THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 9TH OF JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Tape 79/AD/08.
Right, we’ll carry on with the health bit. Can you remember any of your brothers or sister being born?
R - Yes but I wasn’t at home.
Ah, now when you say you weren’t at home what…
R - Sent to me grandmother’s. I didn’t know what were happening, and I went to me grandmother’s. And when I got up at morning an aunt of mine said “Your mother's got a little chocolate sister.” You know I suppose they are red, aren’t they?
Aye, pickled walnuts.
R - Actually red. It weren’t really a Pakistani . But it were red I suppose, and that were the first I knew about it.
Aye. I have always said they look like pickled walnuts when they’re first born.
R- Yes, and wrinkled.
Yes. And was that with the doctor or the midwife?
R- I don't know about your midwife but I think they used to call the doctor in. And, it wouldn't be a professional midwife, it’d be neighbours.
(50)
Was there a midwife in Carleton.
R- Well, grandmother used to go and neighbours used to go. There’s a lady died in our street, Mrs. Kay, three weeks since, a month since, she used to go round nursing, and she were 89 when she died. And she used to go round nursing and laying them out and the lot.
Was there any disease that you particularly dreaded catching?
R - Scarlet fever, I had a brother that had scarlet fever. They took him away to the Infectious Hospital at Skipton for infectious diseases. And it affected his eyes, he’s always had bad eyesight since. And he came out in a rash as they do and the skin used to peel off them, that were one of the symptoms. But that were the only one that went away for anything.
And you’d be put in quarantine then wouldn’t you?
R- Yes I suppose so. Yes, we’d have to stay off school.
(100)
How about diphtheria?
R- We’d no diphtheria. I can remember one lad having it. He were the landlord at the Swan Inn’s son, a lad called Jack Coates. And the doctor hadn’t [a car] he came on horseback in those days, a chap called Fisher. And he came from Skipton on his horse and cut his throat open and put a tube in, he must have been choking. And that were the only case I can remember anything about diphtheria. And whooping cough were rife, you could bear them whooping away you know, they started, started on a low note and went high and high and high and high and high till it faded out. It were exhausting.
Have you ever come across any cures for whooping cough?
R- Mother used to put them over t’tar pan.
That’s it. Aye, either the tar pan or the retorts at the gas works, one of the two.
R- Yes. Aye it were the tar pan at Carleton if they’d a whooping cough. They seemed to be in summer time when there were tar spraying.
Yes that’s it. That’s fairly common. Did you know anything about typhus and dysentery and things like that?
(150)
(5 min)
R- No.
Can you remember ever having any bad stomachs? Or you know, the trots, having the runs, you know, having diarrhoea?
R- Aye you would have, and mother’d say “What have you been eating. Have you been eating green apples or what have you been doing?” And I suppose you just went on till it dried up, but as a rule they used to give us ---
That’s it aye.
R- My mother...
Aye, either that or else the old stand by, what was it? Kaolin and chlorodyne.
R- Kaolin.
It’s chlorodyne but it’s morphine
R- Chlorodyne, yes it is, aye.
It’s a morphine derivative. Yes, and good stuff.
R- Yes it is.
Yes. You can still get it but it isn’t, I don’t think it has chlorodyne in it now, it has something else in.
[Chloroform made its appearance in 1847 as a reliable anaesthetic. In 1856, chloroform and morphine were bottled to make Dr Collis-Brown's Chlorodyne, to ease cholera, diarrhoea, coughs, influenza, neuralgia, rheumatism, bronchitis and other ills. In 2003 you can still find chemist’s who, if they know you, will make up a bottle of kaolin and morphine.]
Has it. Aye.
R - Last Summer I had diarrhoea. And I can’t think what we’d had but I had it and my wife hadn’t. And one of the daughter’s children were taken ill and she rung up to say would we go. And so I went and left t’wife at home and I know as soon as I got there I went to the chemist and said I wanted a bottle of diarrhoea mixture and it were this chlorodyne and kaolin and it sinks to the bottom.
