THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 19TH OF JULY 1978 AT 17 CORNMILL TERRACE, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS BILLY BROOKS AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Aye
R-Is it on now?
Aye.
R-Is it?
Yes, it’s only like a loom Billy.
R-Aye.
There’s one tape recorded while you’ve been talking to me.
R-Oh have you?
Aye, don’t worry about that thing.
R-Well as you and me’s talked about the cotton trade I sit thinking sometimes and me mind goes back to when the cotton trade what you mun call its infancy you see. In fact I had relatives who used to weave cloth in their houses and they had to take pieces to Colne to be paid, in a wheelbarrow or owt. I’ve heard me uncle Will [Father’s uncle actually] tell about that. He said that he lived in Newtown and when they finished a piece they used to wheel it to Colne to get paid. Well, t’cotton trade of course it started that way, that ‘ud be early on in’t happen 1790 when it were, up to about 1820 when they started a building mills you know and run ‘em wi’ power. Power looms, and folk rose up in arms again that, they said it ‘ud do ‘em out of a living if they were barn to , you know, have these here engines and looms going. It’d do ‘em out of a living at home bit it, but instead of doing ‘em out of a living it made ‘em more you see. Aye, they even went round in gangs at drawing plugs out of the boilers, they called ‘em plug drawers in them days, that were happen about 1830, at 1790 and 1800. They called ‘em plug drawers, of course this is knowledge that I get off me grandfather you see.
You can remember your grandfather then?
R-Aye, aye. Well of course time went on you know and Barlick were dependent on the cotton trade, there were just Clough and th’Old Coates Mill you know, that’s all there were and Old Billycock in them two mills you know, [Butts and New Mill, later called Wellhouse] Well, they closed down [post 1885 when Bracewell died] and Barlick, there were practically grass growing on the streets, aye.
Tell me something Billy, when Billycock died, why did they shut Butts and Wellhouse?
R-Well you see, I think his son weren’t much good [Christopher George Bracewell of Bank House, Coates] he lived up at Coates Hall. [Billy has this wrong] I don’t know whether he didn’t drink himself to death or not, there were sommat, I just remember sommat. They called him young Billy or sommat and, no, whatever did they call him? But I don’t think he were any good at business at all so it, you know, there were nobody to take ower that were reliable. I think that he were a bit of a rake, of course I were a bit young then [Seven years old, CG Bracewell died 11th September 1889 aged 43 years leaving a widow and four children. Buried at Gill in a new vault built by E Smith. Undertaker was Proctor Barrett.] you know and didn’t take much notice. It runs in my mind that there were sommat like that, that he come to an end some way. Anyway, so of course there were practically grass growing in the streets in them days, there were nobut them, Clough and them looms, Brooks geet some looms and Pickles and them and then there were four hundred at Coates and they were lit up wi’ oil lamps were Old Coates in them days. [Billy must be talking about New Coates because Old Coates was derelict in 1889.] Aye, and them’s all there were.
Who had Coates then Billy?
R-A firm called Bell and Company frae Manchester, they were cloth agents, aye, Bell and Co.
And they owned it?
R-No, I don’t know who owned it but they used to run it, whether they owned it I couldn’t say. [Probably owned at that time by James Nuttall who built the mill starting in 1864 but delayed by shortage of capital so I’m not sure of the actual start date.]
Can you remember anything about Old Coates Mill Billy?
R-I can tell on ‘em pulling it down.
When were that, any idea?
R-Well it ‘ud be, as far as I can tell I think I should be about ten year old when they pulled it down [1892] No, I might have been, aye, about ten because I used to go down there and look at where the old water wheel were. Now there were a chimney and there’d been an engine in and the chimney were like a sort of falling down. It weren’t a big chimney, no there weren’t much, square one and there were four storeys and John Raw, that had that land, [Farmer at Coates Farm, Barrett, 1902] he used to store his hay in there. He stored his hay in there off them meadows there round about. And then it were pulled down. There used to be a dam wi’, where Rolls has their car park now, it used to run that water wheel, oh aye. I can tell of Old Coates mill that Tom o’th’Edge used to tell the tale about working there when he were a lad and he said they used to go in of a night and set the waterwheel on so as they could weave a bit for a bit of pocket brass. Aye, they used to go and set it on their self, aye he did, aye. Ha ha ha.
