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THIS TAPE WAS RECORDED ON 27^TH JULY 1978 AT VICARAGE ROAD BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS NEWTON PICKLES AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.

Now, what I want to do this week is to run through the mills in Barlick, apart from Bancroft, I can do that meself. I’ll run through the mills in Barlick and, each mill, we’ll go through the machinery, what they had, just to get it straight in our minds. So we might as well start off and go round in a circle, now there’s Calf Hall Shed. Now Calf Hall were built in 1894 [I got this wrong and Newton didn’t correct me. It was built in 1889 and the engine was christened and started at 3:15 in the afternoon of Saturday the 30^th of November. High Pressure called Emily and low pressure Annie. See report in Craven Herald dated December 6^th 1889. SG] now what were the engine at Calf Hall?

R-It were a 750hp Robert’s cross compound and it were’t first one Roberts made wi’ a rope drive flywheel [12 ropes. SG]. It had slide valve low pressure and slide valve high-pressure cylinders with Meyer cut-off gear on. In 1916 it were modernised and Burnley Ironworks put a new high-pressure cylinder in, one of them wi’ all the valves at the top. [Corliss valves. SG]

Now in 1934 [CHSCMB says 1936. SG] we took a boiler out of Butts which were 180psi and we put it in Calf Hall, which were only 110psi to run at 160psi and we put a new piston into it, new piston rod, new cross head pin and a new crank pin, made ‘em all bigger. We bored out all the stud holes in’t high pressure cylinder covers and put high tensile BSF studs in and raised the pressure from 110psi to 160psi.

R-That up rated that in Calf Hall, it were always terribly overloaded after they built Monkswell. That were before my time of course but there were 400 looms in it, in’t Monkswell.

R-Aye, it were speeded up when that extension were built but it still couldn’t cope, not with economy anyway.

R-Big spring at t’top. Yours at Bancroft were a Whitehead up to us putting that Lumb governor on.

R-It were an Edward’s air pump that me father made sometime between the end of the First World War and me starting working.

R-That’s a new one on me is that. It were only an ordinary set-up wi’t well in’t yard filled up out of the dam that were at the back of the mill but I never knew of a jack well at Calf Hall. I mean, a jack well at t’mills I used to go to was a separate well with a deep well pump in that pumped water out of the ground. [See evidence of CHSCMB as to bore hole put in to improve water supply to the dam in later years. SG]

R-It were a three ram Pearn pump {Frank Pearns of Manchester. SG] that me father put in when he put the new air pump in.

R-It ran off the engine with pulleys and a belt off the flywheel shaft running down into the cellar.

R-Yes, there’d been a single ram pump on’t back, on’t side of the old air pump in the old days, the original fitting. When me father put that new Edward’s air pump on they didn’t bother with it. They put a new boiler pump in and all and ran it off the flywheel shaft with a belt. It were on the governor side of the shaft between the flywheel boss and the governor pulley.

R-No, they’d just that one pump and an injector, that were all there were at Calf Hall.

R-It were an eight footer [Lancashire. SG] and that that went from Butts were nine foot. [This was 1936/7. CHSCMB]

I think I have the maker of that eight footer somewhere. [W Yates, Blackburn. SG]

R-And they’d Leach’s stokers on, if you’ve ever seen any Leach’s stokers. When they were running reight they were a marvellous stoker, they were a fan stoker you know. They had a horizontal shaft, running round at a heck of a speed, and on that shaft were two cast iron blocks that were loose, like a centrifugal governor type thing and they caught the coal as it come down out of the hoppers. Now there were a bi crown wheel in the middle run by a worm and it had an arm on that worked a slide on the hoppers and delivered the your coal. To alter the feed, you had this wing nut in’t middle and you put it in a different position in’t slot to give you more or less stroke for whatever rate of coal you wanted to burn. But they were always tricky, they wanted a lot of maintenance, because these fan type things and t’shoes didn’t last so long, they soon wore out with the coal, you know, wearing them away. All the mills in Barlick had them nearly.

That’s interesting because the first stokers that were on were Bennis stokers. I know that from the Calf Hall Shed Minute books. I can’t tell you the exact date they put them on but every now and then there were a bill from Bennis.

R-Oh I should think they must had had ‘em all taken off and put Leach’s on when they came into existence. They all had Leach’s stokers on.

When you put that other boiler in did they make the old boiler redundant or did they use the old one to…

R-No, we took one out and put t’new one in and left the other one in and in winter they used to use the other one for heating and t’donkey and t’tapes and such. Because it couldn’t cope with the engine, he’d just short of 900ihp on when he were full up and it were built for 750ihp were’t engine. He couldn’t cope in winter wi’ just one boiler, he used to put the other on for heating and we put an all new steam range in, all steel pipe and a new stop valve.

R-It were boiler pressure, they were practically all boiler pressure in those days.

So in effect, that engine for years would be running at what, 900? That’s nearly 25% overload.

