THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE JULY 20 1978 AT BANCROFT ENGINE HOUSE, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS ERNIE ROBERTS, TACKLER, AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Now, we’ll start today Ernie by tidying up one or two loose ends. First of all, remember that game we were trying to remember the name of? With the spring, the ball and the pins? You said you had this when I asked you about it?
R-Oh that’s right, bagatelle, that’s it.
Bagatelle, that’s it. Now, you were living at John Street and then you moved to number 9 Westgate. Can you remember what year you moved into No. 9?
R-Right, I’d be about 16 and I’d be four or five when we went into John Street and I were born in 1916.
So that’d be about 1932 wouldn’t it. Aye, sixteen and sixteen, 1932. Were it a better house than John Street?
R-Oh yes, a lot better.
In what way Ernie?
R-Well, a through house it was, we had a back door and a front door, two bedrooms and a toilet in’t back yard but it weren’t so far away. Not like John Street, John Street toilet were half a mile away.
Were that a tippler or a dry toilet?
R-No, it were a tub, tank. Oh no, were there tipplers in them? There would be wouldn’t there. That’d be a modern toilet then, a tippler. Aye I think it might have been a tippler come to think of it, at Westgate. Oh aye, it were a lot better house.
Bigger house?
R-Bigger house, aye.
More bedrooms?
R-Better outlook all round. I mean, John Street, all you could see out, well, we only had one window downstairs and two little ones upstairs. And t’downstairs window all you could see out were a wall, just across, about six foot away.
Aye, because there were another building there weren’t there, before they took them down?
R-Shop, there were a shop there, Matthew’s shop.
That’s it, the one that Capsticks bought.
R-Oh no. No, Capsticks were further down on the end of Calf hall Road.
Right on’t corner.
R-Aye well, there were another, there’s some garages built there now.
Ah, were there another shop there?
R-Aye, a grocer’s shop.
Aye, that were the corner shop.
R-And that Capstick’s shop, that were a grocer’s shop as well. There were three grocer’s shops within, say a hundred yards square there in them days.
Who kept the one on the corner nearest to your house?
R-Well, when I were very young somebody called Lund or Woolfenden, Woolfenden and later on Matthews, they must have bought it.
When you moved up to Westgate you’d be sixteen you say. So you’d be working, and Fred were working, so things wouldn’t be so bad up theer.
R-Oh no, things had bucked up no end.
Them’d be the good days.
R-We were like well off in a way you know. We weren’t earning, well, I don’t suppose they were too bad. I remember when I were 16 I were weaving at Calf Hall Mill, Blackburn Holden’s. I weren’t making much money there and then for some reason they wove out and I went sweeping at Cairns and Lang at Fernbank shed. I had 27/- a week and then we went in for a rise. There were only seven or eight sweepers there. After t’negotiations and long talks and meetings we get a shilling a week. But for that shilling, it were like an incentive bonus, we had to load the sweeps and load cloth and any other job that turned up.
When you were living at John Street, as far back as you can remember, how were Colne Road paved.
R-It’s always been tarmac in my memory.
When you were at school, what was the general attitude towards work when you were at school. Were you looking forward to leaving school?
R-Oh aye, oh aye. Everybody looked forward to leaving school and starting work and earning a bob or two.
But you knew when you left that there’d be nothing for you only t’mill.
R-Only t’mill for such as me. I weren’t a bad scholar at school, I finished, you know, well up. And just as I left a job come to let at t’Town Hall and my headmaster gave me a reight good reference, I kept it for years, I were proud of it. He told me to apply for this job, some kind of office boy I think, you know, with a chance of working me way up. I had an interview but that were all. You see it were who you knew, I mean who were I, I were just a nothing. So I never heard owt else about that job so I worked, like weaving.
How old were you then?
R-As soon as possible, fourteen.
You left school at fourteen.[1880 Education Act {EA} set school-leaving age{SLA] at 10 years. 1893 EA raised SLA to 11 tears. 1899 EA raised SLA to 12 years. 1902 Act raised SLA to 13 years. 1918 EA raised SLA to 14 years and abolished half timing. 1944 EA raised SLA to 15 years.]
R-Oh aye.
Did everybody get a job then?
R-Oh I reckon so, anybody wi’ anything about them.
