THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 20TH OF JULY 1978 IN THE ENGINE HOUSE AT BANCROFT SHED, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS ERNIE ROBERTS, TACKLER, AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Now then, what were the rough streets in your area Ernie?
R-Wapping were t’rough part of Barnoldswick then. It were old property, run down property mostly. Oh, it were definitely the roughest area in Barnoldswick.
What were the better part?
R-Oh, the better part were down Gisburn Road, where the Catholic Church is now. I mean, when I were a lad there were only Gisburn Road and the avenues were being built. [Then there were] Manchester Road, Wapping, Esp Lane and all round that area.
Who would you say were then considered to be the most important people in the town?
R-Well I reckon the important people would be the manufacturers, they must have been. Everybody seemed to quake and quail and break out in a cold sweat if they were anywhere about. I mean doctors were important, lawyers weren’t important, not for such as me, it were a matter of births marriages and deaths, official documentation. There were no income tax papers, nothing like that. I never remember filling a form up all the time I were growing up, not of any kind. In fact I’m 62 and I haven’t filled so many bloody forms up anyway!
Did you ever come into contact with the manufacturers?
R-Do you mean person to person?
Yes.
R-Not really. Did I ever tell you that tale about …. Bloke called Jack walking through the warehouse and his shoe sole’s hanging off. You know how it used to get, like a crocodile’s mouth with the nails showing. Blackburn Holden, one of the Holdens it were, it’d be old Blackburn that were walking with him and he says What’s wrong with your shoe Jack? And Jack says, Me shoe soles hanging off. And this manufacturer put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a big wad of notes and took the elastic band off it. He says, Put that round, it’ll stop it flapping about. Jack thought he were going to get a new pair of shoes. That’s a tale they used to tell, I can imagine it being true. Oh aye, I’ll bet it’s God’s Truth. I had some bloody bad warps in at one time at Blackburn Holdens. I run six looms all week, this is God’s Truth, may I never move out of this chair, I went for me wage on Wednesday, I had one [piece] off at four shilling. It were one and threepence stamp [National Insurance], and so I had two shillings and ninepence to take home for a week’s hard work and I were only seventeen then. I says Is this all I have to come? Two and ninepence? But they all turned a blind eye and that were it. I couldn’t go to anybody and tell ‘em, there were nowt, I mean, there’s a basic wage now, it couldn’t happen today, times have changed that much.
Aye, we’ll get on to wage scales when we get on to the weaving job. What did children, what did you think about the police in them days?
R-Well, there were only one I think. They always seemed to be all right with us. I don’t remember anybody ever being summonsed, not lads, and there’d be no malicious damage, there’d be an odd window broke but I don’t remember any malicious damage. There were a lot of bloody poachers, poachers used to get done. But they [the police] were all right, they must have been all right because anyone who has done me a bad turn, I remember. And I remember them that’s done me a good turn as well and I don’t remember the police ever doing me any harm.
Can you remember anyone being called a real gentleman or a real lady? Have you ever thought of anyone as a real gentleman?
R-Oh I thought about Slater up there, I thought he were a real gentleman. I realised after I grew up and he was dead and gone that the reason his face was that colour, it’d be the whisky. He used to frighten me in a way, but I thought he was a real gentleman. It was like gratitude from me to think that he could go out of his way to treat me like a human being. I mean I were in contact wi’ a manufacturer weren’t I? He were a manufacturer. He must have been a gentleman because all t’kids of Barlick could come up here at New Year and they all got six new halfpennies and that went on for years.
When you say ‘come up here’….
R-They’d come from all over Barnoldswick, he lived up here up Folly Lane in that big house up there, still there.
Newfield Edge.
R-Is that what they call it? Newfield Edge? Well everybody that went there got six new halfpennies. He’s the only bugger I ever knew, or I’ve ever heard of, where that happened.
Aye, it’s a funny thing that. Billy Brooks was on about [another Slater] I think it’d be his father, Harry Slater [father to Newfield Edge Slater?] and he lived in that terrace opposite Clough and he used to give all the kids an orange at Christmas, that’d be his father. Billy said he once tried to go round twice.
