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We shall just roll quietly on from where we left off last week, because I can remember my exact words. I said I didn't think much of the disease but I thought the treatment was bloody marvellous.

R - Morning, lunch time, tea time and supper time. Couldn’t have better feed than that Stanley.

Now, I was talking to a little bird with bow legs this week and he told me that weren’t the only thing you had while you were out there.

Ernie. You had sommat else while you were out there that was rather nasty. Did he say something about Nairobi Eye?

R- Well .. now then, when we were abroad Stanley, we slept with mosquito nets and the way they made these huts, they happen threw them up for shelter or sommat like that. They put us under some trees. Right? I don’t know, they were a certain type of tree. Now then there were, I should say it reminded me of a big caterpillar, he used to eat these leaves. Now then, these used to fall down on to the hut top, if you didn’t watch it they’d come in. Now, if you had your mosquito net up at night they'd a tendency to get under that net and just crawl on you. Well, one crawled up to my eye

and just went across it, top of my lid and it left some kind of acid. Well, you'd never seen owt like that in the morning, it were just like bladder of lard stuck out were me eye. And that were full of water. So next thing I'm rushed to hospital with it, and all they did was put some kind of powder such as a Johnson’s baby powder, just dust it with that and a big swab of cotton wool and then a lightly put bandage all round it. And I had to keep that on until it kept going down and down. And they said “Don’t bump it at all, you can lose the sight of your eye with that.” And it just went down normally but all flabby skin where it had all been affected. It were just like somebody who is aged were that, you know, how they wrinkle up?

I don’t think I want to go to Nairobi. It's funny, I know a lass that's just gone out there and all. I’ll tell you who's out there, Linda that was here the other week with you, Linda Lloyd Jones.

Yes, she’s gone back out there. Anyway, that's a different story altogether. So, after you’d been in hospital, you went into hospital at Liverpool?

R - I went, well, when they whipped me home from Africa on the 11^th of November.

New there, let me just get it straight, they shipped you back to Liverpool and …

R- Me first stop were at Port Said, I came from Mombassa to Port Said on a Canadian hospital Boat. And then we were trans-shipped to a ordinary passenger boat from Port Said to Liverpool. Treat? When you got from Port Said to Liverpool, oh it were shocking to anybody that were just coming out of hospital. I were just an ordinary passenger then. It were nearly as bad as when you went out Stanley, with a palliasse on a table top and such as that. Well then, when we arrived at Liverpool we were shipped to hospital. I think it were up Prestwick way, somewhere there, I forget the name of the hospital. It were on a main road because I used to see Feather’s wagons from Colne, road transport, used to come past daily the top gate.

R - Six weeks, Then I were parcelled up, bag and baggage because they couldn’t give me any treatment really, they didn’t give me any treatment, just carried on with the bottle of Guinness. And I played hell. I said “I might as well be at home”, and you know how you do – “If I can’t go I’ll get on Feathers wagon and be home in no time” you know. But they shipped me out of there, and I were on a double decker bus on me own to Lime Street Station at Liverpool, two kitbags and a valise and I weighed 5 stone 13 pound when I left. And It’s a good job there were folk about that could carry that stuff because I couldn’t Stanley. And you know how you changed trains in them days to get to Colne…

R- Well every change that I had to make I had to rely on somebody to carry them two kitbags and me valise and put then in another compartment for me.

a place to send invalids! They were mental at one side you know. And they'd t’other half for soldiers. Well, all you got there were remedial P.T. you know, because me feet were worse if you know what I mean, me legs seemed to be… they wouldn't go like they did before, you know. So they were going to have me going on route marches. “Well, I said - I'm not having that,” So I had to sit on a form in this here place, I used to just keep turning me foot up and down, like remedial PT. And I always remember, I'd be in there happen two months at Calderstones, and weren't 1 glad to get out. I had to go in front of a board and they downgraded me. Well I went in front of two, well first time I went in front of .. just … well there were these little red hats and they sat there with white coats and what have you .. a lot of twaddle it were. They say "Well, you are graded three, C3. “Well I haven't had any treatment.” “Get out” he says. So I had to report back to the same lot the week after. No arguing

or asking me how I felt or owt like that, I were just C3 and out again. And I went from there to Blackburn, Witton Park, and .. I'd be there two months happen more. From Witton Park I had to report back to Woolwich t’way I came. You know, which is the base for the artillery actually.

