THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 5TH OF JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Tape 79/AD/5
Right Horace. On the last tape we were talking about .. we did just mention holidays a little bit and one of the things that's been striking me just lately is the fact that people keep saying to me ‘Where are you going for your holidays this year?’ And I keep saying ‘Well I don’t know whether I’ve got time.’ and this that and the other. But in the days we are talking about, anybody that could afford it, or let’s put it this way, it was everybody’s aim to go away for at least a week once a year wasn't it? And if possible to the seaside. How important was that to working people? I'm not just talking about your childhood days now, I'm talking about your early working life. How important was the holiday each year?
R - Well it were just a status symbol, going away. Anybody that didn’t go away, well they were poor. Because they used to go away and take a tin box with the grub in and just rent a bed and cruet.
Now, rent a bed and cruet?
R- Well, for a week. And the landlady would cook your stuff for you.
Aye.
R- If you went out and bought stuff she’d cook your meat and she’d probably sell you potatoes. Or you could dine out if you wanted.
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But anybody that didn’t go away were a bit shamefaced, they went and lost themselves for the week or stayed in.
That’s it, I've heard that before. Yes.
R – Yes.
So would you call it ‘bed and cruet’ as opposed to ‘bed and breakfast’?
R - Well they didn't get breakfast, you found your own breakfast.
Yes. But I'm, you know, would you sort of say [to people] that you were getting bed and cruet, you know, use of t’table like?
R- No, they just called it getting lodgings for the week, a room for the week. But they used to take as much stuff as they could with them. And I've heard of landladies, you see .. you'd take eggs, fresh eggs and you’d give her the eggs but she were buying cheap Chinese eggs as they called them and boiling those for you and she kept your good eggs.
Aye.
R- And if you took a tin of fruit, swapping it for cheaper varieties. They’re living on your good stuff and you eat the cheap stuff that they’d bought.
Aye. And of course that’d just about all be by rail wouldn't it?
R- Yes, there were nothing else but railway. And trains were packed and when you went away to Blackpool, well, every other person you met, you knew them.
Aye. Which would be, which were the favourite resorts?
R- Blackpool for young people and Morecambe down at Skipton. Skipton were on a good railway connection you see for Morecambe and a lot of Bradford people went to Morecambe. But Morecambe and Blackpool were the mainstay. And then some people used to go to Harrogate.
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For their holidays?
R- Yes, for their holidays to Harrogate. And occasionally you’d hear of people going to Scarborough but among the younger end it were Blackpool, you could have a good time there for next to nothing.
Aye. Scarborough’s always struck me as being like an upper class resort, at the top end of the market, would that be about right?
R- Well I don’t know. There's a lot of West Riding people go to Scarborough, or did. I were going to say it’d be as common as Blackpool, but happen not quite. I shouldn’t say that thing about Blackpool but it were a rum shop to go to.
Aye. And apart from holidays Horace, did you ever go out on any outings or visits when you were young. You know, this is apart from the annual holiday.
(5 min)
R- Well, not to stay. Now I had an aunt that lived at Manchester and when we were younger I’d go there and take a brother with me, me next younger brother, and go to stay at Manchester for a week.
Whereabouts were that in Manchester?
R - At Denton.
Aye, whereabouts in Denton?
R- Now then, Oak Drive. Do you know anything about Denton?
Aye, me dad were works manager at General Gas on Corporation Road for twenty odd years.
R- Well, as you went up out of Manchester on the tram you’d come to a public house, the Wilton Arms.
That’s it.
R- And there were a right big wall, it had painted on it: ‘Wilton Arms’ it’d be the bowling green.
That's it, yes.
R- Right big letters.
Yes, just before the waterworks.
R- Well, and across from there were a street that went at an angle. That were Oak Drive and they were good houses. Right, very good houses were Oak Drive.
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Aye. The waterworks were up on the left there.
R- Yes they were.
That’s it, yes. Were the windmill on the bank at front of the waterworks in them days?
R- It would be, and I think they covered them over didn’t they? [the reservoir]
They did something there, I'm not sure what.
R- The birds were contaminating them.
They did something there, I’m not sure. That's a big dual carriageway now you know, that road? [this was 1979, in 2003 there is a motorway there as well.]