R-oh aye, I fancy lots went up there twice, or tried to do but I never did. Not once. I consider meself to be honest, I’ve never diddled anybody to my knowledge in me life, intentionally I mean.
That’s a fair statement to be able to make.
R-Well it’s God’s Truth. I’ve always paid when I could pay and I owe nothing. I’ve been in debt many a time but I owe nothing now.
How about health, I know you had bad health when you were a kid.
R-Oh very bad. I was always ailing sommat. Tonsillitis, and then I got a bad heart. Well, I told you, I only had three months to live and I could go to Bonny’s shop, it only lasted a week.
Did your mother have any special cures for illness?
R-Oh aye, I’ve had rashers of bacon round me neck like, inside a flannel you know for tonsillitis. And I remember one time, I must have had tonsillitis every other bloody week, she must have got a cure from somewhere, flowers of sulphur. She rolled these flowers of sulphur in a newspaper and made like a funnel and were blowing it down me throat. She got it into me mouth and she’d just come to blow and just in that split second before she blew, I blew! So I got a good hiding on top of me tonsillitis. She were blinded with this bloody sulphur, aye. I’ve been mischievous that way, I’ve got a perverted sense of humour, if I see somebody fall I have to laugh.
I think we all do it. Aye, somebody falling on a banana skin, it’s the funniest thing in the world isn’t it.
R-There’s not only banana skins about in’t streets, it’s dog shit you slip on nowadays, I nearly had a nasty accident meself the other night.
Well, you’re saying something there, do you think there’s more dog muck about in the streets than there used to be?
R-Oh, it used to be like…. I mean, if you stood on some dog shit years ago it were like, it were powder. It just went to powder but it doesn’t now, It’s shit wi’ a capital S! Did I ever tell you the tale about the new landlord that come into Barlick? They always used to have snuff on the bar, you know, they could have a sniff whenever they felt like it. There must have been a lot of snuff takers in them days. Well, this dinnertime when t’new landlord’s taken over there were a bloke come in and he says to the landlord after he’d got his pint, Where’s t’snuff? So the landlord says, What snuff? He said, This snuff box is empty, there’s allus snuff on’t bar. Oh, t’landlord says, I’ll get some this afternoon. And when he closed for the afternoon, he went looking for some snuff and all t’shops were shut. So he’s coming back like, in pensive mood wondering what he could do. This bloke’d be coming in for an evening pint and some snuff and he had none. And he put his foot on a piece of dog shit and it went to powder. He thought, that just looks like snuff, I’ll get some. So he put some of this powdered dog shit in his snuff box and put it on’t bar. This bloke comes in at night, Oh he says I see you’ve got some snuff. Pint of ale like and he had a sniff at this snuff and he says to the landlord, By Gum, there’s a strong smell of dog shit, it must be good snuff this, I couldn’t smell it before, it’s cleared me head! [Laughter] Eh, I wonder if that’s true, it could be true, let’s change t’subject.
I don’t know, the subject’s all right Ernie. I tell you, let’s digress a minute, a fellow called Mayhew wrote a book about t’poor in London and one of the occupations in London, people were living on the streets you know, no homes and hard up and they were collecting dog muck for the tanners to use it and they called it ‘pure’. And what they used to prize more than anything else were, you know when a dog’s been eating a bone, it’s white is the muck isn’t it. That were the sort they were after and so they used to roll turds that weren’t white in chalk to make them white. And that’s how they made a living, collecting dog muck.
R-Aye, and they used to collect human pee as well for sommat. What were that for/ Was that for tanning as well?
For t’wool, for t’wool. Sommat to do with scouring wool. [Known in Lancashire as ‘lant’, human urine was collected for use in fulling mills where it was aged and then used as an agent to combine with the grease in the wool and make a crude soap which aided the fulling process by softening and lubricating the wool.]
Can you remember the doctor calling?
R-Oh aye, the doctor used to come fairly often, for me mostly.