R-It were, it had 25% overload on it. In fact, at one period, just afore I started working it dropped the high-pressure crank off. [Thursday 28^th February 1924. See CHSCMB 13/03/1924. Hy Brown and Sons did the repairs and the engine started again on the morning of 13 March 1924.] It broke it off and the piston came flying out through the cover and catched the engine driver on the arse and cut him. Me father went up and he said Edwin [Waterworth] were walking about and he says Eh, Edwin, thart bleeding someweer, it’s all running out of your shoes. He says Oh, has it ruddy well cut me! So he pulled his pants down and he had a ruddy great gash in his arse, he’d to go and have about twenty stitches in it. The piston were broke into six pieces, just like a Kraft cheese in a box. Piston rod had come right through the piston and split it and it never hurt the cylinder. It rove of the cover, breaking all the studs. Aye, crank pin dropped off so you can tell the load it had on. It smashed the slides out, which were open slides, not like Bancroft with a centre slipper, they were outside slippers. It smashed the ends off and I think in our shop today there’s one of the straight pairs that we use for a mandrel block. And me father made all new patterns for to make them slides, new slippers, new piston, new rod and took the old crank pin out and put a new one in and we were running in eight days. [17 days actually according to the Calf hall minute books. SG.]

That’s about it, they had 1200 and then they put that other, that last extension on.

R-And there were five or else six tapes, I just forget. Everybody had a tape, some had two you know.

R-Oh Edwin could fire that boiler, he used to say to me, I learned all me fire-beating off Edwin. He used to say Newton, if we could run that fire on wire netting we’d be able to keep steam up, blooming bars, filling all the holes up with rubbish!

R-They didn’t smoke so much. No, a chap that could fire wouldn’t make much smoke. He weren’t making no steam if the chimney were smoking.

I just said to Ernie Roberts the other day, I said “What were it like in Barlick when they were all”…? And he said that many a time he’d go up Brown Hill and you’d have a job to see the town.

R-Aye, it just depends what part of the day it was. You see they all had a silly do hadn’t they, It were clean out at twenty past eleven and half past three and all that sort of carry on. They all did it at the same time. That were a council stipulation which were silly really.

R-Aye, I think they did, I think they did. They had to clean out at a certain time and whether their idea was let’s get rid of all the smoke at one do. But a chap that could fire didn’t make no blooming smoke. You used to go and see old Edwin at Calf Hall, open his firebox door and you could see the fire bouncing on the bars, it weren’t above that thick. And you’d see Edwin round at back, on’t back o’t boiler on Monday morning when he’d everything on in the middle of winter wi’ a little duck lamp looking for leaks in the brickwork, least little thing and it were plastered up.

R-Aye, magic wand, the duck lamp. Even round chimney bottom he’d be going, where it went into the floor, aye, anywhere.

[latest research, October 2003, when Butts started in 1846 it couldn’t have been a Bracewell engine because Billycock didn’t buy into Marsland’s Burnley foundry until 1860. Johnny Pickles said the beams were all Yates and this seems likely. Geoff Shackleton says this engine was auctioned 22/3/1890. Butts Mill Co. owned Butts at the time and it seems likely that they replaced the beam engine with a second-hand Musgrave and installed new boilers, 9ft diameter and running at 180psi. I think this makes sense because there is plenty of evidence that Butts was running as a mill with tenants and paying rates between 1890 and 1803 when Calf Hall Shed Co bought the mill for £19,000 so it must have had an engine. The Musgrave was 1500ihp, cross compound, gear drive, 7ft stroke, Corliss valves to HP and LP with no tail rods and noted as a wastrel. On July 11 1904 Universal Metallic Packings of Bradford supplied the Calf Hall Shed Company with HP and LP packings for ‘engine at Butts Mill’, these were for rods approx 6” diameter which fits with size of the Musgrave. In November 1937 CHSC put Butts on the market for £8,000 but had no takers. On 25 May 1940 they decided to sell the engine and ‘steam driven fire engine’ at Butts and on 20 June the minutes record that they were sold [plus second motion shaft] to James Dixon at Burnley for £450. In 1942 Dixons bought the shafting as well after the mill had been registered with the Ministry of Aircraft Production as a Shadow Factory in January 1942.]

Well, I don’t know no more about Butts than I did when I were a lad. Nobbut it were a second-hand engine when it were put in, it were a Musgrave [Bolton engine makers near Lark Street just behind J A Kirkham’s brass foundry. SG] Burnley Ironworks put it in when the beam engine packed up. It were 1300ihp and seven feet stroke and it ran at 32 rpm. The low pressure were, when I were working I’d go up there and help them make the back cover joint which were made of ¾ inch lead pipe, that were the joint on the cover. It always used to be blowing it out and we used to go up on Saturday morning and make it and I could walk into that cylinder stood up. And I don’t think I were any different [shorter] then than I am now. The faces of the joint had been too smoothly machined, what it wanted was the cover bringing back to the shop and putting into the lathe and re-facing and get some traverse marks into it. But you couldn’t make it with ordinary packing, it were useless.

