THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 21st OF SEPTEMBER 1978 AT HEY FARM, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS ARTHUR ENTWISTLE, RETIRED ENGINEER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Right Arthur we’re away again, we're recording. I just want to clear one or two things up to right at the beginning of this tape before we go on any further. You generally find when you've done a couple of tapes there's one or two loose ends. Would you say that it was common for children to stand at the table, as you had to do before you started to work, in Barnoldswick at that time, or do you think your father was being a bit old fashioned?
R- I wouldn’t say every family was addicted to that habit but several families were because I remember my wife when she was a school girl, the two girls lived so far out of town on the farm that it was impossible for them to go home to dinner and they had their dinner at Bell's Dairy who of course, obviously farmers and dairies were a connection, and they had to stand at their meals there but never at home. Only when they were having meals at this particular house. Now I can't say it was a universal custom when I say several families did it, but of course at that age one only had a small circle of acquaintances so you can't speak for the whole town.
Now another thing you were on about, going round to different engagements you know, like when you had your own orchestra, when you were playing for other people. How did you move your instruments about because I mean, you'd be handicapped being a drummer?
R - Well you did it the hard way. You’d have the base drum under one arm, a case full with the side drum and implements in the other and very often one had to make two journey's carrying these physically from home to say, the Con. Club, Albert Hall or Co-op Hall as the case may be. And then again the same thing happened afterwards, you had them to carry home but, when we was playing out of town, you lumped everything into a taxi and on to the taxi and it made a different pleasurable job altogether of playing. I once did a job at Burnley, I went to the rehearsal of a composer who was trying to get on the BBC and of course obviously I couldn't take all my equipment, but I just took the side drum. brushes, castanets and things that gave colour to the various pieces we were going to play, and we had no bass drum which was a big bulky thing, but everything had to be carried in those days.
Aye. Then the talkies came in. I've heard you say that it was November 1932 when the talkies hit Barlick.
(50)
R - well it hit me in November 1932. But that doesn't mean to say the talkies came into that particular place at once. They came into the Majestic at first obviously.
Aye, because you were at the Palace weren’t you.
R - I was at the Palace and I think that if my memory serves me rightly the Palace more or less lay dormant because obviously, talking pictures was a great attraction then. If you could fill the Majestic every night it could cover the costs without two lots of expenditure. Eventually the talkies did get to the Palace but I couldn't say just which year or when.
Yes and when they did come, was that automatically the end of the orchestra?
R- It was the end of the orchestra yes as a, shall we say as a full time job. You got crumbs off the table, as one might term it. When the local choral society had their do at the Palace Theatre you'd a job for the week. Then you got a Pantomime or the odd Variety show which was well spaced apart, infrequently shall we say.
(5 mins)
R- And we just had one advantage, with Fred Hartley having a place at Skipton. If there was a pantomime at the Palace you travelled with them to Skipton the following week by special bus and did the show there. But virtually it was the end of the [era] you know, more or less full time work for an orchestra in the cinema. Well it was, to musicians in this country it was a dreadful impact because in London alone there was ten thousand musicians out of work.
Is that so!
R - Actually so.
Now, I’m sorry Arthur, you've said that and now I'll have to push you. How do you know there was ten thousand musicians out of work in London? What basis have you for saying that?
R- Well, having been a professional musician, we used to get a newspaper weekly called The ERA, which was purely a professional paper for musicians and artists. Advertising, you know, well of course you had the news in as well and what was going on in the music world at the time.
Yes.
R - And I can honestly say and I think I'm quite accurate, if the records could be looked up there were ten thousand musicians out of work, in London alone.
Good enough Arthur, good enough. You must excuse me doing things like that to you but I'm not going to let you get away with statements like that without finding your sources. Now when we were talking about your father and with the business at the bottom of Wapping he was in partnership with a gentleman shall we call him, by the name of Joseph Smith.
R - Correct yes.