R- Yes. Oh it's a long time since I went. It seems to be a long time.
Yes, that’s Ashton Road isn’t it?
R- Yes.
Yes. Leads up to Crown Point. That’s it.
R- Yes. Well that’s where I used to go. And then I had an aunt and uncle at Blackpool and we could go there. They had a smallholding. Now then, you went up from Talbot Square. I think it were a place called Carleton. [between North Shore and Poulton]
Yes?
R- It were as far as the trams ran, and you went into the country a few hundred yards and they had a smallholding. They were Carleton people and they had taken a fish and chip shop in 1913 and went to live there. Work were bad at Carleton and so…
That's Carleton Blackpool.
R- Yes. But they went to Carleton, They’d a fish shop down in Blackpool in a right busy area. They went in 1913 and the war came on and Blackpool were jam full of soldiers who got no suppers, only fish and chips. And they made up in the war years and they sold out in 1919. And they had one son and he worked on Fleetwood Docks and he used to get all the fish from there, bent and broken ones and half fish, you see? Getting it nearly given.
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Aye.
R - And that were how they made a lot of money.
Aye. That were a good do weren’t it?
R- Yes. And me aunt and uncle and the son’s wife all worked in the shop. And he worked on Fleetwood docks.
Aye. Well that’d be handy for a holiday, wouldn’t it?
R- Yes. And we went there, and we knew we were going, and me mother said “Well, save up.” That were after I started working as a lad and I saved up. I know I saved five pound once. I could have bought all Blackpool for five pound!
Aye. Well five pound in them days would have taken you for a week's holiday wouldn't it?
R- Yes it would. Oh I had money to burn. I’d go everywhere. And you see there were no board to pay, me aunt kept us. Me and me brother. Oh no, it were all right were Blackpool.
Which, when you think about it, is a very different picture than the one that a lot of people would like to promote, people slaving away in the dark satanic mills and never having any enjoyment.
R- Well I did. I mean, I think I were getting about fifteen pence spending money then. And with saving what I could, and running errands and any odd jobs.
When you say fifteen pence Horace you mean one and threepence?
R- One and threepence. Aye it were old money then. And there were a fellow there, he ran a holiday club and as soon as I got me wage I used to take me fifteen pence home, take it to him and when it come to the holidays I had five pounds, it must have been with what me mother gave me as well and you could get a return train ticket to Blackpool for very little. [‘Holiday clubs’ are an interesting subject. Sidney Nutter used to run one at Bancroft and when I talked to him about it he was very cagey about what happened to the interest it earned. I never got a straight answer from anyone about this and it leads me to suspect that whoever ran the club kept the interest. This was the position at Bancroft until Sidney died in 1978 and it raises the question, why did people use this way of saving? I can understand it when, like Horace in Carleton, there was no easy access to a savings bank. I suspect that there was an element of keeping it in the community, close to home and easy to make a deposit because this lessened the temptation to spend. A very similar mechanism to workers investing in the shed companies. Another facet of this is what happened when the holder of the fund did a runner!]
How much about?
R- Well I don't know, five shilling happen. No more.
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(10 min)
Were any of the family connected with the temperance movement?
R- No. There were none of us drank. None of us has ever, I have a drink, but don’t go sitting in public houses.
But your dad’d have a drink?
R- Oh yes, I think he went fairly regular, but didn't drink to excess.
That’s it, aye. Did anybody ever say anything to you about the evils of drink, you know?
R- Well, with being a church family, and you say “now think on, no going in the Swan!” You see when you don't have it in the house. And a mate of mine, he were dead against drink because he had a drunken father and he’d had a hell of a life, you see? He were dead against it, you couldn’t [blame him]. You see his father used to work on t’railway and get his wage at Friday night and he’d go straight into t’public house and then go home at ten o’clock, at turning out time, fighting drunk. Oh they had a rotten time of it.
How about things like the Band of Hope and what not, did you come up against them at church?
R- No, we’d nothing of that, nothing like that. The Chapel ran the Rechabites. They did.
That's it, aye. Did you ever sign the pledge?
R - No.
No. Sorry Horace.
R- There's one thing better than signing the pledge and that is having no money to spend on beer, that keeps you from smoking and drinking, if you have nothing to buy it with.
