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THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON JULY 24TH 1978 IN THE ENGINE HOUSE AT BANCROFT. THE INFORMANT IS JIM POLLARD, WEAVING MANAGER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.

Right, quietly away Jim. Right, something you said last week about how bad it was to find work, and your father was working in the bakery, he wasn’t working in the mill. And you couldn't find a job when you left school. Now, if your father had worked in the mill, do you think it would have been any easier for you to have got a job?

So with being a, what it amounted to was that with being a cricketer and with Wilfred being a cricketer, you got this job at Bancroft.

Yes right. So you are working up at Bancroft, and you're twisting and you don't like it.

R- I don't really know Stanley but I didn’t. It's .. you either like it or you don’t like the job, isn’t it? It's as simple as that. But I did it, I could do it, but I wouldn't have settled down at hand twisting. I had me eye on sitting on a buffet on like t’other side which we called the drawing side. The place where you started from scratch and put pattern into the healds.

So now, hand twisting, tell me exactly what you were doing when you were twisting. I mean for a start off, what we are talking about is warp preparation, it’s preparing warps that have been taped and sized and we are talking about fitting them up with the necessary healds and reeds for you to be able to weave them in a loom.

R - Hand twisting amounts to, once they've been in the mill, there’s your set of healds and reeds that comes out of the shed, and you know it’s a sound heald and sound reed that can be knotted back if there is a continuity of that order. So what you did in the old days was hand twist them back. And that's by taking an end from your heald side, and taking an end from your warp side and knotting it by finger, like we said last week. And to keep your fingers pliable you just put one dip into some whitening with a bit of glycerine, smear it up your finger and pick one end from your warp side, one from your heald side and run it up your finger, and that'll give you a twisting. [a knot]

R Thirty five. Well, there wasn't a lot of it then because what you did, you got Barber and Coleman knotting machine, them were the rage in them days, Barber and Coleman knotters. And you could do them on a machine and you'd go through a warp of a number of ends, of say twenty five hundred ends, you’d go through that in ten minute.

R - Nutters had got a Barber and Coleman then but they always needed a spare man on hand twisting.

A - Well, when I come here at 1935 it’d be, it was in, and possibly that’d be in when this firm started up in 1921.

R - You see, in them days, Stanley, we were on eleven fifty two looms. Preparation side worked from seven in the morning, half an hour break at half past eight till nine o'clock for breakfast then you carried through from nine o'clock while half past twelve, then you had lunch break from half past twelve till half past one and you worked through then another four hours till half past five. But the preparation side of this firm in them days carried on working from half past five till nine o’clock every night for four night per week, you'd one night off which was Wednesday night because the fellow

that ran the Barber and Coleman machine had to go to the Cooperative society meeting on a Wednesday night, and that's why you got one night off.

R- Well, a fellow called Bill Whiteoak, Bill Whiteoak worked what you could call the putting in machine, take it down, do all the repairs for it, and he were more or less the main man for the machine were Bill Whiteoak. Russell. Wilkinson were knocking on, well he were I should say about fifty, fifty three or four then. And when you'd one of them machines, a Barber and Coleman, there is always what you call a backman, and that were a fellow called Eccleston. Now then, Russell Wilkinson in them days when he were up here, he were more or less preparing himself to go to another place of Nutters which was Westfield Mill. So when Russell Wilkinson got on the move, Billy Whiteoak, which I've just mentioned, took complete charge of that machine. He used to do repairs to all the electric stuff and that.

R- Hand drawing? Dan Brennan, Walter Plumley and Bob Walker. And they used to a have a spare man called Bobby Calvert.

R- A spare man called Bobby Calvert. Now, and at top of that you'd also got two fellows and one used to have all your healds and reeds ready, clean, for the machine and also put sets at the side of the drawers which they had to

do that day. Then the second man for that used to come and he’d go round, he’d

go down and carry his healds about for him while he brought them into the hoist, old wood hoist, and brought them upstairs. He’d sweep up a bit for, he was what you could call a spare, odd man about. He’d be on only about twenty five or twenty seven and six a week then.

So, if you are on straight going sorts, you know, say you were in a mill with sorts that'd go through a Barber machine. Under good conditions you know, and the type of warps we have here, how many looms would a Barber machine service, you know, how many would it keep going ?

