THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 26TH 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, it’s about 1932 now and you’ve moved down to Calf Hall.
R. Aye, I’ll be sixteen then.
That’s right. Now then, you went down to Calf Hall and what were you doing there?
R. Well, weaving but it were like a bad venture. They must have bought some cheap yarn and the place were full up, four hundred and odd looms running and they wouldn’t go. That’s when I had one piece off at four shilling and took two and ninepence home for a wage.
When you say ‘they wouldn’t go’, do you mean that the warps were that bad that they wouldn’t weave?
R. They were that bad they wouldn’t weave.
So what did they do at t’finish?
R. Well, when I say they wouldn’t weave, they wouldn’t weave so far without faults you know, without breakages. What did they do? Well, they did a funny thing, it must have been some kind of compensation, but they paid this compensation on money earned, so if you earned a pound they might give you five bob, but them people with the worst warps in, like me wi’ four bob, what would I get? I wouldn’t get much would I?
So really it were’t wrong way round, people with the worst warps were getting the least compo.
R. Aye, but anyway, eventually all these bad warps wove out and we got some better warps in. Things went on alright for a year maybe.
Which firm were that?
R. That were Blackburn Holden’s at Calf Hall.
That’ll be his lads that have Bendem now won’t it?
R. It were, they were Blackburn Holden and ?, yes, Blackburn Holden’s lads. [Blackie Holden had the garage next to the auction at Gisburn and lived in Horton in the 1960s.] But this Blackburn Holden I’m talking about were Blackburn Holden’s father and I think they eventually closed that mill at Calf Hall and went to Moss Shed and they went on for years and years there, manufacturing.
When they shifted, did they take their looms with them?
R. They would do, aye.
Can you remember seeing looms shifted round Barlick?
R. Oh aye. It used to be a regular occurrence to see looms being shifted.
Who shifted ‘em?
R. Well, the chap I remember seeing shifting ‘em was called Crabtree. I never saw any being broken up.
Was he a Barlicker, Crabtree?
R. Aye, scrap iron merchant he were and moving stuff about.
Where did he hang out?
R. He had a wood hut. What did they call that street. To say I’ve lived here all my life I only know about three streets. No, I don’t know the name of the street but he had a big wood hut anyway. You know, railway bridge.
Aye, like going down to Jims, down there.
R. That’s right, down there, it isn’t there now.
Aye, at the end of Essex Street.
R. That’s it, Essex Street, aye. Yes, Crabtree, that’s it yes. I’ll tell you what he did have, he used to have a rope thrown over his hut with an old wringing machine hanging on it. He must have been a bit, he’d be in the same street as us, I mean t’manufacturers ‘ud want their looms shifting for twopence a time, no wonder his hut were like that. An old fashioned wringing machine hanging on a rope, ‘cause one of me mates cut t’rope one time.
While you were down at Calf Hall was there anything striking down there? Was there anything different at Calf Hall than there were at Bancroft?
R. Oh no, it were just the same. Oh, I think one of the tacklers was bothering with one of his weavers one time. That were like a nine days wonder. They called him Tommy Harper, he were sacked right off t’stick end. They did say he were caught making love to a woman behind some pieces and Edward Holden, there were Edward and Blackburn Holden, Edward Holden came round these pieces and he must have fallen over ‘em or sommat. Anyway, Tommy were sacked. Aye, he were all right and all. Tommy Harper were what you’d call a nice tackler. Some of the tales would have made you laugh. There were a loom on fire, we used to get looms on fire now and again you know. Tommy Harper came running in with a bucket of water and he dashed round the corner where I were weaving and he slipped. Turned about four or five bloody somersaults and by the time he pulled himself together the fire were out. It wouldn’t be so long after when he got sacked.
Well of course, we’ve had looms on fire here.
R. Oh aye.
What’s the usual cause of a loom setting on fire?
R. Oh well, ninety nine times out of a hundred it’s , you know the little bowls under the tappet? They get jammed with muck and like it’s friction and they set on fire.
Aye, with the dawn underneath.