Oh it’s good stuff.
(200)
R- I know it is. It soon cured me.
It is that, one dose’ll cure me, it’s marvellous. Did you know any children with rickets?
R- I suppose there were people deformed, bow legs and bent legs. I suppose that were rickets.
Yes, almost sure.
R- It would be. That was supposed to be shortage of milk, weren’t it?
Well yes.
R- Yes, but they thought so.
Deficiency of vitamin D.
R- Calcium isn’t it?
[Modern thinking is that rickets is caused by a deficiency of vitamin D which is essential in young children because it facilitates calcium take-up into the bones which hardens them. If the bones remain soft they bend causing the typical bow legs of rickets. Vitamin D is produced by the human skin when exposed to sunlight.]
Aye, calcium. Can you remember how old were you when this child was born that, you know, you were at your grandmother’s? How old were you at the time?
R- Well, five or six.
Can you remember, did your mother breast feed that child?
R- Well she did.
Yes. How long for?
R- I don’t know. I couldn’t tell, but I mean, she used to breast feed. I used to see her doing it.
Yes. What if somebody couldn’t breast feed a child, how would they go on?
R- Pobs.
Aye
R- What they called pobs, it were milk with bread and sugar. That were what they got, pobs. There were none of this fancy rusks and what’s that? Allenberry’s food?
Yes, Ostermilk and stuff like that. Yes.
R- Yes, that sort of stuff. And that that makes fat, bouncing babies. Glaxo is it?
(250)
Aye that’s it. Glaxo, yes, that’s it.
R- But what happened in our case, we've only one child, a girl, and she were a big, strong baby, and it seemed she were always crying a lot. I don’t say regular but the day she were being christened, me mother and me sister came and the christening was here. And she were crying and so mother came in and we were new to the job. And me mother says “Why, she is hungry!” And my wife were breast feeding and me mother says “She is not getting enough. You’ve not enough milk for her.” So we had a bottle and a teat and me mother says “What have you in like, what, what have you in to make some milk with?” And we’d … the only thing we could find were Robinson’s Patent Barley. And me mother says “Well we’ll mix some of this with milk.” We mixed this bottle of milk and put the teat on and me mother says “Why there isn’t…” She was sucking hard but there were nothing coming through. Me mother says “There’s nothing coming through, there's not much coming through.”
(300)
(10 min)
And it shows how inexperienced people are. I were 35 then and “What can we do?” And mother says “Give me a darning needle.” And she warmed it over t’flame on the gas. Just pushed it through the end of the teat and burned the hole bigger. And she could get plenty then. She got a good feed and she slept all through the christening and not a peep. And we brought her up on Robinsons Patent Barley.
[This will sound very strange to people far in the future but it was a common problem which hasn’t attracted much attention. My wife and I had exactly the same experience with our first child and we asked my mother what we should do. She told us to boil fine sago until it was soft and put some in with the food. We had to cut a large hole in the teat to let the ‘bobbles’ through and it worked like a charm. All three daughters were reared the same way and years afterwards Nurse Hunt, who was the midwife in Barlick was horrified when we told her what we had done. All the kids grew up OK so we weren’t so far wrong. A good thing to have the benefit of an extended family.]
Aye. How, was your mother at all particular about things like disinfecting the house and catching flies?
R- Oh well, there were only flycatchers in those days. They are things they hung up, but we always used plenty of disinfectant and we always used carbolic soap, always.
What sort of disinfectant Horace?
R- Well, it were carbolic, we used to buy it in bottles.
Yes. And the flycatchers would be the sticky ones.
R- Sticky ones, yes.
Aye, and when they got full up, burn them, that’s it.
R- Burn them aye. They did get full, they did.
Yes. Would you say there were more flies about then?
R- There seemed to be.
Aye. Did your mother understand, do you think, that flies carried disease?
