THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 16TH OF JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Tape 79/AD/09
Last time Horace, we were talking about how you went on in the depression in the twenties. Well, you were talking about labour exchanges and what it was like going up to Skipton to draw the dole. Now I think we’ll go on with that for a bit. What are your general impressions now of conditions during… Well, let’s get it straight first. When did the depression start?
R- 1920 things started worsening. Nineteen twenty into nineteen twenty one.
Would that be basically the textile industries or was it all round?
R- Textile industries mainly. There were a boom and then the countries abroad got on to their feet and they didn't want our stuff then. And we’d been sending machinery abroad, looms you see, for years and years and years and they began to catch up with us, they didn't want our stuff.
Now I realise at the time you'd be, obviously you were a young man but you must have heard people talking, you know, during your younger days.
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Did anybody at all see the depression coming before it did?
R- People used to say, weavers let’s say that had been used to about a pound a week, they were drawing three pound a week and they used to say “It can’t last, it never has done, big wages and the price of food.” And they started wanting to reduce your wages and they wouldn’t accept it and they came out on strike perhaps a week and then word would go round; “They’ve accepted half a crown in the pound reduction. So you go back to your work on Monday.” And we had to do. And it kept coming round like that, you had a few weeks unemployed and then they’d come with another demand for a reduction, same old thing again.
So how many times, were you brought out on strike at that time?
R- Oh yes, you were brought out, the weavers came out, the spinners came out you see, there were nothing for us to do and there were no union pay, you see the lads weren't in the union.
Yes, and as you say, and of course you weren’t in the union anyway.
R- No, but the weaving side were the worst hit, the spinning went
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on a lot longer full time than what the weaving did because it were all sent out to India, cheap cotton you see. Just plain cotton and they couldn’t make their own you know, the simplest thing to make that there was, just ordinary white cotton, heavy sized.
So for a time then you were spinning at Slingsby’s? Of course, you were still a doffer then at Slingsby’s. Were they exporting weft?
R- No, it were going to Barnoldswick, the weft, the warps, the beams, going to Barnoldswick and up and down in Lancashire. But a friend of mine that was a mill manager out in India, he said “If they’d only stop Japanese goods going into India, Lancashire would be on full time and overtime.” He said that was the trouble in India, he said the Indians couldn’t compete with the stuff Japan were sending in. It's just the same now, we can’t compete with Japanese stuff.
Yes, and of course there’s the old thing in there, they used to say that Lancashire used to weave for this country before breakfast and then the rest of the day they were weaving for export.
R- Yes.
Aye, and so when the export trade was hit, that was that.
R- Everything was hit.
That was that …
R- Killed Lancashire.
Yes. I have heard the opinion expressed that one of the main reasons for the crack, for the boom up to 1920 and the crack afterwards, was that during the 1914-18 war, due to war production and due to the shortage of labour, with so many people being away at the war, what you might call ‘shelf stocks’, you know, warehouse stocks and things like that…
(5 min)
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R - Had all been used up. Yes.
And the 1918 to 1920 boom was really a re-stocking operation and once that had been done the demand went off again.
R- Yes. The older people said they could see it coming before the war. Short… bad times you see, bad trade. Because Japan were getting our markets.
Yes. Can you ever remember this sort of thing being the subject of comment? Or being used politically you know, say in elections and things like that?
R- Well it were mentioned about Japanese competition.
But I find very little evidence that… It seems to have caught everybody by surprise. When I say everybody, it seems to have caught most of the manufacturers by surprise. One wonders whether they were so used to this sort of thing that they assumed that when it did come it wouldn’t be hurting them anyway and it’d only be a temporary thing.
R- Yes. They’d had it so good you see that they’d just gone on year after year .. booms and bits of slumps and booms and bits of slumps. But after 1920 it were slumps and then a bigger slump next time, and then there’d just be a [recovery] trade’d mend a bit and then went further down. And then one mill after another went bankrupt you see, that were how it came to be.
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there hadn’t been bankruptcies before but round here, Colne and Nelson and Burnley, they started pulling the mills down, and that wasn’t a good sign when they were just stood empty and then they pulled them down. No hope of them ever being weaving sheds again.
When the had times did hit, you know, after 1920 say in Carleton, how bad was it? When I say how bad was it, I don’t mean how bad was the unemployment, I mean the poverty and suffering caused by unemployment. How bad was it?
R- Well, all the people that worked at Slingsby’s, they were out of work. And then Skipton were doing better, they were all weaving fancy stuff at Skipton. Well, weavers from Carleton walked across into Skipton and got work there. They had it all to learn but Skipton went on you see. But it were the foreign goods that were done for. You see the people that were weaving fancy stuff, they kept on, and on, and on until well after, well after the second world war. And then Courtaulds took over nearly all of them and they haven’t done so well have they?
No, one would hardly say so. Now of course one of the things that happened about this time was we went back on the gold standard didn’t we.
R- Yes.
Can you remember that?
R- Oh yes. But I didn’t understand it then, being on the gold standard. We never saw any gold. Aye, you couldn’t understand what they meant.
