THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON SEPTEMBER 1ST 1978 IN THE ENGINE HOUSE AT BANCROFT. THE INFORMANT IS ERNIE ROBERTS, TACKLER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Aye, we are rolling again, Ernie.
R- Aye.
Well, I think we’d better warn whoever's listening to this tape in a hundred years, if they, if they notice that we get slightly more relaxed as the evening goes on, it’s because we've got quart bottle of Jim Bean, Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey on the table. And that's the lubricant tonight.
R- Yes, I’ll just have a little sip now.
But we are not having a lot, we are not having a lot, just a little drop. Now, the last tape we made, we .. we had a slight mental aberration and couldn’t remember where we'd worked after the Aly Khan job at Brierfield.
R- We got to when I were going down to t’high speed beaming
That’s it, and you asked him how much the wage were, and did a quick shunt…
R - That's right, and I turned on me heel.
That’s it, yes.
R- Haven't I been to Veevers yet? Brierfield?
No. No.
R- Oh well, maybe a day or two later I was still out of work. And I went to Veevers at Brierfield, for weaving, because there were a surplus of tacklers at the moment ...
Shortage of tacklers?
R- Aye ... Not a shortage of tacklers, shortage of jobs.
Oh, shortage of jobs, sorry Ernie, aye.
R- Aye. And me being a lone bird, paddling me own canoe, there had to be a shortage of tacklers before I could move in. No influence you see, the story of my life. Anyway, I went to Veevers. I'd heard it were a good money shop,
(50)
I'm weaving and they were all stripes, automatics. I knocked on the office door and the manager said "Can you weave?" I said "Aye" "Come with me" he says. So he took me in at the shed door and broke a couple of ends out. "Take them up” he says so I took them up. "Start it up, you can start right now it you want." So I started weaving there, and there were a few Pakistanis weaving, and after about a fortnight I found out that .. I called them BORs, British other ranks .. we’re getting paid for having Unifils on looms, and the Pakistanis weren’t, and I wanted to know the reason why. Big do's and little do's, it got sorted out, the Pakistanis were paid as well, but
Ernest got the order of the bullet, I got sacked.
You, you weren’t in tUnion?
R- Oh yes, I was still in the tacklers union.
But tell me something, tell me the reason why you did that.
R- Well, brotherhood of man, and another thing .. way I thought, if they could get away with paying bloody Pakistanis less money than British, there’d be no British working, would there? So I put my little wedge in, and .. anyway, I got sacked in a nice manner, not for bad work. They told me they were stopping this set of looms and funny enough, not long after they did stop ‘em. But they were old looms.
(100)
What were they?
R – All Northrops.
When you say Unifil, what do you mean?
R – Well, each loom winds its own weft, makes its own cops, and they can be a bit troublesome to t’weaver, a bit of an adjustment you know. They, there is a Unifil mechanic, but there's little things that you can do. I forget how much they got paid, happen about a pound a week. But these Pakis weren't getting this pound, and they were delighted! “My friend, you come to tea. You like tea?" “Oh yes” - I said - I like tea" But I never went. But they were all right, they were decent fellows. And after that .. I'm sacked aren't I. I thought "Well, try Barlick again" see, my old stamping ground.
(5 Min)
What year would this be about?
R- Eh, I don’t know Stan.
We've been a bit lax on dates.
R- Aye, we have, haven't we? I don't know what year.
Just let's reckon it up a bit, you come out of t'army, how long did you do at Widdups?
R - Eleven years.
Eleven years, so that's forty-five, that's fifty-seven, and then ..well, there’s all these, these jobs after Widdups are all, like, in the next couple of years aren't they?
R- Aye, two or three years aren't there? There must be.
Aye so we are round about nineteen sixty aren't we? We must be somewhere near nineteen sixty.
R- Aye, will be, call it nineteen sixty then.
Yes. How long have you been here at Bancroft, last time, now.
R- This last period, Ten years.
Yes. Ten years. So that's seventy-eight, and so about sixty, and then sixty-eight you came to work here. So we've about. another eight years to fill in, that's it – Aye.
