THIS TAPE WAS RECORDED ON THE 10TH OF AUGUST 1978 AT VICARAGE ROAD BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS NEWTON PICKLES AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM
So really, when you get down to it you prefer gear drives?
R-Yes really, if it’s a tip top job with machine cut gears or helical wheels and done properly you can’t beat a gear drive. There’s no maintenance. Once a week with a hand brush and a bucket of fat that’s all. Friday afternoon was best, that’s all you need. They’re noisy, no matter how good they are they still make a noise but your valve gear makes a noise and you don’t worry about it, you get used to it, you never hear it. I mean I were on Pendle Street for all them months and I really enjoyed it. Well, I’ll tell you this Stanley, that if Pendle Street had been keeping on running I’d have stopped. I would, I enjoyed me six or seven months at Pendle Street more than anywhere I’ve ever worked, and I were running that mill by meself. Up to t’last three weeks when they got me a fireman. I’d three Lancashire boilers oil fired, I’d nowt to do but press two buttons and I were away. I could look after th’engine in five minutes afore starting time and it were a big engine, 1200ihp, six foot stroke were that. I’d have stopped Stan. Big roomy engine house, it were never hot and stuffy, plenty of room.
Yes but there again, that’s a thing a lot of people can’t get hold of nowadays, that once you’d got on top of an engine…
R-Oh, I were on top of that one you know.
Once you’ve got ‘em reight they were very little trouble.
R-That’s it, it were no problem Stanley, I’d a routine and I could look after that engine you know, no trouble at all.
And yet, if you’ve never looked after one and you go in and look at one, and you think My God! First thing that strikes you, nowadays, I mean I always say that everybody nowadays is educated into the fact that a machine is something that goes wrong every five minutes.
R-Aye, an enemy! And it isn’t.
Whereas if a machine is built properly and built with the proper reserves of strength in it………
R-Oh, that were.
They are the most reliable things in the world.
R-Pendle Street had no speed on it, only 38rpm you know, it were a marvellous machine. It had two brand new cylinders in, well, they were brand new to me, they’d been put in about 1926 or 27. Two great big Corliss cylinders wit’ valves just going click, cluck, last forever. I’d put new bonnets on to the high pressure with extension arms and they’d have never worn.
What year was that, you were running the engine out?
R-Year Olive and me were married, So it’s nine year since, it’ll be ten year this Christmas when I went on it.
That’d make it 1969. While we’re on about Pendle Street, you ran the engine as
(70)
they were electrifying the looms. Now tell us the story of Pendle Street electrifying and you running the engine out.
[This was a common story and I wanted Newton to describe the process. Electrification of looms meant that they were fitted with independent electric motors (sometimes the shafting was electrified with bigger motors). Once this had been done the engine was redundant and this was when many were scrapped before the mill finished. At the time, electrification was seen as the economic alternative for driving the shed but this often proved to be an illusion. SG]
R-Well it were a sad start to the job, the engine driver, lad that had been firing there for a lot of years, had taken over the engine when the old engine driver died. He’d only been running the engine about a fortnight and he was coming to work, to have a look at the boilers one Sunday night or put a bit of steam into the shed, and he hits a car, somewhere on Every Street and has an accident. Well, they rang for me on Monday morning and I went right away and they got another chap to look after the boilers, a retired fireman that I knew very well that had fired all his life round Nelson, he knew sommat about engines as well. In big shifts and little uns, between him and the manager, they got it running. They went up for the old engine driver that had retired and he wouldn’t come back because he’d had a bit of trouble with the bosses I think just before he retired. But anyhow, it doesn’t matter.
I got theer and as soon as I walked up the steps everybody else walked out! Of course, I’d worked at that shop for donkey’s years and they just said Good Morning Newton and walked out. They told me what had happened with the engine driver, his leg were broken and it’d be a long time, but you’ll look after us like. I says of course I will, and settles down to the job. And they said Tom Higham’s firing for you, but you know it’s winter and he’s been coming in at four in the morning so we let him go home at dinnertime. I says That’s all reight. Anyhow, Tom stopped with me all that first Monday and I settled down right away because I’d run it before over the years.
They were on oil then?
R-They were on oil. I’d run it before when it were a coal shop. I asked them how long their man was going to be off and they said oh, happen two or three month, we don’t know but he says anyhow, we’re electrifying the looms did the manager. He said they were hoping to finish by the July holidays. So I settled down to eight or ten weeks like you know. I thought he’d be back will the lad soon as he gets reight. By gum he didn’t get reight, he started with cancer and he died so I stopped on until the ..