That were 1930, I mean, things weren’t so good really were they?
R-Well, I learned to weave up here at Bancroft, there were 1100 loom in here then in them days.
So the first job you had when you left school were here weaving at Bancroft?
R-Aye.
How did you get set on, as a learner weaver, a tenter or what?
R-Oh I’d be a learner weaver, no pay, me Aunt Louis learned me to weave. No pay. And you tried hard and eventually you got work, first of all two learner weavers ‘ud go on four loom, two loom apiece you see. Somebody wanted the afternoon off so that were champion, we used to pray for somebody to fall and break their bloody neck! No, not really but you used to be hoping somebody’d stop off and then you could get a bit of work.
When you were learner-weaving like that then, you didn’t get paid?
R-Not a meg, no, nothing, no talk of pay at all.
So the only time you’d get paid would be if someone were off and you went on their looms?
R-That’s reight and it were a pick rate. [They couldn’t be paid on normal piece rate because they weren’t on long enough so they were paid so much a hundred picks and this would be deducted from the weaver’s normal piece rate.] I remember Saturday mornings were a good possibility and it were half a crown for four looms. So this lass and me that used to work together, we’d have one and threepence apiece.
Aye, those were the days. Something else you mentioned, while you were at school, about teeth, you said that there were a lot of bad teeth about in them days. Were your teeth bad?
Oh aye, Oh they were. I had false teeth when I were twenty, oh I’m telling lies, top teeth at twenty, but they were never very good, and there were a lot of rotten teeth. I look at these young uns today and I think Eh, how marvellous, very rare you see a bad tooth. And nearly everyone had a mouthful of teeth that looked like burnt chips as I were growing up. I’ll tell you what, talking about teeth, I remember me mother taking me to a dentist called Hopkinson down Wellhouse Road to have a tooth pulled on tick. I remember it, I were mad wi’ tooth ache. He wouldn’t pull it, no money you see and she’d have paid would the old girl but I had to suffer ‘til pay day. And they talk about mans inhumanity to man. Eh, to see a little lad suffering wi’ toothache…..
It’s all right Ernie, that’s one of the reasons these tapes are being made, people don’t think about things like that nowadays. I shouldn’t be saying things like that while the tape’s on but people don’t think about things like that nowadays, everything’s laid on you know.
R-Oh it is, aye.
I’ll tell you something, just while we’re on about that. I were talking to someone the other night, and they were talking about having a carpet. The lady, she’s 83 years old and quite naturally she said that every Sunday night, last thing before they went to bed, they swept the carpet, rolled it up and put it away until the next weekend.
R-Oh aye, they would.
Only put it down at weekend. How many people in these houses don here take their carpets up every Sunday night?
R-Nobody’d do it now, there’s no need you see. Times have changed so much.
Well, that’s it and still people aren’t satisfied.
R-Well, I don’t know, I’m satisfied well, aye, there’s a lot of people that aren’t satisfied.
Oh yes, but I mean, you’ve seen the bad side, I mean you’ve got your clean shirt and a good jacket now you’re all right.
R-Oh aye.
That’s it. When you were young, before you started work, did you ever go on any outings or anything?
R-Ah well. School days you mean. We once had a trip to Morecambe, like a school trip. I’d be ten or eleven before I saw the sea. And we managed a week at Blackpool that time, and we all went. Me mother had saved up and shopped, in those days you used to take your own food. Pay for a bed, so much a night for a bed. And she’d this tin box, it were full of grub, there were all sorts in it, tins of fruit, tins of salmon and bacon and cheese and all sorts. Enough for five of us for a week.
Where did you do the cooking?
R-Well, t’landlady used to do the cooking I think. Lodgers used to buy meat and the landlady ‘ud cook it, extra charge of course. We had a very good week, I think I fell in love for the first time and I were about nine or ten.
Is that reight! It weren’t under t’pier were it?
R-No I don’t think so, no, it wouldn’t be under the pier. But I remember there were a young girl in these lodgings where we were at. I must have fancied her because I got thick with her anyway. I don’t remember her name but I remember what she looked like, nice little brunette she were, I wonder what she looks like now.
Were the temperance movement strong in Barlick in them days, did you know anything about it?