Aye, to get a few more picks.
R-Aye, he says We used to go down and turn t’water on and weave a bit. Aye, they wanted an extra pint or two you see, aye. Well you know, it looks to me that that would be about 1850 when that mill were built or 1830, mmmm. I think happen it ‘ud be built happen at beginning of cent, 18th century. [Billy is obviously wrong here but the gist of what he says rings true. 1830 to 1850 sounds about right]
Aye, happen so.
R-Oh I can picture it, all t’windows were out you know.
Aye. When your granddad was on about hand loom weaving, did they say anything about where they got their weft from?
R-Well I think it were brought round you know frae them that let you t’job you see.
Aye.
R-They’d bring you t’weft you know, same as in Bradford and there, these tailor firms, they let work out for tailors in their own homes and they take them the stuff. I think it (the weft) ‘ud come round I think, me uncle used to tell me , I’ve heard him tell about him and his sister and me grandmother when they were young you know. They used to weave in the house and he once telled me about going to Colne wi’ a wheelbarrow wi’ a piece on, aye, to get paid.
Can you remember seeing a hand loom in Barlick?
R-No. I don’t think so, no I don’t think I have, I don’t remember if I do. No I think they’d getten all, I might have done and forgotten you see.
Yes.
R-Well you see t’cotton trade, as I said, in Barlick, it depended on’t cotton trade, there was nothing else and t’Calf Hall Company were formed and they bought Butts but it went under the name of the Barnoldswick room and Power Company, that were it’s first name [Billy has got this wrong, the Barnoldswick Room and Power Company was the name of the company that started Bankfield Shed in 1905.] It bought Butts and Wellhouse and partitioned them off into 400 spaces you see and that’s how Barlick started growing. Aye, the cotton trade were sort of coming on and then Moss were built and Barnsey were built and t’Fernbank were built. Now t’cotton trade in Barlick had getten to it peak then and it got ower the top and started steadily declining after that.
When would you say the decline started Billy?
Well it ‘ud start declining of course a long while, it ‘ud be about, it started declining slowly about 1940or somewhere there, slightly but it worsened as time went on and they couldn’t get orders that ‘ud pay and there were part short time come on you know. And then the government decided that it ‘ud be better if a lot of firms went out and it ‘ud be better, and it ‘ud enable them firms that were left in to keep going and they paid ‘em so much if they’d come out and break their looms up. They’d give ‘em so much if they’d come out and they could have scrap iron price for their selves. So a lot of firms decided on that and they paid ‘em so much a loom. Well, that eased things a bit for a while and then of course it worsened again and then there were wholesale stoppages. Then they brought that redundancy law in where they had to get paid you know where they never got nowt before. And then, well, it gradually declined till there were three quarters of ‘em out. I went to Rushworth’s once and they’d slays the height of a mountain in their yard, slays.
At Colne?
R-Loom slays, aye. [Billy is right about this. They had one pile of scrap looms at Primet Bridge as high as the viaduct and another large pile at a mill on the bottom road in Colne. Local legend says they closed their gates during a royal visit to Colne and that they were paid by the government to maintain a stock pile of cast iron scrap as a strategic reserve.]
And you say that Rushworth’s from Colne, they were shareholders in Long Ing Billy?
R-They were, aye and they supplied all the troughing and the pillars.
When were it built?
R-In 1888 and 1890. They used to come ower Tubber Hill with a traction engine and a chap waving a flag at t’front, he walked in front of it, aye. And us school children used to go and look, Hey! Road engine’s coming, we could hear it a mile off, sh sh sh sh, aye. Aye, I can tell on ‘em laying the foundations at Long Ing when I were five or six years old. I can tell of going down a watching, a seeing you know, making them pillar beds. You know I can just imagine it.