And you happened to mention at the time that Joseph Smith and his brothers were instrumental in making Bracewell Hall into a country club. Now can you tell me what you know about that?
R- Not Joseph Smith..
Oh I'm sorry..
(100)
R- Hugh Smith. He was one of the, there was four brothers. There was Hugh Smith and then I forget the name of the oldest brother..[Albert Smith]
It’s right it'll come back.
R – Anyway, Joe was the band master. He was the local band master and music teacher.
So Joe actually had nothing to do with Bracewell Hall.
R- No nothing at all no.
Oh It was the two tacklers then.
R- It was the two tacklers.
Right well you go on and tell your tale Arthur.
R- And they got their heads together and I suppose the money as well and they opened it up as a country club Posh club.
One thing, where were they tackling?
R – Edmondson’s Fernbank.
Good.
R - I think Hugh, the younger brother of the partnership, after a bit gave his job up to run the club. Well obviously somebody had to be there, on the organising side during the day and then later on his older brother gave up work, because it became a successful venture because they opened it out into what we would call today a leisure centre. There was a lake attached to it in the grounds, they opened it up for swimming. Tennis courts, midget golf and of course there was a beautiful ballroom, it being an old building, one of the finest places I've played in for the acoustics if you follow what I mean. Playing in a place with the acoustics so good, it was marvellous. But if I’m not taking too much time up, I’ll digress. It was the Mecca of all local bands to try and get a job at this Bracewell Hall because you used to get bands from Keighley and Leeds. Well obviously, in the town here at that time, you could have a Saturday night dance from a shilling to two shilling, just depends what it was. Well at Bracewell Hall the entrance fee to the dance alone was seven and six (7/6p) which was making it highly selective in that day. And there was a musician friend of mine, we were both out of work, he said let's have a run round and see if we can drum a few jobs up for the band like. Oh and coming back…
One thing Arthur, sorry to interrupt you when we’re talking about the band, are we talking about the Rhythm Boys now?
R- No. I’m talking about his band.
Yes, which was?
R- The Broadway and..
Sorry, I’ll have to do it again, what was his name Arthur?
R- Gladney Bracewell.
Gladney?
R- Bracewell, Sid Bracewell’s brother that lives down here.
(150) (10 mins)
Oh yes Sid's brother, yes.
R - Well we lived next door to one another of course.
Yes right.
R- And we went out on the motor bike. Anyway we're coming past Bracewell Hall and Glad said to me, “What do you say if we call in and see Albert Smith?
That's it. Hugh's brother.
R- Course they knew me with having worked at the Fernbank and of course with having been associated with one of the brothers for a long time, the music man. {Joseph Smith the bandmaster] So we called in and swapped fags and chit chat
and then eventually I thought it looks like I'm going to have to be spokesman, so I said “Well I dare say you know what we've came to see you about Albert.” He says “Yes. I know very well Arthur. Now look, don’t misunderstand me. I don't doubt
your band is as good as any band that I get here but you've got to look at it from my point of view and a business point of view. You play at a lot of dances in the town where people can only afford to pay a shilling, one and six or what have you. Now people come here and pay seven and six to dance to a band. Now honestly, do you think that I could get people to come here and listen to a band and pay seven and six for a band who they can hear for a shilling?” Which, I thought about that a lot afterwards and it was rather funny. Later on I decided to form a new band which was a novelty band on the American Calypso style with accordions and all the rhythm instruments and we dressed in the bolero Spanish style.
What did you call them?
R- El Bonito.
That was a waltz or a piece of music that wasn't it, Bonito?
R- No. It could have been but it's, El Bonito actually means The Good.
Yes , right.