R-There were always the Sally Army you know, they are always preaching temperance. And the Oddfellows and one called the Olive Leaf Guild. I remember that at one time you paid about three halfpence a week and you went through these stages, I’ve never been. I don’t believe in temperance, I mean, they had wine at the last supper didn’t they? As soon as I realised that I started fancying a drop, I like a drop or two now and again.
Did anybody ever try to get you to sign the pledge?
R-Oh I signed many a pledge, to get in out of the rain happen. I was signing pledges for years.
Tell me about that.
R-Well, you’d like go to these meetings and listen to the speakers and they’d preach against drink, well, they preached against everything I think! And me and three or four mates you know, we might get a cup of tea and a bun while we were there, and we’d sign the pledge but it didn’t mean owt, we weren’t serious. They might have been serious but we weren’t. I might have crossed me fingers while I were signing.
Oh, did that make it all right?
R-It would do, aye.
Did anybody ever tell you about the evils of drink? You know, at school or anything like that?
R-Well two or three places we used to go to they’d talk about the evils of drink without a doubt. I mean you realised that when you saw ‘em rolling about in the streets. There were a lot of drunken buggers about when I were a lad, more drunks than there is now, unless they’ve learned to carry it better. Or drink might have been stronger in them days, it were certainly a lot cheaper.
Who were the brewers in Barlick then?
R-Massey’s, I remember it at fourpence a pint. That old feller you were talking about, I bet he’d remember it at twopence, aye.
Twopence a pint.
R-Nut Brown Ale, fourpence a pint, it were very good.
He was saying exactly the same thing you have said about people saving up to go on the rant.
R-Oh aye.
Exactly the same thing.
R-Aye it were a regular do were that you know, I’ve never done it but they did.
Aye, the quickest way out of Salford. Can you remember seeing women go into pubs?
R-No I can’t. I can remember drunk women but I don’t remember them going into pubs, not like they do now. In fact I used to go for me mother, for a jug, a jug of beer, to the Seven Stars, side door a pint of beer in a jug. And if any of the kids weren’t so well she used to put a red hot poker in it and give us a sup. It might have done us good.
Aye, to get you a sweat on. Aye it does. How did people look on women going in pubs then? Before you started work?
R-Well, I mean, you’re talking about levels of society. To me, a woman going in a pub wouldn’t have meant a thing, it wouldn’t have bothered me, not personally. But they must have gone in pubs when I look at it. There was one old woman, an old girl who lived down Wapping, Sarah Ann Rocky and I remember her being wheeled home in a barrow many a time. She had a fire at one time and when the fire brigade come, she only lived in a cellar that were like just one room with a front door, no other door and one window. When t’fire brigade arrived she says Oh, save me bread! She kept her bread in one of them brown dolly tub shape things.
Aye, a crock, a bread mug.
R-Aye, and when they get this big crock out they found it were full of shit! Well, old Sarah Ann died and two years later there were another old girl came to live there. Well what, I mean she’d come to live there as soon as old Sarah died, I forget her name. But she lived on her own and her son had gone to Canada and she couldn’t read or write and she used to come and ask me to write a letter to her son, he were called Edwin. Occasionally she’d get a letter from him and she’d fetch it down and I’d read it to her and write a reply she used to say, telling him this and that. But he never sent her any brass, but still, in them days they were poor in Canada. All that old girl had were ten shillings a week, that were the lot. And she had to buy a sack of coal and pay t’rent and buy a bit of grub. She smoked a pipe, marvellous isn’t it, when you think about it, ten bob a week!
That ‘ud be about?
R-Well I’d be thirteen or fourteen then.
Well, that’d be about 1930 then.
R-Aye.
Ten bob in 1930 wasn’t much Ernie.
R-No it weren’t, I’ve said that many a time.
Who would she get that ten bob from?
R-It’d be some kind of a pension I suppose, old age pension.
Aye, that’s it. To your knowledge, we’re still talking about when you went to school. Did you know of any families that were like spoilt with drink, you know, ruined with drink.
R-No.
No?
R-No, I didn’t know any lazy buggers really. They all worked, they went to work during the week and got drunk all weekend. They didn’t earn a lot of money but all the people I knew worked doing something and they used to get drunk at weekend.
Of course, now [in 1930], if they weren’t working there were t’dole weren’t there?