R- Well aye, happen about seven stone. But best that I went when I started putting weight on, it were when I moved to Woolwich because I met an old friend of mine there. And usually when you got C3 you were on low shoes, couldn't wear big heavy ones you know, low shoes. You couldn't go on guard duty or such as that; all you

were doing then Stanley were such as toilet cleaning or in the cook house. Anyway, I’m parading one day and this bloke that we‘d been with before we went abroad, and he’d been left in England and he was a corporal. And he were in what they called the employment office there. So I finished up In the employment office with him, and that were just a matter of everybody out on parade that morning. There’d he four or five hundred on parade; and it were just like a big, you could call it a big unemployment office. You used to have to go down on to the square and count them off in hundreds or sixty or seventy, men you know. And send them out on demolition

or search parties. If there'd been a raid you used to send to many out and they’d start digging for bodies in these bombed out houses. And you used to send them down to Woolwich Arsenal to the ammunition works, or you sent them down to the docks. So that were a very good job because I had a good billet and I’d me meals brought in from the cook house straight away and it were better food and I started gaining weight you know. Well .. after that we moved to Birmingham from there, same kind of thing, and from Birmingham we were sent to Manchester and out into new clothes and out of the army. You know, demobbed.

R – Nineteen forty six sommat like that. So you come home, and you have your leave and then you get fed up, you know. Oh, I had about .. I had a hell of a long while on leave. Well, after the first three weeks I were fed up. So I went and reported to the dole to see if I had a job. Well he says – you can go back into textiles. Bugger that I say, and '”There must be some better jobs than that!” you know? All right - he said, look, I’ve found you a job then, you can go to the gas works. And the bloke that were on there, dishing these jobs out, were a fellow that had the same job that I did before I was called up. You can call him a mate, work mate. And he had t’bloody cheek to try and send me to the gas works! C3 I says, you’ve got a bloody hope! Oh no! So I decided to come back in textiles; so I were back in the mill after a month.

R - back home.

Now tell me, you'd gone away to the war, never been out of the country, you’ve gone abroad, you’d seen all sorts, and you’re back in Barlick again. Now would you say that when you came back to Barlick .. I’m not talking about what you found when you came back just for the moment ... how would you say your attitudes had changed, had your attitudes changed when you came back?

R- Well I can't tell, I don’t think they had really Stanley.

Do you think you were the same fellow that you were when you went out? You'd had a lot of experience…

R – Well, I were a bit more bloody cheeky.

Now what do you mean by that?

R- I’d been pushed around and least bit of a thing like. You’d say, you know, “Get stuffed” or sommat like that you know. I would never have thought of saying that before to anybody. Same as I played a season of cricket you know after I came back.

(300)And .. you'd that ‘devil may care’ attitude, you didn't give a bugger. If somebody said …same as I used to field in't first slip, in't cricket, mainly in the slips And least bit of a chance I thought, for an L.B.W. position I’d shout me head off and if anybody turned round and said “We’re playing a game of cricket” I’d say “Be quiet, what the hell are you talking about. Get on with thy bloody game!” I’d never have said that before Stanley.

Yes. How about Barlick itself, any change in Barlick, you know, any change in the town?

R - No change, Stanley, no change, it were still the same Barlick to me. Same faces. Nay, there were mostly the same faces at work..

R- Well no, I wouldn't say there were Stanley. There'd been a few killed, but there were only one out of the mill and he were killed early on in the war. Well you were used to that you see, before we went.

What were the attitude of people in Barlick when you came back. When I say 'their attitude' you know, what was their attitude towards people that had been away at the war and come back, was there any different attitude?

R- No conquering heroes or owt like that. They just, I think they thought like you'd a right to go and that were it. And that's what it boiled down to.

R- And there were no danger of anybody coming any more, [Enemy raids] so the feeling had gone out of that. Well, before t’war started, least bit of danger, even if the siren went, plenty of panic stations in Barlick. Oh aye, everybody were going to build air raid shelters, any nook or corner where they thought they could get an air raid shelter, they'd do sommat about it.

R- Well. You see there were these raids at Liverpool and at Manchester. Well ... you take it then Stanley there were bugger all to raid here, really. [I think Jim was saying that the siren went when enemy planes flew over on the way to other targets.]

R- Yes. Well, I were training at Carlisle when the first raid were in Manchester. And the morning after, the parade ground were empty because I were called up with all Manchester lads, just a few from London. They'd all took their hook to the Manchester and Salford area to see if their families were all right. Aye. Well after they come back they were doing a fancy bit of doubling round the parade ground with their kit, with a valise on their back.