R-It just used to push it out aye. And we used to go up to the air pump periodically and tighten the delivery plate up and believe me or believe me not, you could have taken a two wheeled cart and a little donkey round that air pump! Six of us could get on top without any bother [On top of the delivery plate. SG] even with the trunk in the middle. It were a trunk air pump, the connecting rod came down from ‘L’ legs [A bell crank. SG] into a trunk and it worked in a gudgeon pin at the bottom. Like in a motor car but wrong side up and that were twenty inches in diameter and we were putting it back one Saturday night and we dropped one of the bolts off the bearings at top, it were a marine end at t’top [One piece end, forged end with large slot cut in for brasses and adjusting wedges which were located by a large bolt right through the forging and the wedge. SG] The bolt dropped down inside the trunk and none of us could get at it. Anyway, Walt Fisher’s father were there and I were only a lad and he said Come on, let’s go to the shop and he wound a coil, a wire on to a bobbin, on to a brass bobbin and took a six volt battery off the gas engine. I didn’t know what he were on with but seemingly it were a magnet when he coupled the terminals of the battery on to it and he got hold of the bolt and brought it out with it. An ordinary horseshoe magnet wouldn’t have brought it out of course, it were too heavy.

He made this magnet out of two bobbins, it would be wouldn’t it, and when he put the juice on he’d magnetise the centre pieces and up it came. We heard it click on , hoisted it up on a bit of rope. Middle of the night on Saturday.

R-Aye, he were a blooming hero, it were all going to be to take out again and tip it on its side to get the bolt out which were about an inch and a half bolt (Diameter) They were big stuff on that engine, it were that, big stuff.

R-It stopped, it just stopped. Pickles ran most o’t Butts you know, were tenants in Butts and they bought Barnsey and went to Barnsey Shed. They’d also taken some looms from Calf Hall to Long Ing a few years before then.

R-Butts stopped because Pickles left and they were the sole tenants, they ran it all.

R-It were the first mill in Barlick to stop weaving, Bankfield were the second. Actually, if we go back, the first mill in Barlick to stop weaving were Coates, they stopped weaving when Wilkinsons finished, when I were a lad and then Butts and then Bankfield stopped more or less together within five years.

Who took Coates over, were that when the dairy took over? [Dobsons Dairy. SG.]

R-Dobsons Dairies took Coates over but it had been stopped twelve year. [Dobson’s made an enquiry about taking Butts over in 1935. SG]

Aye, funny thing about that you know, Dobson’s Dairy at Manchester stands just behind Monarch Laundry.

R-Aye, I’ve worked there a time or two. [We were getting a bit confused here, it was Dobsons Dairies where the ammonia compressors were, they were used for the refrigeration plant. I checked this with N Pickles in September 2000. SG.]

R-It were, it were a Roberts engine. There was no engine there when I went but they (Dobsons) had some blooming big ammonia compressors that were as big as a mill engine.

Aye well, they used to have a Roberts engine in there. Daniel found out when he were talking to Jack Roberts and it were one of the last jobs William Roberts ever did.

R-I went down there during the war a time or two when we were under the munition job you know. To repair those big compressors, they were as big as a mill engine. Fly wheel were 14 feet in diameter and 8inches wide, dowelled together just like a steam job. Wit’ dowels in and cotters through and we’d to lift the whole thing off nowt, we’d nowt to lift off you know. The thing had been put in before the building were up.

R-That’s all, I’d to put some tackle up to lift it, to get t’top half off, I just lowered bottom half into the pit of course. Aye, we put a new shaft in it and a new crank disc.

R-Well, they’d be put in when the Musgrave engine were put in and I can’t tell you that.

No, because I tell you why I ask that, because there is a record that in 1860 Butts were re-boilered by Billycock and that were the first Lancashire boiler to come into Barlick, it were made at Sandbeds at Keighley. So it’d be an old boiler that, 1860.

[2003 enquiry of Keighley library gives a James Wardman, boiler makers, Sandbeds Boiler Works, Bingley mentioned in Jones’ directory for 1863]

R-That must have been an old one, well these weren’t, they were Yates Boilers.

R-That must have come out before them beam engines that, when this Musgrave were put in, then. When the old beam engines were in that must have been put in to run them.

Yes it were, they were replacing the original pan boilers and they must have been for the beam engines, low pressure. The shop had been only built fifteen years then, it shows how little time them pan boilers lasted. They must have been just like tin. They re-boilered Clough at the same time and that were a pan boiler as well. Anyway, we’re getting out of us way.

Let’s pop down the road a little bit, we’ve done Calf Hall, let’s go to Clough. Now according to Billy Brooks, when he was going to school, in about 1888, his mate was called Willy Brown and he lived on Rainhall Road and his father was called Mark Brown and he ran the engine at Clough and it was definitely a beam engine. Because he used to go there after school with Willy and wait while his father washed his hands. He said he always used to have a wash before the engine stopped, then he used to stop the engine and they all used to go out and go home. He said it was definitely a beam engine. We don’t know how long that beam engine was in there, we might find out eventually but you know of another engine that went in there.

