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THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON OCTOBER 6TH 1978 IN THE ENGINE HOUSE AT BANCROFT. THE INFORMANT IS ERNIE ROBERTS, TACKLER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.

R- … They were, they were having a birthday party. And, Betty were.. it were Betty's birthday party and she was serving all her friends round the table and half way round the table she farted. So she went, to relieve her embarrassment and she said to her brother "Come in here Tommy” So he went in the kitchen and she said "If you'll go and tell them it were you that let that fart, I’ll give you a shilling." He, says "All right." So he came back into the room and he says "Ladies and gentlemen, that fart that our Betty let were mine." I can see my mother's eyes, she used to laugh like buggery when she used to tell that tale, it must have tickled her first ...

As you'll probably gather, we've started another tape, I just caught Ernie unawares there and switched the tape on so that we could catch that joke. This is actually tape 78/AC/16, recorded on 6th October 1978 in the engine house at Bancroft Shed. The informant is Ernie Whittaker, I beg your pardon Ernie Roberts, I’ll get it right now ...

No, no. Ernie Roberts tackler and the interviewer is Stanley Graham. Ignore any comments that Ernie makes about whisky. What Ernie and I are going to do tonight is go through the last pictures in the sequence on gaiting a loom. Now, it's important to realise that these pictures were taken out of sequence but with the same type of warp that the first pictures were done on. Now, with them being out of sequence they have had to be inserted in the file between two pictures, 51 and 52, so we've numbered them as it were, decimally. And the first picture that we are going to look at will

be 511 the next 512 and so on until we get to the end of them. And then, anybody following the folio right through will come on to picture number 529 which gets us into the empty looms. So, what we are going to do now is run through the pictures at the end of the actual gaiting sequence on the Lancashire loom. Right. Picture 510. Now then, you tell me what you're

R - Well, I've got to the stage now, I'm tightening the threads up, tucking them in with my ruler - that's a tackler's ruler – foot, good for scratching backs or tucking ends in, between the sand roller and wood cloth roller. You've got to have them tight, it's essential that you keep all them threads in even tensions or else you are in trouble. So I'm being very careful.

Yes. Now then. One bit of explanation before we go any further. When you say threads, you mean this web of warp that we can see coming over the top of the loom, and over the breast beam.

That's right, Now then, when you talk about the sand roller, that's the first roller underneath the breast beam. I've always understood that it's called the sand roller because at one time it’d probably be covered with sand paper.

R- If you are weaving very fine, flimsy cloth. You sees if you had perforated tin on it, it'd pluck it.

So, our sand rollers are actually covered with perforated tin, just like a nutmeg graters in't it?

R- Yes. That’s right. Just exactly the same. And you can get different gauges for, like, fierceness you know. Very strong for very strong cloths so that it'll take the cloth away as is being woven.

So. that roller that's being driven there, that has the, or let's put it a different way. The sand roller, which has got the material on the surface to make it rough ... And I think I'm right in saying that we have about, ah there's a roll lay over there, that rubber stuff.

Now, that roller is used, it's driven is that roller, and that roller is the one that actually drags the warp through the looms isn't it?

R - That's right. Aye. it's like worked from the side, from the taking up motion.

Yes. So that when you alter a pick wheel, or a motion wheel on the end, to alter the pick, you are actually altering the drive to that sand roller.

So the sand roller is really the thing which governs the speed at which that warp moves through the loom.

Yes, aye, that's right. Yes, I think we'll go, yes we'll go on to 511. Now then, you tell me what you are doing there.

R- Well, I’ve tucked all the ends in and I'm threading… I've stretched a piece of beating across the front and round the back of the sand roller bush and I shall pull that tight so that it keeps these ends tight when

Yes. So … Yes, so turn over to the next picture because I think that this one is… Ah, no, we'll go back, we'll go back to 511. So, when you've tightened that piece of beating… now beating is a piece of ... it's a length of thread off the tapes in't it?

R- Only it has…Aye, that particular piece hasn't been through the raddle, like a comb, to split it.

Yes. That’s it. Now, so actually it could be said we have got a picture missing here. What you do when you've tied that on, you turn that sand roller.

So that it draws these ends through the loom. So that you get a good wrap on to your sand roller.

So that when you start the loom up to start weaving, when you have finished the rest of gaiting, you have got a positive pull on it. Because otherwise it wouldn't grip those ends they'd probably just fly off wouldn't they.

