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THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON JULY 31st 1978 IN THE ENGINE HOUSE AT BANCROFT. THE INFORMANT IS JIM POLLARD, WEAVING MANAGER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.

Aye, weft. Well, weft and yarn, like into t’yarn business. Now, at Bancroft, well, you tell me, what sort of material are we weaving at Bancroft now?

Well, when I say material, you know, what's the yarn? Are we man-made or cotton, you know?

Yes, that’s it. And how many places will there he now, there won’t he too many will there, that's weaving all cotton now.

R- No particular reason. But manmade fibres is more difficult to weave with Lancashire looms than, what it is then, these looms that they are making now…

Well, such an Northrops, you are going back twenty or twenty five years. They could do, they were more or less made to take manmade fibres. But for the Lancashire looms as we know then in this place, it's what we call a hit and miss method using manmade fibres. You've no positive .. what can I say? You’ve nothing really positive about what you’re doing if you follow what I mean. You've no books to go off, so you’ve to try something and if you find that works you stick by it.

It’s really, when you come to think about it, it's the way that they'd weave cotton in the first place.

R- In the first place. You see, same as here, main thing about manmade fibre is the sizing. Now you'll know, we’ve t’original tape sizing machines, which were probably made in 1912. And we’ve got to adapt ourselves wit' the size mix for manmade fibres here. Like such as now, they’ve coatings they make like a plastic size and well, they brought sizing out for manmade fibres but with our type of loom Stanley, you can’t get away with it.

so we continue to use our method of sizing with sago flour and tallow, pure tallow.

And these looms here are all plain, well, there’s some with dobbbies on isn't there but…

R- We’ve what we call a change loom and that's done by undermotion. So what you can do, you take one lot of tappets Stanley put them on and alter your gear wheels at the side which alters your lift on your healds, which make’s them either go two up two down, three up and one down or independent, one, two, three, four.

R- Yes. Before the war we had looms here which had dobbies on and we used to weave 16 staves, but there weren't a big enough trade for it, just after the war, we took them looms out, and put more motion ones in.

R- Well, they used to do, there was a type of curtaining in them days which were coloured yarn. We didn’t size that, it came in, and we had a pattern to put in it, if you follow what I mean. Happen so many yellows, so many reds, so many blues and they finished up with a pattern in your cloth which was for cheap curtaining then.

Now, first of all. I’ve asked you that question there … Now hang on a minute, I’ll ask you about …

R- Before you get to beaming you see, the whole of beaming is your construction of cloth. I can say to you that we made beams. Instead of a weaver's beam, they have a bigger beam, and they put ends on that beam, but it isn’t so simple Stanley. You see, it all comes down to cloth construction. Supposing you want a twenty six hundred set of ends. Now then, you give the particulars to your beamers, your man in charge of your beaming. And he'd work out how many beams he wanted, how many ends per beam he required. Now, to get that what you need you’d need some, what we call, old bobbin winders in them days. And they used to wind from cop, more or less like what we’ve explained before, off the weavers' cop. And what they'd do with them, they'd have a long, more like a drawing frame. We haven't talked about such as drawing as we knew it, when it comes to weft have we? Weft drawing? Well, what they had, they'd a long frame and from one end to the other you could say there’d be a hundred spindles. Now they’re attached [driven by]to a circular metal roller, happen

about twelve inch diameter, under this frame, and strings attached from round that cylinder up to your spindles and that's driven by a wheel and that’s turning. Right? So that’s easing your cop strain a bit. I’m going back years now with it. From there on top of that you have another cylinder, to which you fit a wood cone.

So that the first set of spindles was turning your cops so that there wasn’t a lot of stretch on the yarn?

R- That’s it. There weren't a lot of strain you see, a slight movement so that it took a lot of strain out of it. Now then, you come to your top where your wood bobbin was attached… it's so difficult Stanley, it's years since we did this, you know?

Those bobbins were rather like a very large sewing machine bobbins weren't they, as you see now.