R – Well, you reckon it up, a good Barber and Coleman with a good backman would do about 32 or 33 warps a day.

And how many warps a day do you reckon that you’d need in those days with eleven hundred loom in?

R- Well, I've seen us when we worked from, those hours I’ve told you, and also Saturday morning while half past ten, I've seen the downs in that shed come out at four hundred and five hundred a week.

When you talk about downs, that's the number of empty warps that are coming out?

R - Yes. Because there were some sorts in that shed that were only lasting a fortnight. People in them days were only on fours and fives [looms]. Now them looms were speeded up to what they’re going now, and they’re on ten looms.

We’ll just talk about More Looms for a minute or two now because that was about the same time wasn’t it, 1935, now we are not talking about Bancroft

now, I can remember you telling me about something, about Sough Bridge Mill and mounted police. Now tell me about that.

R – It’d be .. that’d be before ... How I came to be involved in that strike Stanley, that was when I had no work, I wasn't working yet. With being interested in mills I used to go to some pals of mine that were working at Sough Bridge. Unknown to me, I didn't think anything were going to happen, so what I did .. as normal, I goes up to me pals up there and does a bit of reaching in for ‘em and such as that, but drawing in ... I should say I'd be roughly about fifteen then so you can say it'd be about nineteen what, thirty ... ?

R - Thirty one, thirty two, wouldn't it? Now when they come to finish at half past five and we came down them stairs I were amazed .. police, crowd, booing us, I were innocent I didn't know about such thing as a strikes. And then in come t’police and started with truncheons and scattered them, they ran across the railway at Sough Bridge and…

R - Police were on foot. And they said a lot of them police were brought in specially, they weren't actually police but brought from Doncaster area. A bit rough.

Aye yes. So when you say they weren’t actually police, they'd be police but they weren’t police from this area, they were from out of the area.

R- See this were the time Stanley when they were increasing t’loom’s from fours and fives up to sixes and eights, such stuff as that. Now anybody

Aye .. yes. No because the idea was to make more money wasn’t it. Obviously they wouldn't weave as much. Ernie said something very interesting about that, but of course you'll know about that. An average tackler’s set in them days before the .. you know, talking about 1935 would be 144.

R – Well, when I came here, when I came here at first Stanley, average tackler’s set was 140 per set, and that included, that were made up with what we call motion looms. So if you had more motion looms in that set you had more changes haven’t you. ‘Cause you come with Jeannettes which is a different lift and twills which is a different lift, so it means more changing on the wheels and on their undermotion.

That's it. Yes. And he was saying that the average in a Lancashire loom shop, straight going on, not like we are working at the moment but straight going on, average set now’d be ., a standard now'd be about 70, but he was saying that the 140 would take less running than the 70 because more or less all you had to do in those days was change warps. He says that with them being nearly new looms you know, and a weaver only having four or six looms, they were doing jobs for themselves and this and that and the other…

R – Well, he could be right in that respect because you'd a far better class of weavers in them days than what you have now Stanley, which is a big thing to a tackler. When you come and you get a weaver having a smash ... Weavers in the old days had to take them up.

R - End breakages. Like we've talked, taking one end from on side and one to t’other. Like you come with a smash, ends from your warp side just break out. It might be a shuttle that catched with a splinter, go straight in and you’ve all these end breakages at t'back. So that means that set had to be brought out or took up by the weaver. Now weavers in the old days could

take them up and they had to take ‘em up but not now. If they've above thirty ends out, that warp’ll have to come out Stanley. Not in the old days. You see there were nothing else and they knew they had it to do [if it took] all day Stanley.

R- And there was also... what I’m saying Stanley, there were always somebody in the old days waiting of somebody either being stopped, or finishing through old age. You could come in this shed at seven o'clock .. well you could come in the shed at twenty to seven and there’d be weavers stood in that warehouse waiting to see if any weavers didn't turn up. Now what we call the boss tackler in them days, he’d go down that line .. They used to line up, he’d go down that line, but he wouldn't take t’first weaver that came in at that door, he’d walk down and think “Well, I know she is a good type” even if she’d come last. And he'd put them on some looms where someone hadn't turned up by seven o'clock. So there were always somebody waiting on somebody else's looms Stanley.