(100)
But the electrification like, I just weren’t interested in it at all and Miss Duckworth that were the old bosses daughter, unmarried daughter, comes down to see me one day happen some time around Easter time and she sat in the engine house with me a long while and she just says to me, Excuse me Newton, I don’t want to appear ignorant but is this engine worn out, is it done like they’re saying it is? I said What! This engine’s better now than the day it were built in 1887. Whoever in the world is telling you that tale? Well she says, All these in’t mill have and this electrician and the manager. I said the engine never will be done Miss Duckworth, as long as we’re about and you spend a bit on maintenance on it every year, anyway, it hasn’t had any for a lot of years and it doesn’t need it. A bit in’t boiler house perhaps but you’ll still have that to spend after your engine’s gone. Oh, she says, my father would spin round in his grave if he knew about this.
Anyhow, it didn’t stop electrification and they kept electrifying them. I used to oil me air pump every dinnertime, I never struggled of a morning and I never struggled at night, I used to do me work during the day, me having to travel and all. I used to grease and oil me air pump at dinner time and I was right then until the day after. I used to walk down on me planks at dinnertime and they’d put this new cable down the engine house side in the cellar. It was a cable about two inches thick and naturally, I used to run me hand down it, it were like a hand rail as I were walking down the planks and it was just aired. As it was getting on towards the end of June and they’d more looms going on to electric and I were getting less load on’t engine, I were getting so as I couldn’t bide me hand on this cable at dinnertime. So I drew th’head electrician’s attention to it, I fetched him in. I said hey, this cable down the wall side, it’s getting blooming hot you know. Naaa, he says, it’s only thy heat that tha’s making in here. When we get this blooming old thing stopped there’ll be no, it won’t get warm then. It’s all th’heat tha’art making with that blooming old engine. Blooming heck he says, that were the way he talked, Blooming heck, when we that thing stopped and get shut of thee and that chap in the boiler house we’ll run this shop for nowt. We’ll run this shop for as much as it’s costing for yaa two in wages. I says Will you. Anyhow. I’ll just go on a bit with this story.
(155)
Before I got me fireman, I only had a fireman for the last three weeks in the afternoon. I ran it meself from just after breakfast at t’morning, I used to let Tom go home, you know he were an old chap of about 67 or 68 and I used to let him go home. And he were doing me a good turn coming early morning. So they got a bit bothered about me being on me own all the time, so they made arrangements in’t mill that somebody allus had to come down at brew time and have a natter with me and then go back seeing as I was all right and hadn’t gone round the shafting or getten meself fast in’t engine which I had more bloody sense. Anyhow, one afternoon, th’big man came down to stop with me, but he didn’t come while about twenty past four, and he were a nice feller but he were no engineer, he were a weaving manager, he were over all the lot for Duckworths. I were in’t boiler house sat in the boiler house reading comic cuts and pressing red and blue buttons on the board, keeping us running. Now then Newton he says, whoah, won’t it make a difference to our bills when we get shut of the engine! Eh, I says, I’m not going to answer that, anyhow, have you got a bit of time? Oh aye he says, I’m all straight now, I can stop with you a bit and have a natter. Well I says, half past four and I have me chores to do so I whipped up on to the top of the boilers and I shut the tape valves and all the heating off. I’d two boilers on that’s all and just as I came down the iron ladder all four of me burners went Woof! Steam were up at 160. So I stayed talking to him for a few minutes and then I says Don’t go, I just want you to see how much you’re going to save when the engine stops cause just now, we’ve everything off but the engine. Reight ho he says. I says I want thee to stop here and count how many times them burners fire before I stop the engine at five o’clock. And I think if I remember rightly we’d a 15psi dwell on those burners from 160 it came down to 145 before it fired up again.
So I goes up into the engine house and takes me jacket off and wiped round all the beds like I did every day, it were spotless even though I says it meself. All me beds all the way round the floor, me cylinder tops and me covers and it were getting on to five to five so I sits down a minute or two and at five o’clock I stopped the engine. I waited while it stopped, put it in the reight shop for starting and went down into the boiler house, he’s still sat there. Now then Frank, how many times has them burners fired since I left you? I thought the feller were going to cry cause I looked up at the pressure gauges and they were on 150 pound, they were just getting ready for firing and we’d run half an hour with two boilers on, capacity, I’d run half an hour and they’d never sparked and I knew damn well they wouldn’t. I thought the feller was going to cry, he said Tara Newton, got up and walked out, as he was going I said, That’s how much your going to save when you’ve getten all this bloody wire in the mill!
Anyhow, I finished at July holidays and before the year were out they were out of business and from what I heard, I never saw any of them any more, what I heard were that Sam’s calculations for the electric cable were just half too bloody little and they were going to have to put a duplicate on underneath it and they couldn’t afford it and it finished ‘em.
(200)
Electrification finished ‘em. They’d three brand new boilers that were put in in 1926 when the engine was modernised and they went and electrified the place. I used to say to them in the old days, I’d say well, if I’d put an alternator on this engine you could make your own electric light and all because after respacing they had less looms and 500 horse spare on the engine. It were 1400 horse reckoned up properly had that engine. And that were at the end of Pendle Street.