R. I remember a mysterious fire at Widdups, at another place I worked, that were at Moss Shed but this is after the war.. There were this fire and it were a mystery. I mean, if there were a loom on fire there were a hot part you see, red hot. But there were no hot parts on this loom. Bloke called Clifton Bird were t’weaver, he were like a friend of mine, I were tackling at the time and it were my loom so it was my duty to find out what caused this fire. I looked all over, nothing. It were a week or two after that Clifton told me he had put his foot on a match. He smoked a pipe and he used to go to the toilet with his pipe and one or two odd matches in his pocket. One fell out as he were walking in and he stepped on it and that was it, on fire. But they wanted an explanation in’t office, what started this fire and Harry Widdup, one of the bosses said to me, “What caused that fire? and I said I didn’t know. I said there were nothing stuck, nothing hot, couldn’t find owt. It’d be t’rocking rail he says. I says “Rocking rails can’t cause a fire”. It were t’rocking rail he says and I said it weren’t. He says, Insurance, it’d be t’rocking rail”. I said That’s right, it were t’rocking rail. I don’t think he’d ever find out it were Clifton had stood on a match but he told me anyway after and we had a good laugh about it.
You were on about there being a flood while you were at Calf Hall.
R. Oh aye, there were a flood, aye. [July 12th 1932] Beck runs under the mill at Calf Hall and I forget what time of day it was but t’mill were stopped and there were a hell of a thunderstorm and t’rain were pelting down and t’water started coming up through the flags [in the weaving shed]. This culvert had filled up. Oh it were a real flood, it bashed the wall in at t’top end and looms were piled up on top of each other. We came out and it were a fairly high kerb [in the road]. Them that had got across, they had a rope across so that women could cross over. One bloke, what did they call him? Mole I think, he were a weaver, he stepped off the kerb and he were washed away. Aye, he were washed right down the side of the mill on to some dry land at the bottom of Calf Hall Lane. I can see him now, his head would come up and then his feet’d come up and he were spinning along. It’d be happen a couple of feet deep gushing at terrific speed you know. It did tickle me that day.
Clough copped it as well
R. Oh, didn’t Clough cop it. They had walls washed in and looms on top of each other. Aye, they were out, they had fun that day. So the Clough ‘ud cop it and there were a market there in them days you know [Butts] all t’stalls were washed up, piled on top of each other. It’s a wonder there were nobody drowned, I don’t think there were.
Aye, it hit Bancroft and all. There is a photograph somewhere, I’ve see it, I’m trying to get hold of it. It burst all the wall of the dam out, filled it up and burst all the wall.
R. Yes it would do. There were holes on Occupation Road eight and ten feet deep, washed out down to the solid rock. There were some water come down that day. Still, it were all entertainment, it didn’t cost me owt, that were the day. Well, I think we’d be out of work wouldn’t we come to think of it?
Aye, would you get paid for that day?
R. Eh I doubt it. I don’t think there’d be any chance at all of getting paid.
How about if you had an accident in them days. How about compensation? There’d be Workman’s Compensation?
R. Oh there must have been. I’ve never heard of anybody getting any compensation. There were nothing really and it isn’t that long ago is it. Wait a minute, I do know someone that got compensation but he weren’t injured in the mill. They were building the sewerage and he got his leg smashed with a bogey and he got a few hundred quid compensation but he were crippled for the rest of his life.
That’s interesting, that’s how these things spark up. Would you ever see a
anybody that was disabled working?
R. Oh aye, there used to be a butcher called Iron Billy, he had a club foot.
Yes, but he’d be working for himself wouldn’t he?
R. No, he were working for’t butchers. I think they got three shillings and sixpence for killing a cow and dressing it.
Oh I see, you mean at the slaughter house?
R. Aye, at the slaughter house. Oh I knew lots of cripples in mills, especially upstairs, looming and twisting. Me uncle Walter were a cripple, instead of being bow legged like me he were bow legged inside, like knocky kneed way. Now that’s a funny thing. I never knew him when he were a tall smart young man. May be he had Infantile Paralysis but he went to bed poorly and he got up like that, a cripple. And the way he walked he were only about four feet [tall].
Aye. So if anybody, it didn’t matter if somebody was lame or crippled, so long as they could do a job they could get a job.
R. Oh aye, that kind of work certainly. There were a bloke, Minks they called him, he had a short leg, he used to walk with a crutch and Katie Tweedie, she had an iron on her foot, she were a weaver.
