so that's a fair number of moves in a short time isn’t it, really?
R – Well, in a way yes. I’m spanning a time then from being about five year old to being about nine.
Yes. What would they be doing really, looking for work do you think?
(50)
R- Well they were up and down because it were, it were really bad for fellows, they went to different places looking for work, yes.
Aye five year till nine. Let’s see, that’d be about 1910 to the beginning of the first world war wouldn't it?
R - That's right..
Aye.
R - Well war broke out while we lived in that White Cottage, on White Moor.
Aye.
R- And then there were a do come out, they were condemning all them. It's still a good cottage is that but we’d to move and that's why we came from there to Tubber Hill.
Aye.
And did your mother work?
R - Me mother walked from there to Barrowford and they started at six o'clock at morning then.
Aye.
R- And if they weren’t there at six o'clock they had a weaver put on. [their looms]
Aye.
R - And there were no buses, no transport whatever, so you can tell what a rough do that were. That’d be, how many mile from White Moor to Barrowford?
It’ll be a good three mile.
R - And then after a year or two she thought she'd get nearer her work so she started down in town, Plummer’s they called it. It were Windle’s at Crow Nest and she thought that were near and that were what? That’d be three..
(5 min)
Well that were thick end of three mile.
R - Yes that's what I say.
And she were weaving of course?
R - She were weaving, yes.
Aye. which house do you remember best Jack, of the one's you lived in when you were young.
R - When I were young? Well, White House on White Moor.
Aye.
R - I remember it.. well, yes, you know during me youth, I remember that more than any of 'em.
Right, well let's just pin down exactly what and where that house is. When you talk about White Moor..
R - You know when you pass Stone Trough Well.. [Jack means Gilbert Well and I never corrected him]
Yes.
R - Stone Trough..
Where the bungalow is.. [Wood End bungalow]
R- Next farm on your left.
That's it.
R - The first farm on your left. [White House Farm]
Aye. I know where you mean now, aye. I never knew..
R - Fred Cutler had it.
Aye, I never knew that that were the name of that farm; and you were living in the cottage there?
R - We were living in the cottage.
Aye.
R - Half-crown (2/6d) a week then, only we didn't pay no rent 'cause I used to help Fred.
Is that right?
R - Aye, we used to get eggs off him you know and live rent free.
And how old were you then?
R - Oh about nine. He used to take me all ower with him and he’d never take no money. I used to run him errands and all sorts. I went hay making for him years after I really left there.
Aye.
R - For Fred.
What do you remember about the house, what were house like, how many rooms were there down stairs?
R - Oh there were just a living room and a little kitchen with the old stone sink and two bedrooms and that were it like.
No bathroom?
R - Oh no, no bathroom.
Outside toilet?
R - Outside toilet yes.
And what were that, dry toilet, bucket?
R - Bucket aye, th’old bucket you know, aye.
And the council wouldn't empty that, you'd have that to empty it yourself up there?
R - Oh that were to empty yourself, that went on the land I think did that.
Aye.
R- You know, farm land.
Aye.
R- It went on the land.
Aye. How about, what were the floors?
R- Flag.
Aye.
R - Flag floors.
Carpet?
R - A bit of an old rug I think, bit of an old peg rug, what they used to peg there selves then.
(100)
Aye.
R- Wi’ all bits of cloth cut up, you know.
Aye. Ever use sand on floor?
R- Oh yes, aye. She used to use sand did me mother on the kitchen floor an all you know.
Aye, where did that come from?
R- Now I can't tell you that, I think out of the farm yard, because I think Fred used to get it, you know, they'd a flagged floor in farm house. And a bucket full every now and again from there you know.
And that’d be done, what, once a week, sanding the floor?
R - Aye once a week yes.
Aye. Were there a stair carpet?
R - No, no stair carpet, stone steps.
Stone steps.
A - Stone steps aye.
Aye and were they wood floors upstairs?
R - Yes they were wood floors up stairs.
Aye. And how about cooking, what did your mother cook on.
R- Oh the old coal fire.
Aye,
R - There were no, you know…
Was it a range with a side boiler or was it..
R - No it had a side, hot water boiler, you know, where they filled a hot water boiler.
Yes.
R - And th’oven at t’other side what she baked in you know.
Aye. And how about having a bath?
R - Bath. Oh an old tin bath.
In front of the fire?
R- Front of the fire.
Regular night?
R - No, every now and then. [Jack and Stanley laugh]
Eh. Would you say they were hard up?
R - Hard up?
Yes.
R- Oh aye we were hard up alright.
Aye.
R - I didn't take much fault because I were in.. I were allus in the farm house, I really lived there more than at home. I only slept at home, I were never out of Fred’s but it were hard up days..
Aye.
R- Really hard up days, mmm.
How did it show mainly?
R - Well in every way. I should think me mother were one of the…. all she had were spent on food. I should think what we had on us backs did for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you know what I mean.
Yes.
R- No Sunday changes.
That's It aye.
R – Th’old clothes and she were allus, she were allus good wi’ us. She'd allus see we’d sommat to eat, yes.
Ever known her going short to feed you?
R- Yes I have, yes I have. I allus remember one night she were coming home from Barlick, and I don't know if you'll ever remember it or not, but there used to be an engine at the top of Salterforth Lane, in that where they put the road salt.
I can’t remember it but I've heard of it.
R- Aye well I can remember it. I can picture it now and they used to take the rope down and pull the quarry wagons up, you know. You know out of the quarry.
Yes, aye.
R- Pull horse and carts up, hook on to the shaft and help the horse up. And somebody there took her wage off her one night when she were walking home from work, I can allus remember that. That were a bit of a hard week that week because she'd nothing then, you know.
(150) (10 min)
Took her wage off her?
R - Aye pinched her purse, they never get to know who it were like but I allus remember that.
Aye.
R - So like there were a few rough ‘uns in that day weren’t there?
Aye,
R - And that's a long time ago.
What would a weeks wage be then for a weaver?
R – Oh, about twenty two or three bob I should think. [£1.15p]
What would that be, four looms?
R – Yes, four loom. I think me mother had five though, I think so. No, she'd four, there weren’t many fives. It were men that had five looms then and sixes.
Aye, aye.
R - It weren’t a known fact for women, they were four looms, you know, four looms as a rule.
How about going to school Jack, where did you go to school?
R – Foulridge. That’d be two mile wouldn't it?
Aye.
R - A good two mile.
How did you get there?
R- Walked it through the fields. Through the fields and down the big hill to Foulridge Station, across, and then up to school.
No school dinners then?
R - No school dinners no. I used to have to take our bit of dinners wi’ us, you know. Our Annie looked to that, me sister, she were older than us, you know and sandwiches, sandwiches. And then at tea time it’d be about what, seven o'clock would tea time. It used to take me mother that long to walk home you know. We had us tea about half past seven to eight o'clock I should think. We’d have a jam but' as we called 'em then tha knows.
She'd never have any time then to herself, your mother.
R - Me mother never had any time, no. No, no time didn't me mother, she'd a hard life had me mother. One of hardest lives I've ever known a woman to have really. I've telled you Mona haven't I many a time. [Mona was Jack’s wife.]
How old was she when she died Jack?
R- She’d be eighty one or two I should think.
Aye. How long ago's that?
Mrs. Platt.- Seventy three! (Mrs. Platt was present at the interview)
R - Oh seventy three. It's me that's got that wrong, she were seventy three.
How long ago's that, roughly?
Mrs Platt- She's been dead about twenty eight year now.
R - About 28 year since. She died at me sisters you know, up Cobden Street, Billy Spensley lived there, that's me sister you know.
Aye. How many brothers and sisters did you have?
R - One brother, one sister. Walter died, he came off work one day and doctor said he’d a bad cold you see so he went It’d work off but it didn't, he’d an ulcer burst that night and he died, he were dead the day after.
(200)
How old were he?
R- Twenty, twenty one, weren’t he?
Twenty one.
So when would that..
R- He died in March and he’d have been twenty one in July.
Aye.
Mrs Platt- Our Ronnie were a fortnight old when he died and he's fifty now.
R - That's right yes, yes.
Aye, so that's fifty year ago, that's going to be 1929.
R – Yes, he were Walter. And our Annie, she's living yet, you know our Annie don't you?
Aye, and how about school? Can you ever remember school inspectors coming or anyone like that? Can you ever remember anybody coming to school, you know, to see about your health or the way you were being taught. Can you ever remember anybody coming?
R- No, not them days, no not really.
Nurse looking at your hair or anything?
R- Oh I remember that, when the nurse used to come looking in your hair for the old bobblers aye. [Nits]
Jack and Stanley laugh.
R - Oh aye but we allus passed them tests like, you know what I mean. As rough as we were she kept us clean.
What age did you go to school till Jack?
R - I went half time when I were twelve and left school when I were fourteen, you know. If you hadn't enough [time in]..I don’t know why because I can never remember being off much but it went in attendances. Unless they'd put it to fourteen then.
Yes.
R- I could never grasp that but it must have been because I were never one to miss school and I never.. I weren’t one to run away. I were as rough as any other lad but I never ran away from school.
Aye.
(15 min)
So twelve year old that’d be 1917, that’d be during the war you went half timing.
R - Yes that's reight.
Aye.
R- Aye that's right.
Aye, 1905 so that’d be 1917 it’d be during the war when you went half time.
R- I went half time when I were twelve.
When you were a lad Jack, I know we've talked about this before but you know, we play hell about kids nowadays and this, that and the other, how did you amuse yourselves?
(250)
R - Well we used to go swimming, jumping, running, laiking in the quarry, you know, playing about. Raiding orchards [laughs] Getting through the bob hole in hen huts and getting a few eggs out. Me mother used to send me for a bob's worth of eggs at Saturday and it used to take us all Saturday morning rounding 'em up out of hen huts so we could have, He He, so we could have the shilling. I'm telling you this, I'm telling you facts.
Aye.
R - I mean that's how we used to amuse us self.
Aye.
R- Raiding. I once remember old Jim Sutcliffe tha’ knows, landlord at that long row at Tubber Hill. He had a big garden out back and pea-swads, you know, all rows on 'em. So, it come this night we decided it were raiding night, we’d raid him. So three on us, there were me, Harry Grimes and George Horrocks and we all raided, well we raided peas. We’d a big bag apiece and we’d filled ‘em up. A big bag like that, get 'em up ready for going and then a chap, a chaps voice came, ‘Narthen’ he says, 'You can fetch them buggers here now, it'll save me picking ‘em'. Hee Hee!
(Laughter from Stanley)
R - Eh! He were sat down behind the hut. He’d never said nowt till we’d picked ‘em! And then we’d to go and give 'em him and we daren’t but miss tha knows.
Aye.
R - Aye, I allus remember that night. And then we were raiding the orchard on Peel Whitakers, tha knows, it were Peel Whitakers farm. Tha knows, down Salterforth Lane..
Aye.
R- On that lane, half way down. That one there, a chap called Whitaker had it then, Peel Whitaker and then they went on..
Oh yes, it's Bradley's now.
R- Oh I don’t know who has it now. Aye, we went on there, it were one Sunday. I used to go on there while they were all at Sunday School. And George, tha knows, he were allus there. I liked him a lot. So he’d a hole in his top pocket, in his top coat. He had a hole in and apples were dropping through and he's up the tree tha knows. Then all at once they land back [the farmer] so we jump down but George couldn't make it see, he’d too many apples in his top coat. They caught him, he geet apples alreight that Sunday did George, his bloody coat were packed wi’ apples, Hee Hee! No, we really really enjoyed us self up there in, you know when the old ferns, bracken were in. When they were dying off we used to make what you call a bracken house.
Aye.
R - That were us headquarters you know. Oh we've been chased. Old Bird chased us, I know he once caught me and George Horrocks, he says to George "I've kicked men off here nine foot high. Don't think you’re going to frighten me wi’ using a bit of cheek! So when we set off George turned round, he shouted “You f …..g lying bugger Bird!” Aye, oh aye.
(300)
(Laughter from Stanley).
R - That were old George Bird tha knows, oh we used to..
Who were he, quarry foreman, manager?
R- Who, George?
George Bird.
George Bird, gamekeeper and his wife Mary Sharp at Craven Laithe Farm in the 1930s.
R - George Bird were the game-keeper that lived on White Moor then..
Aye, that's it..
R- Again the reservoir, you know. [Whinberry Harbour]
That's it aye, aye.
R- Aye, then he took, he took the Fanny Grey [Lane Head pub]after, Bird's you know.
Aye that's it aye, aye. And when you left school Jack where did you go working first when you went half time.
R - Now wait a minute, when I went half time? Oh Coates Mill, learning to weave wi’ me mother.
And she were weaving at Coates then.
R- She were weaving at Coates then yes.
Who had it then, can you remember?
R- Eh no I can’t remember. I can’t remember who owned it, I only remember the chap that used to reckon to be boss inside, they called him Old Nelson, he’d one eye. 'Cause that were him that… They used to put you learning wi’ people, you know, but I used to get sacked from every one on ‘em. Hah Hah! Tha knows all twist that comes up.
(20 Min)
Aye.
R- Well I used to break one on ‘em out tha knows and the old shuttles that they used to have on wi’.. and I used to thread one of them through tha knows, and they'd come up and they'd get end ready to take up and they'd be like this tha knows, bloody miles on it.
(Laughter from Stanley and Jack)
R- I get sent home wi’ three different ones at Coates and then I get sacked and I were only twelve. Anyway we went to Birds at Calf Hall after that.
Aye.
R- They called it Birds then, it were top firm. { I don’t know who this could be. I have a reference to Charlie Bird later in the 30’s}
Aye.
R- There were our Annie, me and me mother and we started and we worked there. Course I…and then our Annie had four looms, me mother had four and I were only like what you call a tenter you know.
Aye.
R- ‘cause I were still going to school.
Yes. Who paid you when you were tenting?
R- Well them that you tented for, you see.
Aye, how much?
R- Half a crown I think. Well they paid me mother, I wouldn't have getten none. And then from there, we came up here, we were one of first, some of, we were the first weavers in here.
In Bancroft.
R- I'd left school then and I were going on four loom.
Aye. Now wait a minute, wait a minute, just let's get this straight now. So you were working down at Calf Hall and from Calf Hall you came up here.
(350)
R - Calf Call mind you, I left, I left school, well I was at Calf Hall.
So that's 1919..
R- That's 1919
You'd leave school.
R- It would be, aye.
You were working at Calf Hall then.
R- Yes.
And then you came up here.
R- And then Bancroft Mill were setting some weavers on. They'd like started opening then you know. [1920]
Aye,
R - So me and our Annie and me mother all came up to Bancroft Mill.
Yes.
R- And that's where I got me first four loom.
Aye. Now just hang back a bit there, hang back a bit there because this is really one of main reasons why I wanted to come and see you Jack, because there's all sorts of people say all sorts of things about this, and I want to get it right. Now forget about going to work therefore a minute.
R- Yes.
Can you remember when they were building Bancroft.
R- Oh yes. Yes I can remember when they were building it.
Right now hold on a minute, hold on a minute. When did they start?
R- Oh now wait a minute, I don't know about that, oh no I can’t name that year. I know this, they started building that and they built it and there were a war on weren’t there.
Yes.
R- And there were a delay in opening it till the war finished or sommat.
That's it.
R - There were sommat. There were sommat happened that way. There were a delay.
Now during the war what were standing where Bancroft is now, were there any actual building done after war or was the building built. When can you first remember seeing Bancroft as a building?
R- Wait a minute. No I can’t. It runs in my memory, I can remember ‘em working on it. Yes it runs in my memory I can remember 'em working on it. Yes I can. Because we used to go to school from Tubber Hill down there you know.
Down Tubber Hill down, where were you.
Down Tubber Hill way you know.
Where were you going to school when you lived at Tubber Hill?
R- Gisburn Road school.
So which way did you come down, this way, Tubber Hill up…..
R- No straight down. Straight down the....
Yes, straight down like Barlick. Lane, Manchester Rd ..past..
R- Past the Greyhound.
That's it yes.
R- But they were building it then.
(400)
Yes.
R - They were on with it because Saturday I know we used to bounce round a time or two playing round it, you know, playing about there. Aye. And then, I’m going back a long way you know.
Yes.
R- Then it were finished and I know there were some sort of a lull in it, I allus remember that, they weren’t going to start it [begin running] till the war finished or something. Sommat like that. Because in the mean time I’d left school and been knocking about you know, Calf Hall. Bird’s at Calf hall.
Yes. Yea so as I understand it, I haven't got to the bottom of this yet Jack.
R- Oh wait a minute, no, no I've done wrong here. I've gone wrong. I didn't leave school, I didn't have me first job here I had it at Rawtenstall. I left school at Rawtenstall when I were twelve.
Aye, that's it.
R- I’ll have to go back.
When they moved back to Rawtenstall yes.
(25 min)
R- Aye, I left school and I went as a last-sorter in the slipper works. Hoyle and Hoyle, slipper works.
Aye.
R- But it were only a short spell do you see..
Yes.
R- But I’d missed that spell out with you.
That's it.
R- And that's when we come back to Tubber Hill from Rawtenstall.
That's it and then you'd go down to Coates with your mother.
R- That's right, yes.
Oh well that's right we've got it straight then.
R- Yes.
And you see I haven't got to bottom of it about Bancroft. One of the things that I can’t understand about Bancroft is that I've always been ..you know, they say that James Nutter's started weaving at Bancroft but I don't think they did.
R- James Nutter.
Yes.
R- Started weaving at Bancroft.
No but started, that they first started Bancroft up. When you went to work at Bancroft who were you working for?
R- Nutter's.
Ah now, Nutter's, but which firm, 'cause there were three firms weren’t there.
R- Aye there were three, yes there were.
There were three firms, there were James Nutters, W E and D and Nutter Brothers.
R- Well it weren’t W E & D, and it weren’t Nutter Brothers so it must have been James.
(450)
Aye. {It was Nutter Brothers actually, taken over by James Nutter Ltd when they left Bankfield in 1932]
R- Because I knew, I know them with later years, other Nutter's when I were on weft for W E&.D. Nutters. [Jack is talking about carrying weft when he was driving for Wild Brothers.]
Yes.
R- And one on ‘em used to live up there you know, that were Dick, there were Dick Nutter and another. No it’d be James Nutter.
Aye. Course James actually died in 1918 didn't he, he never saw the mill start.
R- Didn't he? No well, I wouldn't know that.
Yes, James actually died but you see the thing I can never understand is that while Bancroft. After Bancroft had started James Nutter's was still weaving down at Bankfield.
R- Yes that's right, yes they were weren’t they. James Nutter at Bankfield.
Aye and then..
R- Which shop had they at Bankfield then?
They were one of first tenants in there, back shop, they had about a thousand loom in there.
R - Had they, oh had they. And then Sagars were down there.
And then..
Mrs. Platt- Well me dad worked there for them Nutters at one time.
Where?
Mrs Platt- Didn't he?
R- At New Mill or Bankfield?
Mrs. Platt- New Mill.
R- You were talking about. We’re talking about Bankfield.
No, this is Bankfield and I think meself that there was something.. There's something somewhere about, there’s something happened somewhere about James, ..about Nutter Brothers going to start there and then in the finish they didn't.
R- I see.
And I haven't got to bottom of it yet. Anyway main thing is, main thing is that you went to work there. Now did you go to work there when they first started?
R- Yes.
You know when engine first started, can you remember what the date of that was Jack? [13th March 1920]
Aunty Liza Nutter starting the Bancroft engine in July 1920.
R- Oh no, no I can’t remember..
Mrs. Platt.- Well how old were you when you had your hand done..
R - Well I can remember this, that there were, that we got told when we went in if engine started running fast and running away we’d to run out, we’d to go out, leave everything and run out. They didn't pay you be what you earned, they, you got a standing wage.