R – Yes, and they were worked by another string which was on the same fitting on a string but the cylinder that went across was of a smaller diameter and it seemed to turn faster. Now you put one end from your cop which I’ve told you about

to your bobbin at t’front and them’d turn. Also as your bobbin at t’front is turning it's raising. So it's going up and down and that is automatically giving your bobbin a level …

Yes. Now those cops that you've put on, that we are talking about. In those days you’d be, you'd be winding on to those bobbins off mule cops wouldn't you'?

R- Off mule cop and they’ve the same difficulty as the weaver has because there wasn't [a hollow pirn to guide the peg]... In some there was just a paste bottom as there was for the weavers or a small paper tube through some of them and they [the weavers and winders] thought they were in heaven if they got a small paper tube so that they had a guide. But it were exactly the same principle as skewering cops for the winders as it was for the weavers.

That’s it. So skewering a cop on to that machine was exactly the same as skewering it on to a shuttle.

Aye ... And the idea of that was to give you … Well, you tell me, that’d give you a bigger yarn package but there were other advantages as well, weren't there?

R - You’ve got to have this on a bobbin or otherwise… If you have a small package you're going to have less production because your labour is piecing ends more often. And if you took them with a smaller yardage on a bobbin you're not getting an even run when you come to make your beam. You have a end missing so that means that frame has to stop and another bobbin's to go in what we call the creel. Now then, when you’ve got this certain number of bobbins ready you take them up to what I’ve just spoken about, the creel. Now that's, I should say you could call that a triangular frame, wide at

a hole in that bobbin and just hang it in these wood pegs which [are fixed on this triangular frame] And then the ends were took through to your headstock, individual ends everyone. It you put four hundred ends [bobbins] in there, you'd then four hundred ends to draw through to your headstock, and even them out with a comb. If you used an ordinary comb or just turn it upside down and your teeth are at t’top

and they’d lay every end, individual end, into all of them. Then from there, what they

do then is they'd go and get a beam, that's like a weaver’s beam, a large… Well, we haven’t explained the weavers beam, have we?

Aye. But don’t bother about that because we know what a weavers beam is. What we have to realise now is that we are talking about a larger version of the weaver’s beam.

R - And what they do, they go and get this beam and put it in the headstock with two planks at each side you know, arms. They fit it into them two arms, it swivels up and down. Now underneath where this beam's fitting you’ve got a wood cylindrical barrel which, when you let your arms go, the wood centre which is between the two flanges on your beam rests on this wood barrel. Now that wooden barrel underneath you can either close it or open it which is for the width of your beam so that you haven't a lot at one end and nothing at the other. Now, everyone of them ends [from the creel] is took round that wood beam which we put in. Now why they had this wood thing underneath, this wood barrel, is so that you're getting a level, what we call a level yarn beam, no ups and downs in it.

That’s it. That's exactly the same as the press in front of the tape machine, under the weavers beam on the tape?

R - Now then, on that. They used have that machine up Stanley and them ends is coming through, they'd … To look at it, it starts at the back of that creel which I’ve spoken about, like a triangle. It'll be what happen six foot wide at t’back end. And you come down at the front to about two foot. All the ends is concentrated in that width at the front. And if you have four hundred ends in, there's four hundred ends turning on that beam at the same time, same tension's going on and everything. Now then, on all them ends which was put across and through that comb, you put a pin, each end had to he individually pinned. As soon as one of those ends broke, that pin would drop and automatically stop that machine. So the beamer has to find which end's broken in that creel, piece another to it and bring it through to the front again, put it in that comb and then start up again. And that's how you start and make a beam.

Now say, just for argument’s sake, one point strikes me there because what we’re talking about now, we'd better make it clear, is the old fashioned style of slow speed beaming. High speed beaming's exactly the same principle but more sophisticated, isn't it.

R - High speed beaming's exactly the same principle, they’ve still got to have a creel but they're in what I call a more fancier done up stage. It’s the same principle. And your headstock is exactly the same principle Stanley but it's more sophisticated.