[Unemployment insurance was introduced in 1911.]
r-Yes, I remember being on t’dole, but I’ve never been on t’dole so long, always found some kind of a job. I remember a lot of ‘em being on t’dole at one time, that were in the 30’s.
Aye well, we’ll get on to that when we come to your working days. Can you remember any street performers or anything like that? Or people selling stuff in the street?
R-Oh aye, it used to be a regular do that. There used to be a bloke coming round, oh lots of street singers, good uns but there were one bloke seemed to be coming round all’t years I were growing up, and he used to sing a song, just one song, ‘Where Is My Wandering Boy Tonight’. And t’lads used to shout, ‘He’s gone to the petty to have a shite!’. And then there were one what used to come round selling props. He didn’t shout ‘props’, he used to shout ‘any pyops, any pyops’. Well there’d be an audience following him round, aye.
That’d be clothes props. [A clothes prop was the piece of timber with a forked end used to support the washing line when it was heavy loaded.]
R-Aye, clothes props, aye. ‘Any pyops!’ And this bloke that used to come round singing ‘wandering boy’, they reckon he left a row of houses at Colne when he died. But there were some, there used to be a bloke came round with a piano accordion, a lovely tenor voice, Aye, he were right good him, I remember him. There were a bloke called Flagger, he used to go round shouting knives and scissors to grind, but he had no grindstone, he used to go round t’corner and sharpen ‘em on the flags.
I can remember knife grinders coming round but they always had like a tricycle.
R-Aye, that’s it, like a cart wheel that they used to wheel that were on a stand and then they’d put it down and like pedal it.
That’s it. What did you think of Barlick, as a place to live in?
R-Well, I didn’t know any other place, I loved it, I still do. I mean, where you’re born, that’s like part of your life. I’ve never had an inclination to leave. I went down the Kent, the Garden of England, and I were glad to get back to Barlick.
Aye, not a bad little place at all. Can you ever remember going to a wedding when you were young?
R-No, I never went to a wedding when I was young.
A funeral.
R-I remember going to me father’s funeral, I’d only be about five, I remember that.
Aye, where is he buried?
R-Gill, in the old churchyard.
When he died was he laid out at home?
R-Well no, he wasn’t. He were laid out at his mother’s. My Grandmother were Nurse Roberts in Barnoldswick and they lived in the schoolhouse, where the library is now. But they were like what you’d call well off. I think my mother was regarded as socially inferior to Nurse Roberts’ family you know. They seemed to think me father had married beneath him. But it seemed to me that there were always some kind of friction and atmosphere between my mother and the Roberts family, most of ‘em. He died at the schoolhouse and we were living at John Street at the time.
When he went to be buried was it a motor hearse or a horse?
R-It’d be a horse for certain. They were all horses in them days.
Can you remember anything about the service?
R-No, I just remember going in the churchyard and it were raining and muddy and me mother were in a sorrowful state you know. I fancy that’s why it were implanted in me mind, for being such a young lad.
Yes, and at that time your mother ‘ud be having a bad time. How did she go on about mourning clothes?
R-Oh they always got into mourning [dress], they’d go into debt for that. Oh aye, when anyone died it were essential that they have a bit of mourning, I mean it doesn’t matter now.
How about the children, how about you?
R-Well, I don’t remember what I wore, but I fancy me mother’d definitely be in black, and what mourners who were there would be in black.
Where did you enjoy going most when you were a child. You know, if someone come to you in the morning and said Right, you can go anywhere you want today, you can do what you want. Where would you have gone?
R-Difficult question that. I mean, entertainment in them days were the pictures and then as you were growing up it were t’billiard saloon and t’pictures.
Where were the billiard saloon in Barlick?
R-Well, it’s not where the ballroom is now, it were part of that building. There’s another part that had billiard tables in and snooker tables. A big room, there’d be twelve full size tables and a couple of little ‘uns, what we called ‘slopstones’. And then later wireless came out you know, in my lifetime everything’s happened!
Yes, that’s it.
R-I remember tickling a crystal set and getting a bit of music out of it.
That’s why we’re making these tapes Ernie, because all these things have happened in your lifetime.
R-In my lifetime. Apart from the combustion engine, just about everything else. Wireless, television, penicillin, mini skirts, the lot!
