THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 4TH OF JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Tape 79/AD/4
Now then Horace, we'll go straight on with family life. What do you remember about Christmas when you were a lad?
R – Well, the usual thing we got were apple and orange, and a few nuts but no presents when we were very young. Me sister’d probably get a doll but we didn't get anything at all only plenty of food. It were always a big occasion at our house were Christmas because all the relations lived round about, and they came to our house in turn and we went to theirs. I’d an uncle and aunt lived next door, we always went to their house and they come to ours. And an aunt and uncle that was unmarried, they came and had Christmas dinner with us, and probably tea, and we were all there. And then as the family
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grew up in the latter years over 20 sat down to dinner at Christmas day, and tea, and supper as long as me mother lived. And since me mother died it's always been kept up. And through the war years we always managed to be at home for Christmas, you see. But we never went anywhere, we’d never, only to relations, we’d never any other engagement at Christmas time, we always kept this as a family party.
How about Easter, was that a holiday at Easter?
R – Yes, but you see, with being church people Easter were always acknowledged, or recognised you see, you didn't do anything Good Friday only go to church, and if we were working, well we didn't do because Good Friday wasn’t a holiday round us, it were Easter Monday you see?
Yes.
R - Some firms laiked Friday and played Saturday and Monday, and others played at Friday and, and .. have I got it the wrong way about? But the people that worked Friday played Monday that's the way it were.
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Yes, that’s it. Did you ever have pace eggs?
R – Yes, we ..well we used to boil them in coffee, and put pieces of orange, onion skin on, stick them on and that kept the coffee dye from going on to them, you could make all sorts of patterns. And boil them hard, then nobody ate them, you never eaten them, you played about with them and, then threw them away. We didn't eat them. But I know we used to have fun, we’d be boiling these eggs and dyeing them and drawing on with them with indelible pencil. But they were never eaten, we’d just a bit of fun and we didn't have chocolate Easter eggs.
Aye. Were there any musical instruments in the house?
R - Yes. Me father must have been able to play it, a clarinet. There were always a clarinet so he must have been a musician at one time. It were always about. And then I had a brother, when he got older he joined Carleton brass band, and he got it, he used to play it but not in a band, he just played it as a hobby. And then a daughter of his, they formed a school band and it went into the school band and it’ll be still there. If it’s still whole and hearty it’ll be in some school band round about Carleton or Skipton, school orchestra.
Aye. And remember, musical instruments can include lots of things you know. How about ...
R- Well we had a zither. Somebody came round Carleton hawking them. Selling them very cheap and they supplied, I think one half of the houses in Carleton had a zither.
Aye. Now that’s interesting. Can you remember where that was made?
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R- Well, I couldn't tell you but they were foreign, it were foreign language on it, it wore about this big, laid flat on the table [indicates two feet long], and you had an article to pluck the strings with. And of course we played with it and broke them and tighten them up, you know, you'd a key to turn them. Well we’d tighten and tighten till [they broke] but eventually it' d go to the tip, that's what happened to the zither.
Aye. How about things like mouth organs, Jews Harp?
R- Well, no Jews harp but we used to get mouth organs. I went to the
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sea side with my father, I’d be only young, and I got a mouth organ bought. It were at Morecambe, and I got a mouth organ. And it still sticks in my mind, it had a couple of bells on and you could flick this thing and the bells rang and I would have this mouth organ. I can remember me father wanted me just to buy a smaller one that were more simple but I would have this with the bells on.
Good salesman that designed that. He must have been. Did any of you sing?
R- No, not brothers and sisters, I had a nephew who were in Carleton church choir.
Aye .. Did you ever have a sing song at home?
R – No. Not when we were younger. Eventually me mother bought me sister a piano to learn to play the piano and Christmas time we used to have a sing song, me sister’d play carols and hymns and songs. We still have the piano. Aye, it's a good one, a German over strung. Never played, only at Christmas times.
Were there any, did you use to play any games in the house? You know, either with your parents or without your parents?
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R - Well, a favourite of me mother's were Ludo. She’d sit up day and night playing Ludo. And then we got on to card games as we got older but my aunt that was religious, unmarried, it were immoral to play cards. Aye, it were.