That's it, yes. Now say you are doing, just for example we've got some beams to make to go on the tape, to make weavers beams and as you say, they probably have four hundred ends on them, it doesn't matter what ends they have got in … and they’ve got say twenty thousand yards on. Now, did you try, when you were making your bobbins did you try to make your bobbins somewhere near the length of what you wanted to put on your beam? Or how. Because you can foresee it arising where ... If all your bobbins were round the same length, just for argument sake you might have a set of bobbins on that hadn't run out when you’d finished one beam and if you put another beam in and start with those bobbins in that creel, because obviously you. can't threw all those away for waste, it means that they are all going to run out at somewhere near the same time and you're going to have to piece all those ends up in the middle of a beam .. Would that be done, would they all be pieced up in the middle of a beam?

R – No, because if you did that you’ve got all them knots coming up at the same time Stanley.

R - Now then what they did, in them days they knew yardage more or less what they could get on them bobbins. So the winder knew when she looked at her bobbin, that she might have fifteen thousand yard on that, that's enough. Now then, if they hadn’t a lot of work they could have watched them and said Right, there’s fifteen thousand yards on all them bobbins. But in the old days they’d to look through too many so you might have sixteen thousand on by the time the winder got to look to it. So what happened then you’d make a set of beams with fifteen thousand yards, you’d know there’d be that on. So a winder wouldn’t take one off that was short, you’d have ‘em over more than under you see. Now then, with this that had been left on them bobbins when they had finished making that beam, all they do is take them down to the bobbin frame again, piece up and start again so it didn’t waste no yarn.

Those would go back on the bobbin frame and you'd wind on them as long as they were the same count.

That explains that. Can you tell me roughly how much yarn there’d be on a mule cop if it was twenties count?

Yes or give me a yardage for a mule cop for a certain count, can you give me a yardage?

R- I couldn’t Stanley, I couldn't, because you see, mules in the old days, were the same, you didn’t ever get mule cops identical shape and size. You might have had a slack band, [driving band to the mule spindle] therefore that'll give you a larger looking cop, but that cop's smaller actually, there isn't as much yarn on it.

R - You'd be softer wound on you see? Now then, we move from what we call the old mule cop Stanley.

Yes. Now I want to come on to that, but I’d just like to slip something in before then. We'll just go on forward with the weavers beams now, with the back beams ...

We'll just go forward with them just for the moment. Because next, I want to bring you on to the difference in .. you know, when the change over came, and on to pirns and re-wound weft in a minute. Now, we've got this beamer now and was it usually a man or a woman? It was very often a woman…?

R – Yes. But if it was possible, you wanted either a medium size woman or one taller. If you got a short one she were always playing about, she'd to have a buffet or a small set of steps to go up, and if she’d sommat at t’top of the creel that’d broken she’d have to keep going for the steps to go up and get to them up on t’top.

Well, It’s funny you should say that because I were just going to say to you …

Yes, what I was just going to say to you, my mother was a beamer at Victoria Mill at Dukinfield and later at Queen’s Mill and she can remember doing beams for Bancroft at Barnoldswick.

Aye, in the old days. And she was not only short, she was crippled, she'd had polio in one leg. So now whether they had, whether there were two of them on a beaming frame, you know, and one were at the creel and one [on the headstock] I don’t know but she did use to beam in those days. I know when we first came to Barnoldswick she said that she remembered ...

R- It just depends the place you were at, in some places what we call the room man for the winders and beamers, he might gait that creel up for t’beamer. We used to have one here, she were short but she was a good beamer, she were always up and down the steps for her top lot you know or just above half way.

R – Then we’d another and she were tall, we thought she were tall you know, five feet nine, and it were very seldom she’d to have the doings you know, she’d strain herself to get this bobbin up on the top.

Aye, which weren’t necessarily a good thing. So anyway, the beamer now, our beamer has made a set of back beams. Well I mean, if they wanted two thousand four hundred ends in t’weavers beam, well that's six times four hundred. Aye.

R- well, that's six beams at four hundred ends each. So right, I want a set of two thousand ends, so all I want is five four hundred ends beams. So you have five beams at four hundred which two thousand ends.