I’ll tell you something you don’t see very often nowadays, people with hunch backs, and yet I can remember seeing quite a few when I was younger. Can you ever remember seeing people hunch backed in Barlick?
R. Oh, it must have been a familiar sight. I’ve seen lots of hunch backs.
How many have you seen just lately?
R. I haven’t seen any lately.
No, there’s only one lass in Barlick I know of that’s badly hunched.
R. Oh, hasn’t she a bonny face. I’ve seen that lass, lovely girl!
Oh she is, she’s a grand lass. She’s Dan Smith’s daughter and she won’t give up you know, she still goes dancing.
R. Oh I don’t blame her, why should she give it up? Aye, she does right.
I have every admiration for that lass.
R. I have. Aye, well it’s a matter of luck isn’t it. Well, bad luck in her case.
Well, she’ll never give up you know. I mean she’s terribly deformed. I was just thinking you know, it used to be quite regular to see a fellow with a Charlie and it was ‘Look, he’s got a Charlie on his back’.
R. They always said they got a Charlie on the back with being naughty.
In what way?
R. Well, sex way. Same as a couple deeply in love, she’d been kissing his willy [euphemism for penis] and these fellows with Charlies on their backs, t’woman they have been with got carried away and instead of sucking, they blew. But that can’t be true.
No I don’t think it is, it doesn’t send you blind either!
R. You’d better cross that off.
Oh no Ernie, it comes under folklore.
R. Oh does it. Oh that’s good that is, folklore.
Funny thing about that, I have a mate, Daniel Meadows, public schoolboy and that and I once asked him ‘How about sex education at public school Daniel?’ You know, he was really well educated. Oh yes he said. We did have some. One day a master got us all lined up and told us that masturbating in railway carriages is not the thing to do. He said that was it, that was our sex education!
R. Like me and tadpoles.
Aye, the tadpoles!
R. But I tell you what, you don’t see many deformities do you really. But I’m always sympathetic, anyone that’s deformed in any way, I feel sorry for ‘em and if I can help ‘em in any way I will do ‘cause there used to be an old fellow in Barlick, I don’t whether you ever saw him, but he had a big lump hanging on his neck, under his chin, and a big lump. He used to go round wi’ a walking stick wi’ a pin at the bottom of it collecting fag ends. I were coming over Long Ing Bridge, not Long Ing Bridge, Bankfield bridge, and he were leaning on the bridge wi’ this lump hanging down and I looked at him and I thought ‘Poor old fellow’ and he looked at me and he got hold of this lump and he said ‘Can’t tha get past?’ Talk about being bloody upset, it reight upset me, that fellow. I thought to myself ‘The rotten sod’. I were hoping he’d get another bloody lump.
So, let’s get back to Calf Hall. So Calf Hall’s had a flood.
R. Aye.
How long did it take them to….
R. I think that might have been kaput at Calf Hall. I don’t remember working theer after. Might have done, if it were it weren’t long before I moved on, out of work. It might have been the flood that put me out of work.
So you’re out of work then.
R. Well, I weren’t out of work so long, I wouldn’t be out of work so long.
No, but did you actually go on the dole?
R. Sixteen? Aye I would do, you got a few shilling a week you know.
Is this what you were telling me about earlier on, little Hitler behind the counter? Or was that later?
R. Oh no, well, in them days there used to be long queues at t’dole you know. When I say long queues, I mean long queues.
When you were working at Bancroft say and Calf Hall, were there queues at t’dole?
R. Oh there would be, nearly certain.
Yes, you say there would be but can you actually remember seeing them? I mean actually ’28 and ’30, I mean they were terrible years weren’t they?
R. Aye they would be but as a boy, I mean a boy, he doesn’t realise does he?
Aye, that’s it.
R. And with me not having any father, there were no man coming in the house and impressing on the kids like that he were out of work, on the dole. So, like it didn’t make any impact on me.
Can you remember when you first went to the dole? Can you remember anything about it?
R. No, not really. I know they were very militant behind the counter, these government officials, because one bloke got jail for giving one a bloody good hiding.
What, one of the fellows what were on the dole?
R. Yes, a bloke called Harry Bell. He went to sign on and this clerk were nasty with him and he dragged him across the counter, gave him a good hiding and got a month in gaol.
Aye well, he’d be nearly as well off in gaol as he would be on the dole.