R - I think she did. She would do. Well if flies got on meat they blew them didn’t they, they used to call them blow flies. Keeping meat covered up and sometimes you’d get meat from the butchers and it had been blown, you see. But any meat she brought home she always used to wash in vinegar in Summer time if there were anything on it’d kill it.
(350)
Yes that’s it. Yes that was always vinegar and water weren’t it? Yes.
R- Yes. Oh vinegar and water because the meat were in the butcher’s window and there were bluebottles crawling over it.
Now then, work.. Now, your father’s work, talk about your father for a bit. What hours did he work?
R- Half past six till half past five at night, he didn't come home for his dinner, he’d either take it with him .. But I can remember taking his dinner to the mill, it wasn’t so far, fifty yards away. Take it into him and .. just leave it there and he’d eat it and bring the empty basin home at night. And they brew their own tea and they caught up with the work during the dinner hour after they’d had their dinner, they'd be sweeping and cleaning and splicing ropes, driving ropes. And then there’d be the driving bands, you know, to drive a …
Spindle
R- Drive the spindles. The spinner and his piecer had to do all those sort of jobs, all in their dinner hour.
What sort of a wage would he get?
R – I’ve no idea, I've no idea but the spinners were always supposed to be the aristocrats of the spinning industry.
(400)
Would his wage go up after, oh no, it wouldn’t do…
R - Nineteen sixteen.
I were going to say, because he died in 1916. Yes. Was he paid for holidays?
R- No. There’s no such thing as being paid for holidays and no guaranteed wage, you got paid what you earned, sweat of your brow.
What were they paid on, hours or how much…?
R- Weight. The weight they spun.
How much were doffed in t’week. That’s it, aye. Did he ever have any part time jobs?
R- He looked after the church.
But I mean, apart from jobs like that, you know, to earn money.
R- We had a newspaper round. I think we had a newspaper in Carleton and you had to collect them papers from Skipton Station, carry them home and take them round.
Is this a morning paper or evening paper?
R- Evening, there weren’t morning papers, very few in those days. And he used to have a, I think it was his piecer that helped to take the papers round.
Which paper was that Horace?
R- Well, there’d be all the evening papers you see. There’d be the Leeds Mercury and the Sporting Pink were one. But it’d be all evening papers, they’d come from Leeds and we’d quite a lot of Lancashire papers. A lot
(15 min)
of Lancashire people lived in Carleton, they’d want the, what was it? Not the Daily Telegraph, the Lancashire paper .. ?
Probably the Evening Telegraph. I’m not too sure at that time. I think it was probably the Evening Telegraph.
R- Evening Telegraph. Yes, and they were a halfpenny. And they took them out between them, delivered them, they didn’t stand hawking them, delivered the papers.
(450)
Oh so you’d always have a paper.
R- Yes. And if the trains were late, well the papers were late.
What time did they have to pick them up at the station?
R- As soon as ever he finished work.
And that’d be every night but Sunday.
R- Yes.
Did he ever have any accidents at work that you know of?
R- Never.
Never. Did you know anybody that worked at the mill that did have an accident?
R- No.
Right. And, we are talking about Slingsby’s now. Have you ever heard of anybody, even if you didn’t know of them, having an accident at. Slingsbys?
R- The taper at Carleton mill, when I were a lad, he’d part of his hand off. He’d had it fast in a tape. But whether it were done at Carleton or not I don’t know.
Was he ever out of work?
R- Never. Slingsby’s always kept going.
Aye. but if Slingsby’s had stopped, of course he would have been out of work. He’d have been stopped the same as the rest of them.
R- Aye, he would.
Yes. So he was never unemployed?
R- No.
And after he died did you ever get any help from the Board of Guardians?
R- No.
No. How about the Foresters? Would they do anything to help your bereavement?
R- Oh no, there’d be a death grant, that’s what there’d be but I don't know of anything else.
Did he belong to a Trade Union?
R- I don't think there’d he any at that time in Carleton, 1916.
(500)
Did you have any part time job before you started full time work?
R- No.
And of course, your job, you left school in 1918 .. what would it be? Now you were 12 years old. 1918 was it?