It keeps you from doing a lot of things Horace, I'll tell you!
R- Aye. They say money is the root of all evil.
Aye. Now then, what can you remember of, can you remember seeing women going into pubs?
R- Well, only one that I can remember went into a public house at Carleton. And they called her Mrs. Jubb.
Mrs…?
R- Jubb. J u b b. But in the village she were called Mrs. Jug because she went to the public house with a jug, she didn’t sit in but she went regularly at dinner times. Mrs. Jubb.
What did people think about that? You know, how was it looked on?
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R- Oh dreadful, anybody [woman] that went into a public house. And anybody that, well, when they started having lipstick and powder, oh it were a deadly sin were that. Aye, it were.
Yes. And how about women smoking?
R- No, never such a thing, not in public.
Did you ever see any of the old lasses smoking a pipe?
R- Never, never.
No. Chewing tobacco?
R- Men chewed tobacco but not women. No. Never saw that.
No? Of course some women did use to chew didn't they. You know, I can remember that firm at Skipton .. what was the name, the tobacco firm at Skipton. Kendal Twist, Gawith, Brown and Hoggarth.
R- Yes, aye.
They still sold up to about ten years since some chewing tobacco called Ladies Brown Twist. Aye .. Ladies Brown.
R- But people used to chew twist at work, and especially twisters that were sat down, loomers and twisters and them, they'd be spitting down the wall and on the floor. It were enough to make you sick.
Aye. Just on that subject, Ernie Roberts once told me that one of the reasons why a lot of tacklers used to chew twist was, he said in the days when they were kissing shuttles, especially when women were using lipstick, he said the shuttles used to be clarted up at the ends with lipstick. And he said it was more or less a disinfectant. And of course there was the converse of that, one lady once told me she learned to weave with a weaver who chewed twist, and she had to kiss the shuttle after him and she said it tasted terrible. Aye.
R- Oh it would do. But one man when I were a lad, he were a weaver
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and he used to chew twist and then when he got all the goodness out on it, he put it up on the steam pipe and dried it and then he smoked it. That’s what they did. And it were cheap enough but wages were low. I moan they couldn’t afford.
That’s it.
R- Perhaps they both chewed it and… but he had it twice.
He had it twice, had his cake and then ate it. Did you know any families that were disadvantaged by drink, you know, by the fact that some member of the family drank?
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R- Well this mate of mine. There were half a dozen in the family. I think they were hard put to.
And you'd say that that was directly due to drink?
R- Directly due to drink. Oh well, lots of families, oh there were lots of them that the parent, the father drank you see?
How common was drunkenness in Carleton at the time we are talking about? I mean how common was it to see a drunken man on a Friday night about nine or ten o’clock?
R- Well, they used to he turned out of the public house at ten o’clock and they were shouting and they were fighting and there was all sorts going on then. Men going home drunk and rows blowing up, and fighting with the wives, and young follows going home and fighting with the parents.
Fairly black picture Horace, would you say it was worse then than now?
R- Well I don’t see .. my wife has remarked many a time, when you are out you never see drunken people in the road same as you used to do. It’s either they can’t afford as much or it isn’t as strong.
Yes.
R- I never see drunken people about. But of course they had to walk in those days. I suppose a lot of the people that are going in their cars, they couldn’t walk it.
Yes. And then I think you're quite right, well, I'm sure you are. There’s been some figures published just lately about the gravity of beer and it certainly was stronger then than it is now.
R- Well I take a drink occasionally but I never drink, I never go
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in any public house here, never have done. But we get it into the house. And my wife were very anaemic at one time with arthritis and they advised her to have a bottle of Guinness every day and it did mend her up. And I used to drink it as well. But if we go away anywhere, we'll have a drink then when we went to places. But a lot of it, it’s no more than rainwater.
Aye, you’re quite right.
R- It is no more than rainwater.
Guinness is good stuff.
R- It is. And certainly I always plump for Guinness.
Aye, a bit of body in it.
R - It has.
Aye. In the local pub, the Swan wasn’t it? Well, how many pubs were there in Carleton?
R- One
One.
R- There’s one now. Yes.
Yes, the Swan. Now, were certain rooms for certain people in that pub?