R- Oh, I've got my warp… all my warp ends, all the threads are tight on to the sand roller. Now, I'm putting the slay cap on, putting the reed inside the slay cap. And that slots into the top.

You have lifted the reed up through the warp and you are actually sliding the slay cap, or hand shelf as you call it, on to the reed.

And then, when you've slid it on, it goes on the two brackets that we can see in front of you at either side. One nearest to you, near the shuttle…

Yes. And then in picture 513 you are actually tightening the nuts up on each end.

Yes. Tell me something, that's a fairly good picture 513, it gives a fairly good view of the leathers on the shuttle box at this end of the loom. Tell me something about the leathers and the names of those leathers. Now, just to start you off, the very corner of those leathers, where they're coming in at the front of the picture is on the end of the picking stick isn't it? Yes?

R – No, well, aye, there's usually four holes, there's two you can see there and two you can't see. Well, you can see three really but that long leather, picking band, goes through the short leather which goes round

the picker. And to fasten that long leather on the end of the picking stick there's a bonnet, we make all them. And there's a wood peg goes through to hold it in.

R- Aye, you can just see it on the corner there. The wood peg goes through the long leather.

R - They are made of leather. Well, for a Lancashire loom, this old fashioned loom, they've always been made of leather, but there is a new trend now for plastics. We’ve tried some but they are no good.

[The leather pickers we used at Bancroft are the old-fashioned ones which were made out of water buffalo hide.]

R – Well, trouble. I can't explain it any other way. You get stitching and shuttles flying out and even broken shuttles.

Now, tell me, it doesn't show up too clearly on this picture, but there is another leather - you can see the end of it, hung out, here…

There is another leather runs right the way along the front of the slay to the box at the other side. Now, what's that one called?

R- That's a check strap. It acts like brake on the shuttle. And they have never been able to find a substitute for that strap. Whoever built these looms originally, they must have had some bloody headaches. There's never been a better method of checking the shuttle than that check strap. And that, in turn, goes through a check ends here and that's fastened with a buckles on to the check strap you see?

Yes. And so the check strap runs from what we call the buffers, doesn’t it? Once they'd ...

R- No, at this end here, see, there is a bow leather. All these leathers are married each one needs the other. None of, if any of these leathers break, then the job's a baddun. If you get that buckle flying out, breaking, sometimes they do, all that working's finished.

When the shuttle is at the other end. I mean, the shuttle now is in the box, and obviously the loom isn't running but when the shuttle hits the other end it hits the picker ...

And as it drives the picker back, it hits the buffers doesn't it, buffer leathers. Is that what you call them?

R- They’re fastened on to the spindle. That's really a, a picker saver. You see if you had that picker picking up against the metal stud, it wouldn't last no time. But picking against leather, well it lengthens its life.

Yes, well now tell me, I know that when the shuttle hits the other end, it hits the picker first, drives the picker up to the end of the box and as the picker is getting to the end of the box, it's slowed down, or braked or arrested, or whatever you like to say, because it starts dragging on that check strap under the slay doesn't it?

R- That's right. That's true, but on the back of this box, where the shuttle's coming in, there's what they call a swell spring. That’s really the first brake and the check strap is like the final brake. I mean, when you think about that shuttle travelling at 200 picks a

Oh, it's like a bullet. Yes. And that picture that we are looking at, 513, it gives you a very good idea of the way the healds are hooked on to the roller at the front.

Yes. Now, above that roller top, this loom - we are not using it for this warp but it has a spring top on that hasn't it?

R- Well, as this loom’s set up on a roller top it is just weaving plain cloth. But, if you put a different tappet underneath a loom and more lamb rods and more staves and this spring top hooked up, it’ll lift each stave individually, up to six staves, so you can weave, well you can weave all sorts of different weaves.

Yes. So in other words, that spring top, these things that we can see at the end that are all covered with dawn and God knows what, those are actually leather straps.

And if they were hooked on to the healds, instead of the short leather straps off the roller top that we have for this warp, when one of those straps is dragged down, it pulls on a spring - you can just see the end of the edge of the springs at the top - so that as the tappet pulls it down, when the tappet leaves go of it, that leather and that spring will pull the heald back up.

And you can have up to six healds ... One, two, three, four, five, that's it, six.

Aye. And it also has a tray underneath it which is very handy for the weavers because they put all sorts on don't they?

