THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 28th of JULY 1978 AT MRS CLARK’S HOME ON MANCHESTER ROAD. THE INFORMANT IS EMMA JANE CLARK AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Can you ever remember seeing a sheep fair?
R - Oh yes. And there used to be sheep fairs In Skipton, as well.
Yes, but Barnoldswick?
R – Yes, I can just remember it but it’s a long time, if I can’t remember I can remember talking about it.
Have you any idea where they used to have it?
R- No, I can’t remember, unless it was at the Seven Stars, I can’t remember.
That’s right, Seven Stars.
R- Was it there?
Yes. Well that’s what Billy Brooks says. Only Billy Brooks is a bit older than you, he is fourteen years older than you.
R- Yes, if I can’t remember, what I can remember is on the day they used to sell long sticks of white rock, with a streamer of white paper at the end, and they used to call It Barlick Fair Rock.
That’s it, Billy said exactly the same.
R- Well I remember that. Yes, I can remember that.
That's grand, that's it.
(50)
R- And they were only a halfpenny and they were about this length, [six inches].
Yes, can you remember at what time of the year they used to have that sale? Can you remember when it was?
R - Well I think it would be in the spring, I am not sure, I can’t remember to be sure. No, I can't remember.
Now, something else. What was Saturday night like? Can you describe what Church Street would be like on a Saturday to me, when you were a girl, you know, just beginning to take notice.
R- Well, there used to be one or two stalls on Church Street. Yes, toffee stalls. Yes, by where the old church, do you know where the old church was? [St James’] Well, there used to be one or two there and there used to be one, do you know where the Conservative Club is?
On Station Road ?
R - On Station Road yes. Well, there’s a road up to it and you can get into a side entrance. Well, there used to be a stall there, and when we were children my father always used to bring us all a stick of India Rock, and they were a ha’penny and they were good. Every Saturday night.
Was there anything else? Did they sell anything else in the street besides sweets, you know?
R – No. There used to be a fountain on there, on the top of Church Street, top of Butts. Have you heard of that? [The fountain erected by subscription for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1897. Moved from Church Street to Letcliffe Park and then back into Town Square after the demolition of the Co-op building. Emma’s description is very accurate and the brass sockets above the bowl are threaded for taps.] Yes, a stone fountain, a round one with taps on and it would be about the height of this, nearly the height of this picture rail.
(100)
Aye, that's about seven foot, aye.
R- Perhaps not so high. Higher than that picture anyway, and it was a stone fountain, all carved stone and then it was about so wide round and it was a trough you know, and then the centre building and it was like an arch, like a temple at the top you know?
That's its aye.
R - In carved stone and there was a tap you know where you could run cold water.
So that's about four foot wide and was there a horse trough as well with it?
R- Not, no not down below. There was just this, and it would be about this height you know, we were children and we could stand on it and I would rather think there was a stone base as well if I remember right because we could see into this, and it was a round thing it would be about so wide round. And then there was a centre piece of stone that went up like a turret.
Have you any idea who put that there?
R- No, no I haven't.
Have you any idea who'd be in Church Street on a Saturday evening, because it used to go on into the evening didn’t it?
R - What, what?
(150)
The stalls.
R - Oh yes, they’d go on, as long as there was a customer they’d go on. Yes, yes. But that is a long time since, that’s seventy odd years since.
Yes, Can you remember when it stopped?
R- Well I think it would be perhaps after the first world war. I don't know. No, it'll be before then, long before then. Yes it would be long before then because you see they built some shops. When I was a girl, I'd only perhaps be twelve, they built those shops next to where the church was, Freeman Hardy & Willis’s. Well you see they wouldn't have stalls then, they wouldn't, you know they wouldn’t allow them then and that was, well that must be nearly seventy years since, between 65 and 70 years since.
Can you remember, was Wellhouse Farm still standing then?
R - Wellhouse Farm?