(150)
Anyway, go quietly forward, we've got it on tape now, go quietly forward we'll ...
R- So I came on to Barlick, and there is a firm in Barnoldswick making filter sheets, Carlson Fords, and
Butts ..
R- Aye Butts, I tried one, no I didn't try, it were t’first shop, like I thought "I'll try there. There might be a job going.” So I knocked on the office door and the personnel man came to the door. I took me cap off and give me bald head a little tap, just to indicate that I were no chicken. "Yes" he said. I said "I'm looking for work." “Come in" he says. So in I went, and after a conversation and one or two .. well, a little chat he says "When do you want to start?" I says "I'll start tomorrow." So I started the day after, and it weren't my kettle of fish; outside textiles I'm lost.
What were you doing there?
R- Well, first of all I were taking sheets .. they'd like a big, it's like a paper machine. Stuffs wet at one end, goes through this heat and comes out in sheets and this machine I were on cut them into sections, different sizes, and my job were picking them up and stacking them in the proper places. I were just doing that about two hours and a bloke come, “Will you come down to the manager's office?" I thought what the hell have I done wrong now? "Aye” I said, “right" So I went down there, and I had been promoted.
Just hang on a minutes this can go on the tape, there's some bugger throwing stones in t'mill yard.
Ah, sorry about that, young lads with air rifles. They want 'em all shoved up their arses. Anyway, we are off, t’manager wanted you. Aye.
R- Oh aye. I went down there and he must have thought I were a likely lad, I had been promoted to ... they were on shifts and this were my first shift, afternoon shift. He offered me a job on days, storekeeper. So I said “Aye, OK” I mean, I’d rather work days. So I started there and then on this storekeeping like. He didn't mention that I'd to pull about a thousand pound on a little truck. Anyway that job, that didn't last so long, a few months.
You say, just let's break in a little bit there, you say that out of textiles you're no good.
R- I’m not happy, I'm not. I don't say I'm no good at any other jobs but I'm just not happy.
Why do you think that is Ernie?
(10 Min)
,
R- I don't know, I haven't a clue, I've never been able to, in fact, when I were in t’bloody army I used to dream about weaving. Funny that.
Is that right?
R – Aye, and it's never been a plum job, by any manner or means.
Now, I find that very interesting. Don't you think .. you know, as you know, I very often taken people in and shown ’em t'shed and what not. The way I always describe weaving is that it is the second oldest profession.
R- Well, it must be.
When you think about it. But there's, it always seems to me, and I mean, of course, I'm not a weaver, I've never woven, but it always seems to me that as jobs go, weaving must be a very satisfying job, because you are actually making something, aren't you? You knows you can see it rolling off.
R - Oh aye. You can see the product rolling off. Aye. Still, there's lots of other jobs like that.
Yes. Well there is, but it's a funny thing you know, this occupational therapy in hospitals, they give ‘em these little looms, you know, don't they, and have them weaving?
(250)
R- Oh aye. But you know, you can weave in a trance somehow, and noises making music. I’m not joking, it's funny but like I'm saying, outside textiles I seem to be out of me depth, lost. Anyway, I left there, and I came up here to t'Bancroft tape labouring.
Who were the tapers?
R - Joe was one of them, [Joe Nutter] what do they call that other chap that finished?
Norman.
R- Norman?
Norman Grey?
R- Aye, Norman Grey. I had that taperoom like a little palace, it's like a bloody tip now.
Yes I can believe that.
R- Grindrod [The mill manager at Bancroft before Jim Pollard.] come up one Friday night and he patted me on t’back, and that were a real compliment. Anyway, there were a job come to let, tackling at Watson’s at Earby.
Which mill?
R - Beckside mill at Earby. What do they call it?
Brook Shed? Aye.
R- Aye, Brook Shed.
Aye, what's Johnson’s now. Aye, closed down has Watson’s.
R- Yes, Johnson now, they’ve closed down have Watsons. And I enjoyed it there. But my wife got a bee in her bonnet. I have a step daughter and they're in the pub trade, they got in a pub In Kent at a place called Riverhead, near Seven Oaks, the Garden of Eden or the Garden of England. "Let's have a go" she says.