When you were talking about a smash just then you mentioned thirty ends. If there is more than thirty ends down, you know, somebody had to take it up or else they'd [Someone from the preparation room] have to come down ... Is that a figure that's been set by the Union, you know, now?

R- But some can take thirty ends up and it's nothing to ‘em, and then you'll get another .... oh dear they wouldn't know where to start.

Yes. And the thing is, it's no good to the management because while they are taking them ends up the other looms are stopped.

R- All t’other looms are stopped, your production's decreasing all the time isn't it.

Yes. That’s it yes. Now, when they were on four and six looms did the weavers have anything done for them or did they have everything to do for themselves? I’m thinking about things like …

R - They'd cloth to carry out into the warehouse, they’d their own looms to sweep and they had to sweep the back alleys.

Did the … was the cloth taken out into the warehouse on the roller like we take it out now?

R- No. All them pieces was pulled off by hand, and pieces in them days was standard, hundred yards. So that weaver, as soon as she's woven hundred yards had to let slack on her cloth roller and pull that off, hundred yards and then cut it across, put the end back on that roller, tighten that roller back up, and then start weaving again. And then when they’d straightened up they had that piece along with the warp card, to bring into the warehouse. They also know if they'd have any faulty faults in it. And if there were any faults in it, and they know about it, they’d be waiting to see which cutlooker were going to do it because your cutlooker, some of them were absolutely dead strict and you might get one that's just a bit…

R- Five, and two cloth bundlers. When the cut-looker examines one piece, runs it, he’d put it on, he’d run it over that machine, he might pull it back to give it a further examination, but he still has to run it. You know what we call cloth bundlers? They’d drop that plate on that machine, take that piece out and put it on a table and wait for another piece being done of the some quality, same type, put them two together and bundle them up, put string round them, tighten them and put them in one certain pile till your cloth customer was ready for collection on that cloth.

Now, what was the, we'll go back to the drawing side. When you were drawing then, well, you weren't drawing at the time, we are talking about when you came twisting. Were they drawing on frames like you use now or were they drawing with reachers in?

R- They were drawing like, on a pedal machine like I use now, and a small spider at t’back.

Yes, that’s it, so in other words they were drawing in exactly the same way in 1935 that you are drawing now.

No. Now, you were twisting and you didn't like it. So how long were you twisting before they decided to give you a chance at drawing in?

And did you have to know something about cloth construction before you started drawing or did you just learn it as you went along?

Oh yes, I realise that Jim, but I'm saying that if somebody was doing a training course nowadays …

That's it yes. And so how did you learn? I mean because, obviously, much you could learn through experience but a lot you wouldn't be able to because .. you know, I mean I know your knowledge is very wide, so how did you learn? Did you learn by reading or asking questions ?

R- I've read a lot Stanley, and put it into practice and seen if it worked, and if you find out it works that's it isn't it? But where I started to … Don't think that I just come up twisting and I could draw warps. I couldn't. I’d an idea, a rough idea, but I didn't get to go on that buffet permanent until I could do that job .. well, as perfect as it’s possible without making any faults. I'd to learn that in my dinner hours from half past twelve till half past one. All I did were just having me dinner and then I sat down on one frame, one of the drawer's frames and learn it that way. And then I'd just one man that [let me use his frame] The way I had to learn this was by forfeiting me dinner hour and getting permission off one of t’drawers to let me use that frame and t’warp that he had in. Now that drawer took a risk because he didn’t know whether I could do t’job, well he knew I couldn't, but any mistakes that I made on that frame while I

were learning, he had to rectify. Now drawers in them days were paid by what we call endage. Warps some warps have eighteen hundred ends, some's two thousand five hundred ends and some go up to three thousand five hundred. So depending on the width of your cloth and your construction of your cloth. So I’d look well doing say half a warp and finding out I had a, what we call an empty dent, that's in a reed .. now reeds are made up of dents, you've so many dents per inch, so I’d look well missing one of them. What I mean with missing is not putting an end in that one dent. So he’d have all that half of that warp to rectify before he started. Now that fellow's losing money, he's lost in endage. So, one were good enough to let me use his frame and it didn't take me long ‘cause I were interested in drawing.