You know, there used to be a farm opposite the Commercial, well what they call the Barlick now, but the Commercial Hotel it used to be. There was a farmhouse there and I'm not sure of when that was pulled down. Because that's why those two streets are called Orchard Street and Garden Street at the back, because it was the orchard and the garden of the farm.
R - There used to be a farm where the new church is you know. You know where the garage is? Thompson’s garage? There used to be a farm there. Yes, there used to be a farm there and it was Jim Wright's farm and where those big shops are, just at the corner of Church Street going down Skipton Road?
Yes, where the American bar…
R - The Yankee Bar, yes. Well there were three little old shops there and one was a cottage, and then there was a little shoemaker’s shop and they called them McGuiness, they were Irish. I remember that as plain as anything because the young man, he and his father, he used to be sweet on my oldest sister. And they always used to be asking me about her and I was only a little girl you know and she was about eight or nine years older than me. There was this little clogger, shoe shop and it wasn’t, is this on? [the tape]
(200)
Yes.
R - Oh I didn't know it was on.
Yes of course it is. Go on….
R - There was this little clogger’s shop, and then there was a cottage and then there was a butcher, Jim Wright’s butcher shop, and he had the farm and a house and that was on the ground where the new church is, just where Thompson's garage was. I remember that, and we used to call that hill Sagin Hill, just going up from the main road.
Sagin.
R - Sagin Hill that, it always went under that name, Sagin Hill. Why I don't know.
Ah, well, there’ll be a reason for it somewhere. What was the farm called, do you know, did it have a name?
R- No, I can’t remember.
I mean that'll be why they call that Croft up there won't it, because it would be Croft Farm?
R – Yes, yes. I don't know what it was called, but it was Jim Wright's farm.
Aye, it's interesting that.
R- And Croft House, is it Croft House? No, Croft House, you know, that cottage you know with the round end, you can see it from the road.
Now, I thought Croft, I thought Croft House was where Windle & Bowker is now. Norman Petty’s you know?
(250)
R - No, that isn't Croft House is it?
I think, I think they call that Croft House don't they? Which cottage is it that you mean, the one with the round end.
R- Well you know where Far East View is, behind the church, behind the new church?
Yes.
R - Well there's a house away from the ... that's it. And I always thought that was Croft House.
It might, it might be Croft House because that is the Croft up there.
R - Yes, it is, yes.
Aye well, it can be very easily, there can be two Croft Houses. Anyway, don't let it bother you, you know what I mean.
R- No, but you know, because I used to mate with a girl from school and they’d a lovely garden and a summer house. You know, at the side of the house, but it’s just off the road is the garden but up to the house, at the end of the, not at the end of the
house but the back part of the house. And then East View starts the cottages.
That's it.
R - You know Pickles who lived in the middle house down here? [ Jack Pickles as I knew him or ‘Gara’ as a by-name. Emma means the middle of the three cottages at the end of Park Road opposite the Dog.] well they lived in the first house, I can remember them, and his father was a carrier, he had a horse and cart. Eh, he’ll tell you all about it will Gara, and they called him, he was Garrett Pickles but everybody called him Gara Pickles, [Emma might be a bit confused here, Jack used to get called Gara and his father was called Garibaldi Pickles.] and he used to have a horse and cart and he used to go to Colne every week and a lot of people got their groceries from Bateman’s at Colne. They’d get a weeks groceries at once. I know my mother's friend, she did. And funnily enough their [Bateman’s] daughter was my cousin’s friend, this Bateman at Colne, and my cousin’s age now should be 93 in September. She is in Beams now, nursing home. [Beamsley?] Well, Dorothy, this Dorothy Bateman never got married and she died about two years since and left 90 odd thousand pounds. With groceries.
(300)
And why do you think people had the groceries…
R- Well you see, they bought such a lot at once you know that they got it cheaper you see? And it was brought to them and Gara Pickles used to deliver it.