On the figures now, if you work them out now, well I say now but it’s four years since I did the calculations but the engine is half price power.
R-And you see they did a silly trick again there, they bought all second hand stuff to electrify it with. There were all sorts of motors going on to looms, there were Heath Robinson mechanics fitting them up wi’ Meccano angle, you know, that stuff with all the bloody slots and holes in it.
Aye, Dexion.
R-Motors were dancing up and down on t’floor and on the sides of looms and belts were slack and tight, but it were nowt to do with me. I never said owt about it. But I had a fitter came, They had a fitter come one Monday, he were about my age and he came in the engine house and he were, oh he were a gradely one, he cam from Blackburn way somewhere and he palled on with me and after he’d been there a couple of days he came round again talking to me and he says Hoh, Newton, have you see them motors they’re putting on them looms in there? I says Aye. He says It’s making me poorly, I’m not going to stop, I’ve never see owt like it, if they can’t get a bolt in they’ll put a bloody nail in and bend it over. I’m not stopping, I’ll do while th’holidays and then I’m off. He says I can’t do with this sort of mechanicking, it won’t do for me. And that’s how they were going on, and it finished ‘em Stanley.
We’ll just pursue this a bit further Newton because I know that people in a hundred years reading this might need a bit of clarification. When they listen to this tape, I just want to make it clear now that we’re both of the same mind, when they did away with steam engines they did away with a lot of hard work. There’s no sentiment attached to the job, it’s a question of what’s economical and what’s not. You and I both know that the people who made the decisions about whether to keep and engine or to electrify weren’t engineers.
I think the trouble is that the people who have been advising the industry what to do have been people who had an axe to grind. In other words, people like the National Industrial Fuel Efficiency people who were, in effect, salesmen for the Central Electricity Generating Board. At the end of the war there was a very big expansion programme planned for the National Grid and it’s obvious that if you’re running a business the nearer you can get to a monopoly situation and the bigger the market the easier it’s going to be to run that business. So they went round and persuaded everyone that it was more efficient to drive machines by electricity than have your own prime mover.
R-Well, they went round and literally offered ‘em electricity for nothing didn’t they. I know that’s correct because they wouldn’t be running for six months and the bill would go up whoof! And the problem was that the cotton industry spent its capital electrifying. They couldn’t afford to carry on improving the actual machinery; they had no more money to spend.
I find it very difficult to persuade management, or educate them into where the money is actually going. You take a place like Bancroft where they’re firing coal and running looms with a steam engine. The boilers also provide process steam for the tapes and heating in winter.
R-Well, that coal provided the energy to run the whole factory.
Now the thing about coal consumption up there, it’s gone down now of course because we’ve less looms on. [Bancroft was weaving out and would be closed before the end of 1978. SG] But when we had 350 looms on coal consumption was about 12 to 15 tons a week in summer and 30 in winter, the difference being the heating and lighting load. Now they’d come down to you [The management.] well, your coal goes up to 30 tons in winter so it must be taking 15 tons to heat the mill. Then they’d make another calculation and ask how much coal it took to run the tapes and you’d say about 8 or 9 tons.
R-Aye, we used to reckon seven.
Yes well, it depends on what you’re taping and how they are being run.
R-Well it does and I know what Bancroft’s are like.
So I mean, that comes out to a figure of about seven tons for the engine for a week. Now they’ll split it up like that. They’ll say seven tons for the engine, eight ton for the tapes and fifteen tons for the heating and lighting, so if they do away with the engine they’re going to save seven tons of coal a week. [In 1978 coal cost £35 a ton delivered for washed singles from Brodsworth Colliery in Yorkshire. SG] Which sounds logical doesn’t it. But you say to them, no, that’s not right. They say of course it’s right, 15 tons for heating, seven ton for the engine. And those are the sort of mathematics they used when they did the job.
R-They must have been.
You know as well as I do that there’s one case in particular I’ll just, before I go on a bit, I’ll let you tell Broughton Road Shed at Skipton. Tell us the story about that.
R-Broughton Road Shed at Skipton, typical case that, a real case were that wit’ Lancashire boiler were Broughton Road shed. Do you want to hear all the story.
Yes, Broughton Road Shed.
R-Broughton Road Shed. I looked after Broughton Road Shed engine for donkey’s years, I even quartered it when they put a big alternator on and it only just had enough power to drive it. It were all worked out wit’ electricians, again, like the old engine fitter from Barlick, he were never brought in you know. They got this big alternator and put it on th’engine and they found it wouldn’t run it, so they sent for th’engine fitter then. Croft’s had put this generator in by the way. It ran through a gearbox off t’second motion shaft which were a fool of a job for a start off, it screamed like hell. Anyway, the engine started chucking ropes off the second motion pulley, well, it weren’t quartered that engine, and by quartered, I mean the cranks weren’t set at 90 degrees to each other they were at 120 degrees or sommat funny like that, it were a funny do. One crank would be at quarter to and the other at about ten past. I told them there was only one way I could cure this and that were to quarter the engine. Well, the old boss there wouldn’t wear it.