At what?
R- Working in t’pub, me as bar cellar man and her as snack-bar attendant. It were a big place. Amherst Hotel, there were a car park as big as this area. We went down there, me and t’wife and the dog. And that lasted four months and I enjoyed working in t'bar, I used to have
(300)
some fun with the locals. I used to have a bar full of bloody millionaires, they thought I were a bit of a nutcase I suppose. One bloke said to me one time "Are you proud of being a Yorkshire man?" I says “Are you proud of being a bloody Kentish man?" He says “Of course!” I says “Well, of course then.", see? And, funny thing about them, they were all, they were knocking on a bit a lot of the fellows, oldish fellows you know, they all had bloody hair on. So I made some enquiries, they were all wearing bloody toupees and wigs, civil servants they were. Aye, talk about bloody mutton dressed as lamb. Anyway, I found out you can’t work for relations, so that job collapsed, and back we came to Barlick.
When you moved, just let me jump in again. When you went from, when you were working at Watson’s obviously you'd be living in Barlick, yes? Whereabouts?
R- Oh aye. No, I were, I were living at Nelson.
You were still living at Nelson? And was that house rented at Nelson?
R- Yes, a council house.
Aye. How much were the rent then, can you remember?
R- Aye. Oh, it’d be about .. this is fourteen year since. About thirteen or fourteen years since. It’d be .. oh not much, two pound, fifty bob happen. [£2 or £2.50] It were a nice house, nice garden.
Aye, Yes. So when you went down Kent of course, you'd give that house up. What did you do with your furniture?
R- Oh aye, sold up. Oh we just had a dresser and a Royal Doulton piss pot, and a plant pot, and a brass clock.
Did you use the piss pot?
R- No, it were an ornament.
Ornament, yes. No, I'm just interested, you see some people do use ‘em.
R – Aye. Flowers on it has. Lovely. And .. I enjoyed it, it were t’wife that didn't like, really. Well, I didn't like it so much but… Anyway, we came back to Barlick and we lived in a little house in Gillian's area. Two pound a week, furnished cottage it was. You could sit, I could sit in this chair, this chair supplied by the landlady, put the kettle on and poke the fire, without going out of the chair. Aye, it's true that Stan. So ... and all we had it were three hundred quid, and no furniture, only this dresser, and some
(15 Min)
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brasses that I fetched from India and that, you know? And this pot. And I came
working here at Bancroft again, they've always welcomed me working, cut-looker.
When I'd been here a few weeks they wanted a tackler at Bouncer at Pickles. So, off I went again, tackling at Pickles's. And it were all right, I were happy enough .. three years, closed down. I thought “Bugger me, just getting settled" and it takes about three years to settle in a shop. So I'm out of work again. Oh, I'm telling a lie, I weren't out of work. Management said you could go and learn to knit on t’same wage, and it were nineteen pounds sixteen and sixpence a week [£19.83], tackler’s wages then. So I thought well ...
That were when? Nineteen sixty ... four.
R- I think they'd been closed about ...
Sixty-four'?
R- I think they’ve been closed about ten years, it must have been sixty-eight, sixty sixty-seven or eight.
Just one or two things about Pickles’s, you say you went down to Pickles’s at
Bouncer….
R- Aye.
Who were weaving in t’Bouncer then, just Pickles?
R- Just Pickles.
And how many looms did they have in?
R- Eight hundred about, eight or nine hundred..
Aye. How many looms to a set, seventy?
R- Hundred.
Hundred?
R- Aye, I had hundred loom running there a long while. Well, in fact, all t’time I were there I had hundred looms running.
Why a hundred looms to the set, big set that weren't it?
R- It's never been laid down how many looms to a set, it’s how many looms a chap’ll run.
Yes, and how many .. what were they on there, were they on ten loom or eight, or what?
R- I think. they were eights, aye.
Aye. Lanckies?
R- They were all plain Lancashire looms.