R- Yes, the war was just about finishing, drawing to a close then.
Yes, and you’d go half time.
R- My birthday is in April, that’d be before the war finished in November.
Aye, so you went half time to Slingsby's.
R- Yes.
And what was your first job Horace?
R- Doffing.
Now, explain what doffing is.
R- Ring spinning, there’s a difference between ring spinning and mule spinning. With mule spinning, the spinner doffs, they’re men, the spinner doffed his cops. But in ring spinning they’re stationary and the yarn ran on to a wooden bobbin about eight inches tall. And when they were full we, the doffers, used to have to doff the full ones and put the empty ones on. It’d take a bit of explaining, the process. There’s a carriage with the rings on
(20 min)
and what they called a traveller. And the yarn came down and hooked under this traveller and as the spindle were going round it dragged the yarn through this carrier and it were, the traveller were going up and down all the time ..
That’s it, they spread it on the bobbin.
R- Yes, and every time it came to the top it went up a little bit higher till it got to the top of the bobbin. When it were at the top you had to doff them. And the head doffer, he knocked it out of gear and twined the wheel at the end of the frame and the carriage went to the bottom again. And then there’d be three doffers to each side, they were double sided frames were a ring frame. There’d be three doffers to each side, perhaps two. And your can, your doffing can, was in two halves. One half had the empties in and the other half were for your full ones. And you got quite skilled at it. You walked on, you put your doffing can on a slide, walked on with it with your knees against it and you were picking a handful of empties out of here and you pull the full ones off and pop empty ones on. And pushing the empty ones on, it caught the end of the thread and held it there.
Yes, these would be ring tubes?
R- Ring tubes they were, wood. And when you got to the end and everybody’s
Finished, the head doffer used to put it in gear again and set the frame on and you had to take all the ends up that were down. And that were it, and then you moved on to the next frame. Faster you got your work done the more playing time you had. And if you got straight you went out playing outside in the mill yard, football, anything.
And what hours were you working then?
R- Half past six till half past .. well, it were half past six while half past eight, half an hour for your breakfast, and nine till half past twelve. Went home, had me dinner, went to school at half past one till four o'clock.
Yes but then next week you would be going to school in the morning.
R- Morning, and worked at the afternoon.
Which would you rather do, work in the morning and school in the afternoon or school in the morning and work in the afternoon?
R- Not go at all. It broke my heart when I thought I had to go into a mill. I remember when they said I had to go to work at Monday, eh I did cry.
Or when you first went?
R- Well you get used to it, I knew the work were to do, we had to live.
Yes. So you went into the mill when you were 12 and you’re doing half time. What pay did you get?
(600)
R- I think it were about 12/- a week. Wages were getting a bit better then.
Aye, that weren’t bad really were it.
R- No. And as time went on .. I know when the war finished and there were that bit of a boom… I were drawing more money then than I did when I got married.
Yes, and did you think it was a good wage that?
R- You’d no idea. You tipped up what you got and that were it. And if there were anybody off, you’d so many spindles to do, if there were anybody off you did their work as well and you got their wage to share out. You see, the head doffer got the wages and you shared it out at wages day.
Did you ever know of anybody going to work earlier than legal age?
R- No, they daren’t allow it, not in a mill.
When you went half time, did you have a medical before you went?
R- Supposed to do, they felt at you. If you were warm you were fit.
Who gave you the inspection?
R- Doctor was supposed to come. A doctor come and he were just looking at you and if you looked all right, well, you were all right. There were no medical at all. I do remember this, and I thought well, if you’re warm you are fit. Doctor Jago [Earby doctor]used to do that, he’d put his hand on you, “Oh, nice and warm” and that were that, you were living.
How were you treated by your employers?
R- Well it depended on what sort of foreman you had. But as long as you did your work that were it. And there was an incentive to work hard, you could go and play out. But sometimes you’d decide that you wanted a rise, or if you were fed up, hot days, and everybody just went up the Ghyll and left them to it. Aye, I know we used to do that, used to clear off, they were no good without doffers. And you got your shilling a week or whatever you wanted for a rise.