All dug out be hand Billy?
R-Aye, there were none of these…. There were nowt o’ that, no. No they used to get through it. Aye, there were 1200, three four hundred loom [sets] there.
When you were working at Long Ing, how strong were the union Billy?
R-Well they were amalgamated to t’Northern Counties you know and Barlick, wi’ being on a branch line, they had a bit of a do of their own, Local Disadvantage. They paid a bit less you see but after a while they wanted to do away with that. They wanted it, it wouldn’t be above thruppence a week to ‘em you know but they went on strike for that. Tanner a week it made difference happen. And t’Northern Counties of course had to muck ‘em out you know. They brought Long Ing out first, best shop I’ Barlick, they brought them out first. Well, as time went on, folk come out of Lancashire and they get filled up, aye.
[Local Disadvantage was a situation initially agreed by manufacturers and unions whereby if a town had higher expenses by reason of being remote from the mainstream of the industry, both wages and room and power rates were lowered slightly to preserve the manufacturer’s competitive position. By ‘folk came out of Lancashire’ Billy means weavers seeking work who came to Barlick to take the looms at a lower rate, in effect, strike-breaking.]
How long were they out?
R-Well, they brought Butts out next you know. It went on for a year or two. If you come out of Lancashire and they [the union members] saw you they’d offer you ‘loom pay’, two bob a loom, eight bob to keep out, what they called loom pay, aye.
Who paid the ‘loom pay’?
R-Northern Counties Textile Association paid it, aye.[I’m not sure about this, the Northern Counties Textile Trades Federation was founded at a meeting on 10th of February 1906. See ‘THE LANCASHIRE WEAVER’S STORY’, a history of the Lancashire Cotton Industry by Edwin Hopwood. Published March 1969 by the Amalgamated Weavers Association. I think Bill means this association which was founded in 1858 and reorganised in 1884.]
So the unions were paying Lancashire weavers to keep out of the town?
R-Well aye, well these that come into the town you know, they, the unions in Barlick, if they saw them they’d offer ‘em loom pay you see, not to start.
So that they wouldn’t blackleg.
R-So they wouldn’t start but they all, eventually it all fizzled out, they [the mills] got filled up and they had to go back, aye. Aye, under the same conditions as they come out. Now, after that, these that had come out on strike, they [the manufacturers] wouldn’t have them no more you see, they black balled ‘em. Manufacturers had an association of their own. They had to flit out of Barlick to Nelson, up and down aye. Folk had come out of Lancashire and filled them up you see. I know one chap as I tented for a bit, him and his wife had ten loom making a reight nice do, reight narrow looms, 38” looms and they came out on strike. They wouldn’t have ‘em back and they had to go working in Chatburn aside o’ Clitheroe there, pity aye, pity that. Nice couple they were an all but they wouldn’t have ‘em back.
Was that fairly common Billy?
R-Aye. Oh aye, there were whole families of weavers had to [leave], couldn’t get [work], they wouldn’t have ‘em back.
And what about the temper of the weavers then, you know what I mean, they were obviously fighting hard were the weavers, were they bitter about the job? You know, did they…..
R-They were bitter at t’time you know and they used to boo in the street when t’bosses came through. Boo..ooh..ooh you know when they used to see ‘em, aye. Oh there used to processions through Church Street wi’, well it had gone off Long Ing then you know. And it had shifted [to Butts] but us young ‘uns we used to go and walk through for us to be bood at you know. There were folk, they’d old pea boilers and all sorts they were bumping through the street, owt. Old tin tanks and all sorts. Bill Crew that used to hev peas, he’d one or two old pea boilers that were buggered you know. They’d go and ask him for ‘em and they were braying ‘em through the street you know when the weavers were coming out of Butts you know. Aye, they were all mixed together through the street. We used to go and fall in you know, it suited us.
What year were that Billy?
R-I’d be about fourteen then.
So that ‘ud be about 1896?