R- There were t’bar and t’tap room. It were dear in the bar parlour, there were only two rooms. There were t’bar and there were t’tap room and as you went in there were t’bar on the left and as you went forward there were another biggish room, that were t’tap room. But both doors lead out to the bar you see. But it were dearer in the bar. But there were flag floors, nothing on the floors, and spittoons and iron tables so as they couldn't be fighting with them.
Aye. Can you remember any street performers or people selling stuff who entertained passers-by in Carleton?
R- Well, we’d occasionally have a German band.
Tell me about that, that’s interesting.
R- Well, there’d he three or four players. They’d come into the place but they always seemed to be in such a hurry, come rushing in and play a few tunes in various parts and then march out again. They always seemed to be in such a hurry to get away. And then occasionally a man with a performing bear. And a man with a hurdy gurdy as we call them, and a monkey. All that sort of thing.
Yes. Now, hurdy gurdy, that’s one on a stick.
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R- Stick, yes.
That’s it, that’s not a barrel organ.
R- And they could, they had a strap on and they just put the strap over their shoulder and went off with them. And the stick stuck out behind them same as a third leg.
Yes. German bands, were they actually Germans?
R- I think they would be. I think they would be and then you’d get street singers.
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Aye.
R- And one, and perhaps one with a cornet and one that could sing. And I thought they were particularly good singers. And there were some good ones you know, you could hear them the length of the village.
Did there get to be more of that after the war and when the bad years came? After say about 1920.
R- Well, there were this disabled soldier, ex service man, that were the gimmick. I suppose it were true you see, and there’d he some one armed and one legged, they’d definitely be soldiers, disabled soldiers. We got quite a lot of beggars because there were a workhouse at Colne and anybody that chose could walk over the top to get to the next one at Skipton. Skipton workhouse, and Carleton would be a happy hunting ground.
Yes. Skipton workhouse were Raikeswood weren’t it?
R – Yes. It was. There weren’t one at Barnoldswick, there were a common lodging house there weren’t there?
Yes. Barlick came under Skipton workhouse, Skipton district. ‘Cause funnily enough the workhouse boundaries, the union boundaries as they called them, were in many cases different than other boundaries.
R – Yes. Well it were Lancashire and Yorkshire you see. But there were one particular woman in our street, they must have known her, they must have passed the word round because the gave to everybody that came. All the tramps went to her house before they tried anybody else. And she were very poor you see, she had a husband that worked in the mill but everybody went to Mrs. Shaw’s.
Mrs Shaw. How often did you see tramps?
R- Oh every day, every day.
How could you tell a tramp from anybody else?
R – Well, they were walking on the road, and they were, the appearance, and they’d have a bit of a pack and be ragged. And if they were out on a wet day, rain was running out of their trouser bottoms and you knew they weren’t doing it for fun.
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That’s it, yes. What was people’s attitude towards tramps? You know, were they generally .. ?
R- They weren’t nasty with them because everybody were poor you see, everybody were poor. Poor helped the poor. They do, it’s a fact.
Do you think that in some ways that could be connected with that question I was asking you about drink, about people getting drunk. I quote this many a time, it’s something that struck me very much when I read it in a book called The Classic Slum and it was about Salford. And this follow said in that book that they said in those days, they had a saying in Salford that the quickest way out of Salford were five pints of beer. And, you understand what I’m driving at?
R- Yes, yes.
Do you think that that was perhaps something to do with the fact that people seemed to get drunk?
R - Well, they might have done but a tramp, he’d never have much money to get drunk may unless… I mean, people didn’t give money, they didn’t ask for money, it were usually a slice of bread. “Can you make me a drink of tea?” Me mother were very good, she’d turn nobody away. But Mrs Shaw, everybody went to Mrs Shaw’s and it wasn’t the first house in the street, there were five at that side and five at this side and hers were number 5,6,7 that side. But they all went to her house.
Did, have you over come across a thing, it’s something that I’ve come across in Barlick where it was quite common for people to actually save up for perhaps three months, six months, a year, save up till they had enough money to strike t’rant?