I've never known, I've never realised that was what it was for. That's something that we really ought to point out Ernie, that ... tell me about oil on a loom. You know, about not getting it on to the cloth.

never been solved that problem, black oil weaving in, little specks. They just can't find how to do away with it, they tried all sorts.

R- Well, every time, before a session starts, the same as one o'clock here say, the weaver will have oiled that spindle. And it builds up in the studs and the plug and round the buffer leather and occasionally there is a little spec will escape and fly in. And you can strip that box down - say you are having trouble with a loom chucking bits of black oil in - you'll strip the box down, take the plate off, box back, studs, all the lot, polishing everything up and you'll still get it.

There's something there that, here again I realise, you see, the more we do, the more pictures we need. I haven't got a picture of a feather oiler. Just explain what a feather oiler is and the way a weaver uses it.

R- Well, it's just a hen feather or a goose feather or any kind of a feather. And once of a day, years ago, there used to be a little tin screwed on to the end of the loom. And, I don't know whether somebody filled them up with special oil, spindle oil, and then the weaver used to just get this feather and oil up.

You just pulled the feather out, soaked with oil, and touched it on to the parts that needed oiling.

R- Aye. Well you couldn't oil that with the oil can really. You need just a smear.

R- I've known weavers using an old tooth brush. But a feather's, you know, it must be original, feather.

Yes. I notice a lot of them these days have, they'll have a tin like a dried milk tin at the end

… and then with a hole punched in the lid. And the feather’s stuck through that. Aye.

Aye it's right, let's see. Anything more about that picture? Obviously you've got the weaver in the alley with you, looking serious.

Very good. One other thing that's very clear on that picture, the hand shelf - that's the wooden part that you are holding with your left hand while you tighten the nuts up with your right - it's very highly polished on the top.

R- Ah well, that’s like with use; but if you put a new one in it’d be polished. But with use, they get polished. You know, a weaver, when they're weaving they put their hand on there when the loom's running and in fact at one time they used to put some weight on and try to speed it up a bit. Make another farthing.

Aye, shove the loom on. And the shuttle guard stands out well on there doesn't it?

R- Oh aye, well, aye. Like everything else, obsolete, they have never been able to improve on that, either. They've tried all sorts of patents because I mean, they don't call that a flying shuttle for nothing. Once it leaves that box it's out of control.

Have you, all the time you've been tackling and weaving Ernie, have you ever seen a bad accident with a shuttle?

R- No, I haven’t, but there has been accidents. There's one or two with one eye. I’ve never seen a bad accident; I've been thumped a time myself. One time it fetched blood, just catched me on the cheek bone But you see, this shuttle guard keeps that shuttle down. That's the idea of it; it doesn’t stop it coming out, but it’s like deflected down and ...

it's factory law and has been for generations I suppose, that there has to be a shuttle guard on there.

Aye. Whereas, if that guard's on, if it does start to fly out, at least there is a good chance it'll hit something else on its way out and slow it down a bit.

514? And we are now, what was it you said when you were on about the centre fork grates? Spent more time on your back than a prostitute?

R- Oh aye. Aye, I did, aye. I said "It's time I were leaving here.” and I left.

R- I've, done most of my work up above, so I’ve got down on the floor now and I'm leaning under the loom, fastening the heald bands to what they call the lamb rods. So I’m like making a connection between top and bottom. All the work what's done is done down here, the tappets are making the cloth really.

So, the levers that are actually controlling the lamb rods are coming through that grating we can see in the bottom of the loom.

R- Aye. So this lamb wire is fastened to two of these and the tappet as well. And the tappet, like, there is one leaf bigger than the other; that makes, that evens the job up up above, makes the shed even. I mean, you need a bigger shape, a bigger leaf to make the shed a bit bigger from the back.

threads, the bands, at the top that hold the heald, the heald bands at the top. If you can, you try and keep them intact, those are always hung on the loom aren't they?

You don't like to bother with them, you don’t like to adjust them. But these at the bottom are the ones that you have to adjust with a running knot aren't they, to give you the right tension on them.

R- Aye. Well, I suppose so, in a way. But to get that band on that lamb rod, it's to be, that's to be something free you know? And once you get the band on the lamb rod you shove this running knot and tighten it up. It's a slip knot.

And then, that means that those bands at the bottom and the ones at the top and all are fairly taut. The heald's taut isn't it? It's not flapping about.