How about politics, can you ever remember your mother saying anything about politics?
R-No, I don’t think they took politics seriously in them days. I’ve told you before about running round wi’ me breeches arse out and singing ‘Vote, vote, vote for Dicky Roundell.’
Yes, and yet Barlick was one of the first places in the country to have a Communist Party. When they made the Communist Party official in 1921 Barlick was one of the first places in the country. [to have one]
R-Oh? I didn’t know that but I knew the leading Communist in Barlick.
Who were that?
R-Well, we called him the Firewood King, Jimmy Rushton, he used to live in Lane Bottom. I remember a strike, about 1932, and we used to have some good meetings up Jepp Hill. He told us, Tomorrow, we’ll march on Dotcliffe Mill at Kelbrook and knock the belts off! ‘Cause they were blacklegging see. Well, it were a big job for us. He says, You can all take a bottle of water to drink, and like winked at us. That meant we could use these bottles of water to crack someone you know? So we marched, we did, off we went. Oh, there’d be two or three hundred fellows, different ages, lasses and all and when we got to Kelbrook there were some big black marias pulled up and all these big bobbies, about seven foot tall come at us with these sticks and then we set off at the gallop. When we got down Earby, me and my mate were running past Earby police station and there were two or three bobbies stood there waiting for us. And this lad I were with had been hit on the hand wi’ a truncheon and his fingers were going in and out like pistons he were in such pain. So one of the bobbies said Come on in’t police station lad, we’ll look after it for you. I thought I smelt a rat right away and I shot off like a bloody rabbit. I didn’t stop until I got to Barlick. Anyway, this mate, they called him Jack, they got him in the police station and they treated him kindly, wrapped his hand up and summonsed him and it cost him seven quid. I’ll bet it took him years to pay that seven pound off. He were fined seven pound.
What were the summons for, what were the charge, do you know?
R-Well I suppose it’d be creating a riot.
That were in 1932?
R-Aye, that were in 1932. We went back for less money than we’d come out with.
What was the actual cause of the strike?
R-Oh, it’d be money I suppose.
[Actually it was the strike over the introduction of the More Looms System after the Midland Agreement. The strikes started on 27th August and ended on 27th September, 1932.]
Were they still arguing about Local Disadvantage then, or had they done away with it?
R-I don’t know, I just don’t know. I just listen and learn and fall in with them.
Of course, you’d only be sixteen then.
R-Ah, but I used to listen to Rushton and his cronies and they used to interest me, the way they used to talk. And I could see the sense in it, I mean, it’s a good idea is Communism if it’d only work. Trouble is it doesn’t work.
Can you remember anything about elections when you were young? Yes well, you’ve already said about ‘Vote, vote, vote for Dicky Roundell’, but……
R-No. I’ve never really been interested in politics, not really. I’m a socialist at heart and I’ve always voted socialist and always voted in this town and never backed a winner. Always been bloody Tories here, all my lifetime.
Aye, can you remember your mother voting?
R-No, but she’d vote Tory for certain.
That’s it, but why? Do you know why?
R-Well, because th’bosses ‘ud be Tories, that’s why. It were like having an injection when they were young. The boss ‘ud be Tory and you daren’t vote any other way, they’d have had your bloody guts for garters! I mean, they grew up with it. My mother’s side, they were Altons they called ‘em, all good workers but rough diamonds, they must have been and I never heard ‘em talk any other way but Tory. They didn’t know any different, bloody ignorant they were.
Do you think that probably had a lot to do with it? You know, the way they’d been educated from children. The way they’d been brain-washed if you will, all along.
R-Oh aye, that’s a good word for it, brain-washed. They were, they were definitely brain washed, definitely they were. They were as poor as church mice and yet they’d vote Tory.
Did you ever hear anybody talking along the same lines? You know, it’s very easy to see that in, going back before you were born actually, but you know, between 1900 and 1915, anyone who had a bit of capital in Barlick and who had got a few looms in could make money, there were money there to be made. And yet these people that were working for ‘em were in dire poverty even when they were working. Can you ever remember anyone talking about this fact, that they were poor but the bosses were rich. They had to see that the bosses were making money.