Aye. Whose looms?
R- Coopers.
(400)
And they were still running on t’engine of course?
R- No.
What were they on then?
R- Motors.
Aye. When did t’engine stop theer?
R- Don't know.
It doesn't matter, Newton’ll know about that. And they were just weaving plain cotton like we are, grey cotton? And so they are finishing, when? About sixty-six, sometime like that, would it be?
R- Aye, it would be.
Because you've come here in sixty-eight, so ...
R- Yes. Well I went, I went knitting ...
And of course that knitting, it’d be at Long Ing wouldn’t it?
R- Yes, that’s right, but still S. Pickles & Sons. And oh, what a boring job, terrible, didn't like it a bit.
When you say knitting, what were you on, these. circular machines?
R- No, they weren't circular machines, they were flat bed, German. They made some lovely, lovely material. When I saw it at first I thought “Bang goes weaving!” because it knits it so fast and it looks good but it must be no good. There is a lot of firms started up and gone out.
Aye, there is, isn't there. Aye. That Nelson Jersey Knitwear, that were the same thing.
R- Aye. I fancy it's all right for certain, you know, certain methods of manufacturing different things, but it must not fit in right, not like woven.
Aye. It seems to be very good for things like fashion clothes and high quality stuff, doesn't it, but when you get down to the ordinary run of the mill textiles it's very stretchy isn't it, when it's knit.
R- Aye it is. Aye, oh they, knit different kinds, you know, they knit net curtains, but other heavy materials, even shirts, they made out of it. And it were a hundred inches wide some of it.
(20 Min)
Why do you say it were boring doing it?
R- Oh, terribly, terribly, I can't explain. Just watching, no shuttling, no starting machinery, nothing.
(450)
Aye. Nowt to do but……
R- Just nothing. If an end broke you took it up and pressed a button and away it went again. They could have trained a bloody monkey, to do it I think.
Aye. How about tackling there, did they have mechanics for knitting machine …
R- They had, yes, they had mechanics. But there again you see, two or
three other tacklers got this mechanicking job, but not Ernest no, see? I don’t go to church, got no relations in high places, so I’m out on me bloody ear, knitting. Anyway, I told him before I left, manager at Pickles. I knew him when he had his breeches arse out, and I think that were the trouble.
Who were it?
R- I knew too much about him. Well, it were Tooby.
Yes, I keep hearing about this Tooby, how do you spell his name?
R- T 0 0 B Y.
Aye, What was his first name?
R- Jack.
Aye, I keep hearing about this fellow.
R- He is retired now. Oh, he worked for Pickles's all his life. He started as an office boy and general mugger you know, and gradually worked his way up. He were the manager.
So you told him, what did you tell him?
R- I’ll not tell you what I told him.
Oh. right.
R- I used one or two rude words four letter words. Anyway that were it, knitting kaput, so out I come. Where the hell did I go then? Weaving at Johnson’s at Earby, on t’night shift, permanent nights.
Gauze?
R- Pardon?
Gauze?
R- No they weren't on gauze in the automatic shop. And ... three weeks. Bloody terrible it were, miserable lot of tacklers, never a smile .. me and our Wilson were there. I said to him "Has ta ever seen owt like this in thee bloody life?" He said “No, I haven't" This was after three weeks. I says "Let's straighten up and get out.” Right he says. We straightened all these looms up, and I’m just taking the last end up, last of a big bunch, and one of the tacklers came, Whitehouse they called him. One of my old tackler pals from Widdup's. He says "Are you coming or going?" I says “We are bloody well going" and off we went. And ... “Let's go up to Bancroft for some
weaving" Wilson says. I says “Aye”. So ... welcome home. Pollard, he always finds us bloody work.