[What Newton is describing by quartering is a way of ensuring that the power impulses fro the double acting engine were distributed equally, every 90 degrees per revolution of the flywheel. The thing that was throwing the ropes off was the fact that the engine’s power output was unbalanced, this started the ropes swaying and on full load this could cause the ropes to jump off. SG]
R-Now me father were a bit that way with this type of engine, we’d another at Accrington and he said they run marvellous when they’re like that Newton. Anyway, they called me in one day, it had chucked two ropes off, smashed the governor pillar, Broken an eccentric, smashed the governor pulley that drives the governor and wrapped itself round the shaft. Big shifts and little shifts I got it straightened up, I bushed the governor stand, I put a sleeve up it to piece it together. Straightened the shaft, put the governors back on, made a new eccentric strap, put that on but I couldn’t find a governor pulley so I finished up going to Burnley and getting a wooden one. There used to be a firm at Burnley that made wood pulleys. I put a wooden pulley on and a flat one on the governor and put a flat belt on. I worked the speeds out, fitted them and we got going. Now I says to them, Don’t put them lights on will you please, don’t bother about the alternator until we’ve done something about this engine. And of course it runs for a week or two and there were nowt no more done about it.
Next news, t’telephone’s ringing again, so me father comes down, go to Broughton Road, its stopped again, they’ve got a rope off. I goes down, it had smashed the eccentric itself this time, rove the rod out of the back, out of the link you know, the link lever and doubled it up like a piece of quarter inch wire. Smashed me wood pulley, made a reight mess of it. So I set to and we’d patterns by then for it, I’d got a new pulley cast for the governor and that were all ready for putting on, we made a new eccentric strap again and we were stopped about five days. It hadn’t broke the governor stand this time so we got it all back together again. I says, You’ll not put the lights on any more will you while we do sommat about it, it’ll have to be quartered this engine. I’d set the valves and I couldn’t get any more power out of it. Th’indicator diagrams were lapping with the lights on and I couldn’t get any more power out of it. It were Whoof, Whoof, Whoof every stroke.
So to satisfy their curiosity, me and me mate went down one Saturday morning and we took a big lump of chalk with us and I took the lids off the valves and barred it round. I marked a deadline on the flywheel and I wound it round to each cut-off and each steam and marked them on the wheel. Believe it or believe it not, when I’d finished I shaded in on the side of the flywheel where it weren’t pushing and lined it in where there were power and there were three places ten feet long on that wheel where there were bugger all pushing it round only the momentum of the wheel.
I got the old boss out of the office and explained it to him and it were all written on the wheel for him, power, no power, power, no power. Now I said, that’s happening every revolution and where you see no power, that’s where your ropes go Whoof like that when it loads on again and then they go bang when the steam comes on. I says I’ll have to quarter it and he says Get it done! Me father came down and all and he were surprised, he said he’d never thought of doing that with one. I made it like a big diagram you know all round the flywheel where it were working and where it weren’t from a datum line on the hand rail.
(300)
Salesmanship!
R-He says Quarter it Newton. I says I’ll do it at weekend and we went down next weekend and I had the crank off in an hour, low-pressure crank. We put this cistern round the shaft, behind the crank with water flowing in the bottom from a hosepipe and out at the top through another one and let it run out of the window, hot water! Then we put the big acetylene burners, two of them with big rose burners playing on the crank.
Now we’ll just have to explain here, you put that cistern on to keep the shaft cool while you’re warming the crank.
R-We warmed the crank. We knocked the key out first, took the fly shaft cap off
[bearing cap so they could get to the key to knock it out] and knocked the key out, it had a key about two and a half inches wide. We knocked that out and I don’t think we’d be above an hour and all at once, it were head up and we’d taken the connecting rod off. It were stood straight up and we had t’blocks round t’crank pin and I saw it lean over. I says to Harry Crabtree, Pull it off. We’d put some clips round it you know so as two blokes could get hold of it and they just drew it off and we lowered it into the crank race.
That’s something a lot of people won’t realise, that those cranks were only shrunk on.
R-There were some that had a key in, but they were shrunk on, they had about twelve thou of shrink on it, the key were doing no good. We worked all night and chipped another keyway at 90 degrees to the other, that meant one crank straight out and the other straight up. We chipped another keyway and put it back on on Sunday morning, crank? No problem, we get it red hot and just shoved it on, fit a new key and we were running some time, nine or ten o’clock at night, Sunday night. We put the lights on and it ran just as I expected it to run, they’d never seen it running like that before even with just the lights on. Ropes just went whoosh, I’m waving my arms about now and that’s no good for the tape but what I mean is the ropes came off the flywheel, sank quietly down and then went up on the second motion pulley, slack side at the top.