(10 min)
If he went to Colne, would he take anything to Colne with him? When he was there would he take …
R- I don't know whether he would or not, I couldn’t say that. But I know he brought groceries back and I know my mothers friend [Mrs Fort], she used to get tins of tea about this height do you know, about this height and so square. It would be pounds and pounds in it you know. Well you see they got things cheaper if they bought in bulk.
I wonder sort of tea it were.
R- Mazawatee.
I think half the tea was Mazawatee then.
R – Lipton’s and Mazawatee. But I can remember because I know we had a tin for years that my mother got off Mrs Fort and it was Mazawatee, yes.
Aye, I can remember there used to be a sign in Stockport and you could buy it up to, well, I think after the Second world war you could buy this Mazawatee tea. I have mentioned it sometimes and, people have looked at me, you know, what? I mean, Mazawatee tea? That’s it, aye.
R- I know we always used to get Lipton’s when I was a little girl, yes.
Aye, Sir Thomas Lipton and his yachts. Aye, that’s it. And when you were at home at Forester's Buildings, before you moved down Gisburn Road, did you always sit down for your meals together?
R- Oh, yes, yes.
There’d be no such thing as somebody popping in and having their tea [when it suited them] and this that and the other. It’d be, your mother’d lay the table …
R- Well you see, we all came home from work together and the children, if we were children we probably had ours earlier. I think we did, when we came home from school. Till we got perhaps twelve or thirteen. Yes I think we did because there was such a lot of us, you know. When we were all at home.
Just run through, if you were all sat down at the table then, just run round the table and tell me the names and how old they were and who was at the table, you know, roughly.
R - Well you see, Joe was, how old would Joe be? Jessie is seven years younger than me Joe was nine [years younger] Well you see, they were only little children, they were very little children, I can't remember them sitting at the table till they got to be six or seven you know, and perhaps after they started going to school. And we’d have our tea before the work people came home, till we got working you see. And sitting at the table as children there were Joe my youngest brother, he died when he was twelve, and then there was Jessie, Olive and me. Now the others, next older to me was four years older than me so he’d be working when I was eight, half time you know. He’d be working half time. I can never remember him sitting down with us when we came home from school. And then there’d be Fred, Tom, Margaret, Grace and the two half sisters and me father and mother. There’d eight of them.
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A fair family,
R - Yes. There’d be Fred, Margaret, Grace, Tom, Sarah, Ellen, me father and mother, there’d be eight. That were when they were all at home, but you see I can only just remember the eldest ones being at home. But I can remember next just us being at home. And then you see, they were me father’s, they were a lot older than my mother's children, 'cause me father had been married twice, he lost his first wife. [Emma is talking about her two stepsisters, Sarah and Ellen] And Sarah, I think she’d be, I should think she'd be ten years old when he married my mother because she was about, she’d be about eleven years older than my eldest brother. So they were a lot older and then they got married you see and there were just the others left. And then they kept getting married do you know? There was only three, two of them left when I got married. There was only Jessie and Olive because me younger brother died when he was twelve and I was seventeen, he was five years younger than me.
When they were working they’d be tipping up would they?
R - Oh yes. Till they, till they got 21 and then of course they boarded. You know, they paid so much and kept the rest and clothed themselves.
That’s it. And was that a fairly usual age that, 21?
R - Yes it was.
(15 min)
And that's where the thing comes in about ‘Key of the Door’ isn’t it.
R- Yes, yes. ‘Never been 21 before’! [This is a line from an old song]
That's it, yes, that's it. And, when they were boarding, what they consider to be boarding money for the week in them days?
R- Well, I can’t remember what they paid. But I know when I started boarding at first, well the wages would be… When I was 21, I can’t remember what they would be. Even I were married, you see I was 25 when I was married, because Billy was away at the war then I were married two years after the war finished, in 1920. I paid about 25/- for board. Our wages would be about 30 to 35 shillings then and when I finished work it would be about two pounds ten perhaps, for a woman, but I had five looms, and there weren't a lot of men that had five looms. Me and me sister had ten
Looms together, Olive and I, we 10 looms together and we were considered to be good weavers. We worked for Nutters at Bancroft, no, at Bankfield.