Who were your doctor?
R-Dr Glen, he were an old quack.
What makes you say that?
R-Well, I’ll tell you. When I was sixteen, I went with a girl without much experience, either her or me and wi’ frigging about, I got a sore dick and it worried me. It looked bloody ugly really. I were putting Germolene on and all sorts and making it worse so I finished up going to Dr Glen. I told him like, I’d been wi’ a girl and he says, Let’s have a look. So I let him have a look and he immediately says Syphilis! All t’blood drained, I’d heard about Syphilis, well I did, I’d been enquiring after getting this sore point. Oh I had a bloody sweat on! He gave me some ointment for it and I finished up, I plucked up courage and went to Burnley to the VD clinic. This doctor, he examined me and had a good look and examined me and when he’d finished he said, There’s nothing wrong with you. When you get back to Barlick take this letter to your doctor. What he’d written in that letter I never knew so I took it, I were so relieved. I took this letter to Dr Glen and he read it and screwed it up into a little ball and threw it in the corner and as much said to me, Get out! He must have been a bloody quack to look at a lad’s dick and say Syphilis, you just can’t do that.
Unless he just meant to put the wind up you.
R-Well, why did he go on treating me? He didn’t know.
Aye, it makes you wonder doesn’t it.
R-It were like it is today, hit and miss. If this medicine doesn’t do, try that. I never had any faith in Dr Glen after that.
No, you wouldn’t have would you.
R-Oh no.
You say you weren’t sure what were wrong with you and you went round and asked. Who would you ask then, round your mates or how?
R-Well, mates. Aye you’d ask but I mean, in them days, VD? Oh deary me, if you got VD you’d be sent to Siberia! But I mean, who could you ask? Well, I don’t know, I don’t think I asked anybody, I just figured it out for myself. I made some enquiries about VD, what it was like. I mean, in’t Great War it were like a common disease. Didn’t they call it French Disease long ago?
Aye, that’s it and the French called it English disease.
R-Aye, they would do.
No, that’s right is that. I mean, they used to call it English Disease. But was there any way, did you ever come across any way of finding out anything like that when you were growing up? Did anybody ever try to put you straight about things like VD and going with women?
R-Not really, it were like experience that you picked up as time went on, from your own experience. But I do remember, well, it were before this scare I had, or after, at Liverpool there were a museum of anatomy and I went to Liverpool, maybe some July holiday, and went to this museum and had a look round.
Did you go just to go to this museum?
R-Aye. Just out of curiosity.
Aye, that’s the sort of thing I could imagine you doing.
R-Oh I did, I did. I’d be about eighteen years old then I suppose ‘cause it didn’t cost much to go.
Yes, were you any wiser when you came back?
R-Well I were more shocked to think that that might have happened to me. There were some specimens in bottles you know and models. Oh it were bloody awful. I mean they can treat it now, they can cure it better than treating a bad cold.
Yes, as long as you can take antibiotics.
R-Aye, but I mean in them days it were disastrous really.
Aye. I’ve told you about Harry White treating ‘em for VD haven’t I, with mercury ointment.
R-Aye.
‘Cause that used to be one of the things, mercury ointment.
R-Yes, well I’ll tell you about Rosie’s Cottage in Colombo in Ceylon.
Aye, that’s it. We’ll get on to Rosie’s Cottage.
R-Half the size of Barnoldswick.
Aye, we’ll get on to Rosie’s Cottage when we get on to your war service. Do you think anyone got down to giving their children any sort of sex education? Or do you think that most people were left to find things out for themselves?
R-Oh I think they were left to find things out for themselves. I’ll tell you what, there were three lads in our house and I remember me mother saying …. We were all like experimenting and going with girls you know, I mean it were going on , it’s still going on and it’ll go on for ever… she got us together and said If you get any of these girls into trouble, no matter who it is, you’ll marry ‘em. Luckily I never did get anyone in the family way and our Wilson didn’t but th’elder brother did. We used to sleep together and this is when we’d moved from Wapping up Manchester Road.
At No 9 Westgate?