R - The Good. Anyway I trained these boys for about six months and at that time the musicians union rate was half-a-crown (2/6d.) an hour. But there was a lot of undercutting going on because musicians were desperate to work. They’re cutting it from half-a- crown an hour to two bob. Well having learned a lesson from this chap Albert about respective values. When I started out, the first job I had was in the Co-op Hall above the Co-op. Not the Co-op hall further down, but above the Co-op [on Albert Road] There was a local tennis club and that was the only job I ever tendered for and I charged double the union rate. I stuck my neck right out, I charged five shilling an hour per man plus expenses. Before the night was out I'd three bookings
(200)
on the slate and I never put in for another tender again. Now the moral of the story is, at Easter the Smith brothers opened Bracewell Hall for the season and they closed it down at Christmas, actually Boxing Day night dance was the last night until the following Easter. Now it gave me great pleasure because Albert, with being the senior brother, contracted me to play for them to open them at Easter, the first dance of the season, which naturally I stuck the price on to him and I got it without any trouble and for the years after that, while I was here, we always started at Easter and finished on Christmas Eve. We used to have a job in the town here, finish at quarter to twelve, they'd have a taxi waiting at the door. While the last waltz was being played we were packing the instruments up, straight into the taxi, down to Bracewell Hall, started playing there at one o'clock in the morning until five. So we opened the season for him and finished it for him. Now I learnt a lesson there which I think is relevant today, there's a lot can be in a name and there's a lot can be in the value you put upon yourself.
(15 mins)
You’re right Arthur, you’re quite right. I agree with that, and so Bracewell Hall was a successful venture and went on.
R- A very successful venture but I left the town, either fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, 1939 New Year's Day. Well actually I was working at the Majestic ballroom on New Year's Eve and that was my last job I did in Barnoldswick 'cause I moved away from the town on New Year's Day.
What eventually happened to Bracewell Hall? Do you know?
R- Well, not living in the town and having very little communication with people, 'cause we only had the wife's mother left here eventually who obviously wouldn't have any interest in what we're discussing now, well I heard that Bracewell Hall had been dismantled. But I find out this time, coming up to Barnoldswick that such is not the case. That Bracewell Hall is still there. I haven't been down to see for myself, because it stands back off the main road behind the church so you can't see it from the road, never could. But sometime I’ll make it my way to go down and see if it’s still there. [Arthur was wrong here. The hall was demolished in 1954 I think and prior to this there had been a fire if I remember rightly. I don’t think it was used after the Rover Company moved out after using it for offices during WW2.]
(250)
Yes very good Arthur. Now then one other question about the music in the town. From the way you've been talking it seems to me that there was far more live music about in Barnoldswick then than there is now?
R- Oh definitely.
Yes. Now can you start and just give me a bit of a run down in the town of the different orchestras, choral societies, bands, string quartets, buskers, anything you like.
R- Well we had a very successful brass band..
Which was?
R- The Barnoldswick Prize Brass Band. Famous mainly for it's concert work, did a tremendous amount of concert work because it was the boast of our band master Mr Joseph Smith that we didn't need a Sunday suit because we was out in uniform every Sunday. We’d be either at Blackburn where they have one or two parks. You’d play at one park in the afternoon. Shoot across town, have your tea and play at another park in the evening. Played as far away as Bradford, Blackburn mid-week when there's early closing day at the shops, that’s with the brass band.
So for the brass band the usual sort of venue was a public park?
R- Yes we did a lot of concert work. Both indoors and outside.
Now run down through the others for me. There'll be other organisations.
R - We had a successful orchestral society, obviously they're limited in an orchestral society very much. In other words, the balance is against them as opposed to a brass band. For instance a stringed instrument, you've got to be static, you've got to be on a stage. You’d probably give two concerts in the year. String quartets..
Now wait a minute, let's stick with the orchestra for a minute. Where did they hang out, for want of a better term?
R- Well we practiced in the Con Club on Sunday morning.
Did you say we?
R - Well I was a member of the orchestra.
Oh, you were a member were you at one time?
R - Oh yes, I was a timpanist.
Yes and you used to practice in the Con Club on Sunday morning.
R- Then of course we gave the usual concerts, happen two a year, in the Palace.
(300)
Yes.