Now when you were at home, sat down at the table, did you always have a tablecloth on?
Oh, always, yes. When we got grown up we always had, when we were young we had an oilcloth, you know, a soft oilcloth one.
American cloth? What they used to call American cloth?
R- Yes, yes. But as we got older we had, my mother was proud you know. She was proud. She was a good mother.
Just an aside there, because after all this a conversation, Vera and myself, we were just talking the other day and I said to her, “Do you know, if you did but know there are children growing up today, probably 15 or 16 years old that have never sat down to a table with their family in their life, with a table properly set.” I said “Now, can you believe that?” And you know, there are.
R- Oh yes.
(500)
We find it difficult to realise, but there are a lot of people who have never sat down at a properly laid table you know? It's ally in front of the television now. Trays in front of the television. And I think that's something, I think it's very important that, I think it's something that has been lost.
R- Yes it is, yes.
People sitting down at the table, together, once in the day.
R- Yes, that's right. Well, it’s your family together.
That's it, it’s the family.
R - It’s your family together, yes. And we have always been a close family, and we still are. We’ve argued and called one another but we still, nobody else has to call them!
Were your parents fairly strict with you about table manners, you know?
R- Well, they, yes they were. We were, I think we were well behaved, yes I think we were.
That's the thing, isn’t it, you have got to behave yourself. That's it yes.
R- Yes, yes. And with my father, I have never heard my father swear in his life, no.
If you had done something wrong, that warranted punishment, what would the punishment be?
R- A clatter.
That’s it, Yes. [By ‘clatter’, Emma means a smack]
R- When we were young you know? Just a clatter.
That’s it. And did anybody say grace before meals?
R – No.
And, did you ever have prayers at home?
R--Have what?
Prayers.
R- No, no. We all went to Church, Chapel, even when we had to go to Sunday School in the afternoon, Chapel at night, and we didn’t always go to Church, Chapel on Sunday Morning, till we went in the choir and then we had to do. I went in the choir when I was about sixteen.
When you went to Sunday School, was there any other form of teaching apart from religious teaching?
R- No, it was only Bible.
That’s it, yes. Because at one time there was, Sunday Schools were Sunday Schools at one time weren't they?
R- Yes, yes. They were Sunday schools, yes. [This might not be clear. What Emma and I were saying was that ordinary school subjects were taught on a Sunday as well as Bible study]
That's it, yes. And if you had a birthday was it any different than any other day?
(550)
R- Well, there were too many of us to have a party but my friend, one of my friends, she was an only one - she always had a party, and I always went. And the other one she, well they had a shop you know where the man covered suites on Rainhall Road. Upholsterer.
(20 min)
Yes, Duxbury, yes.
R- Yes well, my friend, that was a grocer’s shop [Mrs Bracewell] and a very good grocer's shop, and they lived in the house next door. And I used to call every morning for my friend, she lived next door, ‘cause I went to the Wesleyan School and I always stopped at their house when I came home from school in the afternoon. And if I didn’t go home for me tea me mother always knew where I was 'cause two or three times a week I'd stop for me tea and if I didn't for me tea I’d always go up at night, after tea. And she was the kindest woman was Mrs Bracewell. that I ever came across in me life. I think she'd have had me every day if I, you know, if she dared have asked me. She was, she was the kindest person I ever knew and she was a lovely baker, and they were, they’d plenty you know, plenty. They’d a shop you know, and he left quite a lot of money. In fact, he was the managing director of Bankfield Shed, apart from his business. He was a business man, he’d a business head, and he never came out of that shop from. morning till night, only for his meals. He’d a very good business, a grocer's business and drapery. And she is still living is that, my friend. There were four girls of us went out together, and we all lived till we were over eighty. And Ada [Bracewell] and I are eighty three, it was my birthday yesterday, and her birthday is in August, and the eldest, next to the eldest, she'll be eighty-five in September and she never married.
How about Christmas?