Aye .. The devil's prayer book. Ever heard that phrase Horace?
R - Yes. And to go, drilled into us not to go to the Liberal Club or the Conservative Club. Oh no. And still me father were the Secretary of the Conservative Club. And he had medals for being Secretary, long service.
Oh. His sister didn't think much of that then, his sister in law?
R - No, his sister. Aye. And they were a right Conservative family. Aye, true blues. Well, they were either true blues or true liberals in those days.
Yes, that’s it, aye.
R - And there were both a Conservative Club and a Liberal Club and there is neither now in Carleton.
Did the family have a regular newspaper?
R – No, not after me father died.
Well, how about before your father died?
R – Well, I couldn't really remember, I couldn't.
How about a regular magazine? Did your mother get a woman's magazine?
R – Well, in a village there is a lot of swapping goes on. You’d buy one and you swap it round till, and get perhaps half a dozen others in its passage round.
Yes.
R - And we’d always get the Craven Herald. See, Conservative paper.
Aye.
R - And then eventually the Pioneer were the Liberal paper ...
Yes, I were going to say there was two papers in Skipton then weren’t there?
R - And then they amalgamated you see. And it’s the Craven Herald and Pioneer. But we always had the Craven Herald but not a daily
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paper. Until, it’d be after the war. They came round pressing us to take a daily paper.
This’d be after the first world war.
R- No, second world war.
Second world war.
R - Daily Herald were the great persons [sic]. They took so many, took this paper for so long and then you got a dictionary or something like that. And we used to change every time they came round with a fresh, a better offer.
Did any of the family… Oh, now, wait a minute, the newspapers or the magazines. Can you ever remember seeing anything like a woman's magazine in the house, you know, Woman's Weekly* or ..
R - Woman's Weekly, but we used to get it from round next door.
Yes. How about things, now I'm not sure when these started Horace, but how about things like Arthur Mee, you know the Children Newspaper, things like that, did you ever have them?
R- We didn’t but me uncle [Fred] next, in the next street, he had a nephew living with him from Australia, [This would be Geoffrey] and they always used to get the Children Newspaper, Arthur Mee, and I used to go there and read them all.
How about … Can you ever remember seeing the Clarion?
R- No never, not in a Conservative household.
Never. That's it. Yes.
R- Oh never, no Clarion.
Can you remember when the Clarion was on the go though?
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R- I remember faintly. Aye, faintly.
Aye. Now, we get on to politics later, it's interesting. Was there, did any of the family belong to a library? Was there a library in Carleton?
R - There were a village library.
Yes.
R- but there were a lot of old books, old fashioned books and I used to go and get them. There were Jules Verne and his ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea’ and ‘Round the World in Eighty Days’ and the Boys Own Paper you see? And uncle Fred who wasn't married and lived with his sister in the next street, Mary Alice, he used to take a lot of books, ‘Farm, Field, and Fireside’ that were gardening. And he’d all sorts of hobbies, bookbinding were one of them. And there’d be the attic, same as we had and he'd all sorts up there, it were a right Aladdin’s cave aye. He went in for photography, bookbinding, all sorts, he kept hens, gardening, territorially(?) all hobbies. And I used to go and help him and then he'd all these bound volumes that 1 could go look at. He used to do the lot, it were very interesting.
Aye. Was there anybody in the family who didn’t read or write? Anybody that was illiterate?
R - No.
How about books in the house, at home, apart from library books? Were there some books about, you know, or…
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R – There’d be books about, but they’d be old fashioned ones, there'd be
no up to date ones.
When you say they'd be old fashioned ones, can you remember any of the titles?
R – No. Tom Brown’s Schooldays, that sort of thing.
Aye. Did you have any toys? As we think of toys nowadays, you know, like Meccano, whatever it was ?
R - No we didn't. No we didn’t have toys, but as I say I could always go into the next street, this cousin of mine that had come from Australia. You see his aunt and uncle they bought him all sorts of things, and we used to go there and play with him. Meccano sets and he seemed to get everything. See there were only one and whether they got his father's money… I suppose they would.