Aye.
R- Because we’d to run out once or twice and once when we went back one of my looms were on top of other!
(500)
Is that right?
R- Yes, well it used to set off at t’boggart and there were only a few, twelve looms or twenty looms running.
Aye, aye.
R- There were only a few of us because we played football at tea breaks in the mill itself. They were still wheeling looms in and fixing ‘em you see.
Aye.
R - It weren’t no way finished. They'd hundreds of looms to put in when I went there.
Aye.
R- Aye. And it had, we got told very strictly not to waste one minute, not to waste no time if it started running, you know, really fast.
Aye.
R - Go out, run out. So we used to run out. In fact I run out a time or two when it weren’t really running at t’boggart. Hee Hee! Aye I’ll allus remember that once when I went back one of me looms were on top of another.
Aye picked up, belt had picked it up and thrown it up on top?
R - I worked there when that woman were killed you know, with the fire proof doors.
Ah now tell me about that. That's a story that I keep hearing and nobody's been able to tell me about it.
(30 min)
R - Well I can tell you about it because I looked at her after, when they had her laid on a table with her head in a big bunch of waste.
Aye.
R - Now her and me sister used to always go out together, they worked at side of one another. But our Annie she had, she were taking a bunch up, what they used to call 'em, or sommat.
Yes.
Bancroft weavers on the banking at the back of the mill in 1921. Left to right, Annie Platt, (Iris, Edith?) Barrett, Mary Joyce and Vera Scott. I don't know the name of the lass who was killed but she is probably one of the group as they were all friends.
R- And she said she'd follow her round. She went out and as she went through them doors, them fire proof doors dropped on her and flattened her and they were two ton were them doors they reckoned.
Aye.
R - It took enough, so many people to lift it off. Half of the mill nearly, you know what I mean.
Aye.
R- And they, I can remember as plain as now 'em carrying her to that long table they had for..
Cloth lookers?
R – Yes, it run this way down mill then, not that, under the window..
Aye,
R- ..and one down here. And they had her laid on there on a reight big bundle of waste, you know. Yes, she were killed, well killed instantly. I can remember that do. They nicknamed that place ‘grave yard’ in them days. Can you ever remember that nickname?
Aye, yes.
R - They called it the Grave Yard.
And when, what year would that be Jack?
R – Eh, heck. Aye, let's see. Well we'll go this way it, it were that year when I were sixteen so you can reckon it from there.
1921.
R- It’d be 1921.
So that’d be the year, I reckon, ..I reckon..
R- It’d be 1920 or 1921. It’d be happen when I were fifteen or sixteen. I'll not swear which, how old I were..
I think..
R- Oh no I'd be fifteen, I'd be fifteen would a..
No, oh no, now hold on a minute, your persuading yourself because as far as I know..
R- No I'm not! I'm going off having that accident wi’ me hand when I were sixteen.
Aye.
R - And I were working. I’d be fifteen.
Aye.
R - I'd be fifteen when that accident occurred.
Well that must have happened soon after mill started then.
R- Oh aye, aye the mill weren’t, it weren’t full of …
Weren’t full of looms. That's just when it first started.
R - Yes when it, aye.
Aye. Because now you haven't given me a date yet for when it started but..
R- I can’t, I can’t. I don't know it's, I’d only be guessing. 'Cause you see it's something that's gone out of me mind a long, long time ago, you see what I mean.
That's all right, I'll tell you what we'll do..
R- I've nothing to remember the year by.
I’ll tell you what we'll do, we'll quietly fetch it back in. Can you remember 'em actually starting the engine the first time, were you there when they started it or about.
R- No, I don't think I'd be there when they started it. Happen the day after or sommat. I were there the first week when they were starting, going to run it you know.
That's it.
R- And run looms.
Now were it summer or winter?
R- No it’d be good weather.
Good weather?
R- I think it would be, aye.
Aye.
R- I don't think it’d be winter. Happen, no I don't know, I don't think so.
Can you remember it being cold. You know, no heating when you first started.
R – No, that's what I’m going off.
Yes.
R- Because it weren’t cold.
So, a good chance it were the spring of the year.
R- Spring of the year aye. It wouldn't be winter because I mean, I don't think they'd have, nobody would have stuck it in there.
Aye, wi’ no looms in.
R- because it’d have been starvation in there you know.
Yes. So it nearly looks as if it's going to be, now wait a minute if it were, ..if it were 1920 you'd be fifteen year old.
R- Yes. I would wouldn’t I.
Yes. Now would that be about right?
R- Aye I reckon it would, I'd be fifteen. I wouldn't be sixteen because I'd be sixteen in May as I had this accident in July wi’ that there. No I were fifteen..
[It took us a while to get there but we got it right in the end. I should explain that at that time I didn’t know the exact date Bancroft Engine started.]
Now what accident were that.
R - When I got me hand done.
Yes.
R- That's what I’m going off see..
Yes.
R - I’d be fifteen because I'm only going back May, June, July from me birthday aren’t I.
Aye, that's it.
R- I were fifteen so you reckon it from that year.
So that's going to be most likely spring of 1920 when they started.
R- Yes. It would be an all.
Yes and you wouldn't be working there long before you had your accident with your hand.
R- Oh no, no.
A matter of like three or four month happen, something like that.
R- That's right, three, that's reight, yes it were long enough, I hated it.
Well, that's going to be, that's going to put it then, that's going to put it at spring of 1920.
R- Yes.
(35 min)
Early on in 1920 but not early enough to be cold.
R - I'd be fifteen wouldn't I?
Yes. You'd be fifteen and that’d be the same year.
R- May, June, July and then I'd be sixteen and I were sixteen when I had that accident..
Yes.
R- So I were fifteen when I were there, yes.
Now that accident you keep on about, course these tapes don't give pictures, you've got two fingers missing off your right hand. How did that happen?
R- I’ve, got three, three.
Three. Is there three missing?
R - There's nearly all the lot missing really.
Oh that's it. How did that happen?
R- Well, we were going swimming, I telled you we used to do a lot of swimming. So we're going swimming one night you know, going down Salterforth Lane and we goes through the quarry. Course if you see any open windows you, in them days you used to bob in and see what you could find, didn't you. So we went in and we found these here detonators, you know. So we like, I said, young Johnny Grimes were there, my mate so, “Eh hell, them's just right for making pencil cases on. I’ll have one or two of them.” you know, what do they call ‘em, detonators, what they blast wi’.
Mm, yes detonators aye.
R- They shove 'em on the end of the fuse.
Yes, that's it.
R- So I put about half a dozen of these here in me pocket and then we went swimming, thought nowt about it you know.
R- Anyway, when we’d been down we were coming up Salterforth Lane and I'm scratching this here bit of white stuff, bit of white, about that much, down in the bottom of t’doing's you know. I’m scratching it out when, WHAM! and it went off, blew, no messing whatever, just blew 'em clean off. I just said hell, what a bang, you know, to the lads and I looked round and I saw me fingers on the floor!
Aye.
R- And I looked, aye I did that lad, and I remember that as plain as the day.
SO now…
R- It just touched tip of that, see what I were pricking it with, see, point of that.
Aye.
R - And the tip of that, see, what I were pricking it wi’, see, point of that!
Aye.
R- Eh, can’t tha see it, tip of that and tip of that.
That's it aye.
R- Well I’d the pin in that hand see. It's a bloody good job, it could have blown us head off couldn't it.
And now, hang on. Nowadays when that happens, what you do is, you go to the nearest telephone box, dial 999 and get an ambulance, but like you couldn't do that then. So what did you do?
R- Well one on 'em must, there were a chap, I think there must have been somebody passing and they ran somewhere and I don't know how they got me home, in a milk float or sommat, they took me home.
Mrs. Platt.- They took you home in a milk float.
R- In a milk float, aye.
Mrs. Platt.- And you were laid all night before you went..
R - And then the doctor come up and he just looked at it, put a piece of wadding on about as big as that bucket there..
Aye.
R - And put it, just slapped it on and said that, and at morning they took me to Burnley in old Palmer’s, Harry Palmer’s father’s milk float to Burnley hospital, that were after a night in bed. Blood had gone reight through the bloody tick bed on to the bedroom floor, stained the floor.
Aye.
R- Aye. Tha can tell that were, that were them days of medical attention. All night wi’ that. It had gone, it were that. It were like that there padding, it had gone clean through it, through the bed.
Aye, through a foot of bed!
R- Aye.
So you’d lost some blood.
R- I had lost some blood, I couldn't stand up.
Aye. And when you got to hospital what did they do?
R- Just took me in and started telling me to try to count to a hundred and I think I got to sixty six afore I started choking ‘cause it were chloroform then tha knows.
Aye.
R- Not like it is to-day. Eh, gasping, eh, get this bloody thing off or sommat tha knows, Anyway I were a long while tha knows they telled me after, I’d 68 stitches in ‘em an all.
Sixty eight.
R- Aye sixty eight. It weren’t reight bad were it.
No, no.
R- 'Cause there were the palm of me hand and dosta know what that doctor said?
No.
R - He said, “If you hadn't have been so young" he said "I could have made a reight good job of that" he said “Because I'd have sliced it off wi’ your wrist”.
Aye.
R- He said "It’s only your youth".
Aye.
R - And he says "I'll tell you one thing". And I says what? He says “I can always put you a thumb back on” This is doctor Watson. I said “Oh can you”, tha knows 'cause I'm only sixteen. And he says “Yes, but you'll have one big toe missing". "Oh'' I says “Bugger that". Hee Hee! And he laughed every time he come past me bed. Aye he did. I'll allus remember that do.
(Laughter from Stanley)
R - I'm barn’to light a fag is it reight?
Aye course it is, aye.
R- Dosta want one?
Eh, no thanks, no, no. Aye, so you didn't want your big toe putting off.
R - I were in eight weeks there.
You were eight weeks in hospital.
(40 min)
And when you came out did you go back to the mill?
R - Oh no, that were out of it.
Yes.
R- I were a milk boy for Sandham, me and young Bobby Lambert, he's a joiner now, he has joiners shop now. Me and young Bobby. We run Tommy Sandham’s milk round for him 'cause he were allus boozing.
How long for?
R- Er .... happen twelve month. And then I went in the quarry.
You were still living at, aye well, we'll start wi’t quarry after.. We'll start wi’t quarry later, let's suck the juice out of the mill job first.
R- Aye.
So that were end of your career. You wouldn’t be reight worried about that would you, about losing [your fingers], about not being able to go back in mill.
R- I weren’t a bit worried that way. I were worried one way and still I were glad another way, it went two ways, you know what I mean. It's never seemed to hamper me, it's never hampered me a lot, I've gone on, this is the best part about it, I’ve gone on tests and all sorts for PSV's [Public Service Vehicles] and I worked wi’ a chap at the Ordnance Factory at Steeton two year and then I met him about ten year after and he noticed me hand and he said “Cor Jack, when hasta done that?” I said “When I were sixteen". He said “Well it weren’t like that when you were at Steeton". I said “It were you know" Narthen what dosta think about that?
Aye.
R- And I took a driving test for a PSV and they used to have their head through the window then, watching tha knows. They never bloody knew, they never knew no. What dosta think about that? There were only one thing that I did, that I couldn't do reight and that were fasten this shirt sleeve.
Aye.
R - That were what hampered me most, but I get so I could fasten it as quick as t’other. It's surprising what you can get to do, you know,
Aye.
R- Narthen. I could work out there wi’ anybody and they couldn’t tell that there were sommat missing.
That's it.
R- Barring they'd think I were a left hander ‘cause I shovel left handed.
Mrs. Platt.- Tell him about the grandchildren.
I never notice. Never notice when I'm with you.
R- No, you see?
Aye, I never notice when I'm with you.
R- Narthen.
Aye. I mean I didn't, I knew you had some off but I didn't know how many you had off.
R- Aye. I’m not a left hander but I shovel left handed. Well you see, I've a penny an hour more than ordinary labouring when I were a bang hander when I were young. They used to like a left hander more because he were facing t’other way instead of all being one way.
Aye that's it, aye.
R - Eh..eh. They used to get a penny an hour more did bang handers.
Is that reight?
R - It's reight Is that. I'm going back a long while but they used to get a penny an hour more did bang handers. They called 'em bang handers then.
Yes.
R- Left handers. ‘Cause you see they were shovelling face to face instead of being..
(850)
That's it aye, 'cause it's awkward when you’re shovelling out of a heap and everybody's shovelling right handed.
R- Aye, I know it is, they're throwing it at thee.
Aye, John Plummer were a good lad for that, he could shovel either hand.
R- Aye.
I never could.
R - Aye, funny that.
Aye, 'cause if me and John were shovelling coal he used to say, “Oh this in no bloody good, move over here.”
R - Aye.
And he used to go and shovel left handed.
R- Aye yes. Well see, that’s where we had it.
Aye. I'll tell you where it's handy an all, if you can fire both handed, when you're firing a Lancashire boiler in a little stoke hole.
R- Aye I dare say it is, aye.
'Cause he used to, he used to fire one, but one side right handed and t’other side left handed.
R- Well I can shovel left handed better than reight handed because you see you get weight of it on that then.
Yes, that's it.
R- I get weight on it on this wi’ only having me hand on the handle see.
Yes. That's it aye. aye.
Mrs. Platt- Tell 'em you can paper hang. He can do owt can’t you Jack, really.
R- Oh aye I never get nobody to do owt in house, I do it all.
Now when you first went down to Coates that’d be on the old system then, they'd be on piece work, being paid by the cut and what not.
R- Oh yes, aye.
Yes, now how much a cut were they getting paid?
R- well…
Roughly, I know it varied.
R- To tell you the truth I couldn't name a price. Because for the simple reason why, I were only what you call a tenter. I’d no interest in money, of what they made as long as I got my two bob or half a crown.
That's it and who ware you tenting for when you were down there?
R- Well, tacklers wife once, then I got sacked wi’ her.
What did you get sacked wi’ her for?
(900)
R- Doing like I said you know, putting thread through and letting 'em pull away, and thinking they'd ends down and see, every time she went out I'd knock looms off and then when she were coming back I'd have ‘em all running and somebody telled her. He says “He knocks 'em off every time you go out and set's ‘em on again when he sees you coming back.” So that didn’t work. Then taking that wheel off were another.
Now come on, that isn't..
R- Me mother, me mother sacked me at finish! [laughs] She said I were better at home!
(Laughter from Stanley)
R- So I used to do what you call mug about, I'd do all errands for weavers down to Hadens, they had a shop down there and..
Aye.
R- I used to spend most of me time running errands down there for 'em.
Aye.
R - You know and one thing and another.
And when you were at Coates, were you actually sacked or did you move away from there with your mother.
(45 min)
R- Well, I weren’t actually sacked, they used to just say like go back to thee mother, tha knows.
Aye.
R- It were sacking in a way, but I mean you'd no stamps or cards nor nowt like that. When you were, they’d say it doesn’t matter for coming in the morning. Hee hee.
Aye, so you, so in’t finish your mother’d move. Your mother moved to…
R- From Coates she went to Calf Hall.
So you went with her and your Annie went with her an all and yet Annie’d have her own looms wouldn't she?
R- Yes, she had, yes.
So did they sort of decide between 'em that they'd move together. They'd work together would they?
(950)
R- They worked together aye.
What did they run between 'em?
R- Eight looms.
Eight loom between 'em.
A - Yes.
Aye, so really what it’d amount to, your mother and her daughter would be running eight loom between ‘em and you'd he tenting for ‘em.
R- Tenting for ‘em aye, and running. I'd fetch weft and that you know.
Aye.
R- I come in handy for that.
Aye that's it aye. Who carried cloth out?
R - Oh me, I carried and you know.
Did you plait it on the loom an all?
R- What do you mean?
Fold it on loom you know.
R- No, when they're pulling 'em off they do that you know.
Yes. That's it.
R - And then they just put 'em on, well I used to take 'em in as they pulled 'em off, you know, I were allus there like you see.
Yes. Aye. Right, that’ll do for that tape Jack.
SCG/22 December 2002
8,214 words.
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 79/AO/02
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 11th of MAY 1979 AT NUMBER 9 SACKVILLE STREET, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS JACK PLATT AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
[Mrs Mona Platt was present and helped Jack out here and there. Her contributions are clearly marked.]
So your mother, your mother and Annie left Coates and went down to Calf Hall and you went with 'em.
R- I went with ‘em yes.
And who were you working for at Calf Hall?
R- Bird's.
Bird's.
R- Bird's aye.
Aye.
R- It were top place, they called it Bird's at Calf Hall. B I R D S. Birds.
That’d be the new shed at the back, up to the dam like.
R- Well it were at top.
Aye, yes.
R- Top place.
Aye. And let's see what year would that be, were ... no that were afore Ernie Roberts were working there.
R- Before I left Calf Hall I got put on four looms when I bethink me self. That's why I went on four here. [Bancroft]
Aye.
R- You know, at finishing up. I’d just got another four loom.
Aye.
R - They'd like twelve, and they, you know I were like shoved on two and me mother helped me out wi’ mine, you know.
Yes. So you'd like twelve looms between you.
R- Twelve loom for three of us, yes that were it.
You wouldn't be doing so badly then, three of you then.
R- Oh no, no. That's when we started feeling us selves like.
Aye. Things’d be looking up at home a bit.
R- Yes, oh aye, a lot.
Aye.
R - Yes. There were only Walter then that weren’t working. you know.
And so now you heard that Bancroft were starting. Now you've already told me that you managed to sneak yourself into the engine house. Now tell me about that.
R- What do you mean, when they were christening the engine.
When they were christening the engine, aye.
R- Oh yes. Well you know, we came down, we knew there were sommat going on, ‘cause sometimes we went that way to Barlick. Sometimes we come this way and we came down here, I think it’d be at Saturday. [Saturday March 13th.] I think it would be anyway, so what day it were, we were coming past and we saw these here. So you know what you are when your young, you like to have a look round don't you. So we went in and up steps. There were all these folk in and in the engine house they were reading the, you know, christening the engine and that's when I got me photo took. I can see it as plain as I saw it then, Mary Jane. I think Mary Jane's at left side and James is at right. I think so. Is it?
Aye.
R – That’s reight Mary Jane, James. Aye I've allus remembered that. What happened after, we happen get thrown out, we’d happen get put out. I don't know but I know we landed outside after you know.
(50)
Aye. I've a picture of that about and there is some young lads on that photo.
C - Yes well we're among them.
I’ll show it you.
R - Because we were the only ones that were in, a few of us.
Aye, I’ll show it you.
R - Yes, aye you do.
I’ll find that picture and show it you.
R- I hope you do, I bet I'm one on 'em.
Aye.
R - And George Horrocks is another.
Aye.
R - There were a few of us, we all, we all managed to sneak in, and I think we got put out after, but they'd christened, you know they were christening the engine.
Aye. And there were Aunty Liza there wi’ her big hat, and there were no insulation on engine, there were no covers on, it weren’t finished weren’t the engine.
R- No I can’t tell you that part, you know.
Aye it weren’t finished because you could see, it were a bit of a rum job like because there were part of the insulation that weren’t on and there were still big stickers on you know… Paper stickers.
R- Were there?
Aye. Roberts, William Roberts & Son, Phoenix Foundry.
R- Aye, I never noticed that but I know..
Well you can see it on the photograph of course.
R- Aye.
That's how I know, but anyway. So you were weaving there at Bancroft and you were on four loom there, so you’d have twelve loom between you. You and your mother..
R- Me, me mother and Annie, yes.
Yes.
R- Yes, we had, we went on twelve loom, yes.
And what were it like when they were first starting? I know they’d told you about engine.