R-That’s reight, that’s it, aye. [Billy is spot on with his dates. See ‘Lancashire Weaver’s Story’ by Hopwood page 58]
Can you ever remember there being any real trouble Billy? You know, police called out and what not?
R-Oh aye, police were in the engine houses aye. In Long Ing there were two policemen and slept there two year afore it, aye, they slept in’t engine house.
That were to stop sabotage like?
R-Aye. Well, Bradley’s that were in’t Butts at far end, where Carlson Ford is now, they’d 400 looms and then they flit to Bankfield when it were built. There were somebody slashed all the warps one night, they’d cut ‘em through, slashed all the warps that depth. [indicates 2”] Aye, all t’lot during the night.
Because they were working?
R-Aye, that’s reight. Aye, I remember that, mmmm.
Yes because I remember reading somewhere, well I’ll tell you where it was, it was in a book the union brought out called ‘The Weavers Knot’ [ I had this wrong it was THE LANCASHIRE WEAVERS STORY] I don’t know whether you’ve ever seen it. They said that at one time the police were brought in to Barlick and they acted so badly that there was a complaint made to the Home Office about them. I can’t remember the date now but I think it were about 1900. [1896 actually, same dispute that Billy is talking about]
R-Well, the police come in you know and they [brought] mounted police once a twice for them does of a night. Well you see there were some rough ‘uns come out of Lancashire, there were some rough ‘uns come out of Lancashire, they were engaged to flay [dialect for frighten]folk to death so’s they’d stop out you see. There were that sort of thing went on.
So the unions ‘ud be bringing them in really.
R-The unions were paying them to come and intimidate ‘em. Aye, you see me mother and father and another dozen were down in Syke House one night when they come in and started a [fight], you know, and police came and locked ‘em up and me father and him had to go down to Skipton and swear agin ‘em you know, aye.
When you say Syke House you mean Foster’s Arms pub do you?
R-Aye. Oh aye, there were all that sort of thing went on aye, oh yes. I saw t’cotton trade boom, I saw it get ower its peak and I’ve seen it decline, aye.
It’s nearly gone now Billy.
R-Well, I saw it. I saw it when it made rapid strides into a boom period. Although it were a trade were t’cotton trade where there were slack times when they weren’t buying on the Manchester Exchange, happen for a period and they had to go on short time. What they called short time and then it ‘ud start and bounce up again and they couldn’t do [make] enough you know, they couldn’t, and t’price went up because of the demand for the stuff. You’d go on a year or two like that and then there’d be another, it were allus fluctuating were t’cotton trade. Aye, aye, there were a tremendous amount of Jews in the cotton trade.
In the buying side.
R-I don’t say they were manufacturers, they were jobbers you know. They bought, they’d give you orders for cloth see. They weren’t, they didn’t manufacture it but there were a tremendous number of Jews aye.
How did most of the cloth go out of the town Billy?
R-Well it used to go out in cloth vans frae t’station.
By rail.
R-By rail. Down that wall side there, where you go into the car park [the wall backing on to the Fire Station] there were a rail all the way down there and there used to be cloth vans [rail wagons] all the way down there and they used to, lorries you know, they [the mills] all had a horse and lorry. They used to come up wi’ it at certain times, tha knows, and packed it in them lorries, them vans aye. Well, as time went on they all got motors of their own and you see, they’d go wi’ a load of cloth and then they’d call at the spinning company and bring some beams or stuff back the same night. That were so they hadn’t to wait on them coming to Earby and happen sticking there for a bit afore they got enough to bring down, you know what I mean. [Rail traffic for Barlick would be detached at Earby and wait in the sidings there until it was convenient to move the traffic up to Barlick, a delay for the manufacturers.] Aye, so that were an evolution that took place you see and then manufacturers started getting cars and before, they’d [The Manchester Men] get on a train at Barlick and have to get off, out, at Earby. They’d go to Colne and then get into the [Manchester} train at Colne. That [getting cars] saved ‘em bothering getting out at Earby and waiting of the train, they’d get it at Colne. Consequently the Barlick line lost that, they lost all that trade do you see. It’s a shame you know that that had to be pulled up. Big shame it is. Terrible, it’s a tragedy.