R - When you come to, if I may drop down now to what we call string quartets. At that time of day amongst better class people it was the custom to have what they call ‘At Homes’. Of course it grew bigger eventually where you'd have an ‘at home’ with cotton factories competing against each other to raise funds for the hospital. But I remember playing, being invited to a party and out of the guests at the party, informally, we formed a small orchestra of eight individuals. Which comprised of course piano, cello. Viola, bass fiddle and flute and clarinet. Quite a good orchestra in, well you wouldn't go any where today where you could say call out a member of a party and form a little orchestra like that. But that of course was the exception to the rule. I should think everybody, a lot of the lads in those days were interested. And of course we had a craze sweep from America again round the district, synonymous with the talkies, which was the ukulele banjo. At the time of ‘When I'm Cleaning Windows’ what's the fellows name?
(20 mins)
George Formby.
R- George Formby. About that time of course the ukulele became a predominant instrument amongst the youth. If you could play the mouth organ and ukulele you'd, you know what I mean, you could get along.
Yes. How common was it in those days Arthur for somebody to be able to play a musical instrument?
R - Well there wasn't many. Let's look at it this way, say in the 1936, things were starting to look up and a good many homes of, what shall I say, verging on to the upper end of the working class where they'd got one or two in the family working. Where they had a piano, and of course obviously went for lessons. And it wasn’t many party's or wherever you went where you couldn't get somebody who could play the piano. 'Cause obviously the piano was one of the first instruments that domestically was, well if you had a piano you was one up on the Jones's.
That’s it yes, yes I understand that.
(350)
R- And if you had a daughter or a son that could play it were better still.
Yes. When did you first see your first radio set?
R- The first radio set. Well when Manchester opened up there was no such thing as radio shops in this town or any town. The nearest I can remember was, I started to build a radio, a two valve radio set and I had to go to Manchester to buy the components.
What year was this?
R- (Pause) ..I'm just trying to think.
You’re right, I’ll tighten the bands on you.
R- It's, oh I should say about twenty five, (1925) near as I can remember accurately.
There's just one thing about that Arthur. You've said a very interesting thing there. I've lived in the north of England all my life and when people have talked about radio I've always somehow assumed that, one thinks of ‘2LO calling’ you know.
R - Well you did have London..
Well I've always assumed somehow, whether I’m right or whether it's just an assumption with listening to programmes from London about the early days of the radio. I've always assumed that the radio station which could be picked up here was London, you know.
R – No. The only radio station you could pick up here and if you lived in the environs of Manchester, I don't know how many miles it could cover, but the first thing of course, the simple wireless if you like to call it that was a crystal set and a pair of earphones. And you had freak receptions, in other words you could get a reception happen fifty miles away, where they’d be normally getting a radius of thirty miles. And that's why you could have a crystal detector with a one valve amplifier. But as I say, there were no wholesale manufacturers of sets. I had to build my condensers myself. Buy the vanes, buy the screwed rod, spacing washers, ebonite discs and the solenoid to enclose the tuning condenser. Invariably you built 'em on a sloping desk. Well I built a two valve set and I'd exhausted all my finances with so doing.
(400) (25 mins)
So that 1 couldn't afford to get the batteries. [laughs] because the batteries, there was no such thing as a specially built high tension battery. The only way you could get 120 volts working capacity was buying torch batteries. Of course in those days the torches were the flat battery. Buying enough of those to make a hundred and twenty volts, (120 volts) which invariably you had them in a damned long box.
Aye 1 ½ volts. Wait a minute, what were they, there were three cells in them, they were 4 ½ volts weren't they if I remember rightly, them flat batteries?
R – 4 ½ volts yes.
So you'd need, a quick reckon up, about thirty batteries wouldn't you? You'd need about twenty six batteries, sommat like that.
R- You’d thirty batteries and then you had to have a couple of low tension accumulators which was for the filament and this is where all the, Holdsworth and Phineas Brown and others, enterprising small engineers, reaped a rare old profit with charging batteries up for you.