R- And you wouldn’t even think… No, war didn't mean nowt after, when you come back and it’d been over a few months. Everybody carried on as normal. Everybody were trying to get into Rolls. Well it were the Rover Company and that, get into that place and the textiles had been a bit forgotten then because they'd found out that there were far better in jobs in engineering than whatever there were in textiles.

And then there were .. at that time you are talking about .. just let's see whether I've got it right .. Wellhouse was closed. Wellhouse had been used as a tobacco warehouse.

[Rolls Royce actually took over the Rover Company’s assets in the area in early 1942 but by that time the phrase ‘working at the Rover’ had become common currency and hung on for a long time.]

That were under Rover as well weren't it? Now, what other mills were closed down, can you remember, after the war? Let’s go through them, it’ll be the easiest way for you. Westfield, what were going on there?

R – Yes, they were weaving in there, there were such as .. there’d be Mannock & Gill and probably Cairns and Langs were still there. And then there were Edmondson’s there.

R- Well, Butts, they changed soon after the war. There were a fridge firm in there that made electric fridges and such as that Stanley, so that had been changed over. So there weren’t… there was one you know, what do they call them, Aldersley’s, there were Aldersley’s at the back side at Butts.

R - Now let’s see .. I think Clough’d still be going. I'm nearly certain Clough'd still be going under Slater’s.

That were Pickles ... yes and who else were in t'Long Ing? Was there somebody else in there? Anyway it doesn’t matter.

R- Barnsey were Pickles, Knowles’s and Nutter Brothers. Nutter Brothers at one end, because Nutter Brothers were down at Grove and they moved out of Grove because they [government] took that over for a storage place during the war, Grove Mill down at Earby, which is now Armoride.

Aye. And Moss were Widdups, there were nobody else in Moss only Widdups were there?

R- Holdens, Blackie Holden’s and then there were another ... Alderton’s were it?

R- In Moss there were Widdup’s, Alderton’s, Holden’s .. Widdup’s had the biggest area there.

Aye, it were Widdup’s mill weren't it, Moss. They were the biggest share holders.

R – Well, Ellerbank did a small bit but at the back side of Moss Shed Stanley. And then they moved from…

R- Silk, they were a silk firm. And then they moved from there back down into t’other back end of…

R - Yes. Now there were also, when they started up there were, Ellerbank came into it and then there was another small firm in there, and then Nutters started again you see, it’d be Nutter Brothers.

No, at one time they were in, or the people who formed that company were in Coates Mill and then I don't know whether they went down to Earby. Did they go down to Earby?

R - Now there were, what were that place called .. were it Fernsil that went in to where Edmondson were?

Aye it could be, it sounds like it, Fernbank silk weaving, Fernsil. I've not heard of them but that could be right.

R - There were a firm moved in there you know, a silk firm. Because not long after, it weren't a long while after, you got such as Mannock & Gill finishing, and all them smaller units. I should think out of the original ones down there now there is only Edmondson because the other is Lontex isn’t it?

That’s it, yes. Now then, there are still some looms down there isn't there? Those are the only other looms in Barlick. They tell me it’s a very well run place.

Yes, there's a, what's the name of the fellow that's running it? Is it, is he called Mr Brooks or Mr Crook or something?

R - Oh now wait, it's, they’ve just got in. Sneath used to be the manager, shed manager there at one time, now he has finished. Now they’ve got ., who is it they've got on? But they’re in like a specialised mill, they’ve only about .. what, 80 looms now. But there were a write up about

their cloth not long since in the paper. Didn’t they take it [their cloth] on an expedition? Was it on this last climbing that was done?

R - Well there were a write up in t’paper about it but it's all specialised cloth down at Edmondson’s.

Anyway, the point is that Barnoldswick, when you came back, could still be said to be a cotton manufacturing town. I mean, without .. I'm not going to start reckoning the number of looms up now but there were still a fair number of looms in Barnoldswick and to some extent things would be, apart from Rover and part of Butts being taken up with somebody else, things would be very similar to what they were before the war. Now, what I'm working round to is, you came back to Nutters. Do you think that the attitude of .. of course we’ll be talking about Wilfred now won't we. Wilfred Nutter. Do you think Wilfred's attitude towards the cotton industry was any different after the war than it was before?

I remember you once saying about Wilfred that you didn't think that Wilfred could ever imagine the day…

R- He couldn't see any, as far as Wilfred were concerned Stanley, he couldn't see anything .. taking labour for any other labour which were going to he used, apart from textiles. He couldn’t see such as engineering becoming the main thing in this town.