R-Now this, I’m going off what I were told now with me father. That before that new Burnley Ironworks went in (1913) at Clough there were another horizontal engine put in. It were a great big numb thing, you never saw anything like it in your life and that engine were sold to a firm in Whalley. The mill in the bottom by the river at Whalley.

Now I only knew the Burnley Ironworks cross compound that were in at Clough. Bonniest little engine that anyone ever made were that and tha can go anywhere, it was a beauty.

R-1913. It were the bonniest thing Stanley that you ever saw, it run at 93rpm and it just ticked like a sewing machine. But now then, this other engine, you never saw anything as ugly in your life. I forget now who made it, it weren’t a firm that we knew and it went to Whalley. Me father has said that that engine came out o’t Clough (beam?) and they put that engine in and it mustn’t have been in so long, it were absolutely uneconomical and no damn good at all for them, it were miles too big and it must have cost a fortune in coal to run it.

Now I can’t remember, because I wasn’t interested in this job then, but I can’t remember Clough when they pulled it down but Billy Brooks said that the horizontal that they put in after the beam engine was in a building, did he say, at back of the boilers and under the tank?

He said there were a building with a tank on the roof, or near t’boiler house under the tank.

R-Well, that would be on t’other side up to the new engine house. Where t’beam come from, there were two doors if I remember.

Aye, now he might have got mixed up, the beam engine might have been under the tank.

R-There were two doors if I remember. Beam were under the tank and then I think this other big thing went under the tank because all the stonework were still in, in there, in that room and it weren’t stone work that were suitable for a beam engine and that’s what I used to ask about and me father came up with this story that there had been another engine in t’Clough, Newton he says, it weren’t in there so long and it were useless. Now then, we hadn’t seen, we hadn’t worked at this mill at Whalley [Judge Walmsley Mill] then. They didn’t know where it had gone or what had happened to it. Now we goes to work at a flywheel that had come loose on this engine at Whalley and I went to it and I came back and me father asked me what sort of a thing it was. I says It is an object, come with me and have a look at it. When he saw it he says Eh, this engine came out o’t Clough at Barlick. Then George, that’s engine driver at Abbey Mills now, you know, who we were talking about at teatime, says Aye, it did come from Barlick, I’ve heard ‘em say it come from Barlick and that’s how we got to know where it had gone to.

R-I’ve worked on it, I keyed the flywheel on a fortnight before it finished, it came loose again before they had woven out, the shaft were jiggered.

R-Oh, it were long and lanky, it were all out of proportion, blooming slides must have been six feet across but it weren’t a big high powered thing. Oh aye, it were the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen. Oh, and it ran backwards way! It did, it were terrible. And it had a great big fishtail crank on, a cast iron one, it had never been machined, you never saw anything like it in your life. It were more like it had come out of the ark.

Well, I wonder who made it? [Later research shows it was Furneval of Haslingden. 33” bore and 5ft 6” stroke, running at 38rpm. GS]

R-And it swished round and it were miles out of balance because it were that crank, I allus said, that were bringing the flywheel off. Cause I said to ‘em, if your going to run this shop why don’t you let me put a new crank on, it’ll pay for its keep, keeping the flywheel on.

R-Speed it ran, oh, I wouldn’t say it’d be more than 6ooihp but it were far too big for Clough of course at that.

I think it were about 120psi or so, it wouldn’t be any more. Oh it were a thing.

R-An they put that little Burnley in and it were a beauty. A little Burnley Ironworks cross compound. Ticky-tocky, ticky-tocky….

R-You couldn’t hardly indicate it on your own but I got used to it eventually and I could do it.

R-Oh it were travelling and high pressure were twelve inches bore and low pressure twenty four inches bore.

R-We have a photograph of it. Oh, I were on it many a time for months and months on end, I used to enjoy going to it.

R-Aye, if they weren’t careful how they started it, it’d throw ropes off. One of my lads, I were out one day and t’engine driver were poorly so me father sent him to it, I must have been away that morning. He started up at dinnertime and there were a big panic and I rolled in and me father says Get off up to t’Clough Newton, I don’t know what’s happened. When I got there he had three ropes off. What had happened, he’d set on and they’d jumped off and he ran out of the engine house and left it and went to the boiler house to shut the steam off. He didn’t altogether panic, but he left it and went into t’boiler house to shut off the junction valve. Well he got scared about a rope wrapping round the governor and whooping him one because there weren’t much room between the stop valve and the flywheel with being so tiny you know. Anyway I soon barred the ropes back on by hand and we were on again in about an hour and a half. It hadn’t done any damage or made a lot of muck and I were there about three or four month that time.

R-It were an old boiler, it were only seven foot six inches diameter, it weren’t so big.

R-No, it were 130psi I know it were, I can see the pressure gauge now with a red line on 130.

R-No, it were probably put in with the Burnley Ironworks engine ‘cause it were all new piping and all. Then of course there were a fire and it broke all’t cast iron pipes and we replaced them with steel t’second time.[1938?]