R- Oh, we always had our stocking up at Christmas and I remember when I got a bit older going out with my mother to buy presents for the younger ones. Oh and I thought it was wonderful, you know, when I got to know, like it wasn't Father Christmas. We used to go out on Christmas Eve, the shops were open till 11 o'clock you know, till 11 o’clock at night, and always, they could stop open as long as they wanted could the shops in those days. Oh, and it were wonderful going out ‘cause you daren’t keep anything in the house ‘cause she felt sure we’d find it. You know?
Aye, when you say you used to go, you know the shops were open till that time, obviously the shops would have gas light.
R - Oh yes.
Yes. Was there gas lighting in the streets by then?
R - Oh yes, yes. I think I can always remember gas lights, I think so.
Yes. It's quite possible because the gas company did start very early on, you know, 1880 something like that, so, yes. [Earlier actually. There was a gasworks built with the New Mill and it sold some gas to nearby houses while it was a private undertaking. When Billycock Bracewell died in 1885 he was in the process of building what became the public gas works next to the Corn Mill.]
R- Yes, as far as I can remember there's always been gas lights.
That's it, aye.
R- We were out in the country, at Forester's Buildings, there were nothing past Forester's Buildings.
That's it.
R- No. The only cottages were those by the Catholic Church, those far cottages, and Crow Nest cottages down Coates, you know, next to Rolls Royce. And we were, you know it was, when I used to come home from Bracewell’s at night, you know, it was dark you know in Winter, I used to run all the way, frightened of anybody running after me.
Can, oh yes you said, you were on about that there’d only be one other building down there then, that’d be the old Coates Mill, can you ...
R- Coates Mill ? Yes.
Aye, but not the new one.
R – No, the old one.
Can you remember the old one?
R- Yes, I can, my sister was eight years older than me, Grace. Well, her young man, he worked in the office there. Yes and they call, it was, there were a few of them, there were few of them that owned that mill, three or four. But he worked in the office did, my sister's…
Do you know, can you remember, any of the names of the people that were connected with the Coates folks?
R – Yes, yes I can. There were Nelson Duckworth and he used to live down here in Mitchell Terrace and his daughter died nearly a year since, and she used to be my Sunday School teacher, and he was one of the
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partners. She never married didn’t Lillian, she was a quiet little person. Then there was somebody called, from Earby I think it was, I think they called him Pickles from. Earby. But there were two or three, but I remember Nelson Duckworth quite well and he's been dead donkey's years.
Yes. And that mill…
R- It was cotton weaving.
Yes. Can you remember Coates, well of course you can remember it working. Have you any idea when Coates Mill, the old Coates Mill that used to be the water mill [was demolished]?
R - Oh no. I can’t remember that when it was a water mill.
(25 min)
No, but it used to be a water mill.
R- Oh, did it? I didn't know that.
Now just let’s make sure we are talking about the same mill. I don't mean the Coates Mill that's Carr’s Printers now. Is that what you were talking about?
R – Oh, yes.
No there used to be an earlier Coates Mill you know.
R –Well, I don't remember that.
It used to stand down in Victory Park.
R- Oh no I can’t remember that.
And I know it was standing in, now, wait a minute, no, 1892 it was demolished.
R- Yes, I can’t remember.
It was demolished in 1892. No, that's my mistake, I've been leading you up the garden path there, It was 1892 that mill was demolished. Yes, but anyway that’s, I mean that's interesting about Coates because there's very little known about who … Coates is one of the mills in Barlick that nobody seems to know very much about you know?
R- No. Oh well, my brother in law, he worked in the office there, and there were two or three of them.
Yes, Do you, can you ever remember, do you know about a firm that set up there, they were Earby lads that set it up…
R- Pickles’s?
No, now wait a minute, it was the something manufacturing company, oh deary me, I can’t think, not Seascale, oh a funny name, the Seal Manufacturing Company.
(700)
R- No, how long is that since?