Yes, quite possibly for looking after the child.
R - And it’d be spent, it’d be spent on him.
Yes. If your mother had any spare time when she was at home, what would she do with it? What would she do in her spare time?
R - Well I know one thing we used to do on fine days in Summer. They used to go into what they called Eddie’s Woods, Mr Eddie owned the Grange and there were a lot of woods around, happen , there were two, part at the bottom of this wood and two arms happen a mile long, each of them.
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And we'd go across the fields, through the gate, and climbed the wall gathering firewood. And me mother and all of us’d go and gather firewood and carry it home and chop it up and stack it up in the back yard for Winter. And use it for baking, pushing logs under the fire oven.
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She always said she could bake better with wood. Though you’d always to be putting it on, it didn't last long. If you could get any oak, that were the stuff for lasting and burning.
If your father had any spare time, what would he do?
R - Fishing. He used to take me with him fishing into the canal. We used to go through the fields and come out at Niffany.
Would you say that was his overriding hobby?
R - Hobby? Yes. Well, when you worked five and a half days a week and he’d have a garden and then he were the verger at the church and that included cleaning it and Sunday going to the service and tending to the boiler. I mean, I don‘t see that he had much spare time.
Aye. Now that’s something, that’s another thing that I want your opinion about in a while. What time would you get up in the morning, a normal morning going to school say. What time would you get up?
R – Well, half past eight, twenty minutes to nine, because we'd only a few yards to go to the school.
Aye? So late. Your mother’d be up earlier?
R - Oh she’d be up to see me father off to work at six and then start with the washing, half past five.
Aye. What time did you go to bed? Children?
R - Well, it’d vary, seven o’clock, eight o’clock. But I can remember I had to be in bed, in the house, when I grew up a bit, I had to be definitely in the house by nine, there were no stopping out. And after dark .. after dark and in winter you didn’t go out, there were nothing to go out for. We hadn't to frequent the Clubs and you hadn’t to run wild.
Run wild, aye. With everything that entails. What time did your parents go to bed?
R- I couldn't tell you.
Didn't know.
R - No.
Did you have any pets?
R- Only one, a rabbit. And we were close to some gardens and it got out one night then escaped. And me mother’d been wandering around them gardens, got up right early at the morning seeking it. She laid in bed and imagined that this one rabbit, the garden would be bare. And she went wandering round these gardens to find it, and she spotted it there, a chap had caught it and shut it up in his greenhouse. So we got it back, but we hadn’t to have no more after that.
What happened to it when it reached the end of its course?
R - Oh we wouldn't eat it. No, we could get enough rabbits without eating the pet.
Did anyone in the family smoke?
R – Well, we've all done intermittently, but never a lot. And me oldest brother never did, he never did smoke but I did part and me other brothers. And one of them smokes heavily now, me youngest brother.
How about your dad?
R - Oh, he smoked a pipe. Aye, it were always pipes.
Twist?
R - I couldn't say.
How about your mother?
R- Never. No, never smoked.
Did anyone in the family ever back the horses, you know, gamble?
R – No, I had a uncle that did, an uncle on me mother’s side. He were quite keen, he were a farmer. He were a batchelor him, he were all right. But he did back horses.
Can you remember when the family had its first radio?
R - Well I think everybody had a wireless before we did. I do, I think everybody. We’d be the last person to get one, me mother, with always
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being short of money she were naturally cautious. But we bought one second hand. The church organist, a man called Percy Malton, he used to live at Skipton and he came on to Carleton playing the organ and taught me sister
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piano lessons. And he landed up one day, somebody that had a wireless to sell, batteries you know, accumulator and it were only three or four pound I think and we got that. But that were the first wireless we had, I knew everybody else had. I’d stand outside listening to people's radios. But not us and we never pressed for anything you see. We obeyed me mother, we didn’t say “Why can't we have a wireless?” If we had pestered we’d have got one, but we didn’t.
Would you say your mother was a very strong woman? You know, strict woman, stern…?
R – No, she… far from being stern. She must have been strong, strong as a horse to bring our crowd up. And go out cleaning and washing and ironing.