R- He’d no foresight regarding the weavers because as far as Wilfred thought about them, they were just gun fodder for the looms..

Yes, that’s it. Now there’s something comes in with that, something that Ernie said about when he came back after the war. He said that the biggest surprise that he got was the fact that weavers were now being treated as human beings, he said they needed weavers.

And one thing he mentioned in particular was about Widdups where he went. Aye, he did a bit at Bouncer and then he went to Widdups and he were at Widdups 11 years after the war. He said they actually had a woman coming round with a trolley for tea, with tea for the weavers. And he said things like that were unheard of. Now would you say that the attitude towards the weavers, you know, as distinct from Wilfred’s attitude, was the attitude towards the weavers any different up at Bancroft than it had been before the war?

R- Oh no, they still kept the same old attitude at this firm Stanley and it's gone on through the ages.

R- They still have the same old, well, take it now Stanley, as I can see it, they’d nobody with any push here or any foresight. They wore contented to do their time out and that's what they were satisfied with.

R- Well I mean such as W.E. [Wilfred] Now he had a son that wasn’t interested in textiles, this is why Wilfred sold out, and that was when he sold out in 1948 to the Leigh Manufacturing Company. Now then, there was…

I’m just going to interrupt you there because I want you to talk about something that I don't think you'd talk about if I didn’t put it to you. Now, I think that from the conversations I've had with you and from what you know yourself, I mean, you are not daft Jim, Wilfred had little ideas about you from time to time and I know, I’m pretty sure of that from some of the things that you’ve told me. You know, you mentioned that you were always being put on different jobs, you know, before the war. Now, when you came back after the war, I mean, to me, it was fairly obvious,

you've just said it, Wilfred had nobody to follow him, and I think in some ways that Wilfred, this in only pure supposition, I think meself that Wilfred would have been a lot happier if he’d had you for a son.

R - Well now, that's funny because Wilfred said that he’d never have sold out if his son had been as interested in working in textiles as what I were.

Yes. Now, now, this is the thing that I’m trying to get at because, as I say I never knew Wilfred, but .. I mean, I know enough about him from the enquiries that I've made to know what sort of bloke he was. And I know very well, knowing what sort of a bloke you are, I know that you and Wilfred would have had a lot in common. Now how did he, was there any evidence of that when you came back after the war and started working here, in the treatment you got off Wilfred? Tell me about that.

R - Oh yes, you see …I could have still, when I come back out of the army, I were offered a professional cricket contract for two year in Scotland. Now at that time, we came to one period where things were a bit sticky, after the war. Now then, when I’m put on the dole Stanley, I don't like that, I didn't want to he unemployed, in fact I couldn't afford to be unemployed. So I thought “Well I'm not standing for that, I’m looking for a fresh job.”

So I put this to Vernon Nutter who were the manager and he said he couldn't give me a decision, I’d have to see Uncle Wilfred, which were Wilfred Nutter. So I met Uncle Wilfred and he were prepared to guarantee me full employment, 52 weeks a year, as long as long as I was here, to keep me here instead of going on this professional cricket contract.

R- So what I .. more warps I got through and the more wage I had. Your wage were reckoned up on the number of ends you did per week.

R - Still no basic wage, these are the things you see that they couldn't face. Well I’ll just give you an instance; .. I worked next to a cripple so I lifted him his warps in. Now, in some cases warps for tacklers, put onto the trucks to take into the weaving shed, were badly placed. So with me being the youngest up there, they used to always say to me “Give us a lift Jim” So I naturally gives them a lift, but all the time I'm away from my frame I'm not drawing ends, which affected my wage. So I went and saw Mr Nutter about this. Reply I got from asking him if he couldn't put me on standing wages, first reply I got was “Well if you are away from your buffet say two minutes Jim, book that two minutes on a piece of paper and reckon all the two minutes, or whatever time it is at the end of the week, hand them into the office, and then we'll reckon it up and see how much you're going to lose.” And this is the whole attitude about Nutters, it's hard to believe but it is so.

R- So I, I've studied this over a few weeks and I thought “I'm a mug, I’m still going to be wasting me time writing on bits of paper, and how do I go on if I can't find me paper?” So I thought bugger this, I’m having a right do! So eventually we all finished up on standing wages not just me. All the others benefited by it.

Yes, now tell me something about that. I assume that after the war you were in the union. Were you?