I should say after happen about nine months I could sit down and draw a warp in, say, an hour and a half, which weren't bad in them days. Now then when I were becoming proficient, other drawers that were working there objected to me going on this fellow’s frames because when I'd become partly proficient that fellow’s gaining on them. So it meant that I had to go from one frame to another frame five days a weeks in the dinner hour.

And they didn't take into account the fact that you'd made your mistakes and he had to put them right?

R- A bit of ill feeling in them days you see? Now some of ‘em in them days ... isn't it funny eh? If a fellow made a mistake, with one particular fellow, if he made a mistake in that warp he wouldn't rectify that mistake straight away, he’d stop in happen at breakfast time, which was half an hour, or at dinner time which was an hour. He’d know where to put that warp so as it wouldn't go into the shed for weaving. Put that warp in at dinner here back in his frame and rectify it in an hour so as he didn't lose nowt on ordinary time.

So there'd be no such thing as… ‘That’d be acceptable,’ but it wouldn't he acceptable to say, gait a warp up during dinner hour and do a few ends an it to make a bit more money? No?

And I take it in those days that these men would all be in the Drawer and Twisters Union?

R- Well, they never forced you to join the Union then Stanley, if you didn't want to join the Union you didn't join the Union.

Well what did the Union people think about that, there would surely be somebody here that was working in the Union?

If there had had been anybody in a Union at Nutters in those days. Would they have kept the job long, do you think?

In your experience can you think of anybody ever being dismissed from Nutters because, say, the management found out that they were in t’Union?

R - No I can’t tell of it. If you did your work with Nutters that’s all they wanted you for, for your work. If you worked you got paid for it, you got paid as much as anybody else got paid.

How many weavers were there here then? I'm not talking about more loom system, I’m talking about four and six looms.

R- I should say they employed, I should say going on for 350 to 400 in them days here.

And the weaver’s pay, were they paid any basic wage at all or was it all on piece work?

R- They were paid on the cloth yardage. If they brought a warp in, say of hundred yards length, and it was happen say, three and sixpence in them days, they'd two of them off in a week, they’d seven shillings just for them two.

So in other words if somebody was on four looms and they had three bad warps in and they only got a piece off one loom that week, they’d only draw for one piece for that week.

R - And all them pieces had to be booked in. What I mean with booked in is you've got a card, a warp card, with the numbers of cuts which is on that warp. Now then, as soon as you have woven hundred yards, say t’cut card's made for seven cuts, you bring that card in along with your piece, there's one knocked off giving you six isn’t there? So when they come at week end that’s put in a book. So we'll just explain things .. Mrs Graham, she's one off that 1609, whichever it is, all warps had the sort number. She’s one off that warp, she might have one off another one. If she's four pieces off at say seven shillings a piece, she knew she were going to draw twenty eight shillings per week. There were no such thing … Some could got away with it, what they called ‘Booking pieces’. Now supposing it were coming to late Friday night and they were just short they’d say "Well, I’ve one, I can see t’mark on t’warp beam.” Now just depending who booked it in, they might say “Right, I’ll book that for you for next week" But that, if they'd been found out, weren't allowed. It was what was on that floor tied up, and that piece that were tied up was what they got paid on.

[This explanation, even though I have cleaned it up, might not be perfectly clear to everyone. Jim is talking about collusion between the weaver and the cut-looker to book cuts into the warehouse even though they were still in the loom. This ensured that the weaver had a living wage for that week. Whether it happened depended on the relationship between the cut looker and the weaver. It was not unknown for a weaver to flirt (at least) with the cut looker to gain favours. This was a fundamental factor in the economic life of the shed and can’t be over rated.]

And what time on Friday was the last time for bringing a warp in, you know bringing a piece into the warehouse.

Half past three. That was to give them time to get it bundled up and booked before …

Yes. And how were they paid? I mean nowadays of course, we get paid with a little paper packet with the money in and a slip that tells you .. But what did you get then?

R- They used to get it in ... Every tackler used to have a kind of board. Now in that board there were made slots and you used to have a small tin that’d fit in them slots which had all pound notes, which there never were a big lot of pound notes in them days so you'd happen have one pound note folded up and you'd six or seven shillings which went with it in each one of these tins. And that overlooker used to take them in on his hand, that tray, and he’d start off at, say he were the first tackler in at that shed door, he’d be at [loom] number 1, 2, 3, 4. That’d be one weaver on a four loom set, so he’d give that weaver that tin.