R- Oh aye. That's right, you don't want a lot of play because it's like a continuity up, and, you know, from up above to down below.

R- Aye, we are making a bit of headway. Now here, I’m putting the slay, the lease rods in.

Yes. That'll be ‘lease’, the came as the other won't it? Aye, the same as that other lease that we were talking about. Now you've just got one in there, but how many of those rods are there?

R- That’s right, there's two rods, this is the back rod, and the first and third end goes under that rod.

Yes. Now tell me if I’m wrong. When you've put that one in, when you've put the other one in, do you alter the position of those healds before you put the other one in? Tell me about that.

R – Yes, yes. Well, you can see, I've pulled first and third and put my back rod in. Now, next operation is to pull up …

Yes. Now, just one second before you go on. Pulling up the first and the third rods has, in effect, formed the shed. You've made the shed.

And, well, actually, from the look of that, from the way those threads are going there, you are just putting the other rod in aren't you, because that shed is crossed on that one.

Yes. If you look at this one carefully, this is for the benefit of anybody listening to the tape - if you look very carefully at the shed, that’s the gap between the two different sets of threads which are going through the healds, you'll see that the rod that we can see from this end of the loom is actually trapped now by ....

… the threads. So that means that Ernie’s put that rod in and then he's altered the shed and what we are actually seeing him do is sliding the other rod in, the front one now, through the shed that he's made. That’s it.

R- That's it. Yes, you can see, it's second and last up and the big rod in. So, second and last up, that leaves first and third down, and when I put the big rod in, that first and third end is under the big rod. Now I'm putting the little rod in, with first and third up, you can see that the first and third's under the big rod.

R- So when I put this little rod in, second and last will be under the front rod.

R- And that's, well, for the benefit of everybody concerned. Say, when they've any ends broken, they just fiddle, they find out which rod they go under and always put them back in that position.

Yes. Now, let's just set this straight while we are on about it. Those rods aren't just pushed in and left there.

R- that they can't ... aye, that's it. If they aren't tight, they slide out sideways. And then that's trouble again. They won't weave without rods.

Aye, that's it. I meant to ask you about that, yes. Tell me about that lump of waste, that lump of beating on the floor.

R- Well, that's what, well, I call that the pile preventer! See? You never, one of the unwritten laws is "Never get down on a cold stone floor without some protection." And that, you carry that in your back pocket so that, I mean, we spend a lot of time down there.

That's it. Now, the loomsweepers generally carry around either a piece of board, or an old piece of carpet don't they?

If they are right hard up, a piece of a carton out of the shed. Anything to put something between them and the floor.

And the reason ... Yes, that's it. I was just going to say, shed floors are damp because sheds are nearly always built into hill sides.

R - That's it. And then it helps to, it helps the manufacturer. You can buy cheap yarn and if it weaves….

[Ernie is making a very important point here about the old adage that sheds were damp ‘because it weaves better’. This is true, but simplistic, the big advantage is that the more ideal the humidity is, the shorter staple yarn that can be used. This yarn is cheaper to buy and so there is more profit. The sort of contracts we worked on at Bancroft {which were standard contracts} did not stipulate the staple length, simply the type and general quality. If the cloth could be woven to specification with a short staple yarn it was a big advantage. The ability to make decisions about this at the ordering stage for materials was an essential skill and one which I have never seen highlighted in descriptions of the process].

R - But all the mills are built in what you might call swampy areas. Where there is plenty of water and drips you know?

R- Ah well, we are getting towards the end of that operation now. This is the last operation, putting the temple caps on to hold this yarn and eventually cloth.

Yes. Now, there is one thing I noticed when I was printing this picture Ernie. I don't think we can see it on this one, but these temple rollers in this loom weren't the ones with the brass discs in and the spikes, they were they were wooden ones.

R- Oh yes. You'll use fierce temples for strong cloth, and what's the opposite to fierce?

Yes. So you'd, put me right if I'm wrong - you'd say that the temples that have the brass discs with the separate brass discs with the pins in, and different kinds of pins, those are fairly fierce are they?

And the gentle ones would be some, we have some in fact that are just covered with rubber haven't we?

R- Oh well, aye. Ah well, that's for weaving, well, gauze maybe. Very gentle cloths.

Aye, aye … I'm just looking at those healds there, they nearly look as if they are slated but they are not because they always come up alternately don't they, one and three and two and four.