Monday morning comes and I’m there when they start at seven and they set on and it never muffed no more. Because I’d set all the valves months previous and there were nothing wrong with the engine and it played with it after that.
Aye, it’d be laiking with it.
R-I’m not saying it actually played with all of the load, the figures were up together but there were never any fear of the ropes jumping off and ever after that they used their alternator regular.
Anyway, eventually one thing comes to another and they had a fire, a reight fire, burnt t’top room reight off, tapes and everything. So when they got going again they decided they’d do away with the engine, electrified all the looms and put in a lot of new ones with motors already on them. I knew all about this, what had gone on, I had nothing to do with it. Anyway, three quarters of the way through winter I get a telephone call to go to Broughton Road Shed, they wanted to see me, the old boss wanted to see me who’d retired long ago. So naturally I went down and I didn’t go to the boiler house, I went straight to the office, I had an appointment for half past two in the afternoon. Eh Newton he says, I haven’t seen thee for a long while, come on in lad and sit down.
Now then he says, I want this lot here that’s running this place, and that’s just the way he talked, I want this lot here that’s running this place to tell you what they want, they’re burning rather a lot of coal in that Lancashire boiler for heating. This young chap’ll start!
They’ve done away with the engine now, they’re just using the boiler for running the tapes and heating.
T’young chap says, We’re burning rather a lot of coal. I says Are you, have you kept the three-ram pump we put in donkeys years since for pumping all your {condensate] returns back to the boiler? Oh, he says, Where was that? So I thought we’re up against sommat here, he didn’t even know they had one. Anyhow he says, We’re burning as much coal as we were when the engine is running just to heat the mill and run two tapes in winter. Th’old feller says Newton, he’s telling bloody lies. The deliveries are exactly what they were when the engine was running but ask him where that 250 tons has gone of the stack! Eh well, the young chap looked a bit sheepish and he says Yes, that’s gone and all I’m afraid. I says Come on, let’s go and have a look.
So we went round to the boiler house. I’ve never put me face into such a place in all me life. It used to be kept reight nice and tidy and moderately clean you know, boiler gauges cleaned and all that. Everything were rusted up, water gauge glasses were sizzling out o’t bottom, one shut off and the other one open. No covering on the boiler front, a chap with hands as big as shovels throwing coal in like he were on the Titanic going to Africa or somewhere. Stokers all stopped, oh my God, what a mess! Anyway I stood a bit and watched him, I didn’t go in, I stood at t’door outside into t’yard, I watched him and didn’t say owt. I were careful about that, didn’t say owt, and his water’s coming nicely down t’glass and I thought well, he’ll have to pump it up wi’ sommat in a bit. I didn’t know what sort o’ pump he were using because I hadn’t seen our three ram that we put in. The engine house had been made into a winding room and our ram pump had been in the engine house bottom, there were no tank for condensate, I couldn’t see owt. I thought it might still be in th’old cellar you know. Anyway he comes out o’t boiler house and he goes round the corner and they had a blooming big fire pump about ten inch bore at t’pump end, about 2,000 gallons a minute. Well, he starts that up and it were chump-pong, chump-pong, and t’feed pipes were screaming across the boiler house and t’water went up the gauge glass, wheeee, just like that and the steam came down from 100psi to 30 while I were stood there watching it! Aye well, I says, Let’s go back to the office and have a talk!
I never said owt to t’bloke that were on’t boilers, Like a farmer or sommat. Anyhow it didn’t matter didn’t that because it were nowt to do with the chap. So we went back to th’office. I said Well, for a start off you’ve got no return system; you’ve scrapped it all haven’t you? I says, Scrap chaps have taken it and all your steam from th’heating’s going down the grates. Cause it were puffing up all over the place in the boiler house. You really should have let me know and I’d have come down and telled you what the scrap could take and what he had to leave. First of all we want a tank and we want a pump and we want some hand brushes and a long brush and some shovels and get yon boiler house cleaned up and get t’muck swept off t’top o’t boiler. We want a half horse electric motor to run the stokers and I think, between you and me, we need a fresh fireman! Well, th’old feller says I’m not even going to ask you how much it’ll cost, just get it done. This were th’old feller, Get it done! That were unusual at Broughton Road, they were allus wanting to know an idea of what it were going to cost, which is t’reight way. Anyhow I got some lads down and we had a pump in stock and we soon made a tank and we were there for weeks before they got it all piped up. We put t’tank and t’pump in’t boiler house up one side, I had to get t’coal out o’t way and we put t’tank and t’pump in and got that working and we put a half horse motor on the stokers. Big shifts and little shifts I think the fireman must have realised and he chucked up so I were working down there with ‘em part time. There were me and Sidney and Jimmy and it were winter and we kept chucking an odd shovel full or two on and they didn’t bother about a fireman and I used to bank it up at night for ‘em. We went through most o’t winter like that. I got the motor on the stokers and got them working and I’ll tell you how far we went with that, I got a brand new damper regulator from Accrington and I put that on. Oh, and we put the connies back on line, they’d all been uncoupled. Well, we used to put steam in the mill at seven o’clock in the morning, bank the boiler up and you didn’t need any more in while dinner time wi’ all the returns coming back to the boiler. Tape returns an all because all the pipes were there; they’d just uncoupled them and shoved ‘em down any grates they could find. There were more steam coming out than Skipton Station and it were all coming out of Broughton Road. That system stayed in for donkey’s years and then eventually, it were only a year or two since, they put a package boiler in. That’s it, how long ago’s that, it must have been about ten or fifteen years since must that job [1963/68] and it were never touched no more until they put the package boiler in.