R-No, from No 9 Westgate up to Manchester Road, No 72 Manchester Road it were. They’re all knocked down are them houses now. [Opposite Castle View.] Fred were courting this girl, Annie, and he slept with me, candle we had and I mean, we’re getting to modern times and we still had a bloody candle. He were sat on the edge of the bed wi’ the candle lit and I got a bit agitated and I said, Aren’t you getting into bed? We’ll never get up in the morning. What’s up with thee? And he said I’ve got Annie in the family way. Well, I were glad, I shouldn’t have been glad but I were, get bloody rid of him, he were a right bully. Anyway, he married her but it tickled me then when Fred got Annie in the family way. But sex education at school? It were tadpoles, that’s all it were. Get some frogs eggs, put ‘em into a bottle and watch ‘em develop. Aye, tadpoles!
How did you get to know about the VD clinic at Burnley?
R-I fancy it’d be up in the toilets.
That’s it, posters in the gents toilets, aye.
R-I remember going as if it were yesterday, he were a real gentleman were this doctor and he examined me and I were frightened to death. I were.
Yes, you would be and I would.
R-mentally frightened and there were bugger all wrong with me all that time. It were cruel.
It were, it were cruel. Did you belong to a hospital scheme at all? You know, like paying into penny hospital or owt like that?
R-Don’t think so. But didn’t they use to knock a penny out of our wage, for hospitals, or twopence, I seem to remember something like that.
Yes, it depends where you were. That’s how that hospital at Barrowford at Nelson got built you know. Penny and twopence knocked out of t’wage. That’s why there’s all this trouble about it now, because in some ways a lot of people say it belongs to the town you know. Did anyone in your house ever have an operation at home.
R-At home? No, no. I don’t think so, I never heard of one. But one or two went in hospital and had operations, what they call hysterectomies now. I mean, it were ‘everything was removed’ in them days. I remember me aunty Annie going, whether she had cancer of the womb or not I don’t know but ‘everything was removed’ and by gum, she was about 75 or 76 when she died and she were fairly young when she went for the operation.
Aye, it didn’t do her any harm.
R-No, it did her good.
Can you remember any of the babies being born at home, any of the children being born at home.
R-No, because same as in my home, all the babies had been born like [when I got old enough to notice].
Were there any diseases that you particularly dreaded catching, apart from syphilis?
R-It weren’t a matter of dreading it, it were that, I mean, Scarlet Fever were rampant in them days, there used to be a green van going round, you’d see it regular going down to the fever hospital. It’d be somebody that had caught this scarlet fever, whatever it were, I don’t know what it were, do you?
Scarlet fever, that was what they called it weren’t it, Scarlatina, that was what it was called.
R-I know the skin used to fall off.
Aye, I can remember people having it. [Scarlatina was the old fashioned name for Scarlet Fever which was a very serious disease in children. It was a streptococci infection and attacked children between two years old and about ten by which time most had gained an immunity. Children under two were protected to some extent by antibodies inherited from their mother. In the thirties patients were isolated at the fever hospital built on Banks Hill and now demolished. The green ambulance was known as the fever wagon. In Stockport on my youth they were yellow I think.]
R-And diphtheria. Our Wilson had diphtheria and Scarlet fever, but after he’d gone into hospital they found out that he hadn’t got Scarlet Fever but he were to stop there anyway. Isolation. I remember going and looking through the window and laughing at him.
Now, there’s a question here, do you know any children with rickets?
R-Well, I think I must have had rickets. I couldn’t stop a pig in a ginnel. Bow legs, I always think it were like wrong diet.
That’s it, yes.
R-I mean, how many bow-legged kids do you see about today?
That’s one of the things that makes me ask you about people when they were working for these very low wages. I mean it were obvious that some people were making money, but I mean others had got kids at home with bow-legs.
R-Aye, there’s none of the Nutters bow-legged.
Well now, there you are, that’s it in a nutshell isn’t it.
R-Well there’s me and Fred, we’re both bow-legged but our Wilson isn’t. Things had bucked up a bit when he were starting running about.