R- Aye, but they are slated. If you notice they are in two pairs, back two and front.

R- Ah but no, apart from that. Really, when this loom's at top centre them four staves are level. But apart from that, the two pairs are slated, just a bit, that's essential as well. If you had them level there’d be slack ends. See? It's all like on a slope isn't it when you make your shed.

And on this picture as well, on 516, it gives a very good view of the fork and the fork grate doesn't it? Well, I say very good, you can't quite see the fork grate, it's behind the - what do you call that at the front of the box, behind the buffers ?

The gate of the box, aye, the shuttle box. Well, you can see the fork there plain enough.

And the fork grate is in the slay just behind that gate as we are looking at it isn't it?

R - That's right, aye. And when the loom is running and weft… if weft's across the grate, it lifts this fork and this hammer's moving all the time in time ...

R - Aye. Worked off a tumbler underneath. And if there is no weft there, the loom stops.

The small hook at the back, which is just under your left hand, catches in the hammer, stops that going back and that trips the stop motion of the loom and stops the loom. Yes?

Pulls everything off. Aye. Which I think you once told me is the correct way to stop a loom, isn’t it? Just to trap the weft fork and let it stop itself. Aye.

When a loom stops Ernie, I've heard you talk about stopping in the wrong box. What do you mean by that? When a loom stops, should the shuttle always stop at a certain end of the loom?

R- Aye, setting on end. If you can get them to stop that way. That's the way they should stop. But ... they mostly they do that, but sometimes I think the atmosphere must have some effect on belts

R - ... and they run over and stop at the opposite side. So, if they do stop at the opposite side, it means the weaver has to turn the loom over to the proper side.

R – Well, she could set on at the opposite side but it's not the best policy because ...

Aye. So, in other words, when a weaver’s setting a loom on she always tries to set it on with the shuttle in the box at the same end as the setting on lever.

That's it aye. And obviously, if she, if it stops in the box at the far end it means that she has to put the shuttle in at that end, knock it back and turn the loom over to trap that length of weft in before she can set it on.

Yes, but that's what I mean, but when she's put a fresh shuttle in, she'll have to just knock it through herself won't she?

Because otherwise you’ll have two threads in the same shed. Aye. Which would be a fault wouldn't it? Yes?

And ... what do you think, just talking about that… When I'm talking about weaving faults on a loom I’m not, I don't mean faults that are caused by ends going down or weft breakages you know, on their own, or yarn breakages. What would you say was the biggest cause of other faults which could be traced to bad weaving you know? Now, I'm not, I'm putting this very badly but it's very difficult to put. Is there anything that a weaver can do, say in a hurry or not thinking about it, which can cause trouble.

are supposed to do it once in a lifetime, but sometimes it happens more than that. When the loom stops the first job is to take that shuttle out, empty shuttle. Put the full shuttle in, find the picks when you put your full shuttle in and start off again. But if she didn't take that empty shuttle out, there’d be a hell of a crash when she started the loom up.

So, in other words, if the empty shuttle stopped in what we call the wrong end of the loom and she never took it out and put a full shuttle in at knocking on end and set it off, what's going to happen? Is that shuttle’s going to fly down and it’s just going to hit the other bloody shuttle and fly somewhere?

R- That's it .... It won't fly anywhere, the loom’ll come over and crash. Well more than likely you'd have hundreds of ends broken.

If you were very lucky… Just the odd time you can get away with it, but not very often. And if she didn't shove that shuttle up when she was starting the loom ... In other words when she put the shuttle into the box, push it right to the back of the box. Yes.

R- That's it. If she didn't do that, and started the loom up, it’d be a short pick see? So, before that shuttle could get into the opposite box out of the way, it’d be trapped. [In the shed.]

And the shed 'd change while the shuttle was on the way through. So that's going to be another ...

R - Oh, there's, there's lots of, there's hundreds of things can happen. Weaving uneven ...

R- Well, tappets could slip, that'd make it weave uneven. Beam could be faulty, the same as a pike loose.

R- Well, a pike. That's about two or three inches of iron that's sticking out of the [end of the] beam, at the back, like a …

Ah, that's like a spindle that sticks out of the beam, that's it yes. And those are tightened up with beam wedges aren't they. The collar's tightened up on to that with beam wedges isn't it and the pike's driven in. Aye.