Yes. Newton tells a good story about that. They had come Royce dynamos down at Moss Shed and he said the engine tenter [Stanley Fisher] there made more bloody money out of charging batteries than he did out of running the engine.
R- [Arthur laughs] Well he could.
He said he used to have the dynamo room full of radio batteries he said, “I think he charged every battery in Barlick in there.”
R - He could very well have done.
Aye.
R- But anyway, come back to the high tension, once you'd laid your money out in your high tension battery, the idea was you bought one battery a week and you started at one end of the box and you took one out and you put a new one in at this end and by doing this every week, you kept your voltage, well your amperage if you care to call it that, constant. Just sufficient capacity to keep the set running. Well funnily enough, the chap who got my set that I built was Joseph Smith the band master, and I remember being invited down to his house. There was no such thing as a loud speaker, and you'd sit round a table with terminal blocks there and you'd shove your earphones in, screwed 'em down and you were in business and with having valves you could get 2LO London in those days. And of course for such as myself interested in jazz music it was a virtual paradise because you could listen to the top class Kit Kat Club bands and, you know what I mean, at first class hotels.
(450)
Yes but now wait a minute, you’ve said something there. I know what you mean. Now you've mentioned one band, the Kit Kat club band.
R- Harry Roy.
Was that Harry Roy?
R- Harry Roy was there for a bit.
Just name a few more names, you know, bands from that period.
R - Well there was Ambrose, Roy Fox, Harry Roy. There was another orchestra and there were two pianists were the leaders. I can't just call the name to mind. But every night, six nights a week, excluding Sunday of course, you could listen to one of the top hotel bands. And then of course as time went on I did a bit of wireless work for Wilkinson’s down below and it got to a pitch where screen grid valves came in and your reception was keener and you could get stations from far away. The big thing was being able to separate one station from another in the old days, and unless you had injected signal, in other words you narrowed your radio band down artificially with an induced signal manufactured by the set. The early sets were what we called on the reaction principle. You could turn a knob until it started to whistle and all the neighbours round about you were playing bloody hell. [laughs] Because it was transmitting it back on to their aerial. But I did a lot of wireless work where it got to the point where I needed more scientific instruments to make, to build these sets and test them as you went along. Then of course I dropped out of the rat race and electricity was coming into the town and of course the next thing was of course the mains sets were coming in with the mains energised speakers which give you a terrific booming bass. You know what
(500)
I mean, amplification far and beyond that you could ever have got with an ordinary battery set. As I say I used to go out repairing sets and my cousin Bill [Bill Entwistle] down below. I'd left I’d left Brogden, he was still living up Brogden. He had sommat went wrong with his set and at that time we weren't speaking. [Bill was a very acerbic character!]
(30 mins)
R- So he called a fella up, he had a fella come up who said he knew all about wireless. And of course a valve in the cabinet, valves sometimes are a bit stiff, and he pulls this valve out and It went pop against the roof of the cabinet you know. Well Bill give him his bloody marching orders because he’d buggered a valve up straight away and they weren't cheap in those days. And eventually I went up and got it going for him. There's another interesting thing here. This might not be important.
You keep saying that Arthur and then coming out with gems. Keep going!
R- But as I say I'd been called out up Brogden to repair a set and of course I stopped fairly late to hear the band and see that everything was working all right. I used to carry a little attaché case with me. Screw drivers and drills and tackle and pliers. You know what I mean, spare 2BA nuts and bolts and what have you. And so I was coming along the street at one o'clock in the morning. I lived in Ivy Terrace and I bumps into the sergeant and a copper.
Now there was a bridge then over the Butts Beck, where the Butts Mill still is, just a narrow bridge across. We met there, course as I might have said before, being George Handley's son-in-law I were more or less pretty well known and as a musician in the town. But of course, one o'clock in the morning and here am I with my bag which today a copper would have classed them as...