Is that right?
R- Yes we did, we just used to clear off. We were young but we were young beggars I know. But they couldn’t do anything about it.
How long were you a doffer?
R- It worked this way, if there were doffers available you were moved up on to another job. You could go into the card room or into weaving or mule spinning, you’d the choice if there were vacancies.
Yes, so tell me what happened to you.
R- Well I went into the warehouse.
And how long were you doffing before you went into the warehouse?
R- Fourteen perhaps.
Aye. Two year happen.
R- Yes.
So you’d do a year on full time, doffing, and then you got the chance to go into the warehouse..
R- You could move on if there were anyone available to take your place. If there were more coming along you get moved on quicker. If you didn’t, you stayed where you were until there were someone available.
And what was your job in the warehouse?
R- Bundling. Weavers used to come to the weft door, you used to give them the weft, you took the cards round to the weavers when the office chap marked their cards.
Yes, that’s it, putting cuts down.
R- Yes.
How did you like working in the warehouse?
R- It were all right. It were work, I mean when you’re young, and it wasn’t hard, there were no slave driving.
Was there any apprenticeship or any kind of training?
R- No.
You just learned the job?
R- That were it. You’d do this and you'd do that and you, you wrap them up like this and tie a piece. They were all short length pieces, they were thirty seven and a half yards long, they were all for export. And they say it were the length they took for a turban or for the woman to wrap round them.
Aye, a sari.
R- Yes. Well, and there were various types and you’d put different headings in, fancy headings that’d cost more than what the cloth did. Gold headings, you’d little bobbins to put in the shuttles, gold thread on or gold and red and blue and that must have been the status symbol for whoever got them out in India. All sorts of fancy headings, you’d a book with all the headings in, different sorts had to have these different headings in.
How often were the headings put in, just at the end of a piece or all the way through?
R- No, you know when you came to the piece you’d to put the heading in, and then you screwed up and then another heading. Each end of the piece.
Yes. So it wasn’t like a pattern, it wore just at the end of each piece.
R- End of each piece.
Did you belong to a trade union?
(30 min)
R- No, there wasn’t any.
No. We’re still talking about Slingsby’s?
R- Yes.
And what did your brothers and sisters do?
R- Me oldest brother, he went weaving, but he didn't go to Carleton, I had an uncle who were weaving in Broughton Road Shed, down Broughton Road, and this uncle of mine took him to learn weaving and he were weaving. When me father died you see, he were weaving in Skipton. Because in summer time when I went home from school for me dinner I’d get my dinner, and me mother used to put his dinner up in a basket, in a basin and then in a basket, and I had to go across the fields and I used to meet him. He set off from Skipton, Broughton Road, and walked till he met me, it were usually about half way. And then he’d sit and have his dinner, and I waited until he’d finished
(750)
and then brought the basin back with the basket and went off to school. That were in Summer weather not in winter time because you couldn't get across the fields because they were usually flooded.
Aye, of course they were, aye.
R- They were flooded were the fields.
Yes, because it's low lying there isn’t it.
R - It is.
And how about your sister?
R- Me sister went learning to weave at Skipton when she started working. I had a brother who went in a grocer shop, Carr’s grocers. He went farming did me brother, I had a uncle and he said did he want to come farming he’d learn him farming. And then as time went on, well, perhaps he’d been there a year and George Carr came. George Carr were a Carleton chap and he came and asked me mother if he’d like to go into a shop, there were a shop just where we lived, Carr’s shop and so he went there and stopped there for years in this grocer’s shop.
And that was in Carleton?
R- In Carleton.
Who did you think were better off, your brother working in the grocer shop or you working in the mill?
R- Well, I had more money but his were [always there] Then, when he went there were a lot of bad trade. A man in a grocer’s shop always had a, a boy in a grocer shop always had a regular wage.