Yes. Would you say .. looking back, obviously this is with hindsight, but what would you say the condition of women like your mother was in those days? I mean for instance, one of the questions that I've asked is whether your father ever did any jobs in the house. I mean nowadays it’s quite usual, in some cases the woman goes out to work and the fellow stays at home and looks after the children. Now, try and tell me what… Well, I apologise for that, that’s being impudent that, you’re very capable of telling me. Tell me what your impressions were of women’s station in life. You know, during your younger years?
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R- Well, you never gave it a thought. You, knew the people that went out to work, you knew the people that didn't go out to work, but you didn't reason why and you didn’t reason what they did or what they didn’t do. But my oldest brother, his wife had had a baby and she had rather a rough time of it and she'd a prolapse. She wasn’t well after that and he did the housework, main of it. And we seemed to think he were a cissie like, it was something that weren't done.
Yes.
R - Doing the housework when he came home from work at night, but we didn't reason why, we didn't know that she, that she was [poorly] The idea was that she was a bit lazy, putting on him as they call it. ‘Puts on him’ but we realised after, she wasn’t fit to do the work because she were very frail. But anybody else, you 'd see the man doing the windows and you'd to say he were a Mary Ann. You see? “He’s a right Mary Ann doing t’windows outside and shaking the mats.”
Aye. That’s it.
R – But they'd a right [duty] to do when the wife were out running four looms as they did in those days.
Well, you and I understand what you mean, but in those days how many…? I get the impression, doing these tapes that really, women had a very rough life. They had a very hard life, especially women that worked in the mill. I mean, many a time I ask the question “What did your mother do in her spare time in the home?” And whoever’s speaking to me laughs and says she never had any spare time you know? How common do you think that was Horace?
R- In our case there were never a job for us to do when we came home from working, there were never anything to do. She never said “Will you do this?” or '”Will you do that?” But as she got older we did used to do things, unasked you see? There were a day for doing windows but we’d do it at Thursday night
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Instead of leaving it till Friday you see, so as it were done for her. And
then she'd say “You don't put enough water on you know, you’ve left them streaky!”
Aye, but even so you'd done ‘em.
R - Yes.
But would you say on the whole that women did have a hard life?
R - Well, they all had. A cousin of mine, lower down the street, she were married and her husband were weaving and she went out weaving an well. And she put the child out to mind. And she told me that they were making about, they couldn't make a pound a week weaving then. That'd be first world war because she were a lot older than me. And she said that she worked all week and what she had to pay out for one thing and another, she'd a shilling left for working the whole week. Getting up at half past five and taking t’child out and leaving her there all day and paying for Libby’s Food [baby milk] She’d a shilling left for a week’s work. Sixteen shilling a week weaving at Slingsby’s you see? It were cheap stuff, all export stuff, thin stuff you know, heavy sized, 100% sizing. Aye. China clay.
Yes. Aye, of course the cloth’d still be sold by weight then wouldn’t it?
R - Yes it were. And they got to get the weight, it were one thing that taper had to do were to get his weight.
Aye that’s it. Don't go on too much about that because that is something you are going to get pumped about later! But .. you're quite right. I mean that, well, I mean you know that as well as I do, I mean that was a terrible thing, heavy sizing.
R - Yes.
Now, social life outside the home. Where did you usually play outside the house? You know, if you were playing out, where would it be?
R - In the streets in Winter time and Summer nights. And then holiday time in Carleton Ghyll, it were a free for all what they call it, we called it Ghyll but if you read any books it's Glen. They talk about Carleton Glen, but we called it Ghyll. There was a disused corn mill there. It’s
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still there. The wheel’s been taken out but in my younger days the dam were there and the corn mill were there. And we’d put the clough [sluice gate] down and fill it up and then set the wheel on. And then in Summer time these corn mill dams, we went bathing in them.
Yes.
R - You see they’d be about a yard deep perhaps, quite safe, it were safer than the river. You seep you got one stern warning when you were kids, ‘Keep away from the river!” So you went up the Ghyll, and you'd get old sacking fastened together and have a tent, make a fire, roast potatoes, tickling trout in the beck, you’d a real old time playing cowboys and indians.