R- So you see, that saved them time, they weren't losing any time or production in any way, by the overlooker taking that to them instead of them coming out for their own pay.

What would he the attitude then of a tackler, because some of them were a bit strict weren’t they. Some of the tacklers, What would the attitude be when they were going round? Would they make comments about the wages when they gave them to people do you think?

R- Oh yes. You see, in them days overlookers relied on the weavers for their wage.

R- They used to get paid what we called poundage. The more pounds that weaver or them weavers on them 140 looms had off, and the bigger that overlookers wage was.

Pounds in money, that’s it. So for every hundred pounds his set earned he’d get so much bonus.

R - But you see, the king pins then, in them days on the wages, were the tapers or sizers.

Yes. Yes well we'll get on to the tapers in a minute you know, I want to get on to them in a minute.

R- I should say a tackler's wage in them days, Stanley, would only be about three pound sommat varying on what sort of a set of weavers he had under him.

R - Oh Stanley, they were ... well, there were no such thing as anybody demanding anything from the overlooker you know, "Come to this” Oh no, they were king pins were the overlookers, they were a law unto themselves were the overlookers.

R- I don’t know. Well, if you go back and look at the overlookers in the old days, they'd either have a hell of a good connection with somebody, or their father had been an overlooker and this is how it worked. Say there were a fellow here and he were an overlooker and had a son that were leaving school that could follow him in [the shed], learn to weave and from weaving to overlooking. Now then if you had a uncle in that [shed who] were an overlooker. And this is the way it worked through the old days in overlooking.

So really the overlooker, in a lot of ways, was to all intents and purposes, the weavers boss?

R - There were no such a thing as anybody going to that toilet and stopping because that overlooker would have been at him in a shot. They used to have what we called benches where they did part of their work in the shed. And each one of them overlookers were in that shed most of t’time on that bench so he knew if anybody were missing.

R - You see there were no such thing as strong Unions then Stanley, do you follow what I mean? I don't think anybody there were, hardly anybody, in t’tackler’s union here. This is why it’s been handed down so easy, overlooking, sons, relations, you know. And that’s the way it were. That’s why if I hadn’t had me cricket, I’d never have got in at a place like this Stanley. You'd got to have somebody to push you, you know?

Which wasn't a bad thing at all. So with these weavers, most of them have got four and six looms, they are weaving away in there, they’d he carrying their own weft ...

R - They were carrying their own weft and in them days weft come here just ready in a case.

R – Which’d weigh two hundred and fifty, three hundred pound a case. That’s just yarn and that case’d be put in the warehouse not in the shed because that shed were full of looms. It would be put in the warehouse and be marked up, it's either thirties or forties, whatever it was and the weavers would come out there and fill their tins up. Now them wouldn't be what we call a Welsh Hat pirn or put on a wood tube. They’d be a paste bottom cop or they’d have a small paper tube in t’bottom of that, what we call a cop. Now then, I don't know whether you have seen a paste cop, have you?

Now when t’weaver had to broach a cop in them days, they’d to be spot on with it or otherwise they could what we call stab that cop and that cop’s finished, no good, won’t weave off, your yarn won’t come off in one thread, it will just keep breaking. Now they got, so they put paper tubes in which gives ‘em a guide for a start .. and then them had to be what we

R – No. You see, the trouble now is they've no trouble in skewering cops. They don't need to do that. Cop construction's different altogether and your shuttles is different to what they used to be in the old days. But we’ll go into that when we get further on.

Yes. Yes that's it. Now then, we've got [the] preparation department and you’ve just started drawing. Now of course the other important, well, I know some people’d say the main part is the taping, tape sizing. Now in those days the yarn would come in just exactly the same as it does now for the warp, it’d come in on back beams.