Yes, and when you were a lad that railway line, Barlick, t’railway line ‘ud be run wi’ Midland Railway Company wouldn’t it.
R-Well it were built wi’ Barlick Railway Company. But Midland Railway Company ran it for them you see. [Barlick Railway Co incorporated by Act of Parliament 1867. Under act of 1899 the Midland Railway Co purchased the undertaking for £52,500. On 5th January 1900 investors with fully paid up £10 shares received £19-2-8 ½.]
Aye, something I came across Billy, when Calf Hall Shed Company bought Wellhouse Mill there must have been no water supply at the station and there was a pump used to pump water from Wellhouse Mill up to the railway station for the engines.
R-Aye well, there were a pump house down at Wellhouse there at t’back yonder. You’d hear, you could hear it puffing away, it were a steam engine. It used to pump water into t’dam frae out of that bore hole in the bottom, they’re filling it in now [the dams]. ‘cause they’re going to make a road through, it’s going to be an industrial estate is that land. If you want a piece of land and want to build a factory you can, you see.
Aye, was there a borehole down on Havre Park?
R-Well it were, you know where that decorators, Bolton’s decorators shop is? There used to be a pump there, just at t’side of there, there were a square wi’ railings round it and there used to be a pump in there but I never saw it working but I could, there were an old pump there. Now there were a bit, just down from there, down towards New Mill Dams as we used to call ‘em, there used to be a little well there, there were a spring there but they’ll have drained it now I expect, but I think there were a pump there, oh aye. Aye, I used to hear that pump puffing away, it were in a brick shed, it’s just getten tekken down this last year or two. I think Silentnight’s taken it down. You know they’ve … aye. But I used to hear it puffing away when I were a lad.
Aye, and when Calf Hall Shed Company took Wellhouse over they had a dispute with the railway company over how much this water ought to be and they stopped the pump. It caused a lot of trouble because there were no water for the engines at Barlick Station. [In 1905 in a letter from BUDC to the Midland Railway Company consumption was stated to be 32,500 gallons a week at 2/- a gallon]
R-No, no. Well at t’finish there were a water crane there weren’t there. It ‘ud be town’s water would that, I don’t know.
Yes. And when you were weaving down at Long Ing Billy, did you used to have to carry your own weft?
R-Aye.
Yes. And carry your own cloth as well?
R-Take your own cloth in and carry your own weft.
Yes. What were you weaving down there, what were you weaving on, those cops that you were using for your shuttles, they’d be old mule cops wi’ no tube in ‘em?
R-No tube in, no. There were no tubes in. We’d have thought it were a God-send wi’ the stuff that they use now. No, you’d to skewer ‘em.
Yes, and that was an art really wasn’t it, skewering a cop properly.
R-Aye, oh you had to skewer ‘em and aye. Sometimes you know in them skips they’d getten twisted all roads you know. Oh aye.
What did you do with your waste Billy when you were weaving, you know, in the early days when you started?
R-Well, at Brooks, you’d take your waste in at certain times and you’d tipple them on to a table and whoever it were, he’d look at them and toss ‘em up and turn ‘em over and happen say sommat or happen not and then he’d shove ‘em into a skip and then t’next ‘un ‘ud come and tipple them on… aye.
And if they thought you had too much they’d say something?
R-Aye, he’s say sommat. Anyone who’d made a lot of bad waste you know, when he’d finished taking waste, he’d [the person who had made the waste] go and dump it in that skip when he’d gone. He he he! I did that trick meself.
Aye. I’ve heard that the toilets used to get bunged up fairly regularly.
R-Oh aye, aye.
With putting waste down the lavatories. How strict were they? How strict were they with you Billy, the overlookers, you know like starting times and what not.