R. Well, more than likely. But I bet if we were comparing gaols then and gaols now we’d have a shock wouldn’t we.
Aye, that’d be interesting wouldn’t it. You’ve not been in gaol have you?
R. No, I don’t think I’ve ever deserved gaol.
No, pity! Anyway, you’re out of work for a bit. What were’t next job after you’d been out of work?
R. Sweeping at Fernbank. But in the meantime we’d go down to t’golf field, caddying, tanner a round, nine holes for sixpence. Well, a good day you’d make a couple of bob.
That’s at Gill Brow?
R. Aye, Gill Brow. I remember carrying a bag at one time for Harry Widdup of all people and I must have had a few coppers in me pocket. He says to me, (funny how these things impress on your mind, all them years since. I remember it as if it were now.) he says ‘I wish you’d give up rattling those coppers!’ and I were carrying his bloody old golf bag! I thought you lousy swine! So what coppers I had I distributed about me person so they wouldn’t rattle. Eh, bloody marvellous isn’t it, what?
Putting him off his stroke!
R. Aye, putting him off his stroke.
How did you get in down at the golf club?
R. Well, you didn’t go in the club actually.
No, I meant how did you get in, caddying?
R. Well, you’d…. there were a wood hut in t’bottom and you used to go and sit in this wood hut and the green keeper used to come to the top and shout for two caddies, or whatever he needed. All these lads ‘ud sit in a row and when it came their turn, off they went and there were good uns and bad uns. Some’d give you a tip, an extra tanner. Other buggers, it took them all their time to give you the tanner you were entitled to. You’d caddy all afternoon at Saturday and sometimes they’d say ‘I want you after tea, go round t’back and get your tea,. Well, you’d get a sandwich and a cup of tea, you know, keep you going. Eh, me and Walter Whittaker, we did it for years, even when we were working we’d go down on a Saturday, make us two or three bob.
Aye, it ud be a quiet walk round, do you good.
R. Oh it did you good aye. Oh it were a great life. ‘I wish you’d give up rattling them coppers’, Oh you big, fat, red-faced swine.
And you went working for him didn’t you?
R. I did. But he didn’t remember the coppers, but I did.
Aye, that were a black mark were it then?
R. Aye it were, it were in the little book from that moment on.
Aye well, go on then, you’re out of work and then what? Your next job, loom sweeping at Fernbank. Now this would start , this ud be what, nineteen thirty three or four? Something like that?
R. Aye it would be, aye.
So this is actually when they were on the verge of bringing the More Looms System in?
R. That’s right.
And up to then there would never have been sweepers at Fernbank would there?
R. Oh I doubt it, I don’t think there would be, no. But there was, same as Holdens, they all had six looms there, I don’t know how that come about, it must have started then. But when I went to Cairns and Lang at Fernbank there were one bloke there wi’ eight looms, now that were unheard of. Anyway he had eight had this fellow, a bloke called Bolton, he used to chew twist and weft! I used to sweep for him and there were balls of twist and weft all over the place but I couldn’t say owt, I daren’t say owt. Cairns, the boss, used to have two sisters weaving there and I used to sweep for them. They were officious and full of ceremony, they even had me scraping the floor one time under their looms where they had been chucking the tea leaves and banana skins and all sorts of rubbish. I thought ‘You bloody old cows!’ Daren’t say owt, if I had I’d have been sacked and I were desperate see? I were frightened. But anyway, after that they give up with the sweepers and I got four looms and I were making two pound a week. Never made as much money in me life, I’d be seventeen or eighteen years old then. [1933/34]
You’d still be living at home then, in Manchester Road?
R. That’s right.
You weren’t married?
R. No.
And you’d be tipping your wage up were you? Or boarding or how?
R. No, I earned twenty seven shilling [take home pay] and I gave my mother a pound, I had seven bob left. I saved up one time for an Attaboy hat, seven and six they were at Atkinsons. [Attaboy was a make of felt trilby hat. 7/6 equals roughly 40 new pence.] Now they were with it! Anyway, I got one.
Aye, a trilby wi’ a snap brim.
R. That’s it. Saturday night I went up to t’dance, some swine pinched it! I’d have chopped their hands off if I could have found them! Eh, me Attaboy hat, I think that’s the only hat I’ve ever had in me life!