R-It were a single ram pump down in’t cellar under the engine. It ran off the engine off one of the crank arms that worked the valve gear. There were some rockers, like yours at Bancroft, well, they extended one and it went through a hole in the floor into the cellar. They were a good pump you know.

And apart from the famous incident when they had the timing wrong on it did they have any bother with the engine?

R-Very little. I bored the high pressure valves and put new bonnets on up to t’latter end of its days. Well in fact it were just afore they banked because we never got paid.

R-Oh they did, They went banked at Clough and we never got paid for them valves. I bored them and put new bonnets on which were a fair job of course.

R-Oh I can’t say, just after the war sometime, I ran it for six or seven months after the war. It’d be about 1948 or 49 happen.

R-Yes, me and Crabby ran it for about six months. [Harry Crabtree, worked as mechanic for Hy Brown Sons and Pickles. SG]

Tell us about t’coal. [Fuel shortage in 1946 when Newton and Crabby were running Clough. SG]

R-Oh well, there weren’t such a thing as coal, it were just slutch and muck. The wagon used to come and tip it in. I’ll tell the tale me own way. It’d be 1946. coal, out of existence were coal, it were muck they were fetching us from America by sea. When they tipped the wagon up into your boiler house you just stood well back. It didn’t shutter to t’front it just went swish! It were all slutch and you wanted wellies on in’t engine house, it went up to t,tube bottoms, you couldn’t see the mud hole at the bottom of the boiler. Then you got it back into the bunker as well as you could and left it to drain into the flue bottoms overnight. Anyway we went on like this for many a month and one afternoon, me father was getting a bit bothered because you know he wanted me back. There were two of us there you see he wanted me back. He came up one afternoon, we were just cleaning out were me and Crabby, and I can see him now, he just stood in the boiler house door, shoved his hat back on the back of his head and says Now then, what are you doing? He just took one look, the barrow wasn’t in the boiler house you know, we’d nothing, you couldn’t get the barrow under the tubes. You had to pull the fire out on to the floor and then shovel the clinkers into the barrow. Well you know what the sulphur fumes are when you’re doing that. He just turns round to me and says Eh Newton, I know what I’d do if I were here. I says what? He says I’d floor one fire, one shovel up the bloody fire hole and take the bugger up to Arthur Berridge, He were t’manager. I says oh, we aren’t going to do that. Well he says, Tha looks busy, I’ll leave thee,

Well anyway, we’d a blooming big wagon landed with a load of coal on, they must have had twenty ton on. We only used to get it in’t little box cart from the station you know, a little wagon that Mitchell had then in them days. They called him Mitchell that chap that carted the coal from the station. This bloody great wagon came, I’ve never seen anything like it wi’ the coal piled on, piled up to the top. The wagon driver says is this Clough? I says Aye. He says I’ve brought thee this. I says I haven’t ordered that. I says, All my coal comes from somewhere sea side way by t’look of it, I don’t Bother wi’t stuff, I just goes into the office and tells ‘em I have none. Well, he says, tha’s to have this. I says Where’s that frae? Well, he says, I’ve brought it from Doncaster but I’ve been to a mill down the road, they call it Crow Nest I think, there’s a silly old bugger down there and he saw me come down the yard with it, he were out at t’top o’t steps and he just took one look at it over the top sides and he says Take that bloody rubbish away from here, I’m not burning that in my boilers, get it away from here. The driver says So I get back in me cab and then he shouts Oy, just a minute lad, don’t take it back where it came from. I’ll tell thee what to do with it, take it to a mill up the road, they call it Clough, anybody’ll tell you where it is, there’s two silly buggers up there that’ll burn owt. And that were Arthur Dobson, engineer at Crow Nest.

R-We burned it, what, burn it? We’d never had coal like that for six month. We never had stuff like that. I said What the heck, we get cleaned out as soon as there were some of that going in. Crabby says Hey! This is good coal Newton! I says Aye, let’s get the damper regulator working again. We were all right, we could sit on our arses with this stuff, we were made up. I mean, we never had us breakfast for two months, till nearly dinnertime. We used to go at five o’clock, we started at six, it were winter, and I’ve seen us go at four in the morning and put steam in the mill and clean out sixteen times afore starting time and that’s as true as I sit here.

R-[It was a job] To get steam anywhere over 100psi mark to get us going. The manager, the under manager came down to me one morning, I’d just set on, it were just after six o’clock because we started at six then you know, they didn’t work at Saturday morning. He says Newton, will you go up into t’winding room, there’s some lights gone out, there must be a fuse gone. I says, I’ll go up there as soon as I’ve cleaned out and getten steam up. He says I don’t want messing about, I want it doing now, them folk up there’s sat about doing nowt. I says Thee wait a minute while I stop the bloody engine. He never come down no more wanting fuses mending. He didn’t that.

Aye, who was it, when coal got scarce, they thought they’d worked a flanker when they bought all that American coal? Were it at Wellhouse?