(500)
So he says to Wilson, “Now lad, you can start weaving.” And then he says to me, “I want thee for tackling.” I said – “I didn't know you had a job going." He says “Well, aye, there is a job going.” and it were a pile of bloody old iron, up again t’far wall, thirty two looms. Some of them ... oh naked they were, talk about unfurnished premises. "Gait them up" he says. I says "Gait them up?” He says "Aye". And I looked at this bloody job and scratched me bald head. I thought well .. I says “Will I be on the same wage as t’other buggers?" He says “Oh aye". I says "Right then" He says “There is no hurry now.” I gaited them up, thirty-two looms, it took me about two months. And I’ll give them their due, they never come to enquire. I don't say
they didn't go and inspect while I weren't there, but they never said owt
to me, not a word. I just carried on quietly along, and I finally got these
thirty-two looms going and then, .. he left me with them a week, and then they
had a recount and I had a set of me own then, and I've been here ever since. I've been, I'll be here while they, while they .. you know
Take you out and shoot you. Aye. How about, we’d missed one somewhere I think. How about Stew Mill? You worked there didn't you?
R- Oh aye, I've slipped up haven't I.
Where, did that come?
R- Eh, I don't know where that come, twelve month or eighteen months I worked there. In between. But I'm never, I don't, I can't work anywhere where there's authority. I don't mean I won't obey orders, but there is a way of giving a fellow orders and there’s a bloody nutcase at Stew Mill; Mitchell, what does he, what's his name?
Raymond.
R- Raymond.
That’s it, aye.
R- Well, I had a few arguments with him about different things and I finally chucked up, I finished.
Very funny people actually.
R- Oh, that must have been in between .. I left there and went to T B Fords, that’s how it happened. I couldn't sign on you see, I had to find a bloody job of some sort.
That’s it, yes.
R - And he, I’ll tell you what he did. I were putting chains on a beam end, and there were a nut, it must have been there for fifty years be the looks of it, it were as rusty as buggery.
(
550)
And this foot come and tapped it ... as I'm down on me knees he is, this foot’s tapping this nut. So I had t’key in me hand and I just went down with it, and cracked it right on the bloody toe end, and it were Raymond. So there were a hell of a bust up about that job, "In the office." "Right - 1 said - come on." And his father were a really nice fellow, Ernest Mitchell. He were a right nice chap. He used to, I used to talk to him for hours. He used to get on about the Crowthers of Bankdam like the Mitchells of the Stew Mill, they were comparing ‘em, and there's some comparison.
[Crowthers of Bankdam is a famous book about a fictional textile dynasty. The author was Thomas Armstrong.]
There is a lot, you are quite right.
R- And, "You are not leaving us are you Ernest?” he said, they called him Ernest as well. I says, “Look" and he [Raymond] was stood there, “I can’t stand that bloody fellow a moment longer. I’ll have to get away from him."
So I did, I left. And there were some, they were happy go lucky lot working up there. Anyway I left.
Anyway, you finished up here, and you gaited them looms up and got your set, and you've been here ever since.
R- Aye.
And how many loom would they have running then? Nineteen Sixty-eight, how many loom would they have running then at Bancroft?
R- Oh, we're supposed to have seventy-three apiece now, I mean, they've been seventy-three and seventy-five for ten years.
Yes, but I mean how many loom were there running here?
R- Oh, there'd be four and four's eight, and eight's six…. six hundred. Between five and six hundred there'd be running.
So t’shed wouldn't be full, they must have smashed some up at fifty-eight.
R- Oh well, if the price of iron's high they smash some up.
Well aye, that's what we do, isn't it? And ... funny question to ask you now, I know that it's very difficult for you to really make a judgment but … what do you think of the way that Bancroft’s run now, compared with some of the other mills you've been in? Now I mean, you've worked in a fair number of mills, weaving and tackling, which were the best run mills, you know, business wise. Which would you say was the mill that was being run best of the ones you worked in?
R – I’ll tell you which one's run the worst right away. This place. I've never worked in a mill that's run like this.
Now, when you say that Ernie, is it, you know yourself, I mean, obviously I'm not criticising you, I'm just trying to get to the truth.
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It's very easy to criticise people and all the rest of it, but do you really think that, do you really think that it’s….
R - Oh aye, but the only reason it's run worst, they don't buy any new healds or new anything. Any spare parts or most of t’spare parts we use, we cannibalise. Take them off a stopped loom. And Jim .. I've been here ten years, and I can only ever remember seeing about ten sets of new healds in all that time. Well, it all makes extra work for the tacklers.