R- I know one man and he did strike t’rant. But it weren't till he got enough money, it just come over him at certain times, he used to be a right good weaver and a nice man and then he’d just break out and it were pitiful, pitiful to see. And then eventually, when he’d quietened down he’d come to the mill asking for his looms back and trembling. And such a nice follow he were, and tidy and clean, and then a couple of years would go by and then they’d say “Joe’s on t’rant again!” They knew where Joe were.
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Aye, struck t’rant, aye.
R- Yes, aye. Oh it were pitiful and you’d see him come out of the house with something under his coat and he were going to try and sell it to somebody, a clock or anything. But it were a pity because he were a nice fellow.
Ah well. I think that what we are talking about there, really is one of the facets of social life at that time, and I think it tells you
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a lot about the way people lived. I tend to the conclusion myself that many a time drink was an escape and that's .. really I shouldn't come to conclusions but it does seem to me that some people did have very narrow humdrum lives you know, in respect of their work. I’m not saying that they were all oppressed you know, and ground down by the mill owners and this, that and the other, but there is no doubt about it that .. Well in fact somebody once put it to me that probably a lot of people, especially in the slums in the big cities, the most comfortable place they’d ever go into in their life would be the tap room of the pub.
R – Yes. But this particular man then, he’d a decent house, his wife were right decent, and he had one daughter, and they were always in work; and then he just used to break out. And he was the only one I know, there might have been people that were doing it, secretly drinking, but never struck t’rant the same as he did.
Did you belong to any clubs or societies before you left school? You know
Like the church choir, scouts, guides? Well, obviously not the guides!
R- No. Well, me father being connected with the church, at one time there were Mr Renardson, he used to have a curate, the one that I knew most about Mr Renardson and he were wealthy enough to keep a curate. And this curate ran a scout troop, and they used to go off camping to Malham and all up and down. And me father used to go as cook. He did, he used to, and they had a bell tent. They used to go, and this curate, I don't think he were without money, he used to pay for them, but that were the scout troop the church scout troop.
And were you in that?
R – No, never. No.
Didn’t it appeal to you?
R – Well, I suppose it, but me father saw enough of me at home without having me [with him on holiday].
Ah, that could be a point. What do you think, looking back, what do you think about Carleton as a place to live when you were young?
R - Very nice, you’d happy times. The place you are born at, it’s always the best. I mean you, it's all right is Carleton. There weren’t much going on but you knew everybody and everybody knew you. There were no mugging and no wrong doing. I remember, there were a man murdered a chap in a public house at Skipton and I remember the policemen coming for him. He’d been drinking one Saturday and they’d had a row. He were a weaver and he had some scissors and they had been fighting and he said that he’d stuck his self with these, stuck this other man with these scissors with them being in his pocket. He’d never pulled them out of his pocket. But he got sent to jail for six or seven years. But I always remember that.
That was a Carleton man? Can you remember his name?
R- Yes. Dewsnap.
Dewsnap?
R - Yes that was his name.
That was his surname, Aye.
R- Aye, Dewsnap, I never forgot that name. And I can remember the policeman's name, they called him Garside, and all the people stood about, peeping.
When were that about Horace?
R – Well, I don’t know, I might be ten or twelve, about that age.[1916/1918]
Aye. About the end of the war or something like that. Aye.
R- Yes.
Can you remember going to any weddings when you were young?
R- No.
Or seeing any weddings?
R- Well, we were connected with the church, we saw them all. We saw them all.
That’s it, aye. Well how about, how about getting married then, in what way was it different from getting married now? You know, for instance how did people dress and how did they go on with having the reception and everything?
R- Oh they got dressed up and they'd have reception in their own house or the parents house. And then one wedding I can remember about
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vividly. A niece of me mother’s got married and they had, not a Landau, you know those cadet?
Horse drawn?
R- No, pulled by two horses. After the wedding, they’d had the wedding breakfast, they had a big wagonette they called them.
Yes.
R - And they got in at a door at t’back, and pulled with two horses and the driver sat up on a high seat. Well, the guests all went to Ilkley, had a day out. I can remember that.
Aye. That sounds grand. How about, obviously they’d go to church with horses.
R - Yes, or walked. They walked, a lot of them walked.
Or walked. Aye.
R - But I can remember when they had a horse and open Landau with a grey horse and all. Oh it were nice and the coachman with this whip with the white ribbon on. You remember such like things.