R-No, I can’t honestly say I’ve ever heard anyone say owt about….. They were nice men, I’ve heard me mother say. There were a manufacturer called Billycock, whoever he were, and he were a bloody gentleman, he were a gentleman for employing them as bloody slaves and they couldn’t see it.
Aye, that were old William Bracewell.
R-Aye, that’d be his name, Billycock. How many chapels did he build?
Oh, he helped with one or two.
R-He would, they all did, it were like a passport to heaven. Rob the bloody workers and build a chapel.
So you’d never here your mother say anything about Suffragettes? You know, votes for women?
R-Oh no.
Which school did you go to Ernie?
R-Church School.
How old were you when you went?
R-Well, I’d be four or five.
How old were your parents when they went to school? Have you any idea? Have you heard them say? Either your mother or your father.
R-They’d be three or four or five. They used to get ‘em into school as quickly as possible, three if they could get them in. I mean, there were a lot of women used to mind children until they got to school age and then they used to get them into school and save a bob or two that way.
How much were child-minding, any idea?
R-Well, it wouldn’t be so much. I remember me aunt Annie used to mind children. It could have been a shilling a day happen.
What do you think you gained from school?
R-Well, I gained a certain amount of knowledge, I must have done, the three R’s and the experience of mixing with other children and growing up and going through school. It must have done me some good. I mean, you can’t do without school.
How about discipline in school?
R-Oh, there were plenty of discipline. I mean, they believed in ‘Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child’, you’d get bloody wacked if you winked the wrong eye! Oh aye, plenty o’ that. I remember getting caned one morning and fainting. Mr Turner from Earby. I think he were sorry after because when I came round I was in the girl’s cloakroom and he had a drink of tea for me. He says What have you had for your breakfast? I said, You caned me on a cold hand, that’s why I fainted. Wait while I get home, I’ll tell me mother. I don’t remember going home and telling me mother but I did faint and I remember, a bloke called John Collinson. We’d happen be eleven or twelve then, there were some stone steps running up into the school, t’bell rang and we were all running in and there were a girl running into the school near this John Collinson and she had a bit in front of her. [A belly on her] And he said, you want to get your mother to get you some corsets and she started crying and th’headmaster took this John Collinson down into t’cloakroom and you should have seen his back, he didn’t half bray him. But it didn’t need all that, I felt sorry for John but there were no mention of corsets after that. Oh aye, there were plenty of discipline.
Were there anyone from t’Church School went to grammar school can you remember?
R-I doubt it. I mean, all of is that went to Church School, we seemed to be a bit low in’t social scale. Gisburn Road School, I think that’s where the grammar school boys went. There might have been an odd un but I mean, anyone that qualified to go to Skipton Grammar School, it were like expensive for the parents. So even if I had had the brains to go on for further education me mother couldn’t afford it. I mean I’ve never heard of grants in them days , there were scholarships but they only went so far.
Can you remember taking an examination for Skipton?
R-No, but I think I would do, they did have examinations.
Aye, but at 13 year old I think.
R-Aye but I don’t remember.
‘Cause I mean, Jim were born the same year as you, Jim Pollard, and he said he took one at Alder Hill School in Earby and he were thirteen years old.
R-Did he fail?
No, he passed actually but he never went. Mind you, Jim weren’t interested in school at all, he were only interested in cricket.
R-Aye, he were.
And you were fourteen when you left school?
R-Aye.
Did you ever go to night school Ernie, afterwards?
R-No, there were one, th’incentive were there but I never saw it as being any advantage going to night school.
In Barlick?
R-I think there were, at t’gasworks. No, that were t’overlookers. No, I don’t remember really but there would be a night school I should think.
Can you ever remember going to school hungry.
R-Yes. I think I told you about me mother coming up to school one playtime and the gates used to be locked you see. She pushed these bananas through the bars of the gate for me and our Fred I suppose. I’d be happen about six or seven then.
How about dinners at school?
R-No, there were no dinners at school.
What did you do, go home?
R-Well aye, we’d go home then up to me mother getting her was widow’s pension and then we used to go to Holmes’s Café and we’d have torpedoes, threepence.
Aye, you said that about that before. Where exactly was the café?
R-It’s still there is the house, It’s a house now. You know Lamb Hill? Immediately on the left.
Which is Lamb Hill, up the side where they’ve built them new flats?