R-Wellhouse bought it all. Now then, how much were there, seven or eight hundred tons were out there in’t yard if I remember right and it all went red, it went rusty!

R-It went rusty and there were a lot of it in great cobs that’d weigh above three hundredweight. We used to get them in the boiler house and bash em with the striking hammer afore we could fire ‘em. Oh aye, they were good days were them!

Anyway, that’s Clough done. Let’s have a bit of a jump again and go to a place where I know you did work time and time again, Long Ing.

R-Yates and Thom pair of tandems, not so very big, about 700ihp no more. 650 or 700, four cylinder, pair of tandems. High pressure, low pressure each side going on to a common shaft with two cranks. Gear drive, cast iron wheel with a soft, spongy boss. Aye, now then…

Hang on a minute, I know what you mean but explain what you mean by a spongy boss.

R-It had been a bad casting and it were very spongy and as you drove keys in they used to sink into the spongy metal, you never could fit them properly. [The boss was the casting that fitted over the shaft with keys on flats and was the basis for the spokes and the rest of the wheel. SG] The boss of the flywheel were crumbly, all spongy at one side. Anyway, we can start at this as we mean to go on. We never worked at Long Ing while it belonged to Rushworths at Colne. Rushworths used to maintain the engine and just before I came out of me time, Pickles, as I’ve told you, had all of Butts and about 400 or 500 looms at Calf Hall. Well, they took them looms out of Calf Hall and went to Long Ing. Well, we moved all the tapes, cut-looking machines and all that for them.

That were’t first time I’d ever worked at Long Ing. Well, we were working there doing tapes and tape drives and donkey engines and the ruddy mill kept stopping. It’d stop about an hour and then they’d start up again and sometimes it wouldn’t start at all and that’s how it went on like. Well, that were nowt to do with us because we never went to them engines at all. This went on for about six month and one afternoon, we were in’t shop, me father shouts Newton! Come here. I went outside into t’thoroughfare [This was the passage that divided the right hand shop at Wellhouse from the laundry and the office. SG] he says, you know Mr Pickles don’t you? Oh aye I says, from Butts. [Mr Pickles] says come on, we’ve to go to Long Ing, it’s stopped again and I’m not going to have any more of it, we don’t run more than a day and a half a week so I’ve told Rushworths to keep away and you’re going to Long Ing. So I surmised then like, which I learned later were right, that Pickles had bought a load of shares in Long Ing which made Rushworths a bit lower down the ladder.

[The minutes of the Calf Hall Shed co. show that S Pickles and Sons and their associated firms Butts Manufacturing Company and Craven Manufacturing Co (the latter two were sole tenants in Butts Mill) moved out of Calf Hall and Butts in April 1932 so this must be the date of the changes Newton is referring to. Butts Mill never ran again after Pickles moved into Barnsey and Long Ing. SG]

So off me and me father goes to Long Ing and it were stopped and th’engine driver were a nice chap and came from Foulridge, he hadn’t been there so long. So me father goes to him and says What’s up and what do they call thee? He says They call me Jack and I live at Foulridge and I’m stopped because I’ve got no vacuum. So me father says We’d better have look at them air pumps hadn’t we.

So we all went back to the works and got some blocks and some tackle and two fitters, Bob Fort and Leonard Parkinson, good fitters, and we went to t’Long Ing. We pulled the delivery plate off one air pump, they weren’t so big you know them pumps. [Being a tandem it would have an air pump/condenser set on each side. SG.] I just takes one look down the bucket and I says Bloody Hell. Old Len’s up on top and he says What’s up Newton? I said I don’t know Len but I’ve getten t’block chain fast down t’side o’t bucket and I can’t get it out! He says Tha what? I says I’ve getten t’hand chain down t’side o’t bucket and t’buggers kaiked over and I can’t get it out! He says I’m coming down there, I want to see this! And believe it or believe it not, he came down did Leonard and he says Hell fire, I’ve been all over’t country but I’ve never seen owt like this. He rolled his smock sleeve up and says I can get me fingers in. he shoved his hand down t’side o’t bucket and when he did that I pulled the chain out. I bet there were 5/8 of an inch wear. Well, we couldn’t do owt with that at night. We changed all the big rubber on the bucket and all the top rubbers, they were all shrivelled up and we did the other side and be about twelve o’clock we’d getten it all together. Len says Ho Newton, there’s sommat wrong here, has ta looked at them pillars? They were like yours at Bancroft Stanley, round pillars up each side for the crosshead slide. Len says Come over here and have a look. We’d nowt down there but a stink lamp and a lantern, there were no electric. Leonard held his lantern up back and says What do you think about them pillars? That bugger, that pillar leans over about half an inch at t’top! Aye he says, look at the bushes [In the crosshead arms. SG] They were all worn bell mouthed were the bushes. Anyway, we got the new rubbers on and I remember me father saying to us, Think on, before you come away take the injection valve tops off and have a look in the pipes and so we did so. There were two injection pipes that came in from the canal you know. We took the tops off, it weren’t much of a job, they were only held on be four bolts, you know, the injection valves for the water to the air pumps [Via the condensers. SG] and they were ordinary mushroom valves and Old Len says we’re having these out, Take em out Newton and just put t’tops back because by the look of these pumps we’re going to need all the water we can get here.