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Yes. Can you remember there being comment about that though?
R – No. We were only lads I mean …
Yes. Now of course that led up to the series of strikes that culminated in the General Strike of 1926.
R- Yes, 1926.
Now, what can you remember about that Horace?
R- Well, we were not so far away from Skipton you see, just a mile and a quarter away. And the dead silence…
From Carleton?
R- At Carleton from Skipton.
Yes, from Skipton.
R- Dead silence, no railway engines, that was what struck you, everything was so quiet, nothing moving.
No shunting.
[‘No shunting’ might puzzle anyone who hasn’t lived near a centre of steam transport. One of the most characteristic sounds of the railway was the sound of the couplings between the wagons snapping open when a train of wagons was pulled to move it, or the buffers slamming together if it was pushed. In the goods yard of a centre like Skipton trains were being marshalled for the following day’s movements and during the night the sound of the couplings jangling was a constant backdrop of noise.]
R- No, no shunting, no trucks going through. The express train used to come through Skipton and then when they were coming up what we called
(10 min)
the Lancashire line, a steep gradient, they were puffing away but {it] just seemed to be dead quiet, nothing going on at all. There weren’t many lorries about in those days, not same as it is now. But the silence somehow…. They only lasted a few days. Only a week or two.
And did the general strike have any effect in Carleton? You know, was there any difficulties say with food supplies or fuel supplies?
R- No, none whatever, none at all.
It didn’t go on long enough.
R- Oh no it didn’t. If the railways had been out on strike for a month or two, well it would, but there were no effect at all, the coal strike lasted a lot longer, the miners stopped out but in those days they were delivering coal at Carleton from Burnley at tenpence ha’penny a hundredweight delivered into your coalhouse. I know we’d a big coalhouse, we used to stock up in summer, and it didn’t matter whether there were strikes or snowbound or what, we’d always plenty of coal. But tenpence ha’penny…
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Aye, it makes you wonder doesn’t it?
R- Yes.
How did your spare time activities change after you started work?
R- Well, when I were doffing and I were full time, the things I can remember, I used to go home an get me tea and fall asleep in the chair. Me mother’d wake me up to have me supper and then I’d go to bed. And then I were up at half past five and you were at it for ten hours you know, six o’clock at the morning and a couple of breaks, and half past five at night. And it were warm and you were at it nearly all the time. . And that’s where your spare time went, sleeping.
Aye. Did you go to any dances?
R- I learned to dance when I were about seventeen, perhaps eighteen, and I went to quite a lot. There was always dances in Carleton and in Skipton. When I got older I went to dances at Skipton, but every week in Carleton in winter to a dance.
Where at?
R- Well, they had them in the school and they had them in the co-op rooms. The church ran dances, Conservative Ball as they called them and Liberal Ball and t'Co-op Ball you see. There used to be a gala, a procession round Carleton, a tea party, and sports, and then dance at night.
Would you say there was more of that went on then than now?
R- Oh yes. I wonder many a time what the young folk do. There’s very few pictures, there's no dancing. There used to be choral societies and various things going on, there were light operas, all that sort of thing. Girls Friendly Societies used to
have them and rope young fellows in for the male parts. Oh, there were plenty going on, whist drives, always something going on in a village. But there's nothing now.
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Aye, yes. You are right. How about, you went to the cinema didn’t you. You went to the cinema in Skipton.
R- Yes we did, and it were a penny. Walk there, and a pennorth of tripe bits or a pennorth of chips and walk back.
How about music halls and theatres?
R- No.
No. And you kept on going to church?
R- Yes.
Did you take any interest in politics? As you were getting older?
R- No.
Why didn’t you?
R- Well, I didn’t go to a club, I didn’t go to the Conservative Club and it were never discussed at our house.
Aye that’s it. I remember you telling me. And your father was a Conservative?
R- Yes.
Now I seem to remember you telling me that at one time your ideas changed.
R- Yes.
About what time of life was that Horace?
R- Well eventually Slingsby’s closed down.
When did Slingsby’s close down, roughly?
R- Now then, I’ll tell you. The weaving shed closed about 1922. I were 21 and I messed about, worked in the tape room, in the warehouse and everywhere. They’d find the lads a job up and down, beam flanging and such as that. They had a donkey at Carleton, it were rather a good big donkey and they had it for pulling the beams and weft from one mill to another. And they came across from over the main road and up a fairly steep hill and this donkey used to pull the trucks of weft up there and then you took the back beams to the tape room and all that sort of thing. It were worth it’s weight in gold were that donkey. And you just hooked it on, they had one or two different sorts of trucks, some for carrying the weft and a different shape for the back beams and the front beams. You had to be very quick, it had just a chain behind it with a hook on and as soon as ever you dropped the hook on the truck the donkey went. If you missed with the hook the donkey went just the same dragging you after it. I wonder what happened to that donkey, I left you know. I know it ran out in a field, I looked after it for years. I suppose it’d die eventually but it were 26 then and it were a good worker.