R- Well, what happens you see, the construction of cloth is made up by a warp and a weft. Now for different constructions you need different numbers of ends Stanley. Now, if we come to give spinners particulars I might say I want a set of beams, five beams making, I’ll just say two thousand ends. Which means there'll be five back beans of four hundred ends on each beam. And then to follow that, what you do, you give ‘em a yardage of cloth which you want to make. Now on that, if I'm making a

set and I want a twenty thousand yards of cloth off it that length’s governed by your healds, your reed and your pick. The higher your reed, higher your pick, you give that cloth a what we call ‘a longer tape length'. If you want one hundred yards you don't just say to the taper I want a hundred yards. It doesn’t work that way. You've got to give him a yardage of say… We’ll just take for instance, I’m going to do a two and two twill, seventy one reed by forty four pick, that's what we call us table count. Count that’d come from the spinners in the first instance would be seventy six by forty six, forties and forties which means they want a seventy-two or seventy one reed and a forty four pick wheel putting on it. And your yarn, .. on t’warp side they’ve got to be forty count and your weft yarn's got to be forty. Now then, if the cloth construction doesn't count that when it comes off the loom, you find out that you might he a bit down with your pick and your reed. But near enough, the construction that I've given you there will bring that and you’d find that out with experience. So I’ll say to the taper for that, “I want a cloth length of say a hundred and three yards multiplied by eighteen.” That's eighteen inch isn't it. So that's half of thirty six inches (a yard) isn’t it. Now, why I give it to him that way is because his clock marks are at half mark, which is fifty yards. So I put them two together which is say, eighteen multiplied be a hundred and three is what? Three eights is twenty four, eighteen, fifty four inches on that clock setting. So when his first mark strikes he knows he’s got fifty yards on that beam. And it'll start again his clock, start moving back, on again and it'll do another eighteen which gives him thirty six. So he’s got two marks in there that'll give him his hundred yards. And that's the way it's worked. But you can't just say “Give me an eighteen hundred, put eighteen hundred on that" It wouldn’t work, you’d be short. Each piece would be short. And why they’re short is because as your weft is going across your warp it's curling and pulling it up.

[Jim gets his figures slightly confused here but the sense of what he is conveying seems clear. The reader should recognise that what he is trying to do is describe cloth contraction and the measures that have to be taken to ensure that the finished cloth is to size and specification.]

R- And that's why you've to give extra for what we call bend in t’weft. You might not think it would but each one, every time your weft thread to coming across it is going across one thread of warp yarn and it’s making a loop, so that’s actually taking more weft than just going straight across.

That’s it. And the same thing applies Jim, doesn’t it to ... not for the same reason but … In order to be able to weave a cloth of say thirty six inches wide, how wide do they actually weave it? You know, to get it thirty six inch when it comes off the loom.

R- Well, a lot of this is done by what I call practice Stanley, something that you get used to, contraction. You can get books and read about it and nobody'll give you anything concrete, a definite system to go off.

R - No formula. They give you a formula which will always bring you out on the top side. And what you do is you take that formula and you break it down from there. Do you follow me?

R - You might get somebody and they'll give you a formula, this formula, if you want, say forty and a half inch cloth, it'll come out forty and three quarters. So you always know you've that little bit to play with if you go off the book. But you can't afford to do that, so you get used to the way that it works and you're not going to over specify yourself in weft and warp. You can bring it down to a finer margin.

That’s it, because if your cloth is supposed to be forty inch wide and it’s actually coming off at forty and a quarter inches, and it's a hundred yards long you’ve actually given away the amount of cotton and weaving that's in a strip a quarter of an inch wide and hundred yards long.

R- I’ve given it away, that’s it. Suppose it's a fifty six reed. It’s coming out a quarter of an inch wider, you can take it on that I’ve given them, I've given that warp fourteen ends too many, and on a twenty thousand yard set, fourteen ends, weight of that is the price of the cotton. Now on top of that I've lost that quarter of an inch of me weft all the way. So I'm loosing both in warp and weft, and you can’t afford to do that.

And does everybody, would you say that everybody that was in your position as a weaving manager’d learn that or do some people never learn it?

R – Some of the weaving managers, never. I can take you to some and they can’t even calculate ends and such as that, never mind cloth width!

And yet you never went to night school, you learnt it yourself in your dinner hour?

R- I learnt it , well I've learnt over the years Stanley, being interested and .. if anybody wanted to show me anything, even though it weren’t part of me job, then I'd soak it in.

Yes, well, I think that has a lot to say for the process of teaching yourself, of the sort of bloke you are Jim.

R- You see, you must always be learning in this job Stanley, you'll never know too much, and I'm always keen to learn.

LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT

TAPE 78/AA/3