The instruments! [both laugh]
R- Instruments, burglar's tools. As a matter of fact the sergeant said to me he says “What's tha got in theer lad/” I says “Well, I've just been out repairing a wireless.” “Well” he says “Let's have a look what tha has inside.” Course I've got little drilling machine, you know, if you wanted to put another nut and bolts somewhere, screwdrivers and wire and soldering iron and, you know, all the bag of tricks. Course he were only being on the safe side, I could have been a burglar for all he knew but of course he could have substantiated my story any time with the wife’s father. But coming back to the early days of wireless, I tell some people this today, they don’t believe it, their mind cannot accept it, it just boggles at it. As I said, the band we played in was in great demand for shows and concert work and it come Kilnsey show.
Which band was that?
R- Barnoldswick Prize Band.
That's it yes. Just to keep it straight.
R - Well it came to Kilnsey Show you know, it’s quite a big do up in the Dales and we got the job of playing. You didn’t play all day, you played for so long and then you had a ten. Take ten minutes break and play again. Well when you had ten minutes break you had a walk round and a run out and a bun or sommat. Anyway there's a chap there with a little van and outside the back of the van he’s got a trestle table, long boards on trestles and at the back of the van he's got a loud speaker, the first one I ever saw. Course I'm happen over running the story, I'm going back now from what I've told you previously.
Yes. What year was this?
R- It would be round about 1934/35. Would it hell, it ud be before. I weren't married, it ud be before 1926/7. 1927 round about. Anyway he had this loud speaker blaring away and of course naturally it was a new mystery and a miracle and he got a crowd of the local yokels. One would care to call them in that day, farm hands and what have you, and when he’d got a nice crowd round him, he switched the loud speaker off and for tuppence a time you could listen in with earphones round this table. Now could you picture anybody today being so naive as to pay tuppence to listen to an unspecified programme regardless of what the subject matter was whether it were talking or music or whatever. Paying tuppence to have the earphones on for the pleasure of listening for a few minutes. Now I've told people this many times and this generation, I don't suppose your children would visualise it being possible.
Well you'd never think of it would you. I've heard me mother talk about going to dances where they all had earphones on. They were strung down from wires in the ceiling.
R- I’ve never heard of owt like that..
(35 mins)
Yes. I've heard me mother talk about that. That ud be in Ashton-under-Lyne, Dukinfield, Manchester you know, and she says she can remember going to dances where everybody had earphones on, and she said you had to be very careful which way you danced. You had to keep your eye on which way your wires were going.
R- At one side like that.
And they had the wires strung across and the earphones, they could have been on sliders on 'em or something like that.
R- Aye I were going to say that would be the problem.
But she said she’d been to dances where they danced to music over the earphones.
R- Oh well, that's a new one on me.
Yes and you can just imagine that can't you because there were no Susie cables then, no coil up wires. It ud be flex draped all over the place. I bet it were like a bloody spider's web.
R- Aye I can see 'em finishing up like the maypole! [Both laugh]
Yes, anyway, all very interesting, all very interesting. Now there's one thing I’d like to get straight. We're coming towards the end of this tape and there's one thing I'd like to get on it. You'll realise I’m doing a lot of work with people who were born in this town at the time you were born and when they left school there was only one job for them and that was weaving.
R- True enough, weaving yes.
(650)
But you see as usual, Entwistle being a man of quality not only managed to escape weaving at first, he finally manages to escape altogether. So you started off as..
R- A sheet metal worker. Tinsmith and coppersmith it was in those days.
Now where did you serve your apprenticeship? I realise you didn’t finish but where did you go to serve your apprenticeship.
R- Didn't finish. Well, at the bottom of Manchester Road here, which is now the Boutique Box, there's a yard at the back and across the yard is a little, well I wouldn't call it a house but it's one room down and one room upstairs and that was the workshop.
Now which yard is that?
R- Well it’s near the Commercial isn't it? Is it the Commercial or Cross Keys?