And the weavers.
R – Well, tacklers first of all, because we have to, gait them up and get them running. But I reckon Jim Pollard's the best manager in the world working for a firm with the main object of saving money. He runs this bloody firm for next to nothing.
There's no doubt about that, he does.
R- There isn't.
No.
(30 min)
R- And it's just changed hands too. Gunga Din's taking over they reckon. I reckon Boardman’s should give Jim ten thousand pounds golden hand shake because he's earned it.
Yes, but we both know what he will get. He’ll be like the rest of us, he’ll…
R –Aye, soldier’s farewell.
Aye, with a bullet in the finish I think.
R - More than likely.
[At the time this tape was being made both Ernie and I knew that we were going to lose our jobs along with everyone else in the firm as we were under notice of redundancy.]
Well .. I'm just thinking now that the people that listen to this tape in perhaps a hundred or two hundred years will think that we sound like a couple of pessimistic buggers now, but I should point out that we, well, I've been here now for what? Six years and I've seen it go down from .. we had nearly five hundred looms running then.
R- Oh aye, aye it's going downhill, but we are cheerful pessimists.
Yes, I mean we are not, put it this way, we're realists,
R – Realists, that's true.
That's it, aye.
R – Aye, if you can face facts that's half the battle.
That's it.
R - I mean, if they put the notice up tomorrow [The redundancy notice. It actually went up on the 22nd of September, three weeks after this tape was made.] I’ll think to meself "Well Ernest, back to the old routine."
That's it. Well, we did try, didn't we.
R - Oh aye.
We did try. And there is one thing about Bancroft, I don’t know whether you'll agree with me - but .. I've always said this place is a bloody holiday camp.
R- I agree most heartily. I've never worked at a place like it in me life where there is least aggro, and nobody telling you to ... "Go here, and, come here and do that job and when you've finished that go and see if Joe wants a lift.” and … well … and “put that brush up your arse and sweep up as you are going along.” There's nowt like that. Eh…
(650)
No, I like it here. I know when I first came here somebody were telling me what a rotten bloody shop it was to work at. I says to him, I says well, I'll tell you what, I’ve just come off long distance wagons, I’ve been into more factories, firms, places of business, mills, chemical works, dye works, anywhere you care to mention, than everybody else in this firm put together. I’ve never seen a bloody place like this, they can wander in at what time they want in the morning, they can go and do the bloody shopping half way through t'day and they can wander out at night any time they want. I mean, it isn't a question of the bell going here at half past four and everybody going out, it's a question of the engineer going round at half past four and shutting all the bloody doors because there's nobody here.
R- Aye. I’ve known weavers be off all week and Jim hadn't known. Aye. He said “Has Gladys a condenser in?" This would be at Friday afternoon. ".She is not here" and she'd been off all week. He didn't know.
Well, in the old days, in the old days there'd have been somebody in that warehouse waiting to go on t’looms five minutes after they turned out to be missing.
R - Oh yes, aye, aye. You had to run like buggery or you had a weaver on.
Aye. Anyway, you've got a little house on Wapping haven’t you? When did you get that house?
R- Townhead.
Yes, Townhead.
R- It used to be Wapping but not now. We’ve got some semi-detached up here now, you know?
Aye. Townhead, I'm sorry Ernest, yes.
R- Well, when we were living at Gillian's in that…
Bijou residence.
R- Premises, premises. And another thing, t’bloody wind used to blow right through. I'm sure they were haunted. And where were I working? We were up there a few months but I were looking for a house you know. We still had this three hundred quid, as a down payment. Anyway, I’m coming up Wapping, and there is a paper in a window 'This house for sale.” 20 Townhead it was. So, after a few enquiries I found out it belonged to, eh, what the hell do they call him, Norman Bracewell’s son in law, Norman ….
Capstick.
R- Capstick, that’s right.
John Capstick.