R- Well, it were rough. You see there were only what you call one box of weft in the warehouse.
One?
R- There weren’t like all these rows of boxes of weft like there is in mills. There were just one, you all went out and got it out of this one box, you know..
(5 min)
They, they kept opening others but, I mean they kept opening another after that because it were soon done were one when there were, there’d be about half a dozen of us I should think. And I know that's the first thing we got told, if th’engine started running fast, if your looms started running too fast, very fast, don't bother whatever, don't bother with nothing, just get yourselves out into the warehouse. Run out of the mill you know, run out of the shed. So we did do. It happened once or twice, but it happened once and I went back and one of my, one of my looms is like, well it were nearly on top of another loom, you know, it had bounced.
Aye.
R- Happen straps had pulled 'em up?
Yes aye. Can you remember t’names of any of the tacklers that were there then?
R- Well yes, I can remember a few names of old tacklers. There were Fred Bracewell, he were one of the reight old ‘uns. I bet Fred were one of first to start. Albert Monks, Fred Bracewell, Albert Monks. Them's two names what sticks in me mind because I used to get on well wi’ them two because we worked again [next to]Albert Monk’s wife and in fact she were next to me and they used to look after me an all. I used to like Mrs. Monks, she were a grand woman, that were old Monk's wife. Aye I should think they'd be two of the first tacklers that worked there, I should think so. I can’t remember anybody else before 'em but I can remember Fred, old Fred Bracewell and Albert Monks.
[Months after I transcribed this I learned from Sheila Wilkinson at Sough that Jack’s memory had played him false. It wasn’t Albert Monks, it was George Monks who was the tackler, he was born 1898 and so was 22 at the time. His wife was Vida, nee Collins and they were married on 1st of April 1920. The Jim Monks who was cleaning the looms was no relation. Albert had four brothers, Edward, Lapage (killed in WW1, Albert (who was never a mill worker) and Wilfred. George lived at 25 Ivy Terrace and it was his father, George Monks that was gardener for Wilfred Nutter and got £50 compensation from the bus company after he was knocked down after getting off outside the Knoll in 1929. {CH 19/07/1929} Sheila was one of George’s two daughters, her sister was called Doreen.]
Can you remember any of the other people that were working there then?
R- Apart from ours, apart from us.
Yes.
R- No.
No.
R- I've tried, I've tried to do many a time but you know they go out of your mind don't they.
That's it aye.
R- But there’d happen be about two or three, no more. And then old, can you remember old Jim Monks wi’t crutch. Jim Monks, he lives up Tubber Hill he’d a crutch.
Yes.
R- Well he used to be sweeping looms as they came in. Old Jim, you know. There were one or two men, and looms, as they brought looms in and fixed them up he were cleaning 'em you know.
He were sweeping 'em as they come in?
R- Yes.
So they weren’t new looms?
R - No they couldn't have been ‘cause he were sweeping a lot. There must have been like a lot from other mills. I should think some were new looms, I should think them were what you call 60” , there used to be some 60” inch looms.
Yes, aye.
R- And then there were some fifties, now them were old ‘uns, them were old ‘uns when they came. They'd be reight old looms, I can remember them. 'Cause I were on two of them 50”. But them 60” ones were new ones.
Aye. And, now then, I were just going to ask you sommat then ... oh! can you remember who were running the engine.
R- Well wait a minute, let me go back, I can remember two or three. I’d like to think it were Martin Grace.
Martin Grace, qualified as Marine Engineer, 2nd Class and came to Barlick to install steam powered cranes and stone cutting machines at Sagar's Upper Hill Quarries. He served at Bankfield as engineer for many years and then was asked by James Nutter to help John Waddington of Roberts Engineers to install Bancroft engine. He stayed there as mill engineer.
Yes, I think you might be right.
R- And then after him, after Martin, a chap that lived on Calf Hall Road, what did they call him, a plumpish fellow, what the heck did they call him? [I think Jack might be wrong here. I think Billy Chatwood might have been the first engineer at Bancroft. He had a club foot and his sister wove there as well. After Martin Grace there was George Hoggarth, then George Bleasdale and then SG.] ..I’ll miss his name and then, Martin Grace and then him, he lived on Calf Hall Road, I know he did. Then after him there’d be Hoggarth happen.
Aye,
R - Hoggarth and then after Hoggarth it’d be… Eh, who would it be after Hoggarth? Did him from Foulridge follow Hoggarth?
(150) (10 min)
Now wait a minute, just let me trigger you off a bit.. a little bit there and just see..
R - I can remember four. I can remember four for engine drivers there.
Hoggarth at one time had to go off poorly.
R- Aye, aye he had did George.
Aye. And somebody else took over and run it for a bit.
R- Aye that's right.
Can you remember anything about that? Can you remember anything about there being any trouble between Hoggarth and the fellow that came to run it for him.
R - Oh aye I think I can. Yes, I think I can. It runs in my mind there wore sommat yes.
Understand, I'm trying not to tell you what happened, I’m trying to trigger you off and get you to tell me.
R- Now wait a minute, wait a minute, eh there were sommat. Aye there were, I remember now wi’ George and this fellow, yes. Eh tha knows I used to know George right well.
We’ll leave that for a bit. I'm not going to tell you what it were. We'll leave that for a bit
R- It weren't wi’ him at Foulridge and George, were it?
No, it were a fellow that came to look after the engine while George were off and evidently George come up one day, before he started work again, and he didn't like condition of engine house, everything were reight mucky. And I’ve been told that sommat happened after that and I'm not going to tell you what it were. I’m going to leave you alone and…
R- I don't think I shall remember, but I can remember sommat happened.
Well you never know. Tomorrow morning or sometime it might just come into your mind. Anyway we'll leave that, because I don't want to trigger you about that because I just want to see if you… Because I’ve been told this tale and I don't know whether it's right or not and I just want to see if..
R – There’s something happened though, because now when you've tickled it off it comes back now. I can’t pinpoint it but it might just come.
It’ll come, it'll come. So it doesn’t matter, don't bother about that. These things happen, we'll just..
R- I can remember 'em now, talking about it.
Aye.
R - Aye.
Anyway.
R - I'm trying to think of that other name though.
That'll come and all.
R- But I think Martin Grace would be the first ‘un.
Aye, that’ll come and all, I’ll remind you about it, we'll come back to it.
R- And the other name’s gone but I know he lived on Calf Hall Road.
Aye. Anyway you were working there [at Bancroft] and then you had your bit of an accident. Tell me about the black powder in the quarry.
R- What black powder?
Black powder, when you laid a trail of black powder.
R - Oh aye. What do you mean? Well see..
Go on tell me about that.
R- They had this here little stone building, they called that the magazine you know.
(200)
Aye.
R- So we're up there, we allus used to be in quarry you know; bloody hell we never leaved 'em alone. So anyway we decided we’d like, we'd have a look in this little magazine. It had only a little wood door on. Anyway we soon get into there and there's a cask about of black jack, about that big you know.
Like a forty gallon drum.
R- Aye like, that's right. So we get's him out and we lays a trail about from here happen to my pen gate, down at bottom..
Aye.
R- A fair long trail of black jack.
Aye.
R- And then puts can back like open and in the hut you know.
Aye.
R - Back in the magazine and then, [laughs] goes to and near rocks then, because we lights this here match and then we jumps behind this here big rock. Hee Hee! And then all at once WHAM! it come a reight Whoof tha knows and I can just remember saying to George look at that bloody door, it's flying up through th’air, out of sight. Door and frame. Dosta know they tried for months to get to know who'd done that.
(Laughter from Stanley)
R- Because we’d had a bit of a do before then tha knows, we’d getten into the office at the quarry. There were a double barrelled gun and five cartridges tha knows. So I puts one of these here cartridges in and we goes round to see if there's owt to shoot, and there's only a sparrow, a bird. So I takes a pot shot at that and George goes and looks, he said I can’t find the bird, but there’s its bloody feathers here! He said You've blown it out of it's feathers! Well they were on about that then tha knows, we were frightened to death of 'em getting to find out about this here. Getting to know about the gun job. But as it happened it were old Sam Horrocks’ gun that had lent it Sagars.
Aye.
R- Well George were wi’ us tha knows,
Aye.
R- But I remember that little powder magazine even now when I have a walk. We have a walk round the quarry some times, I'm forced to laugh when I look up that way and see it.
Which quarry were that, top ‘un or bottom one?
R- Top ‘un.
Top ‘un aye. aye.
R - It were just higher up than where the saw mills were were the powder magazine.
Aye.
R- Aye.
Aye well I want to ask you a lot more about the quarries there. Now then, of course you had the accident with the detonators and then you went on the milk round.
R - Aye we started taking milk then, you know, for a bob or two.
(250)
Yes. And then how long was it after that, did you go from the milk round to working in quarry?
R- Yes I started in the quarry when I were sixteen.
Yes now, well you'd be like nearly seventeen, wouldn't you?
R- Aye yes. Oh aye I were nearly seventeen.
Now how did you get your job in quarry, did you know somebody that worked there?
R- Well I lived up Tubber Hill you know.
Yes.
R- And old John says, he used to see us playing about, and he used to say “I can find you a nice little job if tha wants one.” You know, wi’ it happening in the quarry [Jack’s accident] I expect, it were no fault of theirs but, and I think they were fined for not having a reight place, you see what I mean. But I think he found me a job 'cause of that. Do you see it were in Sagar's quarry.
Aye..
R - You see. Well I think they got fined a fair bit you know, for not having 'em. For not having the detonators locked away. Well we found 'em without any trouble you see, they weren’t locked away.
Aye.
R - And one day I'm on Tubber Hill and he says “I can find you a job if you want one"? I says “Yes I want one.” And that's how I come to start at the quarry and I were there like twenty years you know. [1921 to 1939, 18 years actually.]
Yes. So right, come on, when you went to quarry what did you do at quarry?
R- He pushed me on at quarry like, I'll give him his due there. Well I started like doing what little ‘uns do like, mug jobs, at first you know. And then I got learning to saw, stone saws you know.
Aye, how were the stone saws worked?
R- Wi’ a gas engine.
Aye.
R- And then I got from sawing to looking after the gas engine. It's like I said, he pushed me on a bit. And then I got moved from the top then and asked if I'd take over in the bottom shop and I took the gas engine ower and time-keeping and setting of saws.
Aye.
R - You see I had ‘em all to, I’d ask him what he wanted cutting, whether they were five inch, six inch, seven inch, eight inch, nine inch, ten inch, eleven inch up to a foot.
Aye.
R- Whatever he wanted cutting out of big, you know, out of bottom rock aye. Blocks, we called 'em blocks, you know, they were like owt to ten to twelve ton them. Just what the crane ‘ud lift, you know.
Yes.
R- And then I’d set 'em out, set the saws for cutting 'em you see. If you were cutting sixes you'd set your blades at six and a quarter to allow for the blades you know.
Yes.
R - And they'd come out six inch.
Yes.
R- And then when they were cut you'd turn 'em over flat and then if you wanted six by five you'd set 'em at five. If you wanted twelve by six same as for, you know, you'd set 'em out that way.
(300)
What were the saw blades made of?
R - Oh steel.
Yes.
R - Steel blades.
Yes.
R - And you fed 'em wi’ shot. You fed 'em with steel shot..
Yes,
R- You mixed it wi’ slurry, that’s what used to run out of the cuts.
Yes aye.
R - We call it slurry, you know.
Aye.
R - It weren’t that what cut it. It were the shot. Because if you were running out of shot, if your shot were getting low, you'd find they'd get red hot would your blades.
Aye.
R. - I've seen 'em as red as that fire, the blades.
Aye.
R - Oh aye.
Even with water running on 'em?
R- Aye there were a tap running over every one. You'd about sixty taps you know, and they swung like that you know.
Aye.
R - Across you see, there were a span. You could set 'em in-between for a long block or a short block.
Yes.
R - And it ‘ud swing it ‘ud be swinging all time. Now you'd four tubs on your stage two at each side and you were like on a stage yourself, up so as you could, you know, see on top of the rock..
(20 min)
R - And you fed out of them tubs, this slurry and shot, you see. And you fed 'em on and it were like, it were like clayish in a way but not clay.
Yes.
R- And that ‘ud wash in.
Yes.
R - Well you only mix it with this here, what you call stone dust, it were wet. You only had it with them. You mixed it wi’ them shot, it used to wash it in as the water come it washed it down the cracks.
Yes.
R- And you see your blades are on, your saws are on a swing and when it used to jet these blades ‘ud lift a touch and your shot ‘ud go under it. That's when you'd hear that noise ... ... (indescribable grating noise) you know, noise. It were the shot you know, like pellets in a gun but very small, but round shot like tapioca, small tapioca.
Yes, that's it aye. And did you use them again or did they just go through once.
R- Oh now you, when you'd finished cutting your stone, you'd pick.. you picked all that up and put it back in your feeding tub. And then like you always kept a bag on your stage, shot, and put more shot in.
Yes.
R- You allus get that, well.
So the blades didn't actually have teeth on?
R- Oh no. Once it, if a blade got sharp you'd to take it out.
Aye.
R- Because you see, if you'd set it to cut six inch and it got sharp, well it goes off then doesn’t it, it's eighth of an inch thick you know.
Yes, aye.
R- It ‘ud go off then. It ‘ud start veering, it ‘ud run out to ten inch.
(350)
Aye.
R- Instead of being six inch, you know, what I mean, it ‘ud start coming like that, well you'd to wind up then, what you call wind your frame up.
Yes.
R- And start rubbing it again from where it had started.
That's it.
R- And it ‘ud come down and you'd see a little run off at the side.
What did you do with the blades Jack. When a blade had got sharp like that, what did you do, grind it off?
R- No, turn it over.
Aye.
R- Take it out and turn it over and put it in again if it, you know, what we call ‘dogs’, you know.
Yes.
R- And they fit in and then you put a steel pin through 'em.
R- And then you, it came reight through your frame and you put a cotter pin in you know, a cotter.
Yes.
R- Narrow to large, and you drove them down wi’ a hammer, tight, one at each side.
[Jack is talking about opposing, wedge shaped cotters, a common engineering solution for making a really solid connection between two components.] You see you have to have 'em tight. So you'd to turn it over 'cause they used to like get half moons on.
That’s it Aye.
R- You see, aye.
Once they'd worn both sides that were it they were scrapped?
R- Oh that were it, you threw 'em out then yes.
Aye.
R- 'Cause a chap used to come for 'em every so often, you know.
Aye where did they come from do you know?
R- Oh they used to come by rail. Sheffield I think. I know we allus got good blades.
Aye. I have seen some of ‘em I think and they were like wavy. Have I seen some that weren’t just plain flat steel, they were like wavy, or is that how they've worn.
R- Wavy.
Is that how they've worn, you know like a bread knife is sometimes, you know, sort of wavy.
R- Aye.
I have an idea I've seen some stone saws that were like fluted on sides.
R- Oh they'd be for a different kind of thing then to ours.
Aye. I were watching some working the other day up in the Lake District.
R- They weren’t circulars were they?
Yes. This was what I were watching the other day and it were diamond tipped.
R - Aye.
And it were running in water.
R – Aye.
And that was cutting up to four foot blocks and it were circular you can tell the size of that.
R- Aye.
And by God, it could cut.
R - Aye.
And they had a saw working same as yours did but working horizontal with blades. You know, slabbing big blocks.
R- Aye.
And they were diamond tipped, they were flat blades and they were diamond tipped.
R- Aye.
And they just run water into the cracks on it and cut? Eh, the cut were beautiful Jack.
R- Oh well they are you see. You'd to feed 'em right. I’ll just point sommat out to thee wi’ this door jamb. Oh, oh we can’t.
Aye that’s reight, aye.
R- With the door jamb, so if tha can come. This is what I mean.
(Pause) [At this point we disconnected the microphones and went to look at the finer points of stone sawing on the door jambs of Jack’s house which came out of the quarry where he worked.]
So, so you were working on the saws. Now if you, obviously when you start, you saw a piece of stone in quarry and you're sawing it out of a big block. The ends aren’t straight. You're just sawing 'em off and they'll have rough ends until you've faced it. You'll like face four sides of it and it’ll have rough ends and then you'll cut it to the length that you want for the lintel or jamb or whatever you want, won't you.
R- That's reight aye, that's right. Well you see, the rock getter does all the cutting. [Of the blocks]
Aye.
R- The man up in the rock you know. Same as if you wanted an exceptionally long length, say a twelve footer, you'd go up and ask him to get you one.
Aye.
R- You know a twelve footer, well he’d have to get one about twelve foot, well we'll say ten foot. He’d have to get one about eleven foot then, that's to clear your ends you know.
Yes. What were biggest sizes you cut up there Jack?
R- Er, twelve foot. Not many, but there were twelve foot. I should think them jambs ‘ud be as high as owt that were ever cut, you know in a way.
The normal run of things like, they'd be like, well they'll be eight foot like, would they?
R- Aye they'll be eight foot.
R- But I’ve seen 'em fetch 'em down you know, you can get a twelve or fourteen tonner on you know, on them, they'd bogies built especially for it with solid wheels you know.
Aye.
R- Like little train wheels, but solid.
Aye.
R- And then you see you’d a damn big lump of rock, happen about eight or nine or ten ton sunk into the ground at the back of your saw wi’ a bloody line on as thick as your wrist nearly. Well you used to hook a pulley on there, and then you used to run your wire rope under your, you know, under your saw, round your block, fetch it back and then you see it ‘ud pull it in.
Aye.
R- You know as you were winding up with the power crane on. You allus had a crane on the bed you know.
Aye.
R- On the saw bed and that used to pull it in and out,
Aye.
R- It were all crane work like.
Aye. You'd get used to shifting big heavy weights up there.
R - Oh aye.
And how about accidents up in the quarry Jack, were there many?
R- Oh aye, there were some bad accidents. Aye. chaps allus Said like, I didn't see this but they allus said, it were before I started. They allus said that one chap that used to be rock getter up there, that what did my hand, these here little things they used [detonators] to just put 'em on end of fuse, which a fuse ‘ud just fit in ‘em.
(450)
R- Fuse and nip 'em to wi’ his teeth.
Yes,
R- But one day he nipped, he were nipping one, and he hadn't a head like then.
Aye.
R- He nipped one to many.
Aye.
R- I've heard th’old quarry men talk about that many a time.
Aye, I've heard about that happening,
R- You'd allus to be careful wi’ 'em.
[I’ve had a bit of experience with explosives and what Jack is talking about are the original Nobel blasting caps which were in use until about 1930. The primary charge was 90/10 or 80/20 mixtures of fulminate of mercury and potassium chlorate. Whilst these were a great improvement on early blasting caps, they were still very dangerous. Excessive heat or impact could initiate them, this was what happened to Jack when he blew part of his hand off. His body heat plus scratching with a point was sufficient to initiate the detonator. The ‘Black Jack’ he mentioned earlier was black powder, a refined old-fashioned gunpowder. This is fairly stable but very flammable, it will only develop explosive force when initiated by flame if it is in large quantity and confined so that pressure can build up. The detonator is used to initiate a true explosion in the black powder by means of a shock wave. Black powder is still used as a secondary initiator for modern commercial explosives which are very stable. A detonator initiates a black powder charge which in turn initiates the main charge.}
Aye,
R- Well, after it did that wi’ me I believe it because there were no flames about wi’ us that day. It were heat, wi’ going in the canal and the heat of my body. Doctor could only come to the conclusion it were that what did it.
Aye. Aye well, they were fulminate weren’t they?
R- Aye that’s reight.
Aye and it's funny stuff is fulminate!
R - And there’s only that much in the bottom.
Aye.
R – Yes, gelignite, you know that?
Yes aye, fulminate of mercury.
R - Aye.
Aye.