Aye, that’s it, yes. Do you know whether your mother breast fed her children?
R-I think she must have breast fed them. Me mother had a lot of kids, I’ve told you before. I remember, we used to chat you know, and she told me she once had milk fever. And an abscess on her chest and t’cure for abscess on the breast were a cow clap. It sounds incredible does that but I think it would be true. She had a cow clap on her breast to cure this abscess.
To draw it, yes.
R-Well, if we were stung with a wasp when we were kids we used to put a bit of cow muck on.
Was your mother ever particular about disinfecting the house or catching flies, you know what I mean, was there anything she was down on?
R-Well I mean, it were a penny flycatcher. And when there were ten million flies on it you’d buy another flycatcher and there were millions of flies about.
[These flycatchers were a strip of paper covered with a sticky substance which trapped the flies. They were common in my youth as well.]
Ye, the old sticky tape!
R-Aye and disinfectant as well, she used to cadge a bit of powder off like him that come round wi’ t’cart. Every time he emptied the tub [in the dry toilet] they used to scatter some of this powder in. But I mean she wouldn’t be able to afford to go and buy…. well, I don’t know whether there were any, there would be but I don’t remember any. Lysol happen, I seem to remember seeing some Lysol about. I know it were a nice smell. But disinfectants as such, I think you used to be able to get some from the Council yard, it were like black tar and diluted with water it used to come up like a creamy colour, didn’t that smell nice.
Aye, that’s it, very similar to Jeyes Fluid. Probably would be Jeyes fluid.
R-Aye, probably.
You can still get it nowadays but it isn’t as thick as it used to be. Course, I’ve noticed that about a lot of things.
R-Aye, that’s true!
That house in John Street, can you ever remember anyone decorating while you were there?
R-No, looking at it today, I don’t think the bugger’s ever been decorated in its life! No, not really. I mean, paint and paper, it all cost money and they weren’t really essential.
Aye, most of the houses down there, you know, if someone moved into an empty house down Wapping, in’t poor end of town then, what would they do? Would they give it a coat of whitewash when they moved in? Do you think they’d do anything like that.
R-They’d clean it up. Aye, I reckon they might whiten the roof and they did have wallpaper, of course they did.
Aye, but that house at John Street?
R-It was mostly faded. It weren’t an annual affair by any means. Maybe someone backed a winner or had a bit of luck, had someone insured who died or they backed a winner. Of course, then, they might brighten the house up a bit. But decorating, I don’t think it were a regular job.
Anyway, you’re fourteen years old now and you’re leaving school. When you left school, you’ve already said you came and helped your aunt Louise up here. [Bancroft]
R-Yes, she learned me to weave.
How long were you up here at Bancroft?
R-Well, I can’t have been up here so long because I were weaving at Blackburn Holdens at Calf Hall when I were 16 years old. [This is accurate because later on Ernie describes the damage done at Calf Hall during the Flood of July 12th 1932.]
That were at 16. And that ‘ud be a regular job weaving?
R-Oh yes, aye.
Just think about Bancroft for a kick off. Let’s just stick to Bancroft for a minute or two. Can you remember the first day you came up to Bancroft to go in with your aunt Louise and learn?
R-Aye, Monday Morning, went in wi’ me aunt Louise, I called at her house and she fetched me up. But before then, I’d been at t’mill many a time you know. I think I could weave when I were ten year old in a fashion. I could put cops on, set looms on and take an odd end up. It were only a matter of a week or two and I could run two looms. Not really efficient, but in a fashion.
Them cops then, they’d be mule cops would they?
R-They were.
No tubes?
R-Oh no.
Paper bottoms?
R-Aye, a little paper tube in the bottom, not always, many a time you’d get ‘em wi’ no paper in at all.
Skewering? [This was putting the cop on the shuttle peg, if the peg went off line and ‘stabbed’ the cop it wouldn’t weave off. Cardboard or wooden pirns cured this as they gave a ready made access for the peg. Before they became standard, mule weft was either built up on a dab of paste [a paste bottom] or a small paper tube about two inches long. Both of these were liable to be ‘stabbed’.]