R - And you know what I said, we were going to do a fifteen thousand yard set .. and we’ll say maybe 20's or 22s, 32's count of yarn. So all we do from there is take it into the sizing room and give them particulars to the sizers and then we work out what size we want on this for a start, either six per cent, ten per cent…

Now then these days it seems to me that ..and from what I’ve read in these books of yours, about sizing. In the old days a lot more attention was paid to sizing than there is now. Am I right in saying that?

That’s it. But would it he true to say that now we size to make warps weave, and in the old days they used to size for other reasons besides didn't they, like putting weight into cloth.

R- In the old days what you had got to size for Stanley was good weaving and weight.

R- Now weight was made by what we call china clay, that’d give you your weight, which were a terrible thing to in them days. Because this is where you got the biggest part of your dust and those bad chests.

Yes. I've talked to Billy Brooks about that you know, he taped at Westfield for thirty five years and he said that it were terrible some of the stuff they put in.

Yes. And that was put in . In what way would bulking the yarn up like that pay? I mean, was the cloth sold by weight? I thought it was sold by yardage, wasn’t it?

R- In the old days what they did, they'd give you a piece, a construction of.. we'll just say for a figure, happen sixty four[reed count and 62 picks per inch]. You see I'm going off what we call our table count, that's when it comes off the loom and it's run over the cloth looking machine and ready to go out to the customer. He wants particulars as I’m going to give you now he might be wanting cloth at sixty four times sixty two.

R- Sixty two is picks to the inch right? Now 64 is your reed count, and in them days they'd say, it might he 20's and 20s or 20s and 32s whichever your weft were, and it’d to weigh so much. [the two figures are the count of the twist and the count of the weft]

R- No they don’t do that. All you’ll get is ... the order now is for 64 by 62, 20s and 20s, and that's as far as it goes now. But they stated the weight in the old days that them pieces had to be.

Aye. Now tell me something, when they stated the weight that it ought to be, what was the reason for that? Say you were a cloth buyer, what reason would you have for saying what weight you wanted a certain construction of cloth to be? Have I put that question right?

R - Do you mean what advantage was there by buying it, by making particulars where there were weight included in it?

R- Well, I can't really tell you Stanley, I were only feeling me way really in them days.

Yes. The thing that I’m trying to get at Jim is that if you use a different type of yarn…

R - Now if you think of china clay… China clay makes no difference to cotton, it doesn't improve your cotton. It didn’t worsen it any. So what you just asked me now I can’t answer you Stanley. Now I don't know whether they sold this cloth by weight or what, but it's no advantage to the cotton.

R- Now the only other thing that I can see, it might have been .. You see facilities now for finishing are far different to what they used to be with more chemicals that’s come out, such as that. But as far as that, I don't know. But china clay were the worst thing that ever were put into the cotton industry for health reasons.

When they specified the construction of that cloth, when somebody put in an order for cloth they specified the actual construction, the count of the yarn and also they specified the type of yarn that they wanted as well didn’t they?

Whether it were combed or super-combed or anything like that. Now, is it possible that the better the yarn, you know the more tightly it wore spun, the better the staple .. would that probably have been heavier than say a yarn that wasn’t as well spun? Would it have made a difference for a certain length of yarn? Would it be heavier if it was well spun and good yam than if it was say, poor yarn … The thing that I’m trying to get at is…

I often wonder when I hear about some of the marvellous recipes that were used for taping in the old days, whether it was a way of the manufacturers trying to convince the buyer that he was getting a better quality of yarn then he actually was.

R- Well, you’ve put it more or less ... they might have done just that Stanley. That’s the only answer, 'cause as far as we go, china clay is nothing.

R - But another thing Stanley, as some were done in the old days, suppose they wanted to cheat with yarn. Now supposing a customer wanted 32s twist, 38's weft. This fellow might put 40s weft in, or 42 counts of weft and china clay. And if he weighed the pieces they still go your weight.

That’s it, yes. I must say that that's the impression that I've always had about it you know about those weird and wonderful mixtures*s.