Yes, and how about funerals?
R- Well, they used to carry them. They carried them from the house.
Like bearers.
R- The bearers. And they had, they didn’t carry them shoulder high, they’d two sticks underneath, square poles, and a man at each side. That were how they carried them. And then that were to the church gates and then they had a wheeled bier from there, wheeled into the church and then wheel them out again. Or before they got the wheeled bier they carried them into the church and put them on a bier without wheels.
Aye, that’s it.
And then they had to lift them up and carry them out. And you know, if it was the farthest point in Carleton they had to be changing bearers. So they’d have eight you see and change over. Undertaker used to say “We’ll have a change.” and same as just imagine, a man happen sixteen stone and the weight of the coffin.
Aye, that’s right aye. And did you ever see a horse drawn hearse?
R- Oh yes, plenty. Yes. The people would come to be buried frae away. People that were bred at Carleton that were living at Skipton, that were Carleton people.
Was the cemetery up between, on Carleton Road there?
R- Yes it were there then. But a firm called Woodward’s, they were
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the principal people, they always had horses and hearse, and they did for both
weddings and funerals all about Skipton.
Was there an undertaker in Carleton?
R- Yes, it was my grandfather.
Ah yes, builder and joiner, Whiteoaks, aye.
R- Yes, Whiteoaks. And then when he died there were two uncles collared on, William Horner Whiteoak and Joseph Whiteoak, two brothers, my uncles. And I spent hundreds of hours in that joiner’s shop just to see ‘em making the coffins. I got so as I could make one myself. I used to see ‘em sawing the side boards and grooving them and they had a big kettle full of boiling water, teemed it on to the saw cuts so they [side boards] bent to make the shape. And then boiling pitch up, they used to run pitch all on the seams inside the coffin to keep the water out. Oh, I’ve seen the whole carry on.
There’d be no such thing as a Chapel of Rest then?
R- No. People were laid out at home. Yes.
Tell me what you know about that.
R- Well there were women up and down in the village that’d go laying people out. And then some in a family would lay their own relatives out, they would. But me grandfather, he did everything, making farm carts, they’d do anything, windows and doors, made the wheels, spokes for the wheel, what shall I say, everything about making a wheel.
Right through the process.
R- Yes, the hub, the felloes they called them didn’t they?
The felloes on the outside of the wheel, yes. Spokes?
R- They got them all rough, chopped them out, spoke shaved the spokes, did everything, and all by hand, no machinery. And then with a farmer’s carts, Joseph, me uncle Joe, he could blacksmith as well. He made all the fittings for the farm carts, all on the shafts and the hinges when they were tip carts and the tail board, you know they were all iron work on there.
That’s it, yes.
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R- And then they set to and painted them all, lined them all with the red lines all round.
Aye, that orange paint, they did wouldn’t they, all of them carts painted wi’ it. Aye.
R- Yes. Right from scratch, but they didn't hoop them, they went away to a blacksmith at Skipton to get the hoops put on.
Yes, [the tyres] on the wheels. Yes.
R- Yes, it were a special job were putting the hoops on.
Aye, a skilled job putting the tyres on. Now, undertaking. In those days would an undertaker do, nowadays we have, well we call them undertakers don't we, funeral directors and undertakers. I mean, they actually undertake to do everything connected with a funeral. Well it wasn’t just the same in those days was it. I mean all the undertaker would do then would be what, make the coffin and arrange the actual interment wouldn't he?
R- And sent the bill. Now in our case in Carleton you went and saw the vicar or parson whatever you like to call him yourself and, “me father’s dead, I want a grave, I want to open our grave.” He’d say “Right, see the grave digger, and tell him and when would you like the funeral?” You’d say you’d like it on Thursday for instance, if that’s convenient for you, he’d look it up in his book, “Yes, I’m free that Day. What time?” You’d say two o’clock and that was it. And you sent for
the undertaker, the joiner, they call them undertakers now but it were the village joiner. He measured up and made the coffin. And a coffin would be £6 in those days. And the church fees were 19/-. Now I’ll tell you what that comprised; they dug a nine foot grave that held four people, that was 17/6. The clerk got sixpence and the parson a shilling up till, I think it would be after the first world war. It were 19/- and £6 probably £7 all told. And my uncle used to say there were lots he never got paid for. He paid the church fees and sent his bill in, but some didn't pay.