Seven Stars.
R - Seven Stars.
Was that the Seven Stars yard?
R - No it was a separate yard from the Seven Stars yard.
Aye.
R- When you go down again if you just look you’ll see that it is a separate entity to the Seven Stars.
Aye.
R - And of course there was the usual cellar underneath the shop. Well all the tinsmithing was done across the road. Household utensils, something you don’t hear or see of today, were what we called ladling cans. If you can visualise a large pint pot, only it would hold half a gallon, with a handle on. Which was used for getting hot water out of your set boiler to put into your dolly tub.
That's it.
R - They called them ladling cans, we made a lot of those.
I've heard 'em called lading tins, have I?
R- Well lading tins, ladling cans, same thing.
Yes.
R - Just to get water out of one into the other. Of course naturally being a textile place there was a lot of work making weft tins, feather oilers and such.
Yes.
R- Wage tins, oil drippers which were put under the bearings at some of the factories, you know, to stop the grease.
(700)
R- Dropping on to the looms and cloth. Even got so far at one time as they, you know the bottom shaft running in the loom, putting tin guards over them, which were entirely bloody stupid, but nevertheless somebody ordered it and paid. Another job we had the gearing, the bevel gearing on the shafting. It must have been factory regulations at that time, all the gearing had to be boxed in with metal. It was quite a skilful job making these gear cases and of course there were little trap doors in at the appointed place for the oiler or greaser to get at the grease cups.
Yes. What was the name of that tinsmiths?
R- Yates Brothers, they were off-comers, they came from Blackburn way.
Aye, that's it. Yates & Thom at Blackburn, Yates Brothers must be a common name over there.
(40 mins)
R- Well of course I did, I started there at twelve years old half time, worked in the morning one week and afternoons another. I started at a wage of ten shillings (10/-) a week, and..
You started at a wage of 10/- a week!
R - I started at a wage of ten shillings a week and I got six pence for me-self off the boss.
That would be in 1920.
R- Yes.
That wasn't a bad wage then.
R- It was a damn good wage then.
How come you started on a wage of ten bob a week as an apprentice?
R - Well, I'm telling you the truth.,
Yes. Oh I don't dispute that Arthur but it seems amazing that.
(750)
R- It was a damn good wage. Of course bear in mind the wages in the factory were on an average £2 if you were a weaver to 50/- (fifty bob). You know, if you were a good weaver. I’ve known weavers coming out with thirty five bob. But unfortunately the little firm that I was with, the older brother who was the senior partner, he was an inveterate gambler and I’ve seen him do jobs for say the local painter or somebody. Somebody would bring a job in who had got to know he was a marvellous billiard player and he started spending a lot of time in the pub playing billiards for the club. And a chap would come in and have a job done, might be a couple of quid. Chap ud say “Go on I’ll toss thee double or quits.” He tossed him and he’d finish up with doing the bloody job for nothing. Well of course if was inevitable he ran to ruin, firm banked, and it was a pity because Willy Yates was a good worker. The other brother, Tom Yates, who came from Kelbrook, he was a very good worker and his wife was a marvellous woman. She was Scots you know. Because every afternoon she used to bring us a cup of tea and cakes up, you know, into the workshop. I think I owe the fact of getting the job there 'cause as I said, my dad at that time had this shop at the top of Wapping and he got to know Tom Yates somehow or another and I was
making a steam engine at that time and I were wanting some brass for the
(800)
casing for the boiler and I know I went down to Tom Yates one evening. and brass, even in those days, was a scarce and costly commodity. And 1 got this brass off him and he said “Well 1 shall want to see that boiler when tha’s made it lad!” Of course
I went and took it up. 'Cause I had me own lathe at eleven years old and I can’t remember when I learnt to solder. You know, with me father being what he was. In other words I was brought up in an atmosphere of, well what can you call it, elementary engineering or mechanics today.
Yes. So they went bank. What happened then?