R-Well aye, in the old Billycock days if you look at that big entrance there [at Wellhouse Mill] there’s a little door at the side on it, have you noticed? Well they called that the Penny Hoil and if you were late you’d to pay a penny there and you’d get in and get back into the [thoroughfare, the main entrance into the mill] Aye, if you look you can see where the step were worn with clogs if you look.
Aye, that’s the doorway into Brown and Pickles’ office now, the Penny Hole because they have this end now, round the runway.
R-Well, it led back into the main do where…
Yes, it still does.
R-You see the [main] gate ‘ud be shut, you’d have to go in there and pay, they called it the Penny Hoil.
Yes. Now, about tramp weavers Billy. If you were late was there such a thing as landing in and finding somebody on your looms?
R-Well, there’d happen be three or four weavers waiting and’t manager of course. If it were somebody at…he’d use his discretion a bit you know and he’d go into t’shed and if they hadn’t come he’d say…. It ‘ud all depend who you were. If it were one that were customarily late you know, well he’d bezel [dialect word for penalise or punish] him but if it were one that hadn’t been late afore, well, he’d wait a bit you see, depends. I dare say in Lancashire they were a bit more stricter than what they were in Barlick, at that time.
Were they mostly women that were weaving then Billy?
R-Well there were as many men as women, in fact there were more men because in them days women couldn’t go to work, they had too many children you see.
And if you were off work were there any dole then?
R-No.
When did t’dole start?
R-I think it started about, it ‘ud start about 1930 I think or sommat like that. [Unemployment pay and sickness benefit was introduced in 1911 for certain trades]
Now my first pension were ten bob. [A bit of confusion followed here, Billy got mixed up over dates] Aye, when I were 65 it were ten bob. Aye it were five bob at start.
How did you go on on them days Billy, like round about the beginning of the century, 1900, 1910, if you got injured at work, if you were hurt at work, could you draw.
R-No there were nowt. No I don’t think so, I don’t remember, but there were no compensation then as far as I know. [WORKMEN’S COMPENSATION ACT
The 1897 Act made employers in certain dangerous trades including factories, quarrying, mining, railways and building financially liable for all accidents to workers in the course of their employment. Previously, under the 1880 Employer’s Liability Act they were only liable for injuries arising from negligence. The 1906 Act extended the principle of general liability to all trades and some industrial diseases.]
R-Now in later years Barlick formed one of their own. It weren’t, whether it were parliamentary orders that they had to… they had to have a private one if they wanted. Now of course it’s like, it’s national now you know. But at later years Barlick manufacturers formed a compensation of their own. [I think Billy is talking about the Barnoldswick Manufacturer’s Association here.] They had a secretary you see, one of their own lot and you had to apply to them if you wanted , if you had an accident you know.
And they wouldn’t be the best men at giving money away would they Billy.
R-No, he were a bit of a tight ‘un that ran it, aye. You’d happen get a pound a week, sommat like that you know.
Can you remember who the secretary was Billy?
R-Aye, Chris Brooks. Christopher Brooks, Westfield.
When you were down at Long Ing, weaving down there, can you remember any women ever bringing their children into the mill, like when they were breast feeding, and bringing them into the mill so they could have their children with ‘em and run looms at the same time, would they let them do it?
R-No, I never saw that. These women that were feeding their breast children somebody minded ‘em for about four bob a week. And they’d go up possibly at dinner time and let ‘em have a suck and then they’d go back for them at night. I never saw them bring ‘em into t’factory, no.
Yes, I’ve heard of it but I don’t think it happened so often.
R-I don’t think it happened, never, I never remember it. It might have done in later years I don’t know. I don’t think so.
When you were down at Westfield Billy taping, what sort of tapes were they?
R-Butterworth and Dickinson frae Rosegrove.
What were them at Long Ing, were they Butterworths?
R-They were Howard and Bullough’s from Accrington.
Aye, Howard and Bullough’s. That’s what we had at Bancroft. What did you use for your size Billy?
R-Sago flour and tallow. China clay, wheaten flour, sizing flour aye, but they give over using china clay after I left and flour and all, they just used sago flour.