If somebody died, say there was some old person living on their own that had no relations and they died, who took care of that burial?
(800)
R- Well it were the town you see. It'd he arranged through the overseers, they paid for the burial.
We’re getting on a more cheerful subject now . Where did you enjoy going to most when you were a child?
R- Well, there were only one thing, it were playing out. And at Carleton the land were free to you, you were country people, you didn’t do any damage and you just wandered anywhere. You went to a farmyard, then mucked about on the farm and wandered round with the farmer and ran after the sheep like a dog and it were right enjoyable. And you went helping in the fields at haytime. You’d get a drink of home brewed beer and happen a sandwich to out of tie luncheon basket. But when I got a bit older we were supposed to go over to me uncles, any spare time. I used to go after tea when I were working, go after tea and if it had been a hayday and help them. Go at Saturday. But there were never any Sunday working. Even though perhaps it were a bad time and Sunday were a beautiful day, but there were never any Sunday haymaking in those days.
That’s a thing, you are the first one I’ve come across that ever did any haymaking by hand. There’d he Irishmen in them days would there?
R- Well he didn’t employ Irishmen, yes there were Irishmen but he didn't employ Irishmen because there were plenty of us. And Leonard, me uncle Leonard, he had the farm, me uncle Joe and me uncle Horner ran the joiners shop and it were all me grandfather’s see? And in Summer time, they just [haytimed] any work they had in the joiner’s shop, unless it were a funeral, it just had to wait. They went and worked in the hay.
(40 min)
Yes. Of course something that people forget nowadays, even people who are actually farming now, haytime then was different than now because haytime could go on for a couple of months easy.
R- And longer than that. Sometimes they never did finish. The hay just rotting in the field.
Yes. And that were mostly horse mowers.
R- Yes, usually a single horse mower. If a farmer had only one horse, if he could muster half a dozen of you, and you were one behind the other, swathe turning and windrowing, and a row of you shaking out. And there’d be a man, same as you were swathe turning, there’d be a man at the front and the lads in between and you’d got to keep up.
That’s it. Did they, would they leave it abroad at night or would they put it in footcocks?
R - Well it depends, if it were settled weather they'd leave it abroad.
(850)
But if it were greenish they’d put it in footcocks, it helped to make hay. And then the next stage, if it weren't quite fit to get they’d put it in pikes, like a big hub. big hub. Yes.
Hub, that’s it, in hub, aye.
R- And then the next day you had to break them all out if it were going to be a fine day. But they knew the weather in those days, they knew what it were going to do. But these uncles of mine, they were a bit peculiar, they’d he smelling at it and one'd he saying it were fit, the other’d say it weren’t and then uncle George would say “Come on, get the bugger in!” And we were stood round wondering what were going to happen.
Aye, I can sympathise with you.
R- But they were like that. But it were all hand work, they had a strawing machine but it weren’t as good as being strawn by hand, it left too much you see. Left too much that it didn't move.
That’s it, yes. And it were hard work on a horse and all with a strawing machine.
R- Yes, it were. But mowing with a single horse mower on a heavy crop, it took it out of a horse.
Aye. When did you see your first mowing machine with the engine on, you know, the double horse mower you know, or what they call double horse mowers, but it was actually a single horse with the engine on.
R- Well, next to this farm of me uncle’s there were a bigger farm, Heslaker, you know, when you turn up to go up that lane to Carleton, Carleton Lane End. When you're coming on to Skipton Road up to Carleton. First farm on your right is Heslaker and me uncle had the next farm, Funkirk.
What?
R- F u n k i r k.
Aye? Funkirk .. Aye
R- And that belonged to Lanefoxes(?) but all the land down there belonged
to Broughton hall, Tempest. And his land ran right as a long narrow farm into Broughton hall land.
Yes.
R- And of course Broughton Hall bred pheasants, but they didn’t get them all because they used to stray and there were, and my uncle always had a game license, he could go and get ‘em off like billy-oh. And I were telling you afore, bringing rabbits that were full of shot.
Aye, Broughton Hall rabbits.
R- Aye
(45 min)
SCG/18 February 2003
6,681 words.