R- No, and anybody that had owt to do with strikes before the war would never have woven at Nutters.

Aye. Now that brings me round to something else on the same subject. I was very surprised when Billy Brooks said to me that the first time in all the years that he'd been taping anybody mentioned joining the union to him was in 1943 just before he finished. I thought that there'd been a tapers union [for years]... Mind you, this wasn’t here of course, this was at Westfield, yes, Westfield.

That’s it, Brooks. And I was under the impression that the unions had got a far tighter hold on the industry before then.

R- Well, they had in some areas which were Nelson. Nelson were a strong union area even before the war Stanley.

R- I don't know what the reason would be but if you… as soon as they say to you “How about joining the union?” and you’d say “Bugger the union” that were just passed off. But you say that now and hell fire, you’d be out of work. I have to be in the union.

R- Now. I’m in the Drawer’s Union but in my job as manager of James Nutters I shouldn’t be drawing warps should I?

R- But if I didn't, weren’t a member of the Drawer’s Union, I couldn't draw one single end at this firm now.

And yet, we must remember that people a long time hence'll be listening to this tape, I’ll make a statement now that’ll perhaps make them laugh in a hundred years, but the fact is that if you were working at a union shop, on a normal union rate of pay, the number of warps you draw with your wage would actually be more than what you get now as manager. I mean we’ve argued this many a time. Now that is an anomaly, it must seem so to people who listen to this tape, but that’s a fact isn’t it?

That if you were doing nothing else but draw warps you could, .. on a union rate you could make more money than you get now.

Yes, which in a way is an indictment of the industry isn't it. It’s an indictment of the way the industry is run. I mean, a man should be worth his wage.

R - Well .. Weaver’s Union has never been as strong I should say in Barnoldswick than what it is now under Raymond Hill. And yet there’s weavers in this place that's not in t’Union and they've no intention of joining the Union and they're not forced to join Stanley. But let them move out of here to say Colne, or Nelson, they won't get a start unless they were in the union. But Barnoldswick, I don't know why, it's never been a really strong union place. You take it, wages in Barnoldswick has been lower for years.

Yes. Well now .. I was just going to say something about that. Would you say that it was true to say, from what I've seen of the disputes in Barnoldswick, from what I’ve been able to gather from different sources, I don’t really see that the Weavers Union has ever done the weavers any good in Barlick. I mean, can you think in your experience, you know, going back to 1935, of any time when the Weavers Union have actually brought the weavers through a dispute and gained ...

R - When the weavers have been better off? No. All the disputes that I can remember in this area has never benefited work people. They've always come under-side.

R - Because in the old days they thought they'd this Communist attitude because biggest part of strikes was caused by one certain lot of people. It was the same lot that caused these strikes. And like anything else, Stanley, you get people like sheep, they'll follow won't they? They don't think for themselves, they let other folk think and then they can be talked into anything. Now then, this is why you've got these here scuffles at these mills when we’d the strikes in this area. But there were none of them that had caused this here, they were .. when the police were down at Kelbrook, they were back in Barlick. Then it were the ordinary workers, not real hard and fast union people, that were getting thumped with the police and such as that. And then .. bosses aren’t silly, they know whose who, so within a week they' d be out of the firm, they'd have no job at all.

You mean the people, the agitators? And who were they in general? I mean, are you thinking of somebody in particular or just …?

R - Well .. I can give you an instance. We’d a fellow at Kelbrook, a fellow called Tom Whittaker who were an overlooker at Dotcliffe Mill where there were a scuffle up there with the strike.

R- Well it'll be round about what, 1930 sommat, I can't remember just Stanley. And he stopped out you know and booed folk that were going in and that fellow never tackled again as long an he lived in this area. You take a fellow across there, a fellow called Preston, he's another brother. What the heck. It isn’t Alan Preston, what’s his other brother’s name? He used to be a weaver at Bancroft here. After the upset, he never wove no more for James Nutter, they put him down as a Communist, but he weren't a Communist.

An if say, Nutters had somebody in like that, somebody on the looms, and they wanted them out. What means could they use to get them out?

R - Well you could find all sorts of complaints Stanley. Bad time keeping which is easy enough, or going in the toilet smoking which wasn't allowed. Least bit of a thing and they were cracked on and they’d just be given notice, they wouldn’t be given notice, they’d be stopped there and then. Least bit of a fault, it wouldn’t be worth while stopping at a place like that Stanley, they could make them, their lives, a hell.