R- Well, I don't know about hundreds of tapes! But there's so many things can go wrong. Sometimes the weaver’ll come and say "It's knocking off."

R – Aye, it is stopping without the weft breaking. So, there is a tumbler underneath working that hammer, that might have slipped. Or the check strap could be loose or the knocker on could be slipping off, it's lost its spring. Oh, what else? Fur in the shuttle might be worn out. You know, when the fur is in the shuttle it's controlling the weft and keeping it taut . Well, if that's gone, when the shuttle goes in the box the weft's slack and when that fork goes through the grate…

R- Well, stitching ... do you know them running bands underneath? Sometimes, if you’re using a new band, it'll stretch so the shed comes off the board and instead of the shuttle running over the twist, it wriggles its way through just a few threads. Or short of pick, that could be making it stitch. Shuttles, they go like canoes in time and you have got to square them up. There's all, there's a lot of things, you'd be amazed how many things can go wrong. It takes years and years and years to like fathom most of them. So, you don't fathom them all, but most of them.

Aye. Well, we'll keep talking about that, but on 517 your right hand is a blur of motion Ernie.

Yes. Well now, talking about cycles, this is a thing that puzzled me until I finally cracked it you see. Because I could never understand why the first piece of cloth off the loom didn't have all those loose threads hung on. Now, that loom has started weaving. Now that cloth that it's weaving isn't going to go on to the cloth roller yet, because all it is at the moment is just wrapped round the sand roller.

So, as that loom is weaving there what it's doing, it's actually weaving cloth and winding it on to the sand roller. Now, you and I both know that unless something was done about that, the sand roller would get full up. It’d start, it’d reach the breast beam and just start, well it’d just …

... Disaster. So tell me what happens when there's say a couple of yards of cloth woven off and it's on that sand roller.

R- Aye. Well, you get two or three yards of cloth. And then you take all these loose threads off the sand roller. You take a wheel off at the side here, off the side, and wind it off; and then you get the cloth and make sure it's straight and wind it in ...

So you actually cut all those loose ends and the first two or three inch of cloth off. Yes.

So that leaves you with a straight edge on your cloth. Yes. And then what do you do with that?

R- Well, you wind it back in between the cloth roller and the sand roller, and underneath this breast beam there's what we call a stretcher bar, and

you take the cloth over that stretcher bar and down and round and wind it on to the cloth roller. And then, once you've done that, and done it right, you are in full production, you could weave, well you could weave hundreds of yards of cloth.

Yes, that's it. And that is a loom set up and, God willing, if there's nothing goes seriously wrong with that warp, that'll weave through until that warp’s finished. Yes.

R- I mean, a weaver can stab the reed. Well, is stabbing the reed. When she is inserting the shuttle into the loom to have a new start with a full package in the shuttle, sometimes the shuttle could slip and poke its point into the reed. That reed's stabbed, you must have them dents all straight. If you get one bent you're getting a fault in the cloth see?

R- So that's one fault and that can be a bad fault. Weaving uneven, reed stabbed, two shuttles in, picking bowl falling off, picking stick breaking, bands breaking, dolly leathers breaking, boss breaking.

R- Well, the boss is a, it’s big job that boss. Better touch wood, I might get one Monday. Well, the boss is fastened to the bottom shaft, keyed on. And on the boss, you fasten the shell and the nose bit.

That's what actually catches the bottom of the shaft that goes up to the picking stick. There is a roller on that shaft, what do they call that?

Yes. Yes. And that's what actually catches, that's what actually knocks the picking stick over right sharp and knocks the shuttle through the loom.

And gives you your picks which is why it's called the picking stick. Aye, that's it. And I should point out that picking sticks do also make excellent hammer shafts. In the old days they used to make good ...

Aye, buck and sticks, aye and what I was thinking of, you know is possing stick, you know when the woman's washing.

Aye, fire wood, aye. And of course, that's where the shuttles end up nowadays isn’t it? Aye.

Aye. The nose's knocked off, and ... But of course now we have gone smokeless, we don't use them.

R- Sometimes a shuttle stand’ll accidentally get broken, that's a fairly big job. I think there is 400 parts to an ordinary Lancashire loom, a plain loom. Well, any of them 400 parts can come loose and then they go for the tackler. Did I tell you that tacklers were weavers with the brain's taken out?

Oh well, after spending, what's this? 15 tapes with you, I'm not at all sure about that Ernie.

LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT

TAPE 78/AC/15