R-No, down Wapping, past the butcher’s shop and that little hill. That’s Lamb Hill and it’s on the left there. Right at the back of it there’s a man’s face cut out of stone in the wall.
I didn’t know that. There is an old building there and all.
R-Well, there is, it must be an old building aye.
While you were at school did they train you in anything practical? Like woodwork, metalwork or owt like that?
R-No, just reading, writing and arithmetic and a bit of religion.
How about sports?
R-Oh, we used to have an afternoon up on’t top rec. I think it were Thursday afternoon, football.
Did your mother ever go to school about you? You know, about your progress or how they were treating you or owt like that?
R-No.
Did she show any interest in your school work?
R-Well, I fancy she would do when we were learning to read and things like that and she’d help us if she could. ‘Cause she were all right, she could read and write all right. But I had an aunty that couldn’t read or write.
Why were that do you think? Lack of education or just….
R-Well, it’d be lack of education. When she were a child she were maybe sick and couldn’t go to school.
So there’d be nothing else. As I say, when you come to leave school there’d be no such thing as careers advice or anything like that?
R-Oh no. You’d to rely on a relation asking t’manager. Well me aunt Louise must have asked the manager here [Bancroft] ‘Can my nephew come to learn to weave?’ And he’d say yes. Another wage slave, they were always welcome and they didn’t cost ‘em owt.
If someone were poorly, would the neighbours go round to help?
R-Oh aye, I think they would.
How neighbourly were people?
R-Oh I think they were very neighbourly. I don’t ever remember anybody round us locking the door, never mind owt else. Yes they were, they must have been neighbourly. They’d help each other. There were no,…. In my experience there were nothing like keeping up with the Jones’s in them days. I don’t think there were any Jones’s in those days.
Aye, that’s it. Did the neighbours visit each other often?
R-Calling they call that [Dialect word, pronounced like ‘palling’] Aye, always calling going on.
When were that, mainly in the evenings?
R-Well aye, in th’evenings, there always seemed to be someone in your house anyway, calling.
Is that right. Aye, a cup of tea and a good chat, a natter.
R-Bit of scandal happen, there must have been plenty of scandal in them days, ‘She’s off again…..’
Did they talk at t’door steps a lot?
R-In summer time. Aye we used to sit on’t door step and chat I suppose. But I mean, as lads, we were always out you know, there were no sitting in and watching the telly you know, you had to go out and find a bit of fun.
Can you remember any of the neighbours quarrelling over anything.
R-Oh there used to be some rip-roaring bloody rows, aye there were. But I don’t think there were any malice after, they seemed to bury the hatchet fairly quick but mostly the rows were over kids, you know how kids can cause bother. I remember me mother having a row with a bloke, and he were justified were this feller for giving me a good hiding, I had chucked a stone at his lad. Funny thing I saw him a few weeks since and he still has, well, he’ll have a scar for ever on his cheek where I hit him with this stone. Well, we were playing together again a few days after.
When you threw the stone you intended to hit him?
R-Oh I intended to kill him! Oh well, I don’t know what it were about, but it must have been nothing really.
Now you were badly off, can you remember anyone that were worse off then you?
R-Now, worse off. There were a lot on my level, I fancy they went to school hungry many a time but worse off? No, I don’t remember anyone worse off, there were a few better off but I don’t think there were any worse off. I mean if you hadn’t your breeches arse out in them days you were a cissie!
Can you ever remember anyone giving food away, you know, like soup kitchens or owt like that.
R-Oh can remember that aye. Salvation Army, there used to be a soup kitchen there at different times. I’ve been wi’t jug and come home with it full up.
Whereabouts were that.
R-That were down where the Sally Army is now. [In 1978 this was on Gisburn Road in the block of buildings below Gisburn Road School and on the same side.]
Yes, down at Damside, yes. Was there ever a workhouse in Barlick.
R-Not as I remember, not a workhouse as such. There were those lodging houses where t’wanderers used to live.
Aye, the Models, yes.
R-T’Models, aye. But we used to call ‘em tramp weavers.
Well, you’ve already said about the Models, there were two down Butts weren’t there? What sort of people were in’t Models?
R-Well, I thought they were all right. They were boozers mostly but I thought they were all right.
SCG/15 June 2001
6,462 words