1 appreciate that there were, that there were other reasons for being so particular about sizing than just making weight and bulk of yarn up but I mean, you know yourself, some of the weird and wonderful recipes that were used …

R – Yes. See, when we get on to sizing, sorts of things that they've used in sizing, sea weed, brown sugar, all such as this you know? It's amazing. And …

R- But as far as the china clay, it’s only a weight factor as far as I’m concerned.

Yes, that’s it. Whereas, now the sort of taping that we do now at Bancroft is nothing to do with weight or anything like that, all we're doing is producing, is putting strength into that yarn so that it’ll weave properly.

R- Yes. You're giving it elasticity, so as it’ll weave, there's stretch in it. And you get as much sago flour and tallow into that yarn as you can get in it. So as it has that elasticity. If you don’t have elasticity in you might as wall cut the warps out because they'll not weave, they’ve got to have give in them. Now, tapers in the old days used to be able to tell how much size they had on that yarn by feeling with their fingers. But you see, they’ve brought all these different things out which register what size is going on. {Many} tapers don’t mix their own size.

Yes. Like you'll see Joe now and then while it's running over he'll pick one strand out and he’ll pull it away from the beam.

Now then, the different types of yarn, apart from the actual count of the yarn. Now, we are talking about mule spun yarn now. Now as I understand it, you tell me if I'm wrong, there were two main types of mule, there was a condenser mule .. and what was the other? I’ve forgotten.

R- There is twist way and weft way. Weft way is mule spun. Now that's the whole secret of soft spun yarn, that was made an your mules in the old days. It was nearly all mules. Now then, weft that you are getting, we’ll say today, you've a job to get mules, they’ve all been done away with

and it's what we call twist yarn. Now then, you could soon tell whether you’re

need six inch, place it in finger and thumb each side and then just give it a twist and bring your finger toward you. Now you'll find that if it’s mule spun, it’ll split, with that thread of yarn is soft it'll split easy. All right, now then, if you want to find out if it’s twist yarn you’ll just take it in the opposite direction which is away from you. Mule spun to you, weft way by twist of your finger. Ring is away from you. And this is t’way they used to tell in the old days. Now then, by doing some counts mule spun which is making a certain type of cloth, if you don't put mule spun into some of them, like condenser mule, as soon as you come to cut that cloth .. When I say cut it I mean nick your selvedge .. but we haven't got on to cloth have we, selvedge?

R - You'll find that cloth’ll roll, it won’t lay flat. Now then, if it is mule it'll lay flat, but if it's twist way, condenser, it just curls. Mule’ll lay flat, twist way rolls.

Yes that's like a later way of spinning. Ring spinning is the form of spinning which ousted the mule.

R - It just depends on the type of cloth you're making Stanley. You see most of the cloth what we make today is hard spun yarn. Now there’s only a few mules about, and that’s what we use for softer types of cloth.

Tell me, what would you say is the difference between a hard spun yarn and a soft spun yarn.

R- Ah well, what they do, the spinner’ll take some twist out of that yarn to make it softer.

R - Not so tightly twisted, when they come to spin it, it'll not be happen as tight as what normally they do it. They might take three, what they call twistings out of it to give it that softer feel . And yet it's ring spun twist because there isn’t mules about Stanley.

Yes, that's it. Tell me, is it true to say that if you took the same staple of cotton and the same count and spun it, the softer it is spun the less strength that yarn’ll have, the less tensile strength it'll have, the easier it'll pull apart?

R – That’s a new sort of yarn which is done by, do you call it centrifugal force?

R - It's what they call open end spinning. Now this raw cotton in put in a big basin .. Well I call it a basin, and the speed that that turns at, it gives you this ..

R - It gives you twist. And that comes down, oh .. say bottom of this here big container it’s in, they have a small tube at bottom and it just comes out at t’bottom of that like a thickish rope and it's broken down to certain thickness from that. But that's beautiful yarn, but it's soft. You wouldn’t get the same wear out of that as what you will out of ring spun because it is a bit softer. But it's what we call a good, clean level yarn. Now if you put break spun yarn beam and break spun yarn weft you’ve a beautiful looking cloth, level no bittiness about it but it isn't as hard wearing as ring spun yarn. But take the yarns of today Stanley, they aren't in t’same class as what they were in the old days. And they've altered that by buying different cottons from all over the world and in the mixing. Say before the war, going back oh long before the war, some of these spinners had never, wouldn't have changed the yarns for happen thirty year.