Anyway, we got running sometime during the night and I think the vacuum gauge went up to about 25 inches and t’chap nearly had a fit. He says they’ve never been up there since I started! And it were summertime and the canal were warm. Anyway this’d be about Wednesday and it ran the week out. So we told me father about these guides and old Stephen had given me father a point blank order to do whatever was needed so first of all at weekend we went and took these guides off. I got one into t’lathe on Sunday morning and it were an inch and a half bent and they were two and a half inches in diameter. Well, I couldn’t straighten it meself.

Our Mr Brown from Horton rolled in, he were all dressed up. He says What ta doing Newton, making a crankshaft? I told him it were one of the pillars of the engine at Long Ing. Never! He says, And it’s run like that? Anyhow he helped me off with it and we warmed it in the fire and straightened in the lathe. It weren’t so long, about three feet.

R-Aye, we straightened it reasonably and I filed it up and polished it. We did the motion up at weekends, took a lot of the shake out of it. It were clonk bang, clonk bang when it were running, and we took particulars of new buckets. And it ran a fortnight and it never stopped no more and then we took the buckets out. We hadn’t time to rebore them, the liners weren’t too bad you know, they were an ordinary air pump so we put the new buckets in and made them fit the hole as best we could. All new rubbers on’t buckets again and we made new saucers with a bit more dish so they’d relieve themselves better. Them air pumps never gave any more trouble.

Then me father says We’d better have a look in them cylinders. Well we took the high pressure cover off one Saturday morning off one side and I put me fingers right over it [The piston. SG] So he rang Stephen up and he said remember what I told you John, you’ve to do to that engine what you want, so at Barlick holidays we rebored one side, high pressure and t’low and them were the first two cylinders I rebored on me own. I were supervised on them but I more or less did nights on em and I bored them two. I did them but I weren’t entirely left with em, me father came over and Dennis came and Len were there.

Now then, sometime between then and the September holidays the flywheel came loose during the week.

R-The flywheel was fastened on to the shaft with four keys about three inches wide and two foot long. Tapered keys what we call staked on.

That’s it, so the shaft wasn’t round, it was a round shaft with flats planed on it.

R-There’s a gap of ¾ of an inch between the flywheel and the shaft. You get your flywheel true of course before you fit the keys with staking wedges. Taper wedges in the gap, that’s the way to do. Anyway, it came loose and it rolled off the keys and landed up one side of the wheel pit and started rubbing.

Anyway. In the time available and t’time it happened we couldn’t make any new keys for it so we refit the old uns and thumped em in and we were only stopped about two and a half days. We refit them and thumped em in and got going. Then, in the September holidays I got landed reight. Bore t’other two cylinders and we’d made all these pistons, four altogether. I got instructions, they were going to stop two days extra and I’d all four cylinders to do. At holidays when we bored two cylinders we were stopped a week, that gave me two full weekends as well didn’t it. At September holidays they stopped while Wednesday, they stopped at Thursday night for me and gave me Friday extra and gave me the Wednesday as well. They normally started Wednesday morning under normal circumstances at September holidays but I’d still got two cylinders to bore. I’d one advantage, I were used to stripping it because I’d done one side. Anyway, there were four of us and we bored em. Put new piston rod in that were all ready, new pistons and bored two cylinders. And after that I don’t think that engine, more or less, didn’t ail anything till all at once one day me father says They’re stopped at Long Ing Newton, let’s go on. And we were busy, by God we were busy. Oh I says, what’s up wi’ it?

We got there and asked Jack and he said I don’t know but it’s been making a din in’t flywheel. And when me father found it, it were in two halves were that flywheel, wi’t jack wheel bolted on’t side. [Gear drive to spur gear on shaft. SG] It had broken one of the dowels in’t rim which would be about five or six inches square dowel with cotters through each end that held the joints together. Me father says We can’t do that job Newton, we haven’t got the tackle to lift it. So he rang Stephen Pickles and Rushworths men came on. George Carr Rushworth and me father meantime had got best of pals. And with the work what we had on already he says we can’t do it and I were mad. I were barmy then you know, I wanted to do it. I thought we could borrow t’blocks. It’d weigh oh, about twelve or thirteen ton would half o’t wheel. Anyhow, they decided between them they’d let Roberts do it from Nelson. So Johnny Waddington, he were a damn good fitter were Johnny Waddington. He came and put new dowels into t’flywheel and they were stopped a fortnight. And I went on, I did part work for him like planning cotters and I think I planed the dowels so’s it wouldn’t go up into t’cores you know in his way. I planed the dowels at one end and I used to go on a lot and anyway, eventually they got running,