When you say that, you mean as opposed to a cap?
R. That’s right. Oh aye, I had an Attaboy hat, eh…. fashion in them days. [Ernie starts talking about trousers] they used to have wide slops at t’bottom. I got as pair of a cousin of mine at one time, 32 inch bottoms. Well, they were all right for me like, I were bow-legged and it disguised the fact you know. Aye, I liked ‘em. I don’t know what happened to ‘em eventually but I liked ‘em.
Aye, they’d be a good thing for the mill, plenty of cloth in ‘em!
R. Well they used to say, when t’trade were bad, I’ve heard the older blokes say ‘If they’d put an inch on t’bloody Chinamen’s shirts we’d all be working!’. Because you didn’t, in them days you didn’t know how many Chinamen there were, there must have been a lot. You can laugh about it now, eh!
So you’re sweeping and you get on to four looms….
R’ Aye, aye.
How long would you say you were weaving at Fernbank?
Oh, it’d be, well, they wove out. [I’ve been told that Ernie has got this wrong but this is what he said.] I must have been eighteen or nineteen happen. [1934/35]
When you say they wove out, did they weave out permanently or did they start again?
R. Well, I think this firm started again but at that moment, finish.
Short of orders, wove out.
R. Aye. Bottom must have dropped out of the market.
When they were weaving out like that, when there was nothing disastrous like a flood or a fire, what were the actual process of weaving out? How did you get to know and what happened. How did they actually weave out?
R. Oh I don’t think there were any official notice put out. There were just, you wove your warps out, there were none coming in so out you went. There were no redundancy money or owt like that, you were out of work.
How did they go on when they got down to the end and there were only happen about, well, how many looms did they have there?
R. There’d be 400 or 500.
So when they got down to fifty looms, what were they doing then. Did they consolidate?
R. Well no, there’d be the chosen few, relations I suppose and the tacklers would lift the warps and put them together.
[Here Ernie is talking about taking warps off the weavers who only had perhaps one and giving them to other weavers. If this was done on the basis of favouritism think what bad feeling this would generate.]
If they are weaving out, how would the tacklers go on then? They’d start losing warps out of their sets so did they consolidate? I mean, when they got down to 300 looms say, did they get rid of one of the tacklers or did the tacklers all stop on until the end?
R. Aye, no, tacklers finished you know. Since the war, when Widdups finished, I were the last tackler there and there were one loom left. What we used to do we used to keep moving warps about until there were one, just one loom left. Cecil Rhodes were’t manager. Cabbage they called him, everybody knows cabbage in Barlick. When I went to work in there I thought they called him Mr Cabbage, that were a little mistake I made. But I did find out why they called him cabbage eventually. There used to be a shop down Long Ing, Greenwood Hartley’s and when Cecil were little he lived down there and his mother told him to go to Greenwood Hartley’s for a cabbage. Cecil asked how big she wanted it and she said as big as your head. All his life he’s been Cabbage, I only saw him last week and I couldn’t get away, he’d had this operation, his prostate gland had been taken out. Aye, he were telling me all about this bloody operation, oh dear! Next time |I see him I’m going to dodge up street. He had tubes in him he said and something went wrong. He were a Methodist [tee-total] and he said first of all it were like wine and then it went like Guinness. I says ‘Oh, how the hell dosta know about all these drinks, th’art a Methodist!’ Anyway, he survived, he’s still going. We got down to one loom at Widdups and I went for him. Now he’d worked there all his life and he were a manager. Well, he were t’chief bullet firer, put it that way. Widdup made the bullets and he fired ‘em. Anyway, one loom, I went out for him, it were weaving t’last few inches of cloth. I said ‘There you are Cecil, put that shuttle in and set that loom on and you’re weaving the last cloth for Widdups’. I’ve never seen a chap so upset in me life, crying he were, he were bloody heart-broken. His wife told me, and this was afore this happened, that Cecil once put in for a rise and went in front of the tribunal, there were four or five of them brothers, and they gave him an extra shilling a week and told him never to come again.
Them were the days!
R. He’d been a bloody slave for them and yet he were heart-broken to think that the shop were closing down.
So Fernbank, Cairns and Langs, they’ve woven out?
R. That’s right.
You’re out of work again.