I don't know really, I don't know really. I have an idea they went on till not long since. Anyway it doesn’t matter if you don't know, it's just something, you know, I have to just chase these things up a bit to try and nail them down you know. It means many a time that I’m confusing people because I don’t know what I'm talking about. I’m trying to find out about something that nobody really talks about now. Yes, anyway, it doesn't matter. Can, well obviously you did have musical instruments in the house because you used to play the violin didn’t you. Yes, that's it, and then there was your father.
R- Pardon?
R- My father taught me my first violin lesson when I was 14. He taught me and my youngest brother violin lessons and he used to play at the Sunday School. There was him and Harry Purcell, well his father is Tom Purcell and he married Sally Hacking. Well, Sally Hacking’s youngest sister, she played the violin at the same time and she went to, do you know Mr Peckover? But my father taught my brother the violin and they used to play… There was Jenny Hacking, Sally’s youngest sister, my brother died when he was twelve so you can tell he wasn’t so old. And my brother Joe and my cousin Arthur Petty, they all played the violin. Can you remember Arthur Harper?
No.
R- Don’t you? He lived in Mosley Street. Well, his wife played the piano and she was courting but she wasn’t married. She played a little harmonium and they played the violin for the hymns at the Sunday School.
That’s it, aye.
R- And then of course I was about fourteen, when I got to be nearly fifteen and I wanted to be going out and I thought my father spent too much time with Joe and so I gave it up. And when I was twenty I went to the orchestra concert, they used to be marvellous concerts, they used to get really tip-top talents you know for a solo singer or violinist. And I went and I thought yes, I’m going to start again and I was twenty and I went to Mr Peckover. He was supposed to be, well he was a marvellous teacher and he was also an examiner. And I went and it was just before I met Billy. Yes, I’d be playing the violin when I met Billy, I’d be nineteen when I met Billy ‘cause when I was twenty I thought ‘I’m going again’. [?] And I went to Mr Peckover and within three months I was playing in the orchestra.
(750)
Yes. Now you played somewhere else as well didn’t you.
R- I played at the pictures, at the Majestic.
Now, when was that Mrs Clark?
R - When was that? During the war, during. the first world war. [If Emma was twenty this would be 1915 or later] And we just played on Saturday night. There were about ten of an orchestra, and then my music master and his wife and Marion Hawes, she was a beautiful pianist, a concert pianist. She was a beautiful player and she used to play every night, she was a pupil of Mr Peckover. They played every night, this was in the silent days of course.
Yes, that’s right.
R- And they played every night those two, violin and piano. And then on Saturday nights there was a little orchestra, about eight or ten of us and if there was a special picture on we played all week. And I got half a crown for one night, and that was, that was a lot, of money in those days.
It was for a week wasn’t it?
R- That was half a crown a night!
Yes, well I say for six nights.
R- Oh if I played a week I was in clover!
Aye. Can you remember any of the films that were on. Did any of them stick in your mind?
R- Oh Camellia I think, there was, that was one. But you see we hadn’t time to watch them you know when we were playing. And I could go to the pictures any night I wanted for nothing. And I could take a friend.
And that was, was it well attended then, the cinema?
R- Oh yes. It used to be packed on Saturday night. Packed. And during the week as well it was, you know, always about three quarters full and more.
Yes, because they used to change the programme on Wednesday didn't they?
R - Yes they did, yes
That's it, yes.
R- And when I used to go to my knitting party, Billy always went to the pictures, he loved the pictures. When I used to go, that was when the children were bigger you know, when the children got bigger. Andy he always, he always went to the pictures when I went to the knitting.
(800)
And in those days it’d be gas lighting in the cinema would it?
R- Not in 1915 it wasn't. I don’t think so. No, it wouldn't be gas. I can remember the first mantle being put on in our house, did I tell you about it?
Yes. Yes that's it. Yes, I know the reason why, I asked you that because actually I know that it was electric at the Majestic because they had their own gas engine, in the cellar.