R-I mean, that were an art, skewering a cop, some weavers could do it, I never could. I used to go in the mill thin and come out fat with all them bloody stabbed cops.
I know what you mean, but explain it.
R-Oh well, what waste you made, you used to take it in the warehouse and it were inspected. Sometimes they’d come across a little cop bottom and chuck it back at you and say Weave that off! And it’d be a fellow worker that were telling you to weave that off. But better than a weaver, it’d be a warehouse man, Methodist more than likely.
Is that right?
R-Oh aye, he’d be a pillar of the church, used to read the lessons. Weave that off! And you had to weave it off or take it home.
What were the hierarchy in the mill? Who were the lowest and who were the highest? Can you run through them? Who were the lowest of the low?
R-Well, weavers were the lowest of the low and after them, cutlookers would be the next rung up the ladder, then tapers and tacklers, tacklers ‘ud be the top rung and then there’d be the manager and the boss.
Where would t’sweeper come?
R-There were no sweepers in them days, t’weaver were t’sweeper and oiler.
Was anyone cloth-carrying? Weft carrying? Roller carrying?
R-No. Weaver used to pull the piece off, fold it up and carry it into the warehouse
When you say fold it up, you don’t mean to plait it, you just mean to carry it in on the roller.
R-No, not on the roller. Pulled off the roller and plaited like. In one piece, then they used to hump it on their back and take it into the warehouse.
So there were no roller carrying because the roller never came off the loom actually.
R-Oh no, t’roller never came out of the loom.
Different than it is now.
R-Oh aye, but they’d only four looms where there’s ten now and more. So really, in them days, apart from the wages, they were better off in them days. As far as physical effort went.
That’s interesting, aye. Now we’ll just jump ahead a bit here. It were 1930 when you came here, where were you when the More Looms System came in?
R-Fernbank, what do you call it? Cairns and Lang. There was just one eight loom weaver there and there’d been hell to pop about it. It were 1934, I’d be about eighteen then and there were just this one, this eight loom weaver and I were sweeping, sweepers must have started. When t’weavers got more looms, sweepers started. That’s when I’m earning twenty seven bob a week. And for some reason, after a time they gave up with t’sweepers and with me being able to weave, I got four loom and I were making two pound a week. I felt like a millionaire going from 27/- to 40/-.
And you say there was just one set of eight looms?
R-Just this one man.
What do you think that’d be, a bit of an experiment?
R-It must have been, aye. It must have been an experiment.
When did they actually go on to More Looms?
R-Well, I had six looms when I were sixteen or seventeen so different mills must have been experimenting with More Looms.
That’d be about 1933 so you’d be at Calf Hall?
R-That were at Calf Hall.
Of course, there were six loom weavers even before the More Looms System but there weren’t so many of them.
R-Oh, I’ve heard of ‘em talking about six loom weavers but they had a tenter.
I were going to say, there weren’t many of them, they were top class and they had a tenter.
R-That’s right.
Who paid the tenter?
R-Weaver paid the tenter. He wouldn’t pay him so much. I don’t know really, happen about half a crown or five bob.
Billy Brooks said that when he started, mind you, that was about 1892, he got half a crown and a penny for his self.
R-Aye, they had to be very good weavers to have five loom even.
Yes, he said that in those days a weaver could make about four bob a week on a loom, all week.
R-Oh aye, Ill bet he was, it would be like that.
So on a six loom set that’d be 24 bob and half a crown a week for the tenter. So you’re at work now, up here at Bancroft. Bancroft ‘ud be full up in them days?
R-Oh aye, it would be.
Now in 1930 there’d be a full complement of looms in here because they’d be narrow looms wouldn’t they?
R-No, there’s always been a mixture of looms in there. There were some 60 inch looms in there then. T’first two looms I had were 60 inches, they were like Sherman Tanks! Clattering and banging away there. Bit I can never kind of recollect why I left here, I must have been sacked I think. [60 inch refers to the width of the loom, the reed space, in other words the loom could weave a piece of cloth 60 inches wide.]