R. Out of work again, aye. What do they say about ups and downs? If you don’t have any downs in life you don’t appreciate the ups! It were all ups and downs in them days!
Well, now then, you’re having another down, you’ve woven out at Cairns and Langs, what happened then?
R. Well, I went standing for work at Pickles’s at t’Bouncer. They were always a good shop to work at but just how could I get in? I had no influence, nobody to speak for me, it’s who you knew. So I’m standing there like cheese at fourpence every morning.
In the warehouse?
R. In’t warehouse. And t’manager would come and shout ‘All up!’ so you’d bugger off then. Many a morning I’d stand on this bridge [Long Ing canal bridge]and after it were all up and they were all gone, there were tacklers coming out o’t door and knocking on doors round and about. See, the favoured few. Silly bugger me there, wi’ me bicycle on tick and wondering which way to turn. But luckily, Alf Peckover come along and I started work at Pickles and I never looked behind me since that morning.
Since you went to Long Ing working for Pickles’s?
R. Aye, working regular, not much money but regular.
So you went to Pickles, how many looms did you have?
R. I were sweeping. Hundred and forty four looms.
They must have been going on to More Looms as well.
R. Well, they weren’t then there were four or five looms then when I were there.
An yet they had sweepers on.
R. Aye.
Now that’s interesting, that’s the first time I’ve heard of anyone having sweepers on when they weren’t on More Looms. Did they have anything else done for them at Pickles like weft carrying or anything like that?
R. No, things were just the same there, weavers pulling pieces off, plaiting them on’t loom and taking ‘em into the warehouse and they fetched their own weft.
Aye, but they had sweepers on. How many sweepers were there?
R. Four.
Which firm were you working for there at Long Ing?
R. Well it were S Pickles and Son.
So at Long Ing, this would be about 1934 wouldn’t it?
R. There were S Pickles and Son in’t top shop, and then there were Midgeley’s and then there were what they called New Road Manufacturing Company and then in the bottom shop there were Aldersley’s.
Aye, so there would be four tenants in Long Ing and you were working for Stephen Pickles and son, that’s it. How long were you sweeping there before you went on to the looms?
R. I never did weave there only afternoons and Saturday mornings. I were a sweeper there until coming into th’army at 23 year old. So I were there from 19 years until 23 and then I went into the army. [1934/35 until 1939]
And that of course was the beginning of WW2. Had you met your wife then?
R. I met her there, at Pickles’s.
When did you actually get married?
R. Well, she were only 15 so we went on a bit. When I actually got married the war had started. I were married on 17th February 1940, same day as I registered. The idea was that to get married and then she could get the allowance you know. But how much it were; she didn’t save up by the way! Anyway we were married on 17th February 1940m and I went in the army on 9th May 1940. So, like, I were married in February, March, April and then, by 9th May, I were away.
What were your wife doing down at Pickles?
R. She were weaving.
How many looms?
R. Four looms.
Well, you joined the army, Second World War has started. Tell me about getting your calling-up papers. First of all, you’re working at Pickles, what inkling did you get that things were not as they should be in western Europe?
R. Well, we knew about Hitler and what were going on like, a lot of unrest in Europe, persecuting the Jews and keep pinching little countries, what were it? Rhineland and, what do they call it, Saar?
Rhineland, Saar, Sudetenland, that’s it.
R. But I didn’t realise it, well, I did, I must have realised it because Hore Belisha, he were the war minister, he said “You young men, at say eighteen years old, join the Territorial Army and I won’t call you up”. My younger brother Wilson and his mates joined the Terriers and I warned ‘em, don’t bleeding join the Terriers because there’s certainly going to be a war. Who the hell wants to leave home under any consideration? Well, it eventually happened and do you know, 9th of September were a Sunday when war were declared and me and me brother got an old motor bike, a Douglas belt drive, and we went to join up! Isn’t that bloody queer! I mean I didn’t want to leave home, but luckily the recruiting offices weren’t open. We went to Burnley and Accrington and they were both shut. So I said to Fred, Come on, let’s bugger off and go home. So we did do and we wait for us papers but it weren’t long before they came. I don’t know exactly when they came but they came and I had to report to Blackburn for a medical. I were married then, living with me mother up Castle View, me and me wife and th’old girl.
Oh, did you live on Castle View?