R - So that's the only conclusion they could come to.
Aye well Hardisty got blinded up there didn't he?.
R - Oh well, that should never have happened.
Aye.
R- That shouldn't have happened. I’m saying no accident should happen should they, but that shouldn't have happened.
Aye.
R- Because it were against the rules of the quarry, it were against the rules of everything. There should have been somebody there not to allow them lads to do it. I don’t, I mean you've to know the rules and I don't suppose they did but it happened to me twice in me quarry career and I were there twenty year. If a shot fails like that you've to come home for twenty four hours. You leave everything for twenty four hours, you haven't to work near it.
Aye.
R - And then twenty four hours after you go on and the rock getter drills as near to it as he can. But knows that he isn't going to go into same hole. Say about that far. [Indicates 9”]
Aye.
R- Straight down and then set another explosive charge off you see. Now you see when they're drilling you know, there's two lads tapping. He's sat down is the rock getter wi’ a big rock drill.
Aye, a star drill.
R - Like a, chiselling away, you know what I mean.
Yes.
R - And he's turning as they tap, 'cause I've tapped hundreds of hours. When you start at first they put you on that job. And then they get all this here shale you know, from in between beds of rock, you can knock it up into like putty if you’ve noticed, shale, good shale.
Yes.
R - And they’ve to ram that jam tight, make it air tight you know into your powder hole after you've put your detonator in and your powder you know. Now if that misses [misfires, doesn’t go off when the fuse is lit. Sometimes called a ‘hang fire’.] you haven't to try nothing else. It missed you know and then they gave it an hour and then went up and drilled at side of it. Started drilling and it went off you see. It could only have been just a delayed fire.
(500) (30 Min)
R- Aye it should never have happened. It shouldn't have happened to that poor lad shouldn't that. Course it did do, accidents do. I think he got in to trouble a bit did Edgar about it.
What did they use?
R- I don’t know whether he ever got his compensation or not. Because he said he had nowt did Edgar, but it’s to be hoped he did. [Edgar Sagar was the son of John Sagar and lived at Eastcliffe on Tubber Hill which was built for him by John Sagar. John ran the quarries and I think he leased them off the Gledstone Estate.]
What did they used to use, did they use gelignite or black powder or what?
R - Well they used what, we allus called it Black Jack. It were like crystals, reight little, small.
Aye.
R- And them detonators.
Yes.
R- You see they’d put your detonator in and then ram it with powder and then shale.
Yes.
R- It used to shift some rock you know.
Aye.
R- Cor blimey, I'll say it did! Aye, it used to fetch pieces off. Loosen ‘em off the bed and split ‘em up. Well, as big as this house nearly you know. Oh it ‘ud shift it.
What else were they turning out up…
R- 'Cause they'd go five foot down you know.
Aye.
R- Well I mean it has to shift sommat when it's down there.
What else were they getting out up there Jack besides jambs and cills.
R- Besides cills and jambs and..
Yes.
R- Everything that you build houses wi’.
Aye.
R- You know, cills, jambs and you know, door steps, door jambs, window cills and jambs. Oh there were points that were for building jobs
Yes.
R - There were pavings for roads. They did a lot of that because they used to send two boat load away a week you know to Burnley.
Aye.
R - They'd two boats you know Ida and Alice, they called the boats after the lasses. Because when I were driving at first on the quarry, when I started driving, that were through our Annie’s husband you know, I allus used to be wi’ him. Well they bought a new wagon and they put me on the old Dennis and we used to take a load of setts to Burnley, to the top of Manchester Road, they were like on paving jobs then. A lot of pavings. And then we used to have to go half way down Manchester Road to the canal wharf where the boats landed and we’d empty the boat then. Well we’d be reight for two or three days then you know. Well we’d be reight for three days, but taking one at morning mind you, coming home at night and then taking another load and then back to the boat. And then two boat men used to help you and you'd cart 'em then from half way down Manchester Road to the top of Manchester Road do you see. Till you'd emptied the boat. Well you know, there were fifty ton in each boat, like that were hundred ton weren’t it. And Hartley Barrett and Oates Barrett from Foulridge used to be boat men.
Park Close quarry had a similar boat. Here it is loading for Burnley. {Later research suggests that the man with the child is Witham, the quarry owner.]
Hartley and….?
R- Oates. They called him Oates.
Aye.
Oates, Hee Hee, he’d had his oats an all had Oates. Two grand fellows.
R- Barrett, his son is still on the haulage job yet, now.
Aye.
R- Walton Barrett that's his son.
That's it.
R- That's his father I'm talking about and his fathers brother, uncle Oates. They’d sleep in their boat then you see.
Aye that's it. Aye.
R - Well we had us meals in the boat, I used to like it, that job.
Aye.
R- In the cabin at dinner times tha knows.
Aye. And when you were working up here, obviously they’d have gangs on cutting setts out and what not and dressing points and what not. Were they paid on piece work or were they on day work or what?
(35 min)
R- All the banker hands were on piece work. All what you call banker hands.
Yes.
R- The rock getter weren’t. He were on by the hour. Hourly pay, but all the banker hands were on piece work.
Yes.
R - Sett makers, point makers. They were all the same men do you see.
Yes.
R- Some ‘ud be making points, some ‘ud be making setts, it just depended what job were going on at the time.
Aye. And they'd have a smith there would they, sharpening tools and what not.
R- Oh aye they’d a blacksmith in each place.
Yes.
R- There were Scotch Bob up there and if they hadn't one down here, he’d come from the top, you know, mornings - afternoons and vice versa.
R- And then they'd, but they generally had one at each place. They had a young fellow from Earby, Jack they called him, Jack. I’ve forgot his other name but he were a grand fellow. He were the blacksmith in the bottom shop while I were there. And Scotch Bob, now he were a lucky man, he went down in that hole bottom about three times off that crane. He were the crane driver and blacksmith. And he went down wi’t crane three times as I know on. They'd to go down and hunt him out, look for him.
What, trying to lift 'em too heavy?
R - He’d be off nearly twelve month at a time. Aye, it had pulled the crane ower and down goes crane and Bob and all. Luckiest chap alive were Scotch Bob.
Aye.
R- Aye. And then there were old Albert Roberts the rock getter.
Aye.
R- Eh, our Albert!
Must have been a hard life that Jack, in the quarry.
R - A rough old gentleman. A savage old man, but as kind a chap as you could work wi’. Isn't it funny. Old Albert.
Albert Roberts.
R- We all liked old Albert.
Aye.
R- Aye. Hee hee! What were the name? Oh aye. George Horrocks and me, we worked at the saw mills then on top of Tubber Hill and one day we were outside washing off you know, me and George. Oh I can tell, I know the name. And a woman shouted on us and she says “Is there a man called Biscuit works here?” We says “Biscuit, no we don't know no Biscuit” She says “His proper name's Albert Roberts.” Well, George Horrocks, he used to scream when he laughed. He says “Do you want him?” She says “Yes”. He says “Well, I’ll go and tell him.” So George went up and you see he went up the track, up the rail lines, that’s where the trucks used to come down from the quarry to the saw mill and he shouted "Biscuit". Well old Albert looked round, tha knows, and he comes like this did George he says, “There’s a woman wants thee!” He says “If thou ever shouts bloody Biscuit again I'll murder thee! I’ll throw thee down that hole!” I’ve never forgotten that day. And then another come another day, and I've forgotten t’other names, she asked for this here chap, on another day, but it were a better ‘un than Biscuit. I’ve forgotten what it were. But does ta know, I laughed that day wi’ Biscuit. I laughed when he got on to George, he says “I’ll murder thee if ever tha shouts Biscuit and lets them chaps hear thee again!” You know he were afraid of ‘em nicknaming him Biscuit. Hee hee! Oh we used to have some good laughs up in the quarry tha knows. They were a rough lot but they were a good lot, they were to young ‘uns. He were reight good to us were old Albert, we used to tap for him, me and George.
What do you mean, tap for him?
R- He used to look up through his moustache, water ‘ud be running off here when it was raining and [Jack imitates Albert sniffing the water of his moustache and laughs.] I used to laugh when he used to go for his dinner tha knows, there were no brew up up there, they used to fetch their tea up in bottles and tins and all sorts tha knows, and our Albert, his grub never took no putting up. He’d bring half a loaf out wi’ a big thick lump of butter on top and then a clonk of cheese and he’d be cutting big hunks off 'em both, tha knows, no messing about. And look at him, coldest day in winter tha knows, shirt open. All opened at front, he were hard old stick were Albert tha knows, old Albert Roberts he were, he's dead now though isn't he. He died, he married little Rosie didn't he.
Oh aye, that’s it, aye, Rosie Roberts. Aye. [Rosie lived in one of the cottages on the left hand side of Park Avenue opposite the Greyhound pub. She was there till at least the 1970s when I lived at Hey Farm]
R- Well tha knows, they nicknamed him Barm Pot up in the quarry, the men. Because of the way he worked. He used to work his self, well, he didn't work his self to a standstill, he must have had the guts of an elephant that feller! Cor, he’d just have, what did they used to call them pants? Moleskins weren’t they. Moleskins and his shirt, well there were no buttons on but he wouldn't have fastened 'em if there were. It were open reight down to the top of his moleskins. He were an hard old stick were Albert. He were that. He used to play hell wi’ George and me. Oh we’ve had some fun up there. 'Cause tha knows they think they have thee for mug tha knows, th’old quarry men when th’art only young. 'Cause George and me were only young tha knows, they'd all be at us unless we used to tell 'em. And they'd either throw a sett hammer at us or run us out of quarry or sommat. Old John's stopped ‘em many a time, we used to have some sport up there. But that, when they come for Albert there were another name I've heard for him, I’m trying to think about it but I can’t, it were a better ‘un than that. Eh, what were it, Biscuit were one though. I laughed when she said Biscuit..
You were on earlier on about, and obviously we heard about it before, but I don’t know anything about it. They used to have a little steam engine on the triangle on top of the drag there.
R- A little steam engine.
Aye for helping..
R- Yes.
Yes.
R- You see when they were carting stone up hill wi’ horse and carts, it were, well they couldn't get up that hill you know.
Yes.
R- So they used to lower this here. It were a long rope wi’ a lump of chain at the end and a hook.
Aye.
R- And at the other end of the shaft there were like a hook there where they used to put trace horses.
(750)
Yes, aye,
R - And they'd hook on there, you know with the hook and then wave and he’d set his engine off at top and it ‘ud pull it up, slowly,
Yes.
R- But horse speed you know.
Yes.
R - And then he’d just get on the bend at the top, swing round and then he’d unhook, oh aye.
Aye.
R - Aye it were there a long time.
Because otherwise if they went the low way they'd still have the hill to climb into Barlick. from t’other way so.,
A - That's right yes.
Aye, once they got up there like they only had that little bit of a snig past Robinsons Farm and then it's all down hill into Barlick. isn’t it.
R- Yes. Well, New Road weren’t made then you know.
No course no, there were no New Road.
R- No, there were no New Road you see. After the New Road, I mean, that's when really it were all cleared away up there.
Aye.
R- You see, well it were done away wi’ before then. It were done away wi’ really when motors come a bit better.
Yea,
R- You see what I mean when we got wagons you know.
Yes.
R- It used to be all horse work once didn't it.
Yes.
R - And after the New Road you see, all such as that were finished. But I remember that as plain as I'm sitting here.
R - That place at top.
Who ran that engine, was it..
R- Now I can’t tell you that, no, no.
Right.
R- I did. I’d know in them days but it's absolutely…
How did they go on Jack, wi’ horse and lorry, it ‘ud be four wheel wagons wouldn’t it? Or would it be two wheel carts?,
R- No th’old, you know, two wheeled do.
Aye. How did they go on when they got like coming down Tubber Hill and Manchester Road and Colne Road into Barlick?
R- Well I’ll tell you how they’ve gone on ‘cause I've seen two horses shot, in my school days. Tubber Hill, horses that got away wi’ ‘em coming downhill. And they've run into, you know, lamed there self, broken you know. Setting off and then coming a cropper and had to be shot. Last ‘un I saw were aside of the wood shop. There used to be a wood shop you know, at bottom of Tubber Hill. Haworth had it, he lived in Lane Bottoms.
Aye.
R- And he had a joiners shop there, a sawmill.
Aye.
R- He had a sawmill there you know.
Whereabouts were that Jack?
R- Right as you turn, you know where you turn down Lane bottoms?
R- Right there on your left hand side, that patch of ground. Aye. There were a wood shop, Firewood King we allus, they nicknamed him Firewood King. Aye, Called him [Jim] Haworth aye. Aye. He were a Bolshie, a reight Bolshevik. We nicknamed him the Firewood King.
Well how did they slow the horses down, did they, what did they do, skid 'em down?
R- Well they could only put brakes on and they'd a big chop of wood or sommat tha knows. Did they used to put it in front of a wheel?
Aye, skid pan.
R- Skid pan. Sommat like that, put it under the wheel aye. But this horse, Prince it were called and I know, I can just remember him talking to it you know. Aye they’d to shoot it, we were there, it had broken it legs or sommat.
Aye, it must have been hard for horses coming down there.
A coal cart similar to the stone carts that Jack is talking about. They held about two tons of stone.
(45 min)
R- Oh aye. 'Cause I know Sagars had horses, he’d three. Oh aye, good horses, three. He’d Robin, Charlie, Charlie, Robin and I’ve forgotten t’other, I knew two on ‘em. I knew Robin and Charlie, I've forgotten t’other. 'Cause me and George used to ride 'em on to them fields just past the water works of an evening. When they were running ‘em out.
Aye.
R- You know on the right hand side past the water works. We run ‘em on there, in through a gate and on to a field.
(850)
Aye.
R- Jockeying, Hee hee!
Aye. And how long were you working there Jack, at the quarry?
R - At quarry? Well, I’d be seventeen when I started and I'd be, how old would I be when I finished, thirty one happen. Thirty two when I finished. A fair do weren’t it.
Aye, that's thirty two. So that's, that ‘ud be 1937, just afore the war.
R- That's reight,
Aye.
R- Yes. Aye that's right.
Aye, and what did you finish there for?
R – Before the war were it that?
Well, thirty seven. How old did you say you were, thirty two?
R- Aye.
Well if you were born in 1905.,
R- To thirty four.
Thirty four.
R- I remember.
Oh well that were 1939 then.
R - Aye what were on then?
Just when war started.
R- That’s right, well I left to go to Steeton to earn more money and I threbled [sic] (trebled) me wage doing that.
Aye.
R- Well I'll tell you how it come about, we were frozen off..
Aye,
R- It were frozen off up at quarry, and as a rule when we were frozen off at quarry and there were any snow and we had to sign on we never signed on, they allus put us on snow shifting. We liked it because we’d a penny an hour more you see.
[When it was freezing, work had to stop at the quarry, not because of the inclement weather and the welfare of the men, but because the stone couldn’t be got or worked in a frost, it would shatter rather than split.]
(900)
Aye.
R- And wi’ me being on the wagon, during the time I were on the wagon they used to put me wi’ the snow plough. Because I once hooked the snow plough on at the Greyhound and went to go to Standing Stone Gate and then start coming back you see. So I went up and when I got out at Standing Stone Gate I'd no bloody snow plough on! Hee hee! This is as true as I’m here.
(Laughter from Stanley)
R- Come back and it's round t’corner of the Greyhound. Hee hee! Eh, and I thought I were going up easy.
Is that when you used to drag the snow plough behind you?
R- Aye.
Aye. Big wooden ‘un.
R- Aye, never knew it weren’t on, but I thought it takes no moving doesn’t this thing’ it’s a doddle. Well when I get to the end of me do, I weren’t going to get out, it were cold and snowing see.
Aye.
R- So I went full length, Stanley said, I’d a mate wi’ me, that's best part on it. We’re talking away, gets to Standing Stone Gate and he gets out, he says “There is nowt Jack” And I says “Hows ta mean?” He says “Plough isn't here!” And we found it where we’d hooked it on, we’d never, it weren’t hooked on..
(Stanley laughs)
R- No, it's reight is that Stan. So we get going after that, well I liked it tha knows. I could stop in there, snug, it were better pay.
(950)
R- So this time we were frozen off and Steeton had opened [The Royal Ordnance Factory starting war production.] and I thought when I go down to the dole in the morning to sign on I’m going to ask 'em if there's owt doing at Steeton. Now when 1 were going, there were a lad called Arthur Fawcett, not Fawcett bookie, another Arthur, it's his cousin.
Yes.
R- Arthur Fawcett, he had two children, he lives ower Coates. And I telled him where I were going, he says “I'll go on with you Jack.” We both went on and we get on and I were at Steeton two year and I were trying to get out a year and a half of that before I did get out. I hated it.
Aye.
R- Being closed in. Oh hell, talk about being closed in. You know, blackouts and all that.
Aye.
R- Even though me wage went from three pound odd to twelve pound. I felt like a millionaire tha knows, drawing this twelve pound after what we’d been drawing but I just couldn't stick it. So I thought, I'll get a doctor’s certificate, that's all you could get off wi’. So you'd to go to a doctor at Colne, Dr. Eastham or sommat, I don't know, sommat like that. So I went, I made an appointment and went. Telled him what I'd come for so I'd to strip off. He says what do you want to give ower for? “Well it isn't doing for me.” he says “I'll tell you sommat”, he says “I'm not bad meself but I wish I were half as good as thee! Get back to work!!”
(Stanley and Jack laugh)
R - He did, ask Mona.
SCG/24 December 2002
8795 words.
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 79/AO/03
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 17th of MAY 1979 AT 9 SACKVILLE STREET BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS JACK PLATT AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Now then, as usual you've just been talking to me and we didn't have the tape on. About them brick kilns down Salterforth Drag.
R - Yes.
Now, so as you've described it to me, them brick kilns, as you go down Salterforth Drag, if you turn on the lane that goes on to Booth House Farm.
R - Stew Mill, do you know the Stew Mill?
Aye. It'll fetch you out at Stew Mill an all that lane won't it.
R- Yes.
The brick kiln ‘ud be on left down that lane.
R - Yes that's right, on that path.
Low side, at low side of lane there.
R- At low side of path.
Who ran it Jack, do you know?
R - No I don't. I couldn't tell you who ran it, whether it were them that owned the quarry or not I don't know. I couldn't tell you who ran it.
Aye. And when you knew it, was it working?
R- Yes it were working when I knew it at first.
Aye. When were that?
R - Oh let's see. Oh, how old am I? Seventy four? Oh sixty five year since.
Sixty five, so that ‘ud be about 1914 about beginning of the Great War, aye.
R- Happen a bit later. I can’t pin point it because it's sommat..
You'd be about nine or ten year old.
R- Aye that's reight, ten or eleven or twelve. I’ll put it that way.
Oh well, that's going to make it about 1916/17.
R- Yes, you know.
In other words just before you started, just before you went back to Rawtenstall.
R - That's right yes.
Aye. And it were working then?
R - Yes it were working then, yes.
And you say there were a chimney there as well.
R - Oh there were a chimney.
That ‘ud be a brick chimney would it?
R - Brick chimney aye.
Aye.
R- Aye there’s barn to be you know at a brick kiln, hasn’t there.
Aye that's it aye. And what would they be making bricks out of? Because they wouldn't have clay round here would they?
R- They'd shale.
Out of quarry?
R- Yes.
Aye.
R - They'd clay an all. Remember, in a quarry there's always shale and there's always clay isn't there.
Aye. Oh I didn't know whether they'd have enough. I didn't know whether they'd have enough.
R- Well, that's happen why it were only a little kiln.
Aye.
R - They'd happen like be doing part with the stone and doing part with the shale. Because there were a fair deep big bed of shale. Well they'd be using their shale up that way instead of carting it away wouldn't they.