I think they got running at Tuesday and me father comes down into t’shop again. He says, go to Long Ing, they’re stopped, t’bloody flywheel’s rolled off the keys. Well I says, never, he’s only just keyed it back on! [Johnny Waddington. SG] He says I know, tha’d better go and do it again. So I’d to go and rekey the wheel on and I put four new keys in, he’d never put no new keys in, he’d used the old uns. He must never have tightened em, it’d chewed one or two of them. I’d to put four new keys in and I were stopped nearly a week. I used to pull Johnny Wadding ton’s leg, he went engine driving after in Nelson you know, he were a right awkward bugger to work for you know. One day he were being awkward with me, one Saturday and I just said to him Ho Johnny, what the hell did you tighten the keys with at Long Ing, a seven pound hammer? It only run one day! By gum, I’d never no more bother with him, he he!

So after that I don’t think that engine ever ailed more than sommat or nowt only normal maintenance. And then, coming up to t’war, Pickles bought the whole mill then. They decided to put a new engine in, they’d have one of them engines from Bankfield. [Closed down1934. SG] Which were a 900ihp cross compound like Crow Nest. Oh, it were a bonny engine, there were two engines in Bankfield, a 750ihp and this 900ihp.and they’d have this 900ihp down at Long Ing just afore the war broke out. We pulled the engine out of Bankfield and stored it in the yard at Long Ing, put all the bits in the cellar, it were going to be done were this job. Th’engine house were going to be lengthened and they were going to run the mill with an electric motor while the engine were put in there. We got a 500hp motor off Collins at Leeds and we got all that in and it were run, there were a crown wheel and pinion put on and a big wall bracket and a new line shaft, to get gear into speed you know. They were 14 inches wide were the teeth and three inch pitch them two pinions, just like an engine flywheel race and pinion running to it. And a countershaft with Dawsons rope pulleys on and about twenty odd ropes on and we get all that finished and ring oiler bearings, it were a real job and t’blooming war broke out. You see we could have rebuilt, taken the Yates and Thom out and left the Buckley and Taylor in, there were two engines at Long Ing you know, there were a Buckley and Taylor run down t’side of th’engine house, a bonny little thing about 250 horse.

Now then, wait a minute, just let me tell you something about that and you tell me if it’s right. I’m checking something that Billy Brooks told me, now remember, Billy Brooks is 97. He said one big trouble they had there. Now Long Ing were originally built for 1200 loom weren’t it.

That’s it, yes. And when Brooks moved in there they built them an annexe for 400 looms.

Now that 400 looms, let me tell you and then you tell me whether this is right, that 400 loom were driven with a gear off the shaft .

Now Billy told me that he remembered , when he was learning to weave there, and this would be about 1892, he said that he came in one morning and he realised that his looms were covered with little bits of metal and he said that he couldn’t reckon up what this were. He said That gear wheel flew in pieces, he said it were too much for it and what they did was put another engine in the engine house.

And he said they put a long rope drive off it and they drove that 400 loom shed straight off that. Now is that right?

R-They did, and it were a length and all, that’s right. It’s quite true is that but all that were done afore my time. No I just worked on the Buckley and Taylor and it were a bonny engine. Buckley and Taylor’s of Blackburn built it. A bonny engine of about 250horse and it ran at about 75rpm.

R-No, it were a tandem with a vertical air pump down in the cellar. Oh it were a bonny littlie thing and it never ailed anything, I think we just did a couple of Corliss bonnets up on it all the time I knew it.

R-It were a Corliss, it were a bonny engine, it were like modern and old all in one engine house you know. It were beautifully lagged wi’ blued steel and t’other were wooden lagged cylinders you know. It were a real nice set up to look at were Long Ing engine house wi’ them two engines. But you talk about it being hot! Cor, I mean, you’d be working on the big ‘un and t’liittle un would be running you know. When you were keying flywheels on and that during the day. Big engine were stopped and t’little un were still running. Albert Hartleys were in there with sheeting looms when I started working. They were at Long Ing where Brooks were because Brooks went to Westfield.

R-Oh he were right, he were very accurate about that. There were even stonework in the wall where the spur wheels had been. Spur wheel and pinion you know to run that shed.

Aye he said they were never anything but bother. He said the wheels used to fly to bits and they used to come…

R-Overloaded to blazes yes and that were all done away with. They were good at that, yes, he was quite accurate.

When we were going to replace the Yates and Thom, with this new engine from Bankfield, the Buckley and Taylor were going to have to be taken out you see. So we were going to run all the lot with this motor. Now then, the Buckley and Taylor, we brought it to the shop, we had it all up at t’shop except for the bed. We were going to do it all up, rebore the cylinders and when the new engine house were built it were going to be built big enough to put the Buckley and Taylor back on its original beds and run an alternator off it for lighting at Long Ing and Barnsey Shed. That’s it and it never developed, it would have been a marvellous set up. The engine at Barnsey weren’t big enough to put an alternator on to run the lights.

LANCASHIRE TEXTILE PROJECT

TAPE 78/AG/3

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