Yes so, I mean some of them’d never weave ... some of them would never spin anything other than American would they?

R- American you see. But now you might get a mixing of say one of Brazil, one part Nigerian, a small quantity of American if they put that in. There is India, Pakistan. This is why yarns to me these days aren’t half as clean and good now as they were in the old days.

Yes well, of course at one time they thought it was impossible to spin Indian didn't they. It was thought to be impossible. Well it probably was with the machinery they had then.

And apart from the type of cotton itself Jim, admittedly all the modern improvements like ring spinning, break spinning and all the rest of it have increased the productivity of the spinners but have they improved the quality of the yarns?

R- No. By my way of thinking, yarn quality has gone down. Spinners of today, all they are interested in poundage, the amount, the weight they can get off these machines. You see, in the old days when I've been talking about, they'd the same bands on mules I've been speaking about when we did us own up here. Now in the old days if there were two bands that were slack, them bands, they’d be put back. But now with ring spun they are done with a roller. Now they’ve only certain given times to go through and do them rollers. Now you get all sorts of wear on these rollers. Now that gives you what we call uneven yarn, thick and thin, thick thin which is bad for such as… more so for taping when you've that weakness in, with the strain it has to stand. And then you get your cloth looking bare in't shed with it. I've known us cloth at times has been that uneven it's given you a draughtboard effect.

R – It’s actually put a square patterning in with some of it being in thicker places Stanley and it's off them rollers. It’s coming to the same fault every time.

R- And on that you see. If you get a cop it might give you a yard of cloth and if you look at that yard of cloth on some of these yarns it will give you that draughtboard, thick and thin and it’ll be squared.

Yes, you’re actually putting a pattern in the cloth with the faults in the yarn.

R – Yes. If they asked you to put that pattern in by weaving it you’d have a job.

That's it yes. A good trick if you could do it. Aye. And now this yarn in the old days that used to be. It used to come in and the weft that went into the weaver used to be straight off the mule, the same cops would be used either for going upstairs to put on the bobbins to put on the beaming machine. Or they'd go into the shed to weave. If you wanted say 32s it didn't matter where you got it. There was no such thing as 32s for the beamers and 32s for t’weavers, it was the same yarn.

And exactly the same package, the difference was that the weaver put it straight on to the shuttle. That’s the way it worked isn’t it.

R- That's the way It worked. Now you see, what we're getting at now Stanley, this is why the weaver’s always had the rough end of the stick all them years. What you’ve just said then, think how many times that yarn has been handled before t’weaver gets to it. So as soon as it's left the spinner, some strength’s been taken out of it there .. It's come to your winder upstairs hasn’t it. From your winder upstairs, which she's put a strain on it, it's gone to your beamers who put another strain on it. When that beam’s ready to go to the taper and us here, we aren't what we call driven tape cylinders, our yarn drives the tape cylinders. So look at the strain that’s gone on it again from there. So by the time the weaver gets one weaver’s beam off us it can have been handled four to five times, five times in the old days, which is a strain, as each individual operative on each job has had it; and there has been five operatives had it before the weaver’s got it.

That's it yes. So in some ways there is an advantage in the way that we work nowadays in that we get the beams and they’ve come straight off the ring cop.

R- Now they, say with the equipment they have, they can miss out three processes compared with what they did in the old days.

Yes. So in actual fact those sets ought to be better when they come into us, these sets of back beams for the tapers really, if the quality of the yarn were the same they ought to be in a better condition than they were in the old days. Yes. Well now, the weft itself, now in the old days they were weaving on the loom with weft that was straight off the mule cop, which was straight off the mule. Now the way I understand it is that when they started to come onto the more loom system there was a demand for bigger yarn packages and for more reliable yarn packages.

Now that’s what I’d like to get into now. Is getting to when rewound weft had started to come in and what were the advantages.

LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT

TAPE 78/AA/4