Sago flour and tallow, that’s all we use now. [At Bancroft]
R-Aye. We used to put china clay in, it used to dry the damn twist up.
Aye, put a bit more weight in it Billy.
R-They were like flour millers sometimes, aye.
During the First World War can you remember, were things ever bad for food during the First World War you know?
R-Well, aye, Well you know you were rationed you know, with everything. You got coupons you know, you’d only ten pennorth of meat a week. Ten pennorth of meat a week, that’s all.
So that were rationing in t’First World War?
R-Aye, first, aye. Now Second World War, I were in a Blackpool boarding house and we used to very fair there wi’ a bit of dodging, aye. Aye, they used to come wi’ their ration books you know and I used to take coupons out you know, if they hadn’t been cancelled before they come and I used to spend them and I had ‘em allowed for through the Food Office you see. Aye, I used to go out with these coupons, I used to get a load of stuff and then at the quarter end I used to send in me returns, I’d getten rations for ‘em. You see they granted us at our house, they granted us rations for thirty people you see. Well, if you’d nobbut twenty six folk coming I’d draw t’lot and then you used to send your tea coupons up and I’d put down ten more than there were and it used to come off, but one time it didn’t and they wrote back and said you’re ten coupons short, he he he. ‘Oh, that’s what I used to…..’ And then they allowed you a hundredweight of sugar to make jam on. Well we never made jam, we hadn’t time to bother making jam. A damn sack of sugar used to come, aye and about half a dozen cases of that there evaporated milk, oh yes.
How did you feed when you were at home on Newtown Billy? Were there plenty to eat?
R-Oh aye, they used to mek th’old do, sheep head and offal stew and all sorts. There’d be bowls of stew in’t cellar wi’ that white fat on top. Sheep head and offal mixed, reight grand stuff aye. And then at baking day at Thursday there were a tin of black pudding about that size, about that depth, black pudding, brown crisp at t’top and it were cut in squares, see, thirteen wi’t father and mother. Aye, By God it were good were that.
Aye well, you’d be handy to the slaughterhouse for the blood.
R-Geet pig’s blood! I went for pig’s blood oh aye. And then they’d get cockles and mussels for tea once a week. Two quarts of cockles and mussels, they used to come round wi’ ‘em in a barrow. ‘Cockles and mussels alive alive o!’ You know I’ve heard all that. Aye.
They would come in on the train would they?
R-Ah yes. Aye they used to come in sacks on the [train], they used to tipple ‘em on the platform, you’d see ‘em on [the station]. There were a chap called Tom Brown, he were a greengrocer, by God he had a voice, they could hear him up Weets of a quiet morning. If you were on Weets you could hear him in Barlick shouting, hey, what a bloody voice, ‘apples and oranges!’ Tom Brown they called him, eh God he had a voice! Aye.
How about chapel Billy, were they chapel-goers your parents?
R-Oh aye they were. Aye, all the chapels were fairly well filled in them days, aye they were. There were some good singers used to come at what they called their choir sermons you know. Eh there were some! Wesleyans, Walter Lawley, lovely tenor singer, they were packed out. There were a certain rivalry among churches who gets the biggest collection, aye and there were a certain rivalry at Whit Monday who had most scholars walking, they counted ‘em. Baptists used to have the most. Aye, Bethesda Baptists.
Aye, which chapel did you go to Billy?
R-Wesleyan.
Did your father go?
R-No
Your mother?
R-Well, she hadn’t the time, she never went though she used to be in the choir afore she were wed but of course she never went but she made us go. We’d to go to Sunday school in the morning at nine o’clock and then go across into the chapel while twelve.
When you went to Sunday School did they ever teach you anything apart from, you know the Bible and what not?
R-Oh aye. Well I don’t … the superintendent used to do most good because when we were in those bits o’ classes you know, I don’t remember ‘em saying anything much about Jesus Christ or anybody else but t’Superintendent ‘ud give an address that we used to be, you know, aye.
SCG/23 December 2000
5963 Words