R. Aye, they’re knocked down now them houses.
Oh, you mean the opposite side from Castle View. Castle View’s on the side next to the Greyhound.
R. You know, you’re walking on, you’re coming round the corner from the Greyhound and straight down there at the bottom are the two houses, 16 and 18 Castle View. They were three storey houses and we lived in no. 16.
[I had this wrong. I was under the impression that Ernie lived in one of the cottages opposite castle View on the other side of Manchester Road which were knocked down for road widening. These were two-up and two down. I realise now after talking to Joyce Lawson who lives on Castle View that there were two more three-storey houses at the bottom of the row, the present day numbers go up to 14 Castle View so these would be 16 and 18 and yes, they were knocked down.]
So, you’re living there and you get your call-up papers. Tell me about the medical at Blackburn.
R. Aye, go to Blackburn. Well, me mother says they won’t have you, you’ve had rheumatic fever, tonsillitis and all bloody sorts. I thought well, I’m alright, they won’t have me. I weighed 123 pounds, I were a reight poor specimen. I mean, if I’d been a recruiting officer and I’d looked at me I’d have thought well, there isn’t much fight in this fellow, we’ll chuck him out. I travelled up to Blackburn with a bloke called Horace Hartley, he must have been six feet two and weighed about 15 or 16 stone, a bloke called Hartley and me, bloody death warmed up. I said to Horace then, “Me father came home on leave in the Great War and I were sieved through the blanket!” Anyway, I travelled to Blackburn with this Hartley and we went through all the rigmarole, Giving samples and cough and all that you know and right up to the last minute I thought, they don’t want me. Last thing of all you stood in like a sentry box and a strong light shone on you and this would be the final verdict. Chief doctor looking at you and then you got dressed and waited for’t results. A1, fit as a bloody flea they said and I must admit I pranced out, I thought Eh, that’s a rare do, I’m A1. And they didn’t have this Hartley, they didn’t want him, and do you know, six months later he were dead, a big strong fellow like him.
What were wrong with him, his heart or something?
R. Must have been his heart, aye. Horace Hartley they called him.
So, His Majesty accepted you into the armed forces.
R. Then there were a bit of a selection board and I said well, gunner, aeroplane and he just grinned at me did this officer.
Where were the selection board, were that later?
R. I think it were at Blackburn. But anyway, they didn’t fancy me for the Royal Air Force, so I finally got called up and I went into the Royal Signals, I were called up to Skegness and they had a busy job on training me I must admit but they finally made a wireless operator out of me.
So you went up to Skegness and did your training there.
R. Well, you did square bashing you know [Drill on the parade ground.] you’ve been in the army. You did your square bashing there and oh, that was where the selection board was, Skegness. You were like a soldier or airman in the making and they like asked you what you were good at and things like that. And I fancied being an air gunner, I must have fancied something.
And what were the conditions like up there when you first went to Skegness?
R. Well, coming straight from home, well, I think they were very good really. It were a holiday camp that they’d like confiscated.
Commandeered?
R. Commandeered, that’s it. I remember the name of the mattress that I were sleeping on, ‘Somnus’, well, I’d been sleeping on bloody flock beds and them straw mattresses up to then you know. Somnus, spring interior.
Did you have sheets?
R. No we didn’t have sheets, blankets. I don’t think it were so bad really.
How were t’grub?
R. Well, it were a bit, well I think it must have been terrible really but anyway, we survived. We did square bashing there and I thought well, I’ll be a good soldier and we had instructions to polish our boots you know? I got these boots of mine shining like a nigger’s arse. Some swine pinched ‘em and left me a pair of broken down old bloody boots, you’ve never seen the like of them in your life. And do you know, from that moment on I thought Sod soldiering. They’ll never make me into a soldier if I’m here ten years, and they never did, not really. And yet they must have, there were, really there were some……. I mean, Great War, why they call it Great War I don’t know but Great War were over bugger all. But this war I went to, we did have some excuse, there were old Hitler, I mean, he were persecuting the Jews and shooting any bugger he didn’t fancy and if he’d have got here we’d have been in the shit reight wouldn’t we? First job were gelding all’t fellers so they tell us. Anyway, I started on me army career on May 9th 1940 and it went on a long while. Just after then, when did Dunkirk happen?