One point of interest, you’re working at Bancroft now, 43 years later. Has anything changed at Bancroft since you first came up here to learn to weave with your aunt Louise?
R-Nothing, not a bloody thing, It’s exactly the same only more run down. Exactly the same only t’floors gone up and down and all t’paint’s peeled off. I reckon there’s some piles of muck here that were there when I learned to weave.
So there’d be eleven hundred looms in here. What were the average, about four looms? [per weaver]
R-Oh aye, most of them on four looms.
So that’d be how many weavers?
R-Oh, there’d be two hundred and fifty.
There’d be getting on for 300 weavers wouldn’t there.
R-Aye, counting five loom weavers and odd six loom weavers.
Now there’d still be a kettle in the warehouse for brewing up?
R-Yes.
Was that boiling water free?
R-Well, it’s always been free in my time but I’ve heard them weavers say that they paid a penny a week for hot water.
Aye, I’ve heard that myself. And most of the weavers ‘ud bring a brew can with them?
R-Oh aye, I had a brew can, most of them had brew cans.
Aye, there’s still one left, it’s on the window cill.
R-Aye, they used to brew it at home and fill it up with hot water here.
Mash it at home ‘cause the water would probably be hotter at home.
R-Aye, mash it at home. Put milk and sugar in and then it’s all right, it works.
Yes of course it does. In those days, was there a canteen here?
R-Oh no.
Where did you eat your meals?
R-Well, any corner, in th’alley mostly. Then we’d come out into the yard and have a game of football with a rag ball. And as soon as th’old engine started, in, knockers on ready, great days really.
What makes you say great days?
R-Well, I’m not saying ‘Great Days’ because they were great days. I’m saying great days in a , what’s that word.
Nostalgia?
R-No, derogatory or something. No I think they were bloody awful days. But, we’d been brain washed and we didn’t realise they were awful days. Just imagine, working regular and having bugger all. If you didn’t save up twelve month you were destitute at July holiday week, destitute. There isn’t so many young uns that’d save owt would they?
Did they have a holiday club?
R-Oh aye, there’s always been holiday clubs and if you could save a tanner a week or a shilling you were all right, so long as you had a wage that week.
Now I do know that in later years you fulfilled a lifelong ambition and I think we ought to have it on the end of this tape because I do know for a fact that at one time you were in the happy position of having a hundred pounds in the holiday club.
Oh aye.
Tell me about it.
R-That’s after the war. Yes, I’d saved a hundred pounds and I told the office man, Frank Cowgill…..
Which mill were this?
R-Widdup’s at Moss shed. I wanted paying out in pound notes. OK he says, he’ll pay me out in pound notes. So he paid me this hundred pounds, and it’s a fair old roll is a hundred pound notes. And when he gave it me I got a piece of string out of me pocket and tied it up and I tied it on to a button and put it in me pocket. Frank stood there and he says You’re not going to lose that! I said No, I aren’t! And I pulled it out of me pocket and swung it round on the string and t’bloody string come loose and t’pound notes flicked all over the place. I’ve never seen Frank laugh like he laughed that day. Years after he used to say Remember them pound notes? I’d say Aye, but I caught them all up! Aye, a lifetime’s ambition, one hundred pounds. I’ve always, since I’ve been able to, I’ve been in’t holiday club up to this year, we’ve no holiday club this year, poor old Sidney.
[Sidney Nutter, the office man at Bancroft always ran the holiday club but he died suddenly of a brain tumour shortly before the mill closed. He was solely responsible for the club, it was nothing to do with the firm. He used to keep the money that the subscriptions earned in interest as payment for running the club.]
Aye, that’s it, with Sidney dying. What holidays, when you first started up here in 1930, run through the holidays that they had in the year here.
R-Well, you used to get Whit Monday, Christmas Day, happen Boxing Day, I don’t remember right, and a week at July. But holidays in them days, it were like hardship really because people were stood with one or two loom sometimes. And there were no pay for stopped looms, not like that, I’ve stood wi’ one loom meself if trade were bad.