R- So I didn't tell t’wife, she…oh funny thing though .. 0h, in a minute that, funny thing. I'm nattering at t’wife about this bloody house and she is nattering at me. It were back to the old days you know, tub in t’toilet. And so oh it were, you don’t want to slip back you want to go forward a bit. Anyway, I'm coming up Wapping, this paper's in the window ‘This house for sale.’ So it belonged to Capstick and I went to (700)
see him, "How much? "Five hundred pound.” Well, I hadn't five hundred pound and I couldn't get a mortgage so I said "Will you take fifty pound down, and
two pound, a week rental purchase? And after we have paid £500 we reckon the interest up.” Aye, all right" he says. So I comes up Gillian's and I says to the wife "Come on with me at once." So down Gillians she comes and she looked at this house. It's a nice house, and it were on the clearance list when I bought it, gambling again. Now its on t’preservation list. “Aye ---she says, but I want to go to Nelson." I says "You are not going to bloody Nelson. You are stopping in Barnoldswick with Ernest or you can go to Nelson on your bloody own, I've done enough travelling about, I'm settling down here I've been to Kent, India, Africa, all over the bloody world, and I get a bit sick of it." So she finally said "Aye, all right" and we moved in. And I've been right, really happy in that house.
Yes, I know you have. It's a nice little house, now you’ve got it straightened.
R- Oh it is, aye. Aye, it's smashing. And I paid this five hundred pounds and I think it were eighty pounds in interest. I paid eighty quid off, and got the deeds. A man of means.
‘A man of Property' that's it, John Galsworthy, that's it, man of property. Aye, so I mean, really it's, everything turned out …
R- OK. You've got my bloody life on them tapes!
Ah, not yet, no, I haven't finished with you yet. I haven't just sucked the juice out of you yet. But we’ll get a bit philosophical now, I mean that Jim Bean ought to he working down a bit now. Any regrets? You know, looking back at it?
R- No not one. No, I've no regrets Stan, if I had my life to do over again, it’d be exactly the same. No I can't say, I've honestly, I've knowingly done any bad turns, ever. No I can't say I have any regrets at all.
When you think back to the days when your mother were struggling to keep hearth and home together and all the rest of it, when all three of you were at home . You know a lot of people talk about poverty and the harm it can do people, and this, that and the other.
(750)
Looking at you now, it doesn’t seem to me that poverty’s left any big scars on you.
R- Oh no, it hasn’t. No, doesn’t it say in the Bible ‘It's no use kicking against the pricks.” I’m a fatalist, what has to be will be. I mean, I've had ups and downs but like I said, if you don't have any bloody downs you don't appreciate the ups. And I'm better off now in every way than I’ve ever been in my life, and I don't know who to thank for that, I've always worked. I don't know whether to thank t'bloody Labour Party or not.
Aye, well, as a good Labour man who has always seen a Tory put in….
R- Aye, I’ve never backed a winner yet. And things today, I mean, well, there’s no comparison.
What do you mean?
R- Between when I were a lad and now. Everybody were poor, nearly everybody. People that were working regular, they were bloody poor. They’d save up twelve months for a week at Blackpool, no wages, there wore no such thing as holidays with pay. And if you didn't save up you were on your bloody chin strap. May be if you saved a shilling or two-shilling a week for twelve months you'd …you know, you’d. be all right. But otherwise you were .. no pay day that week. Well, bugger me, it’d he a disaster
(40 Min)
Would you say, looking back, that there was a bigger gap then between the people that had and the people that hadn’t than there is now?
R- Oh I should say ... oh, miles apart, a million bloody pounds apart.
You mean more so then than now?
R- Oh yes. I mean, you can just look about you, ordinary working class people, what you might call uneducated. Nice motorcar, nice house, everything laid on, but they’ve got to work, they’ll not get it on this SS. Though you hear some stories about it being a land flowing with milk and honey for them, but I don't think it is. There might be isolated cases. But supposing I come out of work, couldn't work and went on’t bloody Social Security, they wouldn't give me much. Aye, I mean, for a chap to really take advantage of Social Security he has to have a few kids, hasn’t he?