Aye, that's it.
R - 'Cause they didn’t get rid of all their old rubbish and all that in them quarries until they made that New Road you know.
Aye.
R - And then I mean they were carting daily from there for months and months and months, well all the time weren’t they.
I don’t know. I wasn't about when they built New Road Jack.
(50)
R - Yes well, there used to be some big tips you know. They used to tip anywhere where there were spare ground below. That's where you get all them lumps in the ground, you know, hills going down Salterforth Lane, left hand side and right. They’re all tips out of quarry.
Aye especially on the left.
R - What you call rubble you know.
Aye.
R. Yes. Well, when New Road started they got rid of all, a lot of them you know. So they did at Sagars quarries and all you know.
Aye. Now just let's get one thing straight about that Jack. There’d be, really there's three quarries there. There's one either side of the drag and one above at Tubber Hill. [Loose Games]
R - That's right.
Now Tubber Hill were Sagar’s.
R- That’s right yes.
Aye. Now were those two on either side of Salterforth drag, were they separate quarries?
R- Separate quarries.
And who run them?
R- Well up to me knowing it, Whitham, he were. But he were a pork butcher weren’t he. He were a pork butcher once and then he lived in the end house. He lived in that first house did Whitham and he owned that quarry. Now before then, I don't know. Oh, Moss and Whitham it were you know, Billy Moss. Billy Moss and Whitham, and then it finished off with just Whitham’s you know.
Yes, now which quarry were that. That one that's Gibbie's now?
R- Pardon.
Was that the one that's Gibbie’s now. [Park Close]
(5 min)
R - To the other one.
So that’s the one on the....
R - Right going down the hill.
No, right hand side Is Gibbie’s coming down the hill.
Mrs. Platt- Yes it’s t’other as is the scrap yard.
R- Gibbie’s! Oh I thought you meant scrap were Gibbie’s.
Well one's a car breakers yard, Pickles. And the other's a scrap yard, that's Gibbie’s isn't it.
R- Well them that has that on right hand side going down hill now. I don't know their name.
Well that's Gibbie’s. That's Gibson’s.
R- Oh! Course it's Gibson’s, them wi’ them …yes, aye.
Aye and so, who owned the quarry on the left hand side coming down Jack?
R- From me knowing it, Sagar’s.
Sagar’s. So they had..
R- John Sagar. Course the land, it were leased off Sir Amos Nelson really weren’t it.
I don't know. [Later I found out that Jack was right. Both Tubber Hill (Loose Games) and Salterforth Quarry were leased from Gledstone Estate. Park Close Quarry (Gibson’s) was originally part of the Bracewell Estate as was the brickworks. See the 1887 sale document when the Estate was sold off.]
R- But Sagar had it ever from me knowing it.
Aye, so he had top quarry at Tubber hill..
R- And he had that quarry.
And the one on the left hand side.
R- And he’d one behind the water works. On behind the water works.
Had they a quarry there an all?
R - Oh aye.
I didn’t know that.
R- Yes but they didn't do no sawing there. They, you know, stone saws, they’d none of them there.
Aye.
R- But there were at Tubber Hill and there were at Salterforth Lane.
Aye. Now Sagars in the top quarry, did they do the same things in the top quarry and bottom quarry? Sagars?
R - Yes. But top quarry were what you call sandstone, it were a lot softer than the bottom quarry, although they were only that [small] distance apart.
(100)
Aye.
R - But it were like, it had a bluish tint wi’ it a lot of it down Salterforth Lane. That were very hard stone.
And what did they use that for?
R- Well people used to want hard stone and some used to want only sand stone because sandstone were allus a nice brown colour you see.
Aye,
R- Now in the other you get like a pale bluish tint in it.
Aye.
R- If ever you see any stone, good stone and it's like, sometimes bluish if it's broke. It’ll not show when it's been weathered.
No.
R- That's come from that bottom quarry because it were noted to be the hardest stone around here for, well out of distance. It went all over.
Aye. So were there any big block stone in that bottom quarry of Sagars?
R - Block stone?
Aye big blocks.
R - Oh yes. That's why they had to have rock getters, there’d be pieces that weighed a hundred ton until it were broke up.
Aye.
R- You see, beds, there’d be a bed say ten foot deep, eight foot deep, but it ‘ud run like length of these houses you know.
Aye. aye.
R - Well you see they'd to drill and then blast.
Aye.
R - But it went down in beds and there were allus like shale then. There were allus shale underneath beds of rock. You know, from one bed to another you allus come across two or three inches of shale. That's why they used to drill. Cut the piece and then they'd put a big dog hole in. We called ‘em dog holes. And they'd have one dog on the hook, on the crane, and Albert used to make this reight big dog hole and they'd put it in till the crane tightened up reight slowly and then he’d get away and he’d keep lifting it until it slurred off the shale and it ‘ud fetch it off.
Aye.
R- Pieces twenty ton at a time, thirty ton.
Aye.
R- And it ‘ud drop down in the bottom and then they'd cut it again you see while it were down in bottom.
When they cut it, when it were down in the bottom, they’d do it wi’ plugs and feathers wouldn't they, they wouldn't....
R- Plugs and feathers when they come out, but they hadn't come out then, it were all wedges. Because they used to come down to the saw mill and ask if they wanted any certain lengths of stone, same as if they were sawing jambs they'd want twelve footers. Cills, owt like that and then they'd cut it to that length you see, well they'd give you like..
Aye.
R- Say eight inch to spare four inch at each side, you know. For the masons working on 'em.
Aye. All I were asking about that were, you know you'd think that if that were good hard stone, if there were any engine beds wanted, that's where they'd come out of, out of there.
R- They’d come out of Salterforth. There’s blocks gone away for that, I know there has. Like three ton at a time and four ton. I’m not saying, no massive ones, but you know blocks, we called 'em blocks,
Yes.
R- Well we allus called 'em blocks up to eight ton, nine ton.
Aye. How much work would they do, if somebody wanted big blocks like that for big foundations you know, like for an engine. How much work would they do on ‘em at the quarry, they wouldn't do a lot on 'em at quarry really would they apart from splitting 'em out to size?
(10 min)
R- There’d be about two or three men wi’ a stone pick apiece, not a muck pick what you see. You know they’re sharpened at both ends and like it’s surprising what big lumps they can fetch off you see.,
Aye if you know where you're hitting it.
R- If you know how you're hitting it. Because there's bed and bore, there's bed and bore, you see. You could get a piece of stone a foot thick and you can put it flat and you can hammer away and not break it all day. But you can turn it up, what you call bed up, and there used to be what you call pean end of an hammer, them big hammers. And hit it wi’ that and it ‘ud slice it like bread like that you know.
Aye. Now what did you call that? Bed and bore?
R- Bed and bore.
B o r e like?
R- Aye that's right, there were bed way and bore way.
So that's like grain running either way.
R- Oh yes definitely, because they allus were bed up you see in the quarry. The way it were formed, bed up.
Aye.
R- Now if you lifted a piece up like that it were bore up.
[On end if you will. With the grain running vertical.]
Aye.
R- And it ‘ud. slice down like that, that's why it were allus quicker to saw one bore up than what it were bed up.
Aye.
R- 'Cause it were allus harder to go through one solid, that were like really solid, were bed up instead of bore up.
Aye.
R- You could alter your picker on your stone saw to make it go another inch an hour you know. [Increase the number of strokes a minute.]
Aye.
R- Because you could only saw … Tubber Hill quarry, I’ll tell you the difference between Tubber Hill quarry and Salterforth because I were in charge of the saws. I set all the saws down there. And anybody’ll tell you the same who knew where I worked because I worked twenty year up there you know. You could saw seven inch to the hour at Tubber Hill on a good stone. You were lucky to get above four down in the bottom.
Aye, wi’ the same sort of saws.
R- And your blades didn't last, well they would last… You know sometimes they say they don't last half as long, but they didn't last as long down in the bottom quarry as they did in the top, they took a lot more shot. That's that like steel shot, diamond steel. They called it diamond steel, you know. 'Cause you see, your ..your saw worked on swingers, you know, arms, and when it went to it’s length like, it lifted a bit and these taps over used to wash that shot down the cracks and they'd get under your blades and they were sawing on steel. As they got sharp you'd to pull 'em out. If they got sharp. They were about that thick, we'll say eighth of an inch thick were the blades when they were new you know, eighth of an inch. Now if a blade got sharp, instead of sawing six inch like, it ‘ud get this sharp edge on, it ‘ud start running out like this and it ‘ud come, it ‘ud start going to six and half, seven, eight, you see what I mean.
Yes, aye.
R- See, you'd to wind up, wind your saw up, change your blade and you'd to rub it then with one blade while it caught up to t’others.
Aye till you got another face you were, that's it aye.
R- And there used to be like two cracks. Aye.
Aye and who were. I’m interested in this quarry job. Now did the quarry company themselves, we'll talk about Sagars. Did Sagars cart most of their own stone or did they have other people carting for 'em.
R- No they carted their own stone unless there were a push on and then they'd hire one.
Aye.
R- Emmott Garnett or Aspin.
Aye.
R- Oh, I knew one or two. Same as when they were on with that road at Skipton [Sandbeds on the Keighley Road], they'd about six different firms on, all Barlickers. When, if they'd nowt to do in Barlick. Harry Platt down there, him and his father had a wagon, well they allus had. They used to all come and do part up there. Run a load of [rubble] out of the tips. Load up and go to, what did they call that out of Skipton, that big new road?
Snaygill.
R – Yes, even I were leading on there. [leading = carrying, hauling.]
Aye.
R - I were leading on there when a chap discovered a big box of jewellery on there. I wish I'd have discovered that! And it had been stolen from Fattorini’s. {jewellers at Bradford]
Aye.
R - Chaps were in jail what had stolen it. So like when they come out, their hiding place had been dug up! Aye its reight is that.
(Stanley and Jack both laugh.)
Aye, and when did they build that road there then Jack, Snaygill?
R - Oh let's see, what wagon were I on then, I can tell thee better when I get wagon. I'd be on the old Dennis when I'd just started. So that ‘ud be, I’d be about, how old were I when I were married? I were on the Dennis when I got married weren’t I Mona? Twenty three, on that old Dennis. Aye I were either twenty two or twenty three.
That ‘ud be about nineteen, so that ‘ud be about 1928 then.
R- Aye that's reight.
Aye,
(15 min)
R - Yes. I might be out on it, happen a year but I can’t be so far away.
Aye well it's near enough, near enough. So Sagars, were they on motor haulage then?
R - Oh Sagars. Oh they always had two little wagons.
Aye.
R - You see when they got two, me sister’s husband drove there, he drove first ‘un, well he drove from me knowing it, they'd only one before then and it were an old Roma. They called it a Roma.
(250)
Aye.
R - Anyway they got a Dennis, an old army wagon and they had a cab put on it 'cause when it came it had the old sheet. The old canvas you know.
Aye.
R - And then I, and then they bought a Leyland. Now I used to, odd times they'd to take a second man wi’ ‘em. If it was a place where they couldn’t tip and Billy used to take me and also learn me as I were taking it.
A similar wagon to the ones Jack is talking about. This is slightly later and has pneumatic tyres and electric lighting.
Who were Billy?
R - Billy Spensley, he's dead now, it's our Annie’s husband.
Aye.
R- So when they got this Leyland, they put me on the Dennis. Did I ever tell you about that?
Yes, you told me about putting it in the dyke, putting it in the field aye.
R- Well that's when he [John Sagar] come one morning and he said I want you to get the Dennis out. He never did say wagon, he said get t’Dennis out and go on to Foulridge wi’ a load of random, aye.
So then when you started, I mean really that were the start of your wagon driving career, when you started then.
R- Yes it were.
There’d be no such thing as a Heavy Goods Licence or owt like that.
R – No. When I started I were seventeen. I wonder how old? I were only seventeen when I started Mona. Oh I’d be that old when I told you, I were seventeen when old John told me to get this here wagon out because I got summonsed, I got caught on the road somewhere and I got summonsed for not being older. And I got fined ten bob, I were fined about three times before I actually got a licence but it were only ten bob and he paid.
And so there’d be, so then there’d be. This in what we're talking about, you were about seventeen, eighteen, this is about 1922/23. There’d be just an ordinary licence.
R - Just a, I’ll tell you how I got it. I got an envelope and a piece of paper, a five shilling postal order and put on, Dear Sir, I enclose five shillings. Will you please send driving licence, name and address. And my driving licence come.
Aye.
R – Now then..
No test or anything.
R - Oh no.
No.
R - Just that five shilling to Skipton.
That's it. So now wait a minute, so there were no test, there were just one sort of driving licence that covered anything.
R - That's right.
There’d be no log books.
R - Oh no, no log books, no.
No, no log books..
R- You could have driven from Monday morning to Saturday dinner! Hee hee!.
That's it. And what were the speed limit?
R - Twelve mile an hour.
(300)
Twelve mile an hour.
R - Yes.
R- And I’ll tell you something. I were summonsed for being reckless and not fit to be on the road at Nelson centre. Going through Nelson. Seventeen mile an hour! I thought they were going to hang me!
Aye.
R – Narthen. And I get done thirty, fifty shilling for being reckless and when I come back I telled old John and he says “Well, I telled thee tha’d finished when tha did that” ‘cause it were Christmas or sommat and we were coming to that party of yours Mona. [What John was saying was that he had plenty of time as it was his last load and he shouldn’t have been speeding.]
What year were this then Jack?
R- Oh it were when I were courting.
Well you've been married fifty year.
R - It ‘ud happen be in 1923. It’d happen be when I were twenty three that would be.
Aye twenty three that's about 1928.
R - Aye. And I thought they were going to take me licence and everything off me. I get done fifty shilling and I’d to pay and I says I have nowt. I hadn’t.
Aye,
R- I’d like stopped wagon and got into court you know.
Aye.
R- Course he’d sent me wi’ a load to go and deliver after I come out of court. Aye. Well, when I came back I told him, I said “I got fined fifty shilling and it has to be paid by Saturday.” That were it, or else I'd to go down for fourteen days. That were it. He says “Well tha'll have to go down because I telled thee tha’d finished work when tha come back. Tha'd all afternoon to do that trip so tha'll have to pay.” I said “I can’t, I have nowt.” He said “Well you'll have to pay out of your wage” I said “I’d have to work a fortnight to pay it then.” Anyway he paid it.
(20 min)
How much were your wage?
R- Oh it ‘ud be about going up for thirty bob then.
Aye.
R - I said “I'd have to work a fortnight for that.”
R - I said “Anyway I'm not driving it no more.” So like wi’ saying that he must have thought oh well. So he give it me but I never forgot it that fifty bob.
Aye. And were you flat out at seventeen mile an hour or could you have gone faster?
R- Flat out, oh reight down to t’floor boards.
(Jack and Stanley laugh)
R- Hee hee! I wore a hole nearly in t’floor boards me, our Annie’s husband used to play heck wi’ me you know.
Aye.
R- Aye, “What's that” I mean for a lad of my age what were that. I'll tell you sommat. I were once coming home, this is reight, and there were a policeman at Barrowford, he were a reight bugger were this, Ginger they called him. And I were coming, knocking on nicely you know, not hurrying, I’d be doing happen twelve to fourteen mile and hour, you know. He rides up at side of me on his bike you know. It were open, no curtains up at side you know, instead of windows there were a big hole at side were tha were driving.
(350)
And he were on his bike?
R- And he were on his bike. He said “Thi tail lights out!” And then he pedalled on and left me.
Aye.
R – Eh, you wanted a box of matches every time you went out in t’dark wi’ them paraffin lamps tha knows.
Is that what they were?
R- Head lights an all. Head lights an all, I used to have to shine 'em every Sunday morning, it's the only thing I cleaned on th’old Dennis. You know Shinio, ‘cause they were like brass does.
Aye.
Mrs. Platt. - And solid tyres weren't they.
R - Oh aye, solid tyres. I used to like having to go for tyres ‘cause I got three bob a tyre tha knows.
Aye.
R- I mean if you only went for two on, tha'd six bob, that were more than what you got to spend, tha knows.
Aye.
R - A full set, like it were what, eighteen bob weren’t it.
What were that, a back hander or were that for the old tyre?
R – Aye, they telled [nobody]. Driver got that.
R- Bosses didn't know.
Where did you used to go for tyres then?
R- Tillotson's at Burnley. Aye. Top of Manchester Road. Fairly big place, it used to be half a day getting a set on.
Aye.
R- I used to love. I used to like to watch 'em tha knows. They’d press 'em off, then they’d like just rub the wheel wi’ a bit of an old wire brush you know and then put canvas strips on aye.
Aye.
R - Canvas strips and then like, it were a dead fit but they used to force it on wi’ this here big like, it were like a big ram. And tha knows wi’ canvas being on it used to go down slow. I used to like to watch ‘em. It had some pressure because you never knew one of them to start working off. They were like a dead fit. But there were still about six strips of canvas that they put on that wide, and it forced 'em ower that you see.
Yes.
R - That's why they'd to be forced off and on. When you went in they had like gauge's and they used to set ‘em under the rims, you know, one on to your wheel rim off theirs and then set it on and it 'ud gradually, you know. Because it had to be just like plumb on to your rim.
Aye.
R- Course it were a fair rim, that thick you know was your rim.
Aye. About quarter of an inch thick. Aye.
R - So they had things a purpose you know, to fit on them like, and just slightly curved to put on, you know.
Aye.
R - It were interesting, I used to like watching 'em, Then I had three blew up tha knows. Aye, fag off the lads.
Aye. It ‘ud be a day out. So you were, you’d be driving the wagon fairly regular up to… [going to Steeton]
R - Oh yes, I did drive regular because I went on a Leyland after that, a new Leyland, brand new ‘un.
Aye.
R - Oh aye.
(400)
Were that still solid tyres.
R- Oh they were still solid tyres I never drove on pneumatics up there.
Aye.
R- They were solids when I finished.
Aye and were them paraffin lamps or had you got on to acetylene?
R- Oh acetylene. Hee hee!
Oh you've got on to acetylene lamps now have you?
R - Aye bye god, you had to fill 'em wi’ carbide. What do they call that stuff?
Aye, carbide.
R – Carbide, I blew the bloody lid off. Hee hee! I did! You couldn't light ‘em because you'd put too much water in or sommat.
Aye.
R - Did sommat anyway, I know there were this stink and then WHAM! Hee hee!
Aye. (Stanley laughs)
R - Anyway we get used to 'em 'cause he used to have it fixed on to the chassis you know, and then rubber pipe, a bit of pipe, and then rubber pipes, you know, to your tail light.
Oh so you had a central, you had a generator on the wagon itself?
R – Aye.
Separate from the lamps?
R- Aye, hooked on your chassis.
Aye and piped up to the lights.
R- And piped up. Well you used to have to make your own gas in this here.
That's it aye,
R- It were about that deep, you know. A circular do.
About a foot deep.
R - Aye and a foot across it, in circumference you know.
Aye.
R – Hee hee. I've come home 'bout lights many a time from Barrowford.
(25 min)
You never met nowt. It were too much trouble to keep getting out and keep lighting things tha knows. If it were moonlight you could see one another.
Aye.
R- And I mean you could come from Barrowford to Barlick and I bet there weren’t three times in the week when you met owt.
Aye.
R - Well there were only them that bought wagons that had 'em then, that had owt on the road. Mostly horses and that in them days weren’t they.
Aye that's it.
R - In the old Dennis days.
How did you go on wi’, I mean like in them days, wagons I mean. It ‘ud. be the heaviest thing that were on the road.
R - Oh yes, aye.
How did you go on for bursting through the road and things like that, and if you got too close to the edge, breaking through you know. Because roads wouldn’t really be built for things like that would they.