Aye.
R – Aye. All your pals, you knew where they'd be, up the Ghyll.
Aye you've said something interesting there, cowboys and indians. Can you actually remember playing cowboys and indians up there?
R - Yes. Aye and you took different sides and .. oh aye.
Where did the idea for that come from? What had put that idea into your head, you know, was it reading comics or …?
R - Comics and pictures. You’d go to the pictures for a penny.
Yes, well we’ll get round to the pictures and all that in a minute or two. Now who did you play with? And really, one thing that goes with that is, was there anybody that your mother didn't like you to play with?
R - Not in a village. You are all as one in a village, you all play together in your age group, a year or two either way, a whole gang of you. You all went together, twelve or thirteen years and what have you. In a gang, and then the next age group, three or four year older you see, they were like men at t’side of you that were three or four year older and you didn't play with the kids half your age.
Apart from cowboys and Indians what sort of games would you play?
R- Well, on winter nights when we were out we used to be hiding you know. We used to give ‘em so much start and then you had to find them. In people's front gardens and in the church yard, and anywhere. And you had boundaries where you hadn’t to go further afield.
Yes. That’s it. How about, you know, the usual childhood things like whip and top, hoops, skipping, marbles.
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R- Yes, always in the main street. Marbles, and there were some gardens opposite the public house at Carleton. There was a grass bank up there and that were always where you made your chuck hoils [holes] as you'd call it up this grass bank. And you were playing Buck and Billy on the, in the road. And there were a particular favourite spot, a manhole grate. You played Buck and Billy on. Iron you know, and it were a bit raised and you could just put your buck on the edge and whack it, whack it up into the air and then strike it and then run. That were before the days of motorcars.
Yes, that would be something like, sort of a juvenile version of Knurr and Spell wouldn’t it.
R - Yes, but we always called it Buck and Billy. But it were the Knurr and Spell idea.
Yes. Did you every come across that up in Carleton? You know, Knurr and Spell?
R- No, never Knurr and Spell. But I know there were a lot of quoits played. At any gala, Co-op gala, or Carleton Feast or the Conservative gala. They all had tea parties and galas, and they always, men played quoits and throwing at wicket, that sort of thing and hop skip and jump, all t’village sports. And tug of war .. there were t’same thing, we always had a band to give a bit of enjoyment to the scene, a bit of dancing.
Aye. Of course really we’re back at Carleton Feast now aren't we.
R – Yes.
Did they have a bowl for a pig?
R- No.
No. That’s farther down the South you know. It used to be a fairly common thing, prize wore a piglet you know, a weaner. And like that were a good prize like because you could put it in the sty, feed it up and finish up with enough bacon to keep you going for winter.
R- Yes.
Did you go out collecting stuff? Well, there you are, blackberries, blackspice.
R- Tewitt eggs. [dialect name for a curlew]
Tewitt eggs.
R- Mushrooms, pulling rabbits out of wall bottoms. And in summer, there were any amount of hens kept you know. Every farmer had some and you went round hedge side looking for hen nests, laying away you see, they did lay away in that weather. Oh, any amount of hen nests and eggs, take the eggs home and “You haven’t stole these have you?” “No, we found them!” We did find them, or I suppose the farmer would have found them if we hadn’t. And we used to be down looking under the hen cotes, that were like a favourite place for looking, but farmers weren’t fussy about eggs.
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How about collecting sticks, firewood, you know anything like that?
R- Well I mentioned that before. We used to go out, bundles of them and then saw them up, chop them up, we’d have the back yard stacked high with them. We always used to take the clothes line with us because the best sticks are those that have died and stayed on the tree. We used to tie a stone on at the end and throw it over the branches and then twist it round you know and pull them off. They were real uns, so dry, as dry as tinder they were.
Aye that’s it, yes. Aye they would be. Your father was a fisherman wasn’t he.
R- Yes.
Now what did he do with the fish? He’d throw them back wouldn’t he?
R - We ate them.
Oh you ate them, did you?