Yes.
R- And really I don't disagree with it, this child allowance and that, I think it's a good thing. If this country gets a hea1thy child to grow up to a healthy adult, and he starts paying bloody taxes it’ll not take him long to pay it back will it?
That's right, you are quite right. One of the things that I’ve always said is, like these people that talk about people who have used what I call ‘Lloyd George’, you know, used to be the parish, sick pay, you know, or Social Security. They are very often people who have never had to draw it, because I've always said the same thing, I can remember being off work once, for three months, when I had an accident and I thought that Lloyd George were the finest bloody thing that had ever happened.
R- Oh yes, aye, it is if you are in need.
It was.
R - I mean, how can you go on with nothing?
Well, the funny thing was, I mean what a rotten wage I must have been on, I were drawing more on bloody Lloyd George that I could when I were working. And I'll be quite honest, I got to the stage where I thought “Well, I could get used to this." Aye, oh hell, aye. I could get used to it. Mind you, I'd have been doing sommat else on the side like, but I can understand. I mean, you know yourself, we've got people working here now like loom sweepers and what not, they'd be better off on t’bloody dole that they are working.
R-No, they wouldn't Stan.
Well, no, when I say that I realise that I’m falling into the same trap as the others, but like .. I can give you one instance that I know in true, and that’s John, the firebeater.
R- Aye …
When he came to work here he had five children at home, it was before the [Eldest] lad had gone to work and we sat down one day, and worked it out. And in order to have the same money working here as he had when he was at home on the dole doing nothing, he had to have a gross wage of just short of eighty pound, which obviously you can't do on firebeating job here. He used to lie in bed on a Monday morning and there used to he a postal order for fifty odd quid plopped through the door, and then on top of that there were free milk at school and school dinners and what not.
R - Aye .. that's right.
He said it worked out, he said it would have to be over eighty quid he’d have had to have drawn to have made up for it when you reckon up stoppages. But John being the fellow he was he’d rather be working than laiking so he came to work.
R- Well, John's kind are in the majority. There it is, he’d rather work than mope about, for less money.
Yes. I think. ... I know what you're getting at, and I think you are right. I mean it's .. when you come to think about it .. these tales about people that are drawing all this Social Security .. it is as you say, they are isolated cases, but they are news.
R- Yes.
So they get publicised.
R- That's right.
I mean, if Ernie Roberts comes quietly to work every day of his life for forty-two years, that isn't news, but if Ernie Roberts has sixteen kids and he is drawing two hundred quid a week social security that's headline news.
R- That’s news, aye it is. There's bloody millions like me.
Yes, of course there is. But you see, one of the things that interests me about this job and especially in Barlick, is the fact that it was people like you who, as you say, you love weaving and you could hear the music in the noise and all the rest of it ..it were people like you that made the industry what it was.
R- Aye.
And made all the money.
R- Yes, of course it were.
And yet the amazing thing to me is, how can I put it? If British Leyland was to be run down over the next three years there’d be an uproar, there’d riots, there'd be strikes, there’d be God known what. But in this town, since nineteen-fifty-eight over the last twenty years, an industry's died and gone, and there's never been a murmur.
R – No.
An odd little bit in the paper……
R – Aye. Another mill closed down…
There's never been a murmur. ‘Another mill closed down’ I mean, we are still getting them now, Oak Bank, that place at Trawden, another mill closed down.
R - They are closing down one by one. Because we just can't compete with this foreign. And they, I know, I know that they work for bugger all. I think … well, they must be on a par, like same as we were in nineteen thirties, say t’weavers in India, they’ll just be on a starvation wage. Oh they must be, because they can buy t’bloody cloth cheaper in India and ship it over here.
Yes, and there again they have another advantages, they control the raw material as well, don't they?
R- Yes.
Well, this week we've come to the end of, well not the end, but we've come to the present day in your working life and what we're going to do next week, we'll .. we'll have a look at the pictures again, but this time of Ernie Roberts tackler, tackling, and we'll see what we can make of that.
SCG/27 September 2002
6985 words.