R- Oh no, well I mean, there were some rough roads you know, but mind you, once you got to Barrowford it were all pavings. Paving stones you know, to Burnley.
You mean setts.
R – Setts, setts.
Aye.
R - Because I mean we used to load, take hundreds of tons of setts you know, out there.
Aye.
(450)
R- Boat loads an all they used to send.
Aye you were on about it last week, taking boat loads to Burnley.
R- Macadam hadn't come in to go then.
No.
R - No it were all paving.
So these roads round here ‘ud be.
R- Tram lines you know, when you got in Barrowford you'd tram lines.
Aye. These ‘ud be water bound then these roads round here? They'd be like water bound Macadam road. They wouldn’t be Tarmac.
R- Aye they were, they were only like th’old steam roller and every so far you’d have an old chap sat on the road, what you call chipping. [Knapping stone.]
Aye.
A – He’d sit there all day breaking stones up.
Aye.
R - I can just picture th’old lad now on White Moor, he’d have a pile from here, oh nearly half length of this row of houses.
Aye.
R - Where carts had tipped 'em up and he’d be sat breaking big ‘uns up, you know. Making ‘em go further. Well they'd mend the road wi’ them.
Yes. And them fellows, were they paid by the council for knapping that stone.
R- Oh aye they were council men.
Aye.
R- That's what, that's what Poor Bones were for.
Now that's what, what?
R- Poor bones.
Aye.
R- That, that bit of.. It used to be full of them and there used to be an old fellow sat in there didn’t there Mona, when we went to school?
Mrs. Platt.- Yes.
R- He’d be sat in there knapping.
That's it, now what we’re talking about is that little yard at the top of that field I used to own at, well, at the top of Barlick Lane.
R - Aye that's right.
Top of Barlick Lane there.
R- That’s right, Poor Bones we allus called it.
Were did it get that name from?
R - I don't know but I’ve never known it wi’ owt else only Poor Bones have we Mona?
Mrs. Platt- No it were always known as that.
Aye, Poor Bones, I’ve never heard [it called that]..
R - Poor Bones, Poor Bones.
[I later found that the yard was used by Skipton Workhouse to provide work for people on Outdoor Relief, they weren’t in the workhouse but in their own homes and they had to do work to qualify for relief. So I think this is where the name originated.]
Aye that's it aye.
R - And that old fellow, I can just picture him now sat in there. He’d allus have a sack round him.
Yes.
R- And he hadn't sack at front, he had it to his arse to keep, tha knows, when he were sat down.
Aye, guard against the piles.
R- Aye well, like it went all the way round him because he’d be sat on a stone you know. Tha knows, and it [the knapping hammer] ‘ud be a shaft about that long.
About two foot.
R- Wi’ a little solid hammer like, about that long you know.
Yes, aye.
R - A little solid ‘un. Eh aye, there were one or two of them.
Aye. So how were the brakes on them old wagons?
R- Oh! Hee hee! Well!
I thought I'd make thee laugh.
R - I'll put it this way tha knows..
Yes.
(500)
R- Tha'd be able to get thee brake on and then get hold of the wheel and press on like this tha knows, tha weren’t sat on thee seat! Hee hee!
(Stanley laughs)
R - And then tha were going like hell down Tubber Hill. If tha didn't put it in bottom gear tha’d no chance at all.
Aye.
R - If tha come to a hill, like it wore allus best to stop if tha could do.
Aye.
R – I’ve run in the dyke a time or two down Salterforth Lane.
Aye.
R- Because I've been swanking and thought this’ll take it down. Well be the time I were getting to the bottom I were getting the wind up!
Aye.
R- 'Cause there's a fair old corner at bottom tha knows.
That's it aye. And it ‘ud be worse in them days.
R - And then see there were like, well you relied more on your hand brake them days because your foot brake were nowt. It were only like worked off your cam shaft tha knows, off there and it were a bit of a do ower [the drum] wi’ a liner on just like owt else.
On the prop-shaft?
R- Aye on the prop-shaft you know.
Aye. So, and I mean it wore just, like it were a transmission brake.
R- And it were aside of thee gear box, well I mean, it used to get all oil on tha knows.
(30 min)
Aye.
R- So like they used to put the hand brake on and then like tha'd to get right down tha knows and pull it a notch and then tha’d pull it. Oh no, they were shove ons then. I allus remember because you used to get thee hand behind it like this.. Your foot. Thee foot behind it and push. Aye. And then push it another and then another. And then when you get to the bottom of the bloody hill tha couldn't take it off.
Aye.
R- It used to stop and then you used to have to, it were a hell of a job releasing it.
Aye.
R - Because you used to have to prise back and shove tha knows and try to fetch it back with your other foot as tha pressed tha knows.
Aye.
R - You could get hold of catch at top, press and then get thee other foot under and press wi’ one and fetch it back wi’ t’other.
Aye. Where did the hand brake work then?
R - On your cam shaft. on your..
On the prop-shaft just same.
R- On the prop-shaft aye.
Aye. So that were the only brake there were, there weren’t any on the wheels?
R - Oh no, there were just a, like a drum brake. A drum fit on to thee shaft.
Aye.
R- And that were like..
Same as the brake on a crane. [An external band with a friction liner]
R- Same as the brake on a crane. I were just going to tell thee that, just same.
Aye. Yes aye.
R- That's all it were.
Aye a band round the outside.
R - It used to get greased up.
(550)
Yes.
R - Because I mean many a time at weekend, we’d loosen 'em off, take the split pins out tha knows, bolts out, and wash 'em wi’ petrol tha knows. So we could have a ..
Aye. A good brake for Monday morning.
R- Aye.
Aye. Anyway, you went from there, you went on to Steeton and how long were you at Steeton?
R - Oh just short of two year.
That were on munitions.
R- On munitions aye.
I know, you told me last week.
R- I hated it.
I know, you told me last week about trying to get out,
R- Aye try, aye.
Just how did you get out in the finish?
R- John Wild got me out.
Ah, now this is John Wild, old John, haulage contractor,
R- Yes John.
Yes.
R- Because of, I’d tried all ways and then I saw old John one day and he asked me how I were doing and I telled him and he says “Do you like?” and I says “No!” Mind you it were good money. I dropped a lot of money, I should have stuck it but I couldn't stick it. When you can’t .. anyway apart from that I saw John and he says “I can get you off if you'll come to me.” On what you call some sort of a, some sort of a do you were.. they didn't call you up. I said “I'm not bothered about that John.” I said “I’ve been twice.” I said “They've turned me down, only grade four.” I said “I've been volunteering and I've been called up.” I says “I don’t want to go on to no job like that ‘cause me hand stopped me from passing the grade” didn't I Mona?
Mrs. Platt.- Yes.
R - I were called up and I went, I went to Preston and he said “There could be a chance to get you on as an instructor” you see.
Aye.
R- He says “Anyway if there is we'll let you know” so I mean he [John Wild] weren’t bothered about that, then he get me on, but I'd to get a PSV licence.
Aye.
R - You see because it were for coaching, taking prisoners out, smashing job you know, taking prisoners from Skipton to different places where they worked on farms.
(600)
Where were the prisoner of war camp at Skipton then?
R- What did they call it, sommat like Overdale or sommat. Up, you know as you go to the top of Skipton. Straight up right, not Grassington way t’other way.
Harrogate road.
R - Aye, aye, and then it wore on the left, Overdale. They called it Overdale Camp didn't they.
Oh, where that caravan camp is now?
R- Is there a caravan, aye it will be.
Aye just where the gateway to Skipton Rock is.
R – On the left hand side. That's reight aye.
Oh, is that what that used to be?
R - Aye it were Overdale camp.
Aye.
R - Oh we used to, we’d one…
So John had the contract for..
R- One, two, three coaches on them. On prisoners.
Mrs. Platt.- Italians weren’t they.
R- Italians, mine were Italians, a good bunch were mine. Mark Cann had Germans. His were nowt but mine were good ‘uns.
Who was the other fellow?
R - Mark Cann.
Aye.
R- He's died now has Mark.
Yes.
R - And then there were John himself.
Yes.
R - John Wild.
Was he driving as well, John?
R - John always drove. He nearly drove all the time.
Aye, and where were Wild's garage then?
R - Cobden Street,
Aye. Now tell me sommat, something I’ve been wanting to know for a bit.
R- But we’d another you know beside that, it were down at th’old foundry, it were where foundry were.
Aye where Ouzeldale is.
R - No, t’other foundry.
I mean the original Ouzeldale, Forty Steps.
R- No.
Oh you mean down at..
R- Down at New Mill.
Where Brown and Pickles built the foundry, no well, where Henry Brown built that foundry. It's Gissing & Lonsdale's now.
R - That's right,
That's right aye. Now tell me sommat I want to know. Just above Bancroft there, on the side of the road there's a concrete pad and there’s a petrol tank underneath.
R - Yes well that were Wild’s garage, it were washed away wi’ the flood.
Narthen, .now when were that Wild's garage?
R- Up to the big flood,
(35 min)
That were 1922 weren’t it? [July 1932 actually]
R- Well it washed it away and they took that what Emmott Garnett had, that in Cobden Street.
Aye. So they went into Cobden Street when that got washed away.
R- When that got washed away.
That's it, that's solved, that's solved a bit of a mystery for me.
(650)
R- Yes because it washed it away completely.
I can remember you telling me years and years ago that that used to be Wild's garage and I’ve asked no end of folk and they didn’t know.
R- No they won't do, but it were. I'll bet you'll find an old petrol tank under..
It's still there..
R- Aye I knew it would be.
It's still there, you can see the top of the petrol tank.
R - Can you?
Yes.
R - I knew it would be 'cause I know it had never been took up.
Yes it's still there. Aye so that were where, that were where John Wild started?
R- Yes that's right.
Aye, so he’d start there like in about 1920 sometime like that? When would it be? Any idea when he first started.
R- It started as Wild and Hides.
Aye.
John Wild and Edgar Hide.
Aye.
R - And then they must have dissolved partnership and it went to Wild Brothers, then Edgar Wild come in with him, you know, his brother.
Yes.
R - And that were Wild Brothers.
Aye. And then they moved into Cobden Street. Anyway you went working for 'em on coaches. What sort of coaches were they?
R- Well I were on, first ‘un I went on, what were it? It were what we called, we nicknamed it the Old Grey Mare. It were just an old, plain old AEC I think. It were.
Jack also drove this Maudslay wagon for Wilds. It is still running as it's been preserved.
Aye.
R- And after that I went on John's coach, he finished and he put me on to his Albion. A grand little coach were that. Only about a twenty six or twenty eight seater like.
Aye.
R - Course that's all they were then you know.
So at that time John didn't have any wagons, he were on coaches?
R- No he’d wagons an all. I worked there about two year before I went on wagons for him.
Aye, now wait a minute what year would you go and work for John? You did two year at Steeton..
R – Aye. Let's see. Oh wait a minute. How old's our Rodney?
Mrs Platt- Our Rodney's 34 now and he were born when you were working at Wilds, when he were born.
R- I hadn't been there so long had I?
Mrs. Platt.- No you hadn't been there long.
R - I hadn't gone on wagons.
Well, thirty-four, that's nineteen forty five then when Rodney were born.
R- I hadn’t gone on wagons because I allus remember saying to, I were fetching John and who-is-it back in a taxi from Skipton and he asked me how you were going on and I said we’d getten another boy.
Mrs, Platt- Our Rodney were born while, you’d been with a coach then.
R- Our Rodney were born while I were at Nelson centre.
Mrs. Platt.- Mmm.
R - 'Cause I telled you that wi’ the time didn't I?
Mrs. Platt- You were with a coach weren’t you?
R - Yes I was with a coach, yes I took Rolls Royce and I’d to take ‘em that way and come back this way.
What, were that when you were done for driving…
R- Oh no. That were a long while before that.
Mrs. Platt- It were during the war that.
R- I'm trying to place this date for him.
How long had you been working for John when Rodney were born?
R - Happen about two years hadn't I…
Mrs. Platt- Yes.
R- ‘Cause I did on taxi's first didn't I.
Mrs. Platt- Yes you did.
R - And then he asked me if I wanted to, well I asked him if I could go on the road. you know. And I went on the weft job, you know, mill work.
Aye.
R - Aye.
So when you started driving a wagon for John that ‘ud be, his busiest job then ‘ud be carting for the mills.
R- Oh it were. It was the biggest job.
Yes, aye.
R- And Johnson & Johnson’s. Johnson & Johnson's and the mills kept Wild Brothers going wi’ one, two, three, four, five wagons.
Aye, and really that trade were going off a bit then weren’t it. It was going down a bit to what it had been.
R - what?
Weft job.
R- No not then.
No?
(750)
R- It were reight at top, at the top of its form then. Every mill in Barlick were on.
Yes.
R- Because, I’ll tell you for why. Besides Wild Brothers there were Aspin(?), there were Garnett, there were Whittaker Platt, there were Dixon, there were Mona’s uncle wi’ two wagons.
Which Dixon?
R- Wait a minute, I’ll tell you in a minute. There were six, there were six used to do mill work privately besides Wild Brothers.
Aye, Clark’s ‘ud be one of ‘em wouldn't they?
R- Clark’s, Clark's. They were next to Wild Brothers for wagons ‘cause they'd more wagons than t’others had. Clark Brothers, 'cause they'd about five going once had Willie.
(40 min)
Yes, that's it.
R - Four or five [wagons] had Willie going.
Aye, and he sold out in the finish to, eh, now wait a minute, what's his name, when they started that haulage company, Stockbeck Haulage.
R - Oh Stock…, did he sell out to Stockbeck?
Aye. That were where Stockbeck come from. It were Clark’s wagons.
R- Oh course, I see.
Aye, and they made a beggar of the job. They never did do anything, Stockbeck, on the quiet.
R - No, it were at it height when I worked there, were the mill job.
Aye. Did Wilkinson’s do anything in Barlick. From Earby.
R - Come odd times but not a reight lot. But he used to come ower a bit did Wilkinson, aye.
Aye, and when you were carting then, obviously you'd be carting yarn and beams in.
R - Oh aye.
..and cloth out.
R - Cloth out.
Aye.
R - There were five of us loading wi’ cloth every other day.
Aye. And where were the cloth, where were you taking the cloth to Jack?
(800)
R - Manchester.
All of it?
R- All, well all barring a few odd bits same as that rough stuff, it weren’t rough stuff, but what I mean, it were for linings, from Blackburn Holden’s. We dropped that off at Bury, I think that goes yet, what Blackie Holden weaves. It were lining for coats you know.
Aye, yes that's it.
R- Just a few outsiders but the main were Manchester.
Aye.
R- We’d a place, we’d a park of us own in Manchester really.
Mm.. Now before we get too deep into that. Wild's ‘ud cart for Bancroft?
R - Well they allus had their own lorry, we used to fetch 'em weft in but we didn’t used to take cloth out for 'em.
Aye.
R - They allus took their own cloth out.
Yes.
R - But they’d, there were Billy Wilson and there were Abe Ware. They'd a big wagon and a smaller one, a big ‘un and a little ‘un. Abe were on the smaller one, a tipper an all it were. They could use it for both jobs. [coal and cloth]
Aye for coal and..
R - And Billy Wilson were on…
Flat aye.
R- Cloth aye. Aye that, I don’t know whether that were a Leyland or not, or an Albion. I don’t…
Aye they did have, the last one they had were an Albion weren’t it.
R - Aye.
'Cause Jim Nutter used to drive it.
R - Oh aye well Jimmy aye.
(Both Stanley and Jack laugh)
R - I laughed at Jimmy one morning. He stopped us and he says to me, he’s loaded three high you know wi’ empties. Well held allus only go two high would Jimmy.
That's weft boxes.
R - Aye weft empties you know, when we're taking empties round.
Now wait a minute who were three high?
R - Jimmy.
Oh.
R - Now this is sommat fresh ‘cause he’d only go two high. And it were always to Royton. To Roy Mill.
Yes.
R - That were his one drop. We used to have about twelve drops see.
Aye.
(850)
R - So Jimmy, he stopped us one day, he’s three high, well he's four in the middle like it made him three high. And he said “Jack, you know that bridge at Todmorden” he said “I'm a bit worried about this” he said “I've gone a bit higher than usual. I’m three high. Does ta think I’ll get under?” I says “Well I hope so Jimmy, because we allus go under four high!” Hee hee! And I said “We’ve never had one knocked off yet!”
(Laughter from Stanley)
R - “Oh no” he says “I weren’t thinking” I’ve telled her about that many a time, hee hee! He's asking us, and we're four high and he's bloody three high, asking us if we think he can get under. Does ta know, we've had some laughs wi’ Jimmy on the road. He weren’t fit to be on a wagon weren’t Jimmy tha knows. He were alreight, capable enough at his own way and speed but cor he were a menace on the road. Aye, we allus had to go four high, there were no leaving any off wi’ them. If we’d to go to another mill for two we’d have to go four high.
Aye.
R- Get about two hundred empty beams on tha knows, aye. Jimmy ‘ud go wi’ about oh, happen about fifty, aye held a good job had Jim. ‘Course he were a relation weren’t he. [Of the Nutters who owned the mill originally]
Aye.
R - But mind you we used to have some sport wi’ him on road. We allus had a good laugh when we met him. And then he’d pick a full load up at Roy Mill you know, if there were two outsiders [extra to his normal load], he’d ring Wild Brothers up and say, “They'll pick them two up.” Course we did, we did, we started at Littleborough and we went all the way through. Royton, Oldham, all the way round, reight down to Ashton-under-Lyne and all over the place we’d to go picking up you know. But like you'd plenty of running about, but you’d allus a second man. [A mate on the wagon]
Aye.
R - You'd always a second man at Wild's on t’weft job. Like Jimmy were on his own, that’s happen why. And we’d some good second men I'll tell thee, some good lads. Lawrence Sharp were mine for a long time.
Who?
R - Lawrence.
Yes.
R - Lawrence, he were a good lad, and then Jackie Pompey, he were a good ‘un, a lad from Pompey. He’s back at Pompey now. Aye well, you see old Bill (?). There were one, two, three, four, aye there were five if not six {wagons] and then sometimes John ‘ud ring firms up that ‘ud come in and help him out wi’ them what he were already on hire to, you know.
Yes, aye.
R - He had nearly all, he had all Barlick’s work barring them that had their own lorries. And then even Pickles, they'd about four wagons then but we still used to fetch back beams from Wigan for them.
(45 min)
You know. Same as the overflow from Wigan.
Aye, I can remember Pickles getting their last coal wagon, that big Atkinson [six wheeler] they got. [Marshall Duerden drove it. He lived at Sough]
R - Aye, Oh aye.
Aye.
R- Fetched a lot from Wigan.
Aye.
(950)
R - Oh aye.
A lot of what?
R - Back beams.
From Wigan.
R - Oh aye, we fetched a lot from Wigan.
Aye.
R – ‘Cause it were all spinning at Wigan we’d one…
Aye, I never really associate Wigan wi’ spinning.
R- We’d one, two, three, four, five and Tommy Taylor's, six. We’d six places round Wigan.
Aye.
R- We’d Trencherfield, we used to fetch four loads a week from Trencherfield alone.
Aye. Into Barlick.
R - Oh aye.
(970)
SCG/26 December 2002
8,813 words.
LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT
TAPE 79/AO/04
THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 15th of JUNE1979 AT 9 SACKVILLE STREET, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS JACK PLATTT AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Now last time we were talking we were on about the weft job.
R – Yes.
Now of course, as the mills started to back off…
R – Yes.
The weft job started to get a bit thin, didn't it.
R - Yes that's right.
Now what happened then, what replaced it Jack? Was it completely replaced, did some of the firms finish.