R- Well they went bank. Now there was a fella lived on The Nook who had been..
On where?
R - The Nook. Well there's a little street on the top of Jepp Hill that leads you eventually into Rainhall Road. [King Street] Well that first little bit opposite the British Legion Club was called the Nook. There were some very old cottages there.
Right.
R- So, there was a chap lived there, I forget his name, who, I don't know whether he’d been a tinsmith himself, or whether his father had been a tinsmith. But somehow or other the old man got to know that he’d got a folding machine, one or two swaging rollers, ratchet stake and tinman’s Jinny (jenny, engine) and dad had the glorious idea of me starting
(850)
up as a tinsmith. Well of course at that juvenile age I'd no business potentialities and the old man didn't go out [looking for tinsmith work] He might have put the odd bottom in buckets and done repairs but let's put it this way, it wasn't enough to give me a living. So eventually mother turned round she says “Well, tha’ll have to come in and learn to weave and you'll always have a trade in thee hands then.”
R - Well unfortunately, [laughs] I did have to go and learn to weave.
(45 mins)
But at the same time I was playing with Roy Bolton's dance band and coming home sometimes at three o'clock in a morning. And when I got two looms, to keep meself awake and the looms were running, I had a stool between the looms and I used to sit so that the beam were just catching me in the small of the back. So that if I fell asleep, you understand what I mean.
Yes.
R - I were losing a hell of a lot of sleep for a young fella.
Where were you weaving at?
R- Where did I learn to weave? That was down in the Wellhouse Mill.
Which firm?
R - Oh now then, you're asking me, I can't remember the name of the firm.
It's reight, you’re reight. What were your impressions going into the mill to weave after doing tinsmithing?
R - Well shall I say I could never concentrate because of having been used to the percussion sound of drums with an orchestra. The rattle and bang of the shuttles and the machinery, silly as it night sound. used to play bloody tunes in my head and I’d be lost, I’d be away. Hypnotised if you will.
Arthur you've just said the same thing that Ernie Roberts said about weaving. He said “Do you know, you could go into a trance.” He said you could hear tunes in the sound of the shafting and looms.
R- Well that's my experience.
Well there you are, borne out by..
R- Substantiated evidence.
Substantiated by Signalman Roberts. There you are.
R - Well I might tell you I got out of the mill as soon as I could. But, oh may I just mention one very peculiar thing that happened to me at Wellhouse mill, and people could say I was suffering from an hallucination. Because I’d two looms there and me mother had four looms.
Good God, this isn't going to be one of your bloody ghosts is it? [Arthur believed in ghosts and was noted for his stories about them.]
R - Pardon?
This isn't going to be one of your bloody ghosts is it?
R- Yes definitely.
Go ahead Arthur.
R- It’s as true as I stand here Stanley.
You’re sat down!
R - I turned away from me mother’s alley and I knew the shuttle, the cop were running out on my loom. I turns round, ‘cause you can see when it comes to an end. I’m like half way in between the end of my loom and me mother’s, and a shuttle come in the box here, you can see. Well I turned round, put me hand on the knocker off and there was a human arm, male arm, this arm, hairy as a bloody gorilla [laughter] grasping that knob that I was going to get hold of. And as soon as I saw it, it went. Now then it were too quick to have been an illusion, if I'd have been stood there watching that bloody knob and I’d seen a hand appear and gradually disappear I’d have said I'd had an hallucination or my imagination had been playing tricks. But never-the-less there it is for what it’s worth.
[I had every intention of doing more tapes with Arthur because he was a good example of a man who had left the area in the late 1930s to look for better work. He went to Coventry and set on for the Rover Company as a tool room man, the highest machining skill in the factory, and stayed there all his life. His forte was high precision surface grinding and his lung cancer was a consequence of being exposed to very fine grinding dust for years. Arthur went back to Coventry and died, I never saw him again. He was a good man.]
SCG/09 May 2003
7,281 words.