Can you remember ever knowing a mill that had a man come in that knew something about this job, you know, when they decided to do a job like this, like condensate return systems and such as that. Most people’d, I know I’ve heard you talk about Johnny in the old days. They used to send for Mr Pickles to ask him how much it were going to cost and you can tell me again whether I’m right or not but those fellers in the board room used to turn their noses up in them days.
R-Oh yes, we were rubbish. Just an instance of what used to happen. We’ve just been talking about Pendle Street. Well, the same people that owned Pendle Street owned Seedhill, JJ Duckworths. One day me father comes and says, Come on with me Newton, we’re going to see all t’directors for Pendle Street. Take me on and tha’s coming in wi’me, you’ll never learn any younger. So off I went into th’office wi’ him, into t’boardroom, all in me muck.
How old were you?
R-How old would I be then? Oh, it’d be just after the war, twenty eight I’d be Stanley. Come on wi’ me, you’ll never learn any younger and into t’boardroom, a long room, big walnut table and all round, all sat down, posh folk you know. Sit down, we allus had to sit down away from’t table you know. We’ve been hearing about, there’s sommat going on about pumping all th’hot water back that goes round after heating into t’boilers or sommat. It saves money or sommat they say. Oh aye, me father says, I’ve done Wellhouse at Barlick, I’ve done Albert Mills and I’ve done Cloverhill. Aye, we’ve heard about it they said, Well, what about doing our two? Aye me father says, Well you’ll save sommat. How much will we save? Well he says, I can’t guarantee what you’ll save but you’ll definitely save. Well, he’d reckoned up the price for doing both mills roughly and what it would cost. Oh and when he told them they had faces as long as bloody fiddles! I could see, it weren’t so of the got his rag out and I could see , I could tell by his face what were happening.
How much was it in those days?
R-I think both mills ud be under £500, to do both mills. That were a new pump, new tanks and pipe fitting, for both shops it’d be under £500. And at t’finish he stood up and he put his hands on that table and he said I’ll tell you what we’ll do wi’ you lot, let me do both mills, never mind the price, do both mills and if you’ll give me what it saves in’t first bloody winter I’ll put em in for nowt! Get em done John, get em done John, both of em. Aye, that were what you were up against wi’ them tight beggars, you’d really to prove it you know because there were that many gimmicks going on, as you know Stanley, at that time after t’war. Put this on your boiler and you’ll save 4%, put this on your connies and you’ll save 6%, put this in your steam range and you’ll save 10%. If you got one of them catalogues out and you read all’t stuff and you reckoned it up on the board you wouldn’t want no bloody coal you could send it back to t’pit!
Well, you know yourself Newton, up at Bancroft, up yonder when I went there there wasn’t a pump in there that were worth anything.
R-There hadn’t been.
Well there was actually one good pump but it were running all the time and we couldn’t get to do anything to it.
R-Couldn’t get it repaired.
That Pearn pump [Feed pump at Bancroft by Frank Pearn of Patricroft] it had got to the stage where I used to start, when I were firing that boiler, I used to start in the morning wi’t water half an inch from t’top o’t glass and with running the Weir pump flat out, no water going round the connies, just pumping water straight into the boiler to keep it at a reasonable level, I could finish up at night wi’t water two inch from the bottom of the glass. I could just hold me water so as it were safe and then I used to have to leave the Weir pump on and come back at six o’clock at night to turn it off.
R-To stop it.
When it had got t’water up in’t boiler. If you remember, the first thing I did when I took over from George (Bleasdale), I was down in your shop one day and I saw that pump, can you remember?
R-Aye, we were rather strangers then weren’t we Stanley.
Big three ram pump, big three ram pump and I looked at it and I said to you…
R- Stood up in the corner like a soldier weren’t it.
That’s it, and I said to you Bloody Hell, I said, that’s just what I want, who’s is it? And that pump had come out of Siberia [Finsley Gate Mill actually but it always got Siberia because it was so cold in winter. SG] at Harle Syke.