R - Well a lot finished you know that were on just the weft job but we automatically went on, we kept on with Johnson's work you know. Johnson & Johnson’s at Gargrave you know.
Yes.
R - We allus did their work, we used to have to shove it in wi’ t’other. Two wagons stop off and three go to Manchester, you know wi’ cloth, but that's when we started long distance then. That’s when he put us on to long distance you see.
And what were, what were the start of that, were it the container job then, or were it flat work. [Flat work is carrying loads which are simply stacked on the bed of the wagon, and roped and sheeted. Containers are the modern steel boxes which are pre-loaded and lifted on to the flat. They require no loading, sheeting or roping.]
R - No it were flat work for a long time. Flat work for a long time afore we did containers. You know, finding us own loads. We used to go to Liverpool see, to clearing houses, you know.
Yes. [Jack knew that I was familiar with tramp work because I’d done it so he doesn’t explain clearing houses. These were places where a driver could go to get a load. They were sometimes specialist agents who did nothing but find wagons for firms that needed them but increasingly became haulage contractors who skimmed off the best work for themselves and farmed out then rest to private hauliers. This was good business for them as it gave them a cushion against lean times and meant they could keep their own vehicles fully occupied. This was a minefield for the tramp drivers unless they had regular work with certain clearing houses. Once you were in a strange place you got the worst work and often didn’t get paid. This was a very good way of sorting the good drivers from the bad!]
R - He didn’t find us work, we found us own work.
Aye, you were like tramping.
R- Yes well, we were tramping, we were on the tramp for about nine or ten year I should think before we went on to containers you know.
Aye, and who did you get most of your work off? Who were the regulars?
R- Well, us regular one at London were Verlin’s you know. They used to like save loads for us, and he allus used to try to save us a load for Glasgow see. Well that were our week then. If we could go from here to London, tip off and then go into Verlin’s and he’d save us sommat, because we took a lot of stuff from Barking you know too, that like were for Glasgow. All round Glasgow, and then we used to go to what you call old Mac’s on Broomilaw there for return loads 'cause we allus used to get ten bob of him like for using him you know. Well, ten bob in them days were ten bob, I could get bed and breakfast then for ten bob tha knows.
[In the late 60’s when I was running tramp regular between London and Glasgow I used to stay in the Belgrove Hostel in Gallowgate for 8/- and park my wagon in the Old Cattle Market where we paid street urchins 2/- to ‘look after your wagon mister’. If you did this you never had any trouble!]
R- We had a good place. And we used to go to, wait a minute, I’m trying to think of the name where we used to pick up… Gartcosh. we used to go to Gartcosh then. [In 1930 Colvilles acquired the majority of ordinary shares in Smith & McLean Ltd. By 1953 they had acquired the all the shares. They produced hot rolled steel for the motor industry. Under nationalisation, British Steel took over the works and in 1986 closed it.]
Aye.
R - Back in there like for steel for, what's that big motor firm? Ford's at Dagenham, Ford's at Dagenham. They used to unload us wi’ a magnet there you know, it were steel see. It weren’t reight good rated stuff but it were, kept you on the road all the time, get about. [By ‘rated’ Jack means the rate you got for the job, usually so much a ton. The way the system worked was that you would take poor rates because this paid the expenses to get you back to somewhere where you could get a better rate and get into profit. The trick was to spend as little time on low rates as possible.] ..I can remember the first time I went in [to Colville’s]. We asked ‘em for, you know, if they’d owt for London and they said yes. This were old Mac and he sent us to this here Gartcosh and give us notes. We got in and I backed in first, there were me and Gordon Westwell. Well, I'd th’old ERF then and when I were coming out I thought cor, I've a spring gone. I get outside and Westwell looked, he said “Tha’rt low down!” And I looked, I says “Hell, I am low down!” It had flattened the springs out. So I went in for me ticket, 15 ton! Hee hee! Well, it were only an eight tonner tha knows! So I went back, I says “Is it alright if I can reverse in? If it'll stand it, the wagon, and take half of that load of?” I says “I daren’t take more than eight ton on that.” Tha knows wagons only, like they used to be then. I mean eight ton were, well we hadn't to put more than eight ton on by order tha knows.
Aye.
R- And they laughed. “Oh” they said “We’re sorry, we thought it were a good load what you'd backed in for when you come in!” ‘Cause you know there were still six wheelers then weren’t there.
Aye.
R - So anyway they took one lot off and it left me about eight ton twelve on so I thought. He said “Is that too much?” I said no that'll do me. Well, that load it had on, it’d have took me a ruddy fortnight to get home to Barlick never mind go to London, 'cause we were coming home before we went through to London tha knows.
Aye.
R - But that were the first do, now after that it were a regular do. Odd times he’d send us up to, eh now, it's just coming out of Glasgow, I only read there were sommat going on there in the paper not long since. Oh I’ve forgetten the name of the place but it were a little place and there were like an estate there and we used to go to a typewriter works, you know typewriters. Used to loaden all sorts of stuff such as that. They used to loaden thee up. All for down London to a depot there, we used to go to though then.
No well, weight limit for a four wheeler, you could load 'em up to fourteen ton couldn't you.
R - Aye.
It didn’t matter what a four wheeler was, you could load it up to fourteen ton.
R - Yes, but we only carried up to eight, eight tonners, they used to call ours eight tonners but… [Jack is talking about what the manufacturers rated their trucks as. In his case the ERF was rated as an eight tonner and John Wild wasn’t going to exceed this. In practice you could overload 50% with care.]
(5 min)
Yes but what I mean..
R- I know what you mean.
You were legal up to a gross weight of fourteen tons.
R- Oh, gross! That's right yes, your gross weight. [Gross weight was tare {weight of empty wagon} plus net {the weight of the load}. The wagon I had on tramp was 4 tons tare and so I could load ten tons net. Jack’s was a better wagon and so would be a higher tare weight]
Yes.
R - Oh yes that’s right.
Yes.
R- Yes.
'Cause I remember that when I were tramping for Billy [Harrison Brothers of Elslack] that Bedford I had, it weighed four ton. And you know I used to put, and it only reckoned to be like a seven ton wagon you know. I used to put ten ton on it regular.
R - Oh aye, well I’ve put ten ton on but It were John Wild's rules, eight to nine ton no more, you know.
Oh It were enough, it were enough.
R - Aye.
I know when I were overloaded like, many a time I had more on [Than ten ton] you know. I mean I've seen me many a time…
R - Course I'm going back a long while wi’t ERF.
Yes, but I always used to know if I could get up Buckhaw Brow I could manage [All the hills up to Scotland] Because that were the steepest bit.
R- Aye but th’old ERF ‘ud bounce up, but wi’t Albions we were allus, we give over sweating when we got to the top of Buckhaw.
That's it ‘cause you knew you were all reight.
R- Oh I’ve seen ‘em, we used to just manage it. If you'd to draw out to pass one that were stuck.. I used to think I hope I can get round it, because they were on their last legs when they get to the top. Couldn't have gone much further. Oh it were a stiff ‘un were Buckhaw.
You never see that now.
R - I've seen some wagons stuck up there.
Yes, they never think about that now.
R - No..
I mean it's alright, they've all got their three hundred horse motors now.
R- Yes.
I mean, you know yourself, them old Guy Otters.
R- Aye.
They were only about sixty horse power, them 3LW's they had in ‘em didn't they. [The engine was a Gardner 3LW, three cylinders. The LW series had 20hp per cylinder and they made them in 3,4,5 and 6cylinder configuration. Guy Motors were fitting these until the 1960’s]
R - Aye.
They were only about sixty horse weren’t they.
R - That's right yes. Well this what I were on, [the ERF with a] Gardner, it were a five pot you know. [100hp and very good torque rating. Torque was the pulling power and Gardners were famous for being high torque engines for their size.]
Aye.
R - It were a good ‘un mind you, it would have took twelve ton anywhere...
Aye.
R - But I dare say John used to think about speed. You'd allus be like creeping you know, well I mean, the speed limit were only twenty mile an hour then you know because I were fined £4 for doing twenty two.
Where were that at?
R - We were going to Bristol that day, we’d been to Bristol and I were coming back loaded up and this here, no twenty four, I made a mistake. Twenty four miles an hour that were it I thought. He pulled me in, waved me in you know and he said “what speed was you doing down there?” I says “Oh about twenty to twenty two.” I thought I’ll not tell a lie, I'll just put that. He says “We followed you and you were doing twenty four two or three times.” I said “Well, twenty four isn't fast is it?” He said “It's too much.” “Well” I says, “How long have you been following me?” He says “About two mile.” Because I were on good roads you know. I said “Well during that two mile there's a wagon and trailer passed me.” there were trailers then. I says “There's all sorts passed me.” He says “Yes, they passed me!” I says “Well why bother wi’ me then when them have passed us. I says “This'll only do twenty two or three flat out.” He says “You were doing twenty four.” and I got fined four quid. Aye, marvellous isn't it.
Aye.
R - 'Cause when I telled John Wild he said “Well, you can’t be kidding me because I know what it will do!” Because John did, because they were governed you know, and you were really on 'em at twenty two. Well, twenty three, you wore really rattling if you'd [got your foot down] It were only like creeping them days weren’t it. I mean, that's why you could only do two [trips] a week. Well you see, when we get the new AECs we could roll three off. Three London's a week.
(150)
Aye.
R - And have time in hand to th’old two a week. You know.
Aye. It takes some believing doesn’t it now, you can’t think. You know sometimes just for a laugh when I'm driving along road now, I’ll slow down to twenty mile an hour and drive at twenty for a bit and it's just unbelievable isn't it when you think.
R - Yes. It takes more believing this way. When I started driving at first it were twelve mile an hour.
Aye.
R - And I were on a solid tyre at Sagar’s quarry.
Yes.
R - On an old Dennis and I used to take sand to the tram shed at Burnley and they used to tip it in the drying shed. They dried it you see and then put it on the trams in these boxes.
(10 min)
Yes. aye.
R - For the brakes,
Yes.
R- And anyway, I'm coming home, no, wait a minute, yes I'm coming home. It's late and it's getting a bit, you know, it goes dark about four o'clock doesn't it and we used to have to light th’old oil lamps you know.
Aye.
R- And I light up at Burnley that were it and I gets into Barrowford and a Bobby rides past, Ginger they called him, he’d a bad name. And just as he got up to me pedalling he said “Your tail light’s out” and then he went riding past me. That’s the speed that they used to do them days isn’t it.
Aye.
R - And then another time I get fined fifty bob and that were a lot of money then, fifty bob. I were going through Nelson Centre and I got done for going through there. I think it were at fourteen mile an hour and that's reight. And dosta know, he made such a song about it, I telled him I said well, fourteen mile an hour, I could run faster! I thought he were going to clap me in jail for a fortnight I'm not kidding thee.
Aye.
R- He made such a song as never. Anyway he said it had to be paid within seven days so I thought well, I haven’t got fifty bob. I hadn’t. So I come back and telled Sagar and he says “Well that barn to have to pay it!” I says “No I'm not” He says “Tha'll have to do.” I says “Oh no I won’t because I'm not going to go down for about a month. What's the alternative, I haven’t fifty bob.” And he says “Well anyway, we can’t spare thee just now, they're fast wi’ that job.” And it were that place that they built on right hand side at Cannons, It's Prestige now or sommat.
Yes.
R - Or it were then.
Platers and Stampers.
R - Platers and Stampers, that's right.
That's what it used to be.
R – That’s reight Platers and Stampers and it's Prestige or sommat now.
Prestige now, aye.
R- Well we were leading to them when they were building it so you can tell how long it is since and that were the time.
Aye.
R- And if we hadn't have been busy and they were working ower time at quarry to keep them going, I think meself I’d have had to do jail for all Sagar would have bothered. I wouldn't have done it like, but tha knows what I mean.
(200)
Aye.
R - Tha knows what John Sagar's were.
Anyhow, about the other haulage firms in Barlick Jack at that time, you know that had been on weft you know, I mean.
R- Aye there were Clarks.
Well, Clarks were bought out by Stockbeck and they went down the Swannie more or less didn’t they, quietly.
R- Yes. And then there were Emmott Garnett’s. There were Aspin’s, there were Ashley and somebody, Barrett’s had their own wagon, Pickles’ had their own wagons.
How about Jack Pickles that lives opposite the Dog?
R - Widdup had. Eh, who, Gara?
Jack Pickles that lives opposite, yes Gara. [Gara was a byname for Garibaldi, his forename]
R- Aye.
Now weren’t his dad a carter or haulage or sommat?
R – Aye, horse and cart, little flat, aye.
Aye. Not wagons then?
R - Oh no.
R - No they’d just, I can just picture him, little fat chap sat on, he used to sit on a sack tha knows at corner [of the flat] didn’t he.
Aye.
R – Th’horse ‘ud go by itself, they knew where they wore going, he’d just be sat there old Gara.
Aye he were..
R – I knew him, aye all the school kids knew him, old Gara.
That's it aye.
R- Aye well Jack, we knew him like wi’ Jack going to school an all. He were th’only lad in school with long pants on then were Jack. He geet a pair of' khaki pants off somebody and he wore 'em for school, long pants. Hee hee!
So when the mills finished quite a lot of these little firms went out.
R- Well it caused chaos. There were [a lot went out] I don't know all the other names but one were Ashley ‘cause it were Mona’s uncle. Ashley and somebody, they went out. Garnett's finished, Aspin's finished and, well there were a lot finished you know, there were. I think Pickles’ selled their wagons, they used to have wagons you know.
Yes.
R- And then there were who-is-it's, Clark’s, they more or less went didn't they as well.
Yes they sold out to Stockbeck, aye.
R- They sold out to Stockbeck.
And then Nutter's had their own wagons.
R - Nutter's had their own.
And they gave up.
R - If they get overloaded wi’t work we used to do odd loads for ‘em you know. Aye, well we, it made a good trade really then for Wild's because like what were left of weaving, they nearly did it all because we went to all the mills nearly in Barlick, picking cloth up. Kept five wagons going you know.
Yes.
R- Like while it lasted.
Yes.
R – Aye.
And then of course John got on wi’t containers.
R- Not right away, after we finished wi’t tramping. Well this here container job had started then hadn't it.[The railways were the first to start using containerised freight, they started before the war but it wasn’t until the 1960’s that freight containers as we know them today started to be used regularly. At first they were the twenty foot container which would fit comfortably on a four wheeler flat.] John went on to Preston a time or two and he got on, and it were the best days work he ever did for his drivers, you know what I mean, just going in there and picking a box up. And I'll tell you sommat else, if John hadn't have died it ‘ud have gone on a lot longer would Wild's, it ‘ud have still been going to-day. Because John wanted to get units you know, and leave body there wit trailer and coming home with the unit, you know what I mean.
Yes.
R - Fetch your unit home, you know. [The unit is the tractor unit. Jack is of course talking about converting to articulated wagons.]
Yes.
R - And then go and [pick your load up] because John ‘ud have gone on and backhanded them, which he used to do. [a backhander is a slang name for a bribe] 'cause they were allus No.1 in there were Wild's in the beginning when John were living you know.
Aye.
R- Number one were Wild Brothers aye, you could allus tell. 'Cause he were a good chap for this here, to them that mattered see.
Yes.
R - Now we could have come home, dropped us trailer there, and John ‘ud have seen to it that they take the trailer under the crane at morning and put another on. And all we’d have to do would be to go and that were hatching when John died. Well of course t’other hadn't the brains nor the, he wouldn't use his loaf wouldn't Edgar.
Aye.
R- Allus too tight wi’t money weren’t he.
Aye.
R - He wouldn't take no chances so that died out and it just, after the long distance it were just nothing you know. It just faded and faded.
Aye.
R - He were frightened of changing wagons, getting up, keeping up to date, because John allus did you know.
Aye.
R - Frightened of, oh he wanted to draw in but he didn't want to pay out, you know what I mean.
Yes.
R- That wore Edgar, although he's dead, I mean no harm to him but he weren’t a man for expanding anything. I think with John, I think Wild Brothers ‘ud have been going to-day.
Aye and like Albert and Billy didn't really set their stall out. [John’s sons]
R - Oh no.
Did they, not to get work in haulage.
R - Well you see young Bill would have done, young Bill had it all there, he were like his dad. But not Albert, he took after his Uncle Edgar.
Aye.
R - Them remaining men wouldn't have stuck so long at Wild's but for young Bill.
Aye.
R- Nobody called Bill among the lads you know because if you were grumbling about being a bit down in your money he’d follow you down stairs you know and shove you another fiver in your hand would young Bill. Oh aye I’d have worked for bill as long as he wanted, and in fact I could have done but I'd had enough when I'd done three year ower me time. It were still Albert then. He used to just pile it on and pile It on did Albert but Bill ‘ud have made a good boss because he were a bit carefree. We’d have kept things up to date an all because he were allus explaining to Edgar were Bill but it went nowhere. [This was after John had died and Edgar was running the job.] He’d more brains than Edgar had young Bill. But his health really pulled him back a bit from shoving his self forward too much.
Yes that's it.
R - Because he's allus had bad health has Bill. But I’ll never say nowt wrong about young Bill Wild because he were a good lad to all t’distance lads. He’d, any argument up stairs, he’d motion like this you know, and he’d follow you out, he’d tip you up. I've had an much as ten and fifteen quid off Bill.
There were some, they had some fair lads there at one time an all, one way and another didn't they.
R – They’ve had some of the best lads that ever 1 knew to work with an all. They have. Really speaking, because they were a real grand bunch to work wi’. You can’t say nowt wrong about any on ‘em. Well I couldn’t, because, odd times you get in places where you allus have a nark against one another don't you.
Aye.
R - But they all seemed to run and pull together there did the lads, especially on distance. No there were some reight good lads. Now Maurice [Nuttall] never run with us but he were a good man. Mind you, he were… a boss that geet Maurice, he’d have geet his monies worth.
Aye.
R- Because he were good and there were nothing about a motor he didn't know. He's loosened [got them out of trouble] people out on the road not only his own but others you know. Well known and admired on the road were Maurice, and although you didn’t care for him as a person many a time, because he used to lean to the bosses a bit, but if he heard anything, he hadn't heard it, you see what I mean.
Yes.
R- He’d lean to 'em happen if you'd had an argument, he’d take their part a bit, but if he heard you say anything about ‘em among yourselves, it didn't go to 'em.
Yes.
(20 min)
R - Like it does wi’ some on ‘em. Not wi’ Maurice, oh no, he’d never heard nowt, he’d never seen us. Same as some time when we should have been due back and we haven’t been, he hasn’t seen us you know and we’d been talking to him. Oh no he wouldn't have getten nobody in the shit as we used to call it. Not as you geet troubled a lot wi’ Wild's. It were a carefree place as long as you did your job, looked after your vehicle, you couldn't do nowt wrong.
(350)
And they were looked after there. They were looked after. They were.
Aye,
R- And if you did that you couldn't go wrong wi’ John or Bill. Now wi’ Edgar it doesn’t matter, they could have gone out rattling and thumping and bumping as long as they were earning money. There were that much difference between them two brothers, Edgar and John. Oh he were a gentleman were John to work for. And he had all AECs when he finished, he'd got all AECs. He’d got completely on them.
This is the AEC Mercury that I drove for years for West Marton Dairies. The wagons Jack is talking about were exactly the same but with a flat body.
You did have a Seddon didn't you?
R- Aye but it didn't seem to last long. They didn't take to it a reight lot, no. He were an AEC man, he sent their Bill down to Southall you know. He did his time down at Southall while we were on distance did young Bill.
Aye.
R – He took him down there did John and geet him lodgings at Southall.
I’ll tell you who's selling out this week, I knew there was something I meant to tell you. Plant's at North Rhode.
R- Nay are they!