R - Wear them down. Because, you bear in mind Stanley, if you sack one you’d always another for the looms. That's what we've been talking about, there were always this here gun fodder.

R- Before the war you could have up to 20 stood in the warehouse, from half, half pact six in morning for seven o'clock start.

So there'd be times after the war when Nutters at Bancroft would be in a position where they had more looms than weavers?

R- Now, well … When I came back, Stanley there’d be roughly about 876 loom running. Now bear in mind that some looms had gone out, there wasn’t 1150. Actually there were more than 1152 because they were storing some looms there on top of some more from Nutters at Wellhouse. Well they got going again. Now them looms were in storage here. So when they come to take then looms back out there was less than 1152 looms in this place.

R- And then I can remember it dwindling down to 789 one time. And it kept gradually dwindling, either with people becoming old, and you mostly got young girls in then from school. Now there were rumours starting about Rolls Royce going to take such as Bankfield over [I think Jim meant Wellhouse] which would be run with Rover. So old men were so anxious to get out, which meant they lost one or two men .. as they went labouring to Rolls Royce.

Now when you say that, do you mean weavers wanting to get out of … No Bankfield were already Rover, that's it, no it couldn't have been that. When you say men wanting to get out, you mean get out of textiles into Rolls Royce?

R- So gradually the workforce starts decreasing slowly for a start, but it is, it’s decreasing Stanley.

And this was at the time when the slogan was ‘Britain's bread hangs by Lancashire’s thread’. That’s it.

R- You see, you could take it now Stanley, all .. cotton and employers thought of then was production, getting it off the looms irrespective of what the cloth were like. As long as they were getting yardage and charging for it that were it because it were so badly needed was cotton after to war. Right, school leavers start coming in. They used to bring young girls in, within three weeks them young girls would be on looms of their own.

R- Four looms, leave them with four looms. Well hell fire, this is why textiles is in such a state today Stanley, because them at that age were never taught properly how to weave. And the bosses, even in them days Stanley, they couldn't see their way to keep them learning a full period of at least three months, because it were costing them money. So they got them on four loom as quickly as they could even if it were to produce rubbish, which they could get shut of.

I've heard you on about this before, about this being one of the reasons why, in your opinion, the industry did decline. Because of the way them trainees were brought in, the sort of people they had to follow on. And the good weavers that you've got now who would be about that age, at that time, what's the reason why they are better weavers than most of the others?

R- Well, because they probably have .. Well, take Mary Cawdray now Stanley. Your best weavers now is somebody who were in this mill before the war. You can name them, Mary Cawdray, Olive Whittingham, she's an oldish one.

R- Same as, take Martha Edmondson who died a few years back at eighty sommat. Now she, at her age, could produce more than what these young uns are producing now.

Well, I think we said at the time that if Martha hadn’t had to stop she wouldn’t have died would she, she’d have kept going.

R- Oh, going into 80. And there weren't anybody with cleaner looms and a better cloth producer than Martha.

Well, look at the mother in law, Mary Hepworth, I mean, Christ she used to polish her looms.

R- You see, you could sell their cloth to anybody Stanley. You could send any of that cloth to any customer and not be frightened of anybody complaining about it. But not now. You see, you get learners after the war, say 1948, well, they’re only 30 year old now, aren't they?

Nineteen forty eight, seventy eight, thirty years, they’re forty four. Fourteen when they started.

R- Nineteen forty, well nineteen forty … it's only nineteen seventy eight now isn’t it?

R – Well, you take in there, you take such as, oh I can, I can, I could name you some of them in there Stanley that'll never produce cloth as long as they have a hole in their arse.

R - They were never learned properly in the first place, they’d never a fair crack at the whip. Weaving, especially with a Lancashire loom Stanley, is a very highly skilled job, there's more to it than just saying, oh .. she is a weaver.

Ad yet wouldn't it be true to say that weaving has never really been either regarded or paid as a skilled job?

R- No, never. You take in now Stanley .. you know this for a fact that there's people gone out of this place now, they've gone to Rolls Royce as a cleaner, they get a long brush, a mop and a bucket and a tea trolley, and they’re what you call a highly skilled cleaner and they'll draw £52.50 per week.

R - Within two hours they're skilled. You'll have somebody that's been in here 40 years and they'll not come out of that place with £46.

There again, that is another indictment of the industry. Actually I think meself that that is one of the big things and I want to do more, more about that with you. A friend of mine has a saying and I think it’s a true one; “If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.”

LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT

TAPE 78/AA/07