When you say ‘standing with one loom’, you mean if you had a set of four looms but only one warp in?
R-That’s right, only getting paid for one.
What could you make on one loom?
R-Well, it might make you ten bob.
Was there a local list here in Barlick? T’weavers union, they’d have a local list?
R-Oh they must have had because there used to be a government official came round to make sure that the weavers weren’t diddled.
How many different sorts did they have at Bancroft then? You know what I mean, nowadays we are in a position where we’re running with probably 30 different sorts in the shed aren’t we. In those days, did they have as many different sorts as they do now?
R-Well, they would have. In my experience in weaving, there’s always been good payers, like in a scale of payments for weaving one particular cloth, there’s always been a certain cloth, a certain quality that could make more money than other qualities. Poorest payers of all, well t’boozers would get ‘em and Methodist’s would get the best.
Which really was the uniform list not working, because the uniform list was really meant to counteract that wasn’t it. It was meant to make it so that if you had a bad cloth to weave you got more money for weaving it and a good cloth to weave you got less money and it averaged the weavers out wouldn’t it.
Oh aye, it’s a good idea but it never worked that way. It doesn’t work that way today.
How about pick clocks Ernie, when did they start?
R-Don’t know when they first started.
Were they on when you started?
R-No, I never saw a pick clock up to going into the army, early 1940. My first clocks were after I came out of the army.
Yes, well, there you are. So in those days the only way that you got paid was for a piece.
R-Yes, a piece.
When was reckoning up day, when were the last time…..
R-Making up day’s usually Friday.
What time on Friday?
R-Well say about four o’clock. And that piece had to be in the warehouse or you couldn’t book it for pay. So everybody were striving and struggling to get those pieces off.
What happened if you took a short piece in?
R-Oh there’d be hell to pop!
Was it ever done?
R-Oh well, what they used to do, they’d wet the mark, you know the mark? [on the warp] It might be two or three times round, well if you wet it you’ll get a faint mark and you’d leave the other bit in for the next piece.
So where the cut mark were on the warp at the back, you’d wet that and the dye ‘ud come through….
R-Aye, it’d come up through.
And mark the sheet so it would come through about three turns earlier.
R-That’s right.
And you could just happen get that piece off and get it into the warehouse for that week.
R-That’s right. I mean, it weren’t robbing anybody, they still had that cloth to weave but it were like desperation days and they’d to get that piece in. I mean the piece ‘ud be about six bob or sommat like that. I think a good weaver ‘ud make about £2 in 1930.
What would the average length of a piece be?
R-Hundred yards.
That were a piece.
R-They were always a hundred yards if I remember right.
They vary a bit now don’t they.
R-Four hundred yards.
Aye, but of course, nowadays they aren’t paid by the piece, they’re paid on pick count aren’t they.
R-That’s right, so it’s immaterial how long the piece is.
Yes, in fact it could be said that there were advantages in having big pieces because it’s less time wasted stopping the loom to change the roller over.
R-Well aye, you could say that.
How many looms would a tackler have in his set in a place like Bancroft?
R-Hundred and forty four.
R-Was that a standard?
R-Aye.
How many in a set now, I’m not talking about the way we run at Bancroft but if it were at a place that were decently run. What’s a standard set now for tackling.
R-Plain Lancashire looms? About seventy. So that in theory, tacklers in them days had twice as much work as we have today.
But…..
R-Well, I don’t know about any buts.
Ah well, I think I’ve heard you say this before. The thing was that in those days the looms were new weren’t they.
Aye, they were, they were and small shuttles and one weaver for four looms. Most of the weavers could do part tackling you know. Little jobs like weaving bart [Dialect word for ‘without’.] weft and such.
So it’s quite possible in those days that there was less trouble with the looms than there is now.
R-Oh, there were a lot less trouble. I reckon a loom’d run trouble free practically for a long, long time.
SCG/17 June 2001. 6971 words