They're selling the lot.
R- Are they!
They're going out of business.
R- Get away!
That's a bloody good customer gone for ERF isn't it.
A - Aye, aye it is that, get away.
I just looked at it in the Motor Transport. I still get Motor Transport.
R- Do you, aye,
And I just looked and It says, there’s a half page advertisement, this firm has been given the job of selling out Plants at North Rhode, everything.
R- Aye, get away.
Wagons, cars garage, the lot, everything.
R- Aye.
I mean that's one of the firms...
R- Eh. You wouldn't have thought that would you.
I mean it's like Robson's at Carlisle selling out that isn’t it.
R- Aye. aye.
I mean they've been going as long as, well.
R- Aye they have haven't they. There's some firms, it's surprising how long they've lasted isn't it? Of course I mean, when you grow with the times they do last don’t they? But once you get so far behind you never catch up. Well Edgar were one of them. John went wi’t times. See, what I mean, he altered as times went on. If there were owt better come out, he were getting better and I think meself he’d have had a good fleet of coaches an all. Which he allus had some decent ones because they were as good as any on road once were Wild's coaches. Till they started deteriorating after his death and then, it's like I say again, they were never renewed. They were second hand ‘uns what he did get then after. And it was Bill that got them, like he kept pushing. Bill had the right idea but he hadn't the power, you know what I mean.
I know what you mean and as you say his health held him up a lot didn't it.
R- And his health held him back a lot.
I mean he's had terrible health that lad.
R- Oh he wouldn't bother about shoving ten quid into your hand wouldn't Bill.
Aye.
R - He might have been a partner but he were only a silent partner, he had to do a lot of things on the side I dare say had Bill else he wouldn't have been able to do what he did wi’ us would he. See what I mean.
Yes.
R - But owt you wanted he’d say call at Southall or if you weren’t going down there call at Tillotson’s you know.
Aye.
R - Oh aye, and he’d make arrangements an all for you to run in. They've come down to the meat market to us a time or two has Southall’s [The AEC headquarters was at Southall], we've managed to get there but if we wanted any replacements they'd come out to us.
(25 min)
Aye.
R- And they never refused coming out to John or Bill, no, because you can bet your life he allus treated them right you know. Aye we were allus, owt that happened on the road you hadn’t so long to wait before.. Touch wood we didn't have much happen because he kept ‘em in good pomp did John. It were a strict, it were the first thing that John thought about, keep 'em in order you know. Apart from blow outs, which anybody could have, I don’t think we ever ailed much on the road, I didn't anyway, and none of t’others.
How about t’other lads, blokes like Crabby, were they alright? [Frank Crabtree]
R- Oh well aye. He were rough were Frank, he were one of roughest that ever were but he were a good worker you know. He used to work hard so as he could work for himself a bit did Frank.
Yes!
R- And he did, he geet a bit, I know he did, he’d some good jobs on, on the quiet. I've known him do jobs in between, you know. If Frank had a stay-over he’d a job on somewhere, but it ‘ud have to be sommat a bit, that were reight deceptive to kid Frank on the road, he were no dummy, you know what I mean. He were do dummy. If he were stuck he were stuck. It were like just too far out of his reach if he were stuck. I've never known him have to call Southall in or anybody unless it were for like changing a pump [fuel injector pump, something that can’t be repaired on the road] or sommat of that sort. They'd come down on to the market and change you a pump if you were having trouble, fuel trouble. They'd come round you know.
Aye, and Carl were on for ‘em weren’t he. Carl Standrill.
R- Oh well, Carl! I can’t give Carl any stripes although he were a good mate to have with you.
He mated for you a lot didn't he Carl? He mated for you a fair bit Carl didn't he?
R- Aye, aye. You couldn't call Carl, no, he could get there and back as long as the vehicle ‘ud do it you know. But he were a good lad to work wi’, you know what I mean.
Aye.
R- But he didn't take no interest in the running part of things, if it were wrong, the telephone ‘ud do for Carl.
Aye.
R- And I mean Carl could have slept there a day and a half in t’cab while they come, he didn't bother, no. We used to have some laughs wi’ Carl when we wakened up in morning we used to have the best laugh at him when he come out ‘bout his glasses and he's there like…. [Carl had very bad eyesight even with his glasses on, in fact he wasn’t really fit to drive at the latter end] .. No they were a bunch of good lads really. Me and Gordon run together most though.
Gordon Westwell?
R - Aye.
Aye,
R- 'Cause he allus used to come up here and we’d set off together. Come up for me and set off together. We’d get two loads of Glasgow's together, and we’d get two London's back. We run like that many a time till John used to break us up a time or two you know. He used to say, I think I’d better part you two for a week. Aye.. He knew there were no dodging going on though. I mean we used to do us three trips you know. They were allus satisfied. I don't think we were on the mat once for not doing us share. What Gordon and me used to do, we used to set off, we’d bang down and get unloaded, that were one lump of us mind you know, and then we’d get into Verlin’s early and wait for a Glasgow load. I’ve seen us wait all day and if he's said day after, one load today and one the day after, one ‘ud loaden up and t’other ‘ud wait see. And then we’d ring John up and tell him we were both loading in the morning, which Verlin's allus made it as we were you know although one was loading. And then we’d go to Glasgow together. Well, that were our week, we were reight till Saturday dinner time then. But we used to have to like knock on a bit if it happened that one had to wait overnight once, you know.
Yes.
R- And then we used to get into the garage you know, for Saturday and then we were right then for Dagenham, Fords at Dagenham when we were on steel but we used to fetch all sorts. You never knew what you were going to carry till you were coming back you know, loads of scrap iron and all sorts.
And what do you make of the way the jobs changed Jack now, I mean looking back, I mean it's all right but..
R- Aye.
You know, I’m not talking about just the road, because I mean, things have changed on the road but all the way round. I mean like when you started off, Barlick was full of looms and weaving away and..
R- Eh, aye. that's [done now]
It's gone.
R- It's gone aye. I mean even before it went, even that doubled up, they'd started running eights and twelve’s.
Aye.
(30 min)
R- Hadn’t they. It’s all alley's really some of 'em with these automatic looms.
[What Jack means is that sheds aren’t crowded with weavers and looms now, even the ones that are still going. One weaver to 40 or 50 looms.]
Yes.
R- With these boxes on them. [computerised]
Yes.
R- Aye, it's funny to think that we're still in the same era as we were then. I think so, because there's been sound barriers broke and all sorts in our life time. There's a lot happened in our life time tha knows Stanley.
Yes.
R- I mean, when I started, twelve mile an hour, I mean look to-day, you'd get in the way of the bicycle's wouldn't you!
Yes.
R- You know what I mean. I once put my motor in bottom gear and I couldn't believe it you know, I put it in second gear on the flat on New Road and I did twelve miles an hour, I geet it up to twelve, I couldn’t believe it, I couldn't believe it meself.
Yes.
(551)
R - I thought no, it couldn't have been so slow.
No that were the speed. That's same wi’ me wi’ twenty, aye.
R- Narthen. I thought it's been that but I can’t remember doing it.
Yes.
R- But you see you could then, because it were the speed.
Yes.
R- But it seemed incredible when I did twelve mile an hour on that clock and it were there, and I though no, it can’t be, but it ruddy were.
That ‘ud be wi’t AEC would it like?
R- Aye.
Sommat like that aye, yes.
R- I just slipped it in gear and just let it roll.
Just did twelve, aye.
R- And I looked and then I looked again and I looked at the road and out and there were traffic coming, and I looked and I thought no, I must be mistaken but I weren’t mistaken because I know for a fact it were so, twelve mile an hour.
Aye,
R - And then I thought no, when a bicycle chap rides past you and says your tall light’s out and then he goes sailing on, there’s no mistakes. There weren’t such things as windows then, just a big do at side of your cab, you looked out there were nowt tha knows.
Yes.
R- That were at Sagars like.
And do you think things are better now?
R- No, no. In a way, well I mean, some things. I mean all t’money job and everything’s come better hasn't it. But if you wore working and then, no grumbles. I had a happy time even in them times. I mean you can’t go out now unless you've about thirty quid in your pocket for a night out can you. If you'd two half crowns then, you used to have friends. You could have friends galore! Hee hee! Two half crowns were half of what you earned nearly.
Aye, that’s it, aye.
R- I mean if, you'd two shillings in your pocket you were well away then weren’t you. If you'd two shillings in your pocket a chap could go out and have five pints if he wanted 'em couldn't he.
Aye.
R- How much does he need to-day? I don't know because I haven’t drunk for years.
(600)
Well I don't know, but if he’s drinking that lager, some of that lager’s about 50p. a pint isn't it?
R- That’s what I mean. He’d want a tenner before he geet anywhere wouldn’t he.
Aye.
R- Aye, I mean you used to get a box of matches and five Woodbines for what, twopence halfpenny.
Aye.
R- Twopence halfpenny!
Yes.
R- Same as I worked in the quarry and I looked after the gas engine and that down there before I started on wagons. No, no I'd a break in between, I give up and went on the gas engine and time keeping, what you call a bit of a charge hand you know, and I were there till I went to Steeton, isn't it funny.
Aye.
R- Aye I finished on wagons, yes, I went out happen just odd times. Aye, when Sidney finished, when Sydney Sagar finished, mill job, when that finished. [John and Sidney went into manufacturing at Bankfield in 1910] Yes, he came up there.
Aye that’s it, aye at Bankfield.
R- And they put a wood office down in the bottom and I got, I’d to go down there and I were same as like, well same as the man down there, call it foreman if you want. I were time keeper, ruddy engine driver. It were a gas engine then, Ashton-under-Lyne gas engine.
National Gas.
R- National Gas, aye. I used to have to blow th’old anthracite up you know. You used to have to leave early at morning and get gas up for seven o’clock to start the saws you know.
Yes.
R- Didn't take long to get gas up, about a quarter of an hour that were all. Just lift your fire up and you'd a little fan on that blew, you had a tap there to try your gas. And then a drop of petrol in the pump on the engine, pump it in for the first stroke you know, and then turn it. Your gas were on and away it used to go. It used to run two saws and the crusher and a bit of a compressor for the drill, the rock drill. But they geet a little Crossley oil engine for that and had it separate so as they could have it anytime the gas engine were off you know.
(650) (35 min)
Yes.
R- So as they wouldn't just have to run the gas engine for old Albert Roberts, the rock getter. Aye. Eh no, I've had an interesting life really, I've no grumbles of my life you know what I mean. I haven’t yet anyway. Tha knows I'm getting on a bit now, seventy four now tha knows. I didn't think I'd have reached that age, I used to think to me self I’ll die me be the time I'm forty, having to work like this. Hee hee!.
(Stanley laughs) I always used to say the same. I used to say forty three.
R - Well. Aye.
I used to say the same.
R- I’ll tell thee sommat Stanley, I mean tha understands it. You work night and day, we used to work night and day there, no two ways about it.
Yes.
R- And there’s no excusing us selves.
Aye.
R- Now you see, them to-day, ha! they'll do about, by time I’d getten to Monday night I'd done what they do now for a week.
Yes.
R- And then if they do an extra day now they'll say he’s knocking his self up him! He'll work night and day.
Aye.
R- And their night and day’s only from about eight o’clock at morning till four in th’afternoon. Hee hee!
That’s it aye, it's a long day for ‘em now.
R - Well, how the hell! Why are we all living then, and we used to have, how did we go on then.
Well I don’t know but....
R- It strikes me there's more illnesses coming to-day off bloody idleness than what there is off work. Well it could be t’cause. Boredom.
Aye,
R- Boredom.
Oh, I don't think we ever got time to get bored.
(700)
R- Dosta know there's more things to-day to enjoyment than what there ever were. But boredom today, it’s terrible, and them days you hadn't time to be bored. I never used to know what boredom were. Same as at weekend, all the lads up Tubber Hill, they never used to think about going boozing and that every night. We used to get up the moors you know, doing a bit of poaching or down in the canal swimming, jumping, running, you kept yourself fit. The sport in them days and the enjoyment were things that kept thee fit tha knows when tha were young, I allus think. Well I do up to leaving school. I do, and my ambition were when I geet old enough, I were going to make the army my career. There were a life service in the army, but it never materialised wi’ having that accident tha sees. That did it. And same as during the war I went twice but I were thrown out. Well I weren’t thrown out, I were A1 all but for that, they said may be they could send me as an Instructor, you know, driving instructor, but they never did and I never bothered like, but I volunteered once and were sent up. I were called up once but I were grade three both times but that were through me left hand like, you know. You’d to be perfect hadn't you. Because a chap once threw it out at me as I thought I were alright because getting jobs same as at Wild's coaching there, you were exempt weren’t you. And John Wild get me out of Steeton tha knows to go on the coaches. And that's when he said like, you'll do owt bar go in th’army. I says look mate, I've been twice, I've been called up once and I volunteered when it started. I says hasta been? And he says “No”. I said “We’ll talk about that then!” tha knows. So I’d tried hadn’t I. When I'd been once voluntary and then geet me papers to go but I’d to go to Preston. It wore allus in me mind that I'd make a career of the army but it were happen as well I didn’t, I'd have been bloody shot because I’m that unlucky me at times. I'd have been shot, aye. But there’s allus big mouths isn't there Stanley.
Yes that’s so Jack. You are quite right.
(40 min)
R - Aye it were John Wild. I went to Steeton you know, I thought I’ll have some big money, mind you for two year I did, I get big money to what we used to have. From going to three pound, and same as in the quarry, that were good money what I were having then. Three pound six shillings because like wi’ being time-keeper, that added a bit extra you know. Others had about two pound fifteen or sixteen for a full week you know. Aye it like just bucked things up. But why I went to Steeton was I thought if I can get in there… and I telled Sydney Sagar I says "I'm going to try Steeton for a job.” Me and Arthur Fawcett went, not bookie, another Arthur Fawcett, and we geet on and us wages after a bit, after we’d been on these machines a week or two, we geet up to twelve pound. Well, going from here to twelve pounds, I mean it put us on us feet reight if you see what I mean.
(800)
R - That were the beginning of a better life for us really, I lived below then, on this row but just below, you know. Mona’s mother lived in here. So I stuck it for about two month and then it started getting at me then wi’ being closed in all the time because it were only a low place, Steeton Ordnance factory and wi’ allus being outside it bloody murdered me. I tried for two year before I geet out and then it were John Wild. I'd to go at front of a doctor, I made that much noise, at Colne. Stripped off and he examined me, he says “Well” Ooh I thought, lovely. He says “I'll tell you sommat”, he says “I wish I were half as fit as you are! Get back to thee work!” Hee hee! That’s reight, thee ask Mona! That’s all I geet, and then John Wild were asking me one day, he says “Why don't you come here” I says “How can I come here?” I says “I can’t get out” He says “Well I can get you out.” I says “What, even if the doctor can’t?” “Oh yes, for essential work you know, as long as you're coming into that.” And it were called essential work were them coaches you know. So I says “I’ll come and work for you then.” And me wage dropped to seven pound first week! I never give it a thought you know till I went. Eh aye, four pound drop straight away. I looked at it, I says how many days in this for? Oh good gracious I says. John says “Well, you'll be a long while afore we get to that price here!”, four pounds tha knows. We’d some hard work to do before we get to that price. If it hadn’t been for bits of fiddles, you could allus do a bit of fiddling on mill work, and I mean everybody fiddles. There's nowt I used to like better than a good fiddle, because them containers that come from Ireland, they never come correct, and they never come too low but you'd allus either one hind or two hinds too many.
Aye?
R - Now the first time it happened I took it up to the depot, we’d a depot at Peckham you know. And the foreman, he were a bit wild but he were a good sort were John. And I says “Hey John, I've getten two legs too many.” I called 'em legs, I weren’t used to these jobs then. He said “You mean two hinds. Well, what about ‘em?” “Well” I said “What have I to do wi’ ‘em?” “Well” he says “Can’t you sell ‘em?” I says “Course I can sell ‘em but I don’t know where.” He says “Look'” and he pointed, he says “Go to Bert’s” and he told me where it were and I went down and I went in. He says “Don’t go in as a stranger, just go in and say I've two hinds here Bert. So I went in and ordered a cup of tea and then when he come I said “I’ve two hinds in the box Bert. Do you want 'em?” He says “Yes bring ‘em in.” So I took ‘em in. He says “Carry ‘em in as though you’re delivering.” And it were t’best way were that.
(900)
R- Busy street in London, back doors, ruddy police cars going past. Me getting a hind out and carrying it in and then another, carrying it in. That's way to fiddle, not being, not looking round.
Mm, that's it, aye.
R- Hey, thirty quid. I thought bloody hell! So I went back up to the depot. I counted this money and was going to give some to John. “No” he says “I don't want it. I've me own side lines.” So like it were good on him weren’t it, whether he were thinking I were in tha knows….
(45 min)
R- But he says “They can’t do nowt about it. We can’t send 'em back to Ireland. We can’t go to the bother of that, you’re all right.” So anyway when I were hard up I used to be one short whether the bloody count were reight or not, because there used to just be a bit of wire through and twisted round. Well I think there were that many being short well they geet them there seals and tha like shoved it in a slot and then they stamped it see. {Jack is talking about a lead seal which was crimped over the wire and marked with an embossing tool] But Crabby even had one of them, I don't know where he’d getten it, a stamper an all tha knows. He made some brass wi’ that. He’d regular customers, it were him that used to tell us where to take 'em. He’d got the key to one butchers shop had Crabby. Aye he had that, in North London, because I were going down one night and I had two like, two or three and he said well wait a minute and I’ll give thee the key and put 'em in at Bert’s, I'll pay thee now see, he paid me and he said I'll ring Bert up and tell him. I opened this shop, went in and put them in. And if the police saw us, he says put the light on when tha goes in t’shop and then they'll know it's reight, that delivering. Aye, that's where we learnt it off Crabby, the cheekiest fiddler, but it's like he said don’t stand watching them or they’ll know that there's sommat bloody wrong, never watch ‘em, ignore ‘em. Aye we used to ignore ‘em and it paid off. Gerry Earnshaw, He’ll tell thee about a do, he will that. If Gerry were up here he’d start laughing. Aye, he once said to me “Can I go down with you?” “Aye” I said “Tha can go tonight, I've a midnight delivery on and then I’ve to go to, where is it, load at Birds Eye at Great Yarmouth after, in the morning you know when we were empty. So he says "Right". So at morning like I’ve these here two hinds tha knows to deliver first to Bert’s. No I'm wrong, I weren’t delivering ‘em at Bert’s, I were taking 'em out of London to Crabby's shop. That were it. I were thinking I were wrong there. And I'd these here two hinds wrapped up at front, tha knows, in between the container and the headboard wi’ a sheet ower, just thrown ower careless.
Yes.
R - No messing just careless, tha knows.
Aye.
R - And I'd these to call wi’ and Gerry's wi’ me and we geet down to this here shop, and we’d had about three pull backs. We’d set off, for a start London Bridge were up well that's th’only one that’s to wait for tha knows, not London Bridge, t’other, what the…
Tower.
R - Tower Bridge that's th’only bridge you've to wait for when that goes up isn't it.
Aye.
R- So we've to wait of bridge and I'm delivering this just out of London on us way to where I said, Bird’s Eye at Great Yarmouth. So anyway we get further down and every bloody thing held us up that morning. And I say's to Gerry, “Thank goodness for that” because I'd to be at Great Yarmouth at a certain time tha knows. So I says to Gerry, we're here but there's a hell of a crowd about isn’t there. Well the butchers shop were there, well here there were a bit of a pass do. you know, and the main road here and we used to go on this here bit, it were a bit of a lay-by on
(1040)
[The tape ended, sorry kids!]
SCG/27 December 2002
9,108 words.