Aye. And what difference do you think there was then between what you describe as a labourer, and a tradesman and a craftsman, you know?
R- Well, one way 2d an hour we’ll say. Twopence or threepence an hour. Because they talk about a labourer getting ten pence an hour and a craftsman being on a shilling, that was the difference between serving an apprenticeship till you were 21 or going as a labourer.
Was there any difference in status or the way they dressed or anything like that you know ? Was there any difference apart from the 2d an hour?
R- No, you weren’t looked upon any different to anybody else.
Aye, interesting that. And obviously your father was mule spinning in the first world. You didn’t start working till after the first world war.
(800)
R - Nineteen eighteen.
Yes. And nobody out of your family had served in the army or the navy?
R - No.
No.
R- Yes, my youngest brother, air force.
Ah yes, this is…
R- In the second world war. Yes.
Second world war, yes.
R- But me oldest brother, he wasn't old enough when the war finished you see. Not really, he hadn’t to go anyway.
And did anyone in the family work on munitions during the first world war?
R- No, there were no munitions round us unless, some engineering places and that was, nearest was Keighley, for engineering. They’d be working on munitions.
Yes. We’ve already talked about milliners and things like that, but, speaking generally now Horace, what jobs were there for girls and women when you were young. And what jobs did you think of as women’s work as opposed to men’s work?
(35 min)
R- Well, there were men weaving and there were women weavers. And the men had this ambition to become tacklers and that were where the men got to. And in the card room there were both men and women’s jobs. And in the spinning mill there were all women's jobs and in the winding room as well.
Now wait a minute, spinning?
R- Ring spinning.
Ring spinning?
R- They were all women's jobs except for the doffers and [the overlookers] who used to attend to the machinery, change the wheels for different counts. You see they’d to change the wheels.
Yes. How about mule spinning, that’d all be men wouldn’t it?
R - All men.
Yes. Did you ever know a woman mule spinner?
R – Never. They were all men. And in the card room it were mixed. Strippers and grinders were men, and labourers would be men but mainly women in a card room.
How about winders?
R- Winders were all women and beamers were all women. Some of the women ran two beaming frames.
Aye. They’d be low speed frames wouldn't they, old frames. They weren’t high speed.
R- Yes they were. Not the high speed.
Yes. Now, apart from the mill, apart from jobs in the mill, what would you think of as women's work?
(850)
R - Well, one or two worked in shops at Skipton, there were milliners and ordinary shops. There were one or two that worked at George Hurst’s. That were when there were dressmakers at George Hurst’s, all hand made stuff. There were one woman called Bargh and one called Dinsdale who used to walk it to Skipton every day and walk back at night. There were no buses when I were younger.
How about things like going into service or nursing or teaching?
R- Two girls that won scholarships went teaching, one called Whitehead, her father were the secretary of the Foresters but he were a weaver. Stella Whitehead went teaching and there were another girl, Dorothy Garnett, her father were a tackler and a barber at night. His daughter went teaching and she got a position at Harewood House. That were around Princess Mary, [she were ] a Lascelles you know. They thought it was something wonderful to be over there and working where Lord Lascelles lived.
And did you make any differentiation between men’s work and women’s work? What I’m trying to get at Horace is, obviously I don’t want to push you too much. You know, what was women’s work? What was regarded as … I mean, housework would he regarded fairly generally then and now as woman’s work. But also, things like being a milliner would not be regarded as a man’s job. Could you think of anything else that was, that was …
R- In the shops there were all men until the war come in.
Which war, the first world war? Yes.
R- First world war, they were all men.
Would you say that the first world war made a big difference to women’s position in society?
R- I don’t think it made any. Some women didn’t work, they’d families and they stayed at home and struggled on. And other women had families and took the children out to he minded and worked and did their housework at night. I think I told you about a cousin of mine, she worked all the week and when she’d paid [her dues] she had a shilling left.
(900)
(40 min)
Yes, finished up with a shilling a week. Nineteen twenty, there was a fair boom in cotton up to about 1920 and then it cracked.