R-Siberia, Harle Syke, yes.
And that were a pump you’d made, sold to them, put it in there and it’d run all them years and then you bought it back and big does and little does when there were nothing else going on you’d done that pump up….
R-Aye, we’d done it up and made it into a new un again.
And it were half sold to a bloke at Padiham but he never got on with
R-Aye, he never actually ordered it.
And I told you didn’t I. My need was greater than his and how much is it. And you said it was £220.
R-Yes, which was reasonable.
By gum, aye.
And I went to the management and told ‘em, I said Look, you’re wasting money here, we’re pumping cold water into that boiler. I said when you go home at night, fill your electric kettle with cold water and boil it and time how long it takes. Take it off, tip the water out and fill it from the hot tap and do it again and see how long it takes. You’ll find you’ve just saved half your electricity. Well, it’s the same with the boiler, what we’ve got to do is put hot water back into that boiler instead of letting it go to waste. And they wouldn’t spend the money. I think you were with me that day on the boiler top when I told him. [Peter Birtles, the managing director. SG]
R-Yes, we were both up there.
I said I’ll buy the bloody pump and I’ll put it in and I’ll run it for nowt for you for five years and at the end of the five years I’ll give you the pump and all I want is half of what it’s saved.
R-What it saved em, aye, we were both there.
Coal for cloth I says, reckon up yards of cloth and coal burned and coal for cloth give me half of what it saves over those five years and I’ll bloody retire! And he bought the pump right away.
R-Straight away, no messing, no messing.
He bought the pump and on average it has saved them three ton of coal a week since it’s been put in. I mean, they just couldn’t grasp it. I took that director out into the yard one day and I said….
R-Eh, the chimney!
I said to him, Come outside for a minute…..
R-Look how much…..
I said I want to show you sommat. I said look up at the top of that chimney, what can you see? He says I can’t see anything, there’s no smoke, it’s doing well, it isn’t making any smoke. [We were having trouble at the time with the ‘Nuisance Man’, over excessive smoke due to light load. SG] I said You can’t see anything can you, there’s no smoke, you can’t see a thing. Well, you know that’s the difference between you and me, I’m psychic, I’m like one of these clairvoyants, I can see stuff that nobody else can see. Do you know what I can see when I look up there? He says No. I says Well, about every ten minutes there’s a pound note comes out of the top of that stack and floats off down Barlick.
R-Phewww…
And drops down somewhere in’t town. Every ten minutes during the day there’s another pound note goes floating off down the town. He said You’re silly, there’s nothing coming out. I said, That’s just it, you can’t see em but I can see pound notes, there’s heat coming out of that chimney and it comes out of the coal. Do you realise that every 100 tons of coal you buy you’re wasting at least ninety tons of it? Do you realise that, do you realise that your overall thermal efficiency is about ten percent?
The most perfect heat engine ever made for general use is the Gardner Diesel and it does about 50% thermal efficiency. Rolls Royce have been trying for ten years to beat that and they’ve just got down to 49%. But we’re only 10% and out of every £100 you spend on coal….
R-There’s ninety going out at t’top of there.
I said there’s ninety pounds going out of the bloody chimney and out of doors in the mill and …
R-Out of broken windows.
Now I said, don’t you think it’s about time we…?. And do you know they never did a bloody thing about it and I’ll tell you what it is, when it gets to the stage where a firm can’t afford to spend money on insulation, I not only think they ought to be put out of business but they ought to be taken to court and fined severely.
R-Well, it’s what they’re on about now isn’t it, energy conservation.
Well I mean, it’s there. I mean, the sort of thing we’ve been talking about tonight, they won’t be able to believe it in a hundred years.
R-No they won’t will they.
Because in a hundred years, and I’ll tell you sommat now, and you’ll not read this anywhere, in less than a hundred years, in fifty years…
R-They’ll be struggling.
It’ll be illegal to burn fossil fuel because it’ll all have to go for chemical feedstock.
R-It will, it’ll be illegal.
Because it’s the biggest bloody waste there is, if you burn it 100% efficient it’s still waste because look at all those chemicals you’re wasting.
R-Wasting out of it.
And the stage’ll come in about fifty years when they’ll have to make a decision. They’ll have to either have plastic or energy from fossil fuel because 95% of plastic is made from fossil fuel.
R-Fossil fuel.
Either oil or coal.
R-Coal.
Mostly oil, and they’re going to get to the stage where they’ve got to make a decision whether they do without energy from fossil fuel or do without the plastic. This world can live without energy from fossil fuel, we’ve got the technology, but it can’t live without plastic, all the tinsmiths are dead!
R-They’ve all gone.
You reckon up all the plastic stuff there is nowadays that used to be tinsmith’s work
R-Aye, Squeezy bottles that used to be tinsmith’s work.