R- Of course we ate them, we didn't throw fish back.
Aye. What sort did he catch?
R- Well, there’s very few trout in the canal, there’d be perch and roach but it were great .... I think they take them fish home whether they tasted right or wrong and we’d eat them you see, it were ‘Caught a fish!” And with being the secretary of the Conservative Club, Walton Morrison up at Malham Tarn he had a boat on the Tarn and father used to get permission to go up there, up to Malham Tarn fishing. And I remember one time he didn’t take me, I were too young, but he took me older brother, and they didn’t get any fish but they come back with a pillowcase full of mushrooms. They’d taken a pillowcase for the fish, they got no fish but mushrooms.
Did your father over go out at night?
R - Yes I think so. Me own idea, I think every night he went to the public house for a drink. I think he did, but you see he died when I were ten, it sort of …
Yes, understandable Horace. Did your mother go out in her spare time at all?
R- Well, it’d only be to neighbours, but we weren't left in the house at night not when we were young. No never. She’d be sat knitting, she were always knitting, eh she could knit and read. Needles clicking away.
Did she knit with a knitting stick or with full needles?
R – The four needles with stockings. Knit all the stockings.
Yes but I mean full needles, you know, long needles.
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R – No, them little short steel ones.
Yes, did she use a knitting stick?
R – No, she didn’t, she could hold them in her hand and she’d push one in her belt, she’d wear a belt but never a knitting stick. But she could knit.
Have you ever seen a knitting stick used?
R- I've seen them but I haven't seen them used. There’s been plenty of talk about knitting sticks in the Dalesman ...
Well, there has, aye ... but the funny thing about knitting sticks is that I've never come across anybody who saw one used. I begin to wonder a bit about knitting sticks.
R – Well, there is a woman next door, she has relations, they are a Garsdale family, Garsdale.
Yes, you were telling me, Hattie(?) yes.
R - Yes. She tells she has a cousin that had several about, knitting sticks, and now people from away come up into Dales buying a cottage for week ends, cottages. They've begged all them knitting sticks off her you see, she's just given them. Right generous person same as she gave me the white stones.
Aye, donkey stones. That's it, aye.
R- Donkey stone. You see.
Did your mother and father ever go out together?
R- I don't think so unless they took us took us with ‘em, but I remember one trip we went to Morecambe and I can remember only one. We all went. And there’s a thing stuck in my mind .. I told you about getting the mouth organ ...
Yes.
R- We went for a trip on a boat, sailing boat, round the bay and back for tea but it was just an ordinary boat, not a motor boat it’d be a wind driven boat. And they come into these low, back to these low piers at Morecambe and I can remember before we got to the side, came up against the pier, there were a young woman so eager to get off as the boat were going like, she stepped out and went down in between the boat [and the pier]. And I can remember it to this day seeing her floating in the water, and the man just leaned over and grabbed her and pulled her on board. And that's about what I can remember about that trip to Morecambe .. the mouth organ and this…
And this woman falling in the water.
R- Falling in.
Well she had a dip anyway.
R - Yes she did.
Now did you go to church regularly?
R – Regularly, we had to do. My father was sat there in the verger’s seat. We’d to go and he took us, and he saw that we did go.
No getting out of it.
R - No getting away from it.
Which one, which church?
R - Church of England, St Mary’s..
Yes. And everybody in the family went?
R - Oh yes, they had to do.
And Sunday school as well?
R - Sunday school twice a day, nine o'clock at Sunday morning till ten. Then you went to the church and you came out at twelve. And then it were
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two o’clock at Sunday afternoon till four. They knew where you were and there were men teachers for t’lads at Sunday school, and if you didn't behave they'd bang you over the head with the bible, give you, give you such a bang.
Aye.
R- I can remember this here teacher .. there were Robert Smith, Edward Ridley and Gorrill Bargh, Gorrill Bargh, ,that’s a right biblical name isn’t it?
It is aye.
R - And he had a hand as big as a shovel that Gorrill. Talk about knocking you off your chair.
Did they ran the star system? Star cards?