R- Yes they had. No, on the ground floor. Yes, because we used to go in there at the side door you know to hang our clothes up. We didn’t go through the pictures, we went in at the side door and they called him Jimmy Brown the man who looked after it and he used to live in one of those cottages by the Greyhound. Jimmy Brown. And oh, and he used to sell bicycles, make, do them up, and I bought one off him and it was three pounds I remember that as plain as anything. And my sister in law and I, her husband was away at the war and Billy was away at the war and we went to St Annes on them, our bicycles. And it was an old thing was this of mine, I came back, there were no brakes on, I came all the way from St Annes without brakes.
You were dangerous, you were dangerous, there you are…
R- I was a right tomboy!
Yes. Now when, I don't know when the Majestic was built. [1914] Have you any idea when the Majestic itself was built?
R- Well, it was built before the war, it must have been because I was 19, well I'd be twenty, well that’s 63 years since and it was before then.
Because I do know who built it, it was…
R- Matthew Hartley.
That’s it, Hartley. Now, I do know that. I don't know whether it’s when the Majestic was built, or after the Majestic was built, do you know anything about him buying some stuff off the liner Majestic when they broke it up?
R- Yes. He bought some woodwork from the Majestic, the ship called the Majestic. Yes, I do remember that.
Yes. Can you remember what he did with it?
R- No, wasn’t it… I did know at the time.
Well, I know about this because I've seen the place, I don’t know what he, I only know one thing that he did with the woodwork that he got from the ship. I know he got a lot of stuff from the Majestic when it was broken up, I have an idea it was broken up at Barrow but I’m not certain. But anyway, one of the things that he did 1 know because I’ve seen this room. He lived in that row of houses just across from the Majestic didn't he, that side street that goes up there.
R- Yes, yes, at one time.
And Teresa Hartley, I don’t know whether she is still alive, I think she died just recently. She'd be some relation to those Hartleys, she lived in a house up there, I
was once in that house and I went to the bathroom and the bathroom was panelled with panelling out of the Majestic, out of the ship. But the funny thing about it was, with being out of a ship the panelling isn't square because you see there’s very few rooms that are square in a ship.
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And the panelling was actually out of line slightly. But the bathroom was panelled in mahogany from the Majestic. I bet that room's still done like that, panelled.
R- Well yes. And didn't he buy the, you know, there is a figurehead in front of the… did he buy that?
I'm not sure but I know he bought a lot of stuff.
R- Yes, I have a feeling that he did, I might be wrong, but I have a feeling that he did.
And somebody once told me, whether it's right or not I don’t know, but somebody once told me, you know the handrails on the steps in the main entrance to the Majestic?
R- Yes, yes.
They tell me that those came off the Majestic as well.
R- Yes, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Anyway, I’ll probably find somebody that knows for sure one day. It’s only a little thing, but it's interesting, you know?
R- Yes. I tell you what I, we once heard, I don't know whether it's true or not. They said he was in Ireland and he was, he’d no money at all. He just had a penny in his pocket and he threw it in the sea and he said “I’ll start from nothing” Now that, whether it's true or not, but that’s was something we heard once. He’d no money and he had just a penny in his pocket and he were by the sea and he threw it in the sea and he said “I'll start from nothing” and you see, that was before they built the Majestic. How he started I don't know but that was the tale that was going, when I was young.
Well the Majestic really is a marvellous building because, tell me if I’m wrong, but there was the cinema, the ballroom, the billiard hall…
R- Yes. And there was a Gentleman’s club.
Aye, now where…
R- The Gentleman’s Club, and the entrance was up Fernlea Avenue. There was a Gentleman’s Club, they called it the Gentleman’s Club, I remember that.
And there was also, tell me if I am right or wrong, an inside market downstairs wasn’t there?
R- Yes there was, I remember now, there was a market down there.
Yes. That would be under the ballroom wouldn’t it?
R- It would be, yes.
And when you think you know, it was a marvellous building.
R- Oh it was and then he built all those post office buildings.
Yes that’s it, yes. Yes, what are now the Station Chambers.