And bottles, glass bottles, all gone. But it’s all finished and they’re going to have to make that decision and when they come to it they’ll look at that photograph of mine of two hundred ton of coal stacked at the back of the mill and they’re going to say Christ Almighty, what were they doing?
R-Aye, what were they doing.
And they won’t be able to realise.
R-No.
But I mean to say, it’s nice to be able to talk to this thing and be able to let them know that there were some buggers about…
R-That took…
That knew what were going on. But the thing is that they weren’t the blokes, you and me aren’t the fellers that can make the decisions.
R-No, we can’t make the decisions and it’s always been like this. It’s always been like this, them that are up at t’top know nowt about it.
Well, that’s what we’ve been talking about tonight.
R-It’s going on there now is this isn’t it.
Yes, but what we’ve been talking about is people running mills, business men, men that could make money running mills and when it came down to brass tacks it’s always been the same, the three biggest expenses have been labour, yarn and fuel, Labour and yarn, well, I mean, there were nobody hotter on labour than the old mill owners.
R-There weren’t that!
And you know there were nobody hotter on yarn because you know yourself there’s been more bloody toilets in mills been bunged up with throwing waste down that they daren’t take into’t warehouse.
R-Aye, that they daren’t take into t’warehouse in the tin.
But fuel….
R-Bother about that.
Nobody bothered about it, you could buy bloody coal for ten bob a ton in 1900 and bloody smoke all over the town
R- Well, I’ve heard tales from old chaps, you know like Peter Bilsborough the old engineer who used to come down to the shop when I were a lad. Old Peter Bilsborough who were head engineer for Billycock here at Wellhouse. He used to tell the tale about when they carted their own coal from Ingleton, they had a pit of their own at Ingleton. Well, they used to cart coal to Wellhouse and Butts and he [Billycock. SG] came into the boiler house one afternoon, afore these boilers were put in, when the nine old single flued ones were in, there were nine of em at one time and the fireman were sat down. He says, Eh man, I pay you for shovelling coal, get on with it with that shovel. He says I pay you to shovel, not sit down. And t’chap had to get up and start shovelling coal in when it didn’t need it, now that’s what we’re on about!
One little tale for you Newton while we finish this tape off. Managing director comes into the engine house at Bancroft one day and found me asleep in my chair. He says, Stanley, I don’t pay you for sleeping and what’s more, the firebeater’s asleep as well! I says to him, Peter, what does it say on that gauge down there? Well he couldn’t read it, he couldn’t even read the bloody steam gauge. I said it’s showing 120 pound, you see the shaft off the engine over there, it’s turning isn’t it nice and steady? He says Yes. Well, I said, what it amounts to is your firebeater’s asleep, your engineer’s asleep and your shafts turning. You’re not burning any bloody coal, there’s nowt wrong with th’engine and your weavers are weaving, you shouldn’t be worrying, you’re in a fine position. The time to worry is when you come down here, he’s shovelling coal like hell, there’s smoke belching out of the chimney and I’m running round like a blue-arsed fly in here because you’re in the shit then.
R-That’s it, that’s it, you’re in a right job…
Because when you go into the mill you’ll find all your weavers with their heads down and their arses up over the looms.
R-Yes, I once got a job you know, in South Africa, well, in West Africa and I’ll tell you this bit now. I went for an interview to a hotel in Colne and I were in the last three and t’other two had been in before me and it were a chap that I knew very well had got me to have a do at this job. It were a completely new mill at Accra. The mill were built and there were a house for me and everything. About £100 a week , tickets to come back if you couldn’t settle. Now you couldn’t have a fairer offer than that could you. I’m going back now sixteen years since (1962) I went to this interview, he sat me down in front of a table and there were two brothers, they were Arabs. They talked to me a while and they said Well then, when Mr Pickles get mill running what will Mr Pickles do? I said, Well, when Mr Pickles he get mill running Mr Pickles will sit on arse and read paper because when Mr Pickles not sat on arse reading paper bloody mill’s stopped and you not making any money! Gospel honest truth is that!
You didn’t get the job did you?
(500)
R-I did. Course I got the bloody job, they hadn’t a chance and then I rang up at Sunday night to tell em that I wasn’t going and they get t’other chap, younger chap than me from Great Harwood, and I knew he were no good. They took him out there and be what Derek Pickup said he were only there three week and they bowled him home, he couldn’t even get the boilers out of their bloody boxes, they were only two little package ones, five thousand pounds of steam an hour. It weren’t a steam driven shop, it were electric driven but they were going on dying and that sort of thing, all the machinery to look to, tapes and all that. Just been up my street that job, aye.
When Mr Pickles is sat on his arse they’re making money.
R-Mr Pickles as be sat on arse I says, reading paper cause when Mr pickles not sat on arse reading paper t'bloody mill’s stopped, you making no money. Well, I had the place in an uproar.
SCG/01 October 2000
8935 words