R- No, you got marks. You got marks and then at Carleton Feast there were prizes for the best attendance.
That’s it, best attendance.
R- yes, right.
Were there any social events connected with the church?
R- Yes, there were the Girls Friendly Society, they were always running concerts. And it depended what sort of a vicar you had whether he were interested in garden parties. They ran whist drives in winter and a Christmas social. And there were socials what they called a social and the vicar paid for it all. He invited the congregation, that was for the parents you see and anybody who attended church, and it were a right proper do, a sit down meal. See, there were a Mr Renardson there at that time and he were a wealthy man ...
Mr…?
R - Renardson
Yes.
R- He were a wealthy man. And Carleton church were one of the best livings in Craven. It was £17 a week say in 1900, 1910. Now £17 a week clear, it were a lot of money.
It was.
R - He always had a couple of servants and a gardener you see? And then he’d all the perks, weddings and funerals .. but he were a wealthy man in his own right you see? And he were doing all sorts and there’d be a choir trip,
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for the choir. Have a trip off to Blackpool or up into the Lake District, that were a favourite place. And he used to hire, they could hire a saloon on the railway …
That’s it.
R - And you all sat all round, table down the middle. But they were saloons not a corridor train.
That's it, yes, I know what you mean, a saloon coach.
R- A saloon coach.
Like a Pullman nearly, aye.
R- Yes. And he paid for everything, that were the choir treat, and Sunday school teachers, they all went you see. Mr Renardson used to pay for them.
(950)
Old fashioned does Horace.
R - Yes. And singing, if ever you, in those days if you went up to Windermere at Easter there were choirs singing all over the place. You know when you go down to Bowness there is all that open ground all over the place, there’d be choirs singing. But not now.
Yes. What sort of people would you say went to that church? We're getting into the social class thing again slightly here but what sort of people went to church?
R- Well, there were Wesleyans and there were Methodist Church, Chapel, in Carleton they called them Methodist and Church of England, that's all there wore. Well, the big houses all had their separate pews, that were Emerson’s pew, and that were Carla Beck pew, and that wore Raymond Short pew. And they were there and all the servants, perhaps the cook wouldn’t be there or they might have it cold at Sunday.
Aye.
R- But all their servants had to be at the church at Sunday. You see, they’d fill quite a lot. And then everybody else that were Protestant went both Sunday morning and Sunday afternoon. And a good choir, choir stalls were full. Well I don’t think they can raise a choir now.
Aye. You've heard some people describe other people as being, you know, Methodist, you know, Methodists [as a pejorative term] you know, things like that. Would you think that there's any justification for that? On the whole were people who went to chapel more, how shall we say, puritanical. You know, more strict and
moral than those that went to the C of E ?
R - I don’t think so. I don’t think so. No, I don’t think there were any difference.
Did people seem to mix well?
R - They mix well in a village, they mix well.
Yes. But at the church in particular.
R- Oh yes, everybody were the same to one another, whether they were from the big house or who they were. You just talked to them man to man. I mean, it didn't make, there were no class distinction in the village, none whatever.
Of course you realised that you were on, say, a lower plane of life or whatever you like to call it, lower social station than say somebody from one of the big houses.
R- Yes, but you all, in a village you all depend on one another for ideal living or anything that goes on, if you don't muck in. As I said well, that’s it, there’s nothing doing if they’re at loggerheads, so they just all attend and all help. And if there’s a collection round the village for the church, always get a good response. And any of them tea parties there were no bought stuff. You just went round the village collecting, asking wives what they'd do, Butcher would give a big lump
(1000)
of beef you see. And another butcher’d give beef, and all the women folk baking bread and cakes and then they had tables, people who asked to have a table, and they sat at the head of the table and filled the cups of tea. And you had, they had Sunday school teachers and the choir girls and scholars waited on the people. Everybody went.
Sounds like a very, very tight, close knit community. It seems a nice place to live.
R - It were, it were. There were no new houses. You know what I mean? No, they weren't building new houses and people’d come that were absolute strangers. The only people that came in were people out of Lancashire that came working to Slingsby’s Mills yes.
SCG/17 February 2003
6,627 words.