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R - Yes he did all that block.
Yes, that's it. Anyway, there you are. Can you remember any newspapers coming into the house. You know, did your father have regular newspaper?
R- Oh we used to get the Northern Daily Telegraph. And then we always used to get the Sunday Companion, a weekly, it was like a religious paper you know. My father, he were brought up, there was nothing else only the Church and Chapel where we came from, I told you all about it - didn’t I - last time?
Yes. That's it, aye.
R- And you see, they were all religious.
Did you ever get any papers yourself you know like ...
No, now I think me brother, eldest, me brother Fred, older than me got a comic paper. but I'm not sure. No, we never got any papers.
Did you ever see any of Arthur Mee’s papers? You know like the children’s newspaper?
R- No, no. I don't think there were any when we were young. [Arthur Mee founded the Children’s Newspaper in 1919.]
R- No, I don't think there would be, not when I young, I don't remember. When I was in my teens now, there used to be a girl’s paper, and Polly Green, she was a, you know Polly Green was what they call teenagers now, she’d be about sixteen and there
was always a story. I think it was called Polly Green's Magazine and it was, there were nothing dirty or anything in papers then you know? They were all stories about what girls did and boys, meeting boys you know, no sex you know, no sex in those days.
Well, there would be, but it wasn’t talked about.
R- No no, there was no sex talked about. When they kissed one another you know, but, nothing, nothing else.
Can you ever remember seeing the Police Gazette?
R- No.
I think they called it the Police Gazette, I’m not sure. That was the, you know, it was the paper that all the murder cases were in that…
R- Oh yes. I can remember Doctor Crippen, that case. Can you remember, have you heard of it?
Oh yes, yes. Belle, Belle…
R - Belle Elmore. [Crippen’s wife Cora’s stage name who he murdered]
Is that, was that her name? That’s it.
R- I can remember that and I’d be in my teens then. [Crippen was hanged in November 1910 so Emma would be 15]
Aye, Can you ever remember a theatre company coming to the town?
R- Yes. Leyburn’s Theatre, and they used to come on the Station, where the post office buildings are now. Yes. And it used to be two pence to go, on a Saturday afternoon for children.
And what did they play in.
R- A big, a great big wooden hut, it covered nearly all the ground.
And they brought that with them?
Oh yes, and it would, it would be there, I don't know, perhaps six months or something like that. And I always remember seeing Maria Martin and The Red Barn mystery.
That's it. That’s it.
R- I remember seeing that and then there was another I saw. I only went twice because we weren’t allowed to go really you know.
Can you think of the name of this other?
R- Of this other?
Yes.
R- The Colleen Born, the Colleen Born. The Face at the Window, thatn was one.
Yes, Saved by a Woman. Can you remember that?
R- No.
That was the one that Ernie could remember, he could remember Saved by a Woman and the Red Barn Mystery.
R - Yes, The Red Barn Mystery. Yes
That’s it, yes. Now, apart from that can you ever remember any other drama players coming to the town and playing?
R- No. I can remember the first time I ever went anywhere. I wouldn’t be very old. I wouldn’t be above six or seven I don't think. It was at the Queen's Hall, and it was a magic lantern, slides, and it was a penny to go. Now, that’s the first entertainment I’d ever been to apart from the Chapel.
Now, tell where, the Queen’s Hall was.
R- Where it is now.
Yes, well tell me about it.
R- The Conservative Club.
That’s it yes. And now in those days the dance halls in the town were, there was the Majestic, the Queen’s Hall…
R - And the Albert Hall under the Liberal Club
That’s right, and then there was the Co-op Hall as well wasn’t there?
R- Yes, there was the Co-op Hall, yes.
I didn't know till Ernie Roberts told me this week that the Co-op Hall is now a squash court.
R - A what?
Squash court.
R - Oh, is it?
Aye, I didn’t know.
R- No, I didn’t.
Ernie says he is not going to go playing there, but he says it is a squash court. Aye.
SCG/18 January 2003
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