R- Cracked.
How did it affect Slingsby’s?
R- Well, they struggled on for a long time working a week and playing a week, and working a month and playing a week. When you were playing you always used to go up to the office, they put a notice up at Friday afternoon if you had to work the following week and if you hadn’t to you walked on to Skipton and signed on. When they started at first you’d to go every day, wet or fine, and it used to he a proper shambles, all crowded there, didn’t know where you were going, you just struggled and pushed your way in. And “Nothing for you this week, it hasn’t come through.” And you’d go away and go the next day. And then things got a bit more organised, or disorganised. They gave you a card with a time on, a minute to ten we’ll say. And you’d go there and there’d be a long queue, and you took your place in the queue studying the clock on the wall and you got to the desk and she, there were women behind the counter as well as men .. look at your card, look at the clock, you’re two minutes too soon, go to the back of the queue. And the whole process again. You'd walk from Carleton to Skipton, pouring rain, water running out of your breeches behind I should say and that were the way you were tret [treated]. And I saw a man one day, they eventually got grilles to protect the people behind the counter, and there were a
(950)
big fellow in front of me and he were arguing with a woman and she’d fetched the manager and I don't know what happened, he just leaned through and took him by the throat, and pulled him through this hole in the grill. He just, if they hadn’t pulled him off he’d have strangled him. You were just tret like dogs. And Gargrave, five mile away, they were expected to go every day.
How long did that go on for?
R- Oh, long enough. 1921. And you run out of money, you’d happen draw I don’t know how many weeks you drew. I think I’d be drawing happen six shilling a week, not married you see and your money’s run out, you’ll have to wait.
What did they mean by that? That your money had run out?
R- Well you were only allowed so many weeks on the dole. Your money ran out.
So if you had no money and your money’s run out what did you do then? Starve?
R- Yes. They thought that doing that’d push you into getting work. But how could you get work when nine out of ten were unemployed? I were living at home, it didn’t worry me but chaps who were smoking would give anything to have a draw at a cigarette. And people that came out of work, chaps who were near forty then, there wasn’t a chance of ever getting work again. And Slingsby’s dribbled on until 1926 off an on and doing a bit till 1926 and then they're finished, the bank took over. And that finished Carleton Mill. And lots of people that, men that were turned forty or fifty, well that were it, they never got any more work. Some people moved away but other people, all the work they got happen was delivering letters at Christmas. Stuff like that. Because quite a lot got on the railway at that time. My brother that were weaving at Skipton, he’d been weaving at Skipton and then he started courting a servant and she were the servant of the mill manager, and he found him a job firebeating, boiler tenting, so he were working there.
(1000)
(45 min)
Then when they closed down he got on to the railway, quite a lot round about my age got on to the railway as platelayers you see, just labouring jobs. I remember he were sent all over the place, and that’s about thirty seven shilling a week, pay the lodgings, just come home at week ends.
And you worked at Slingsby’s until they finished did you?
R- Yes.
Well I think that’s a good time to stop this tape Horace.
R- And in between times, when the short time was in summer time, you could get a bit of haymaking.
Aye.
R- Sixpence ha’penny an hour.
Sixpence ha’penny an hour. How did that compare with the mill wage at that time.
R- Well, it’d be a shilling..
So it would be badly paid compared with mill job.
R- Oh, you couldn't get anything out of farmers.
Yes. And of course they knew that you were hard up for a job anyway.
R- Yes. And so I worked for a man, sixpence ha’penny an hour. We’d a job to get paid, a mate of mine and me, We’d go round to the farmhouse, “Oh, it’s broken weather. We won’t want any.” But in a fair bit of good weather you could start and, sixpence ha’penny an hour. And I went through that chap’s yard twelve months since. He were dead were that farmer, and his lad had taken the farm on. And there were two motor cars stood in the yard and I knew one were the farmer’s, I say “Who’s is t’other car?” He says “Oh, it’s the lad’s.”
SCG/08 March 2003
6,250 words