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When did you leave Slingsby’s?
R - Nineteen twenty two.
Yes. When the weaving stopped?
R- Yes. I’d been out of work about a week or a fortnight and I had an uncle working in Broughton Road, weaving. And he says they’re wanting someone in the warehouse at Rycroft’s [Rycroft and Hartley Limited. Broughton Road Shed.] and go and see them. And so I went in and I got working there. Of course you had to do something and I were 21 then, and I were working there until the war, well, till after the war. When the war come on it were a reserved occupation, and you couldn’t move, you couldn’t go anywhere.
And what were you doing at Rycroft’s?
R - In the warehouse, clothlooking.
All the time?
R - Yes. Clothlooking, but it wasn’t just running it over a machine. Every inch had to be examined. And each man had forty looms. A tackler had forty looms, the piece looker had forty looms, and you were responsible for all that cloth. And there were 16 warehouse men, it were a right long warehouse. And on that long table right from one end to the other. And you pulled
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every inch over the table, threw it into a rack at the back and pulled it over. And it had to be perfect, they guaranteed their cloth these Rycrofts and every end had to be sewn in. Striped poplin, every end that were down. And there’d be more than 20 menders.
When you say ‘had to be sewn in’ if there were an end down for say about six inch down the cloth, them ends were threaded in with a needle?
R- With a needle. That was in coloured. You know how they used to be, pinstripes. and every end, even if it were a coloured end, it had to be sewn in.
(20 min)
If it were a shirt you know, and there were a pinstripe and it was out, but they had to be sewn in, coloured ends. They said “These shirts will be a guinea” Well, a guinea seemed a fabulous amount when we could get a shirt for half a crown or less.
Aye, I mean it were like a week’s wage, the equivalent of a £60 shirt now weren’t it.
R- Yes it was. But they wove everything at Rycroft’s. Now when the war came it were a reserved occupation and they’d to do government cloth, parachute cloth and balloon cloth and airforce shirtings. Bunting, that were that woollen stuff, you know, those flags that you see. All that bunting stuff, they’re weaving that. That parachute cloth had to be, were the most particular about, and the balloon cloth as well, for barrage balloons. But the parachute cloth were the most particular, there had to he nothing let go. The inspectors, after you’d inspected them you had an Inspection stamp, you stamped it on, and the piece number, and then government inspectors came
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round and they’d just pick a piece up haphazard and examine every inch of it. And they’d see if you’d let anything slip. You know, it were men’s lives if there were a fault in the parachute cloth.
And these changing ideas about politics, when did this take place?
R- After I went to Rycrofts. There were fellows there that had been in the first war you see. They hadn’t been out of the army long, 1922. Some of them had only been out three years, 1919, and they were full of [experience]. It changed my ideas about Conservatives and Labour and I could see where things had gone wrong.
And where do you think things had gone wrong?
R- Well, from my point of view, brought up in a Conservative family, you thought they were [infallible], everything that they did were right. And then you realised that what they did were mainly all wrong. It were right from their point of view. All this stuff about when you met the boss of the mill in the street you’d always to salute him and all that sort of baloney. And everything that they did were right.
Did people do things like that? I mean, say 1918, if you’d met Mr Slingsby as you wore walking up the street…
R - Not after you left the school but when you were at school was as much as your life [was worth if you didn’t] salute the schoolmaster and his wife and the parson you see.
Yes. How about after you started at Rycroft’s, would you have done the same then?
R- Would I what! I’d spit in their eye.
Is that right? Now it’s all right but I'm pushing you a bit on this Horace, but I mean…
R- No no, it’s all right.
It’s obvious that there had been a fairly radical change in your opinions. Did anything, did anything in particular contribute towards it?
R - Well you read more and you took more notice of what were going on
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as you got older. As a lad you didn’t care two hoots as long as the sun came up in the morning and when you went home there were a meal ready for you.
What did you read?
R - Well we got the Daily Herald, and I don't think we’d have taken that but they started coming round and if you’d take it for so many weeks you got a dictionary or something like that.
Yes, you mentioned that. Now .. I thought to meself, really, that even a Conservative household, it showed that even a Conservative household could be swayed by good marketing. Yes. And what else beside the papers, did you read anything else?
R - And moving away from the village. I've a brother and sister now that have never moved away, they still live in Carleton, they are still Conservative.
Aye, that’s a good point Horace, that's a good point. Did you ever read anything like, you know, some of the classic Socialist primers you know like, I don't know, Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, something like that.
(25 min)
R - Well I’ve read it since. But my wife’s family are right Labour people. My father in law was on Colne Council for years and until they closed the shed down at Colne and they moved them to Burnley. All the [bus] drivers had to go to Burnley. And they finished with the Council then but he’d been next on for mayor if that change hadn’t taken place. And a big honour to be the Mayor of Colne.
Yes, of course it is, to be mayor of your own town. Yes. And so there was nothing really radical happened to you to change your view, it was just that you began to take more notice and made up your own mind.
R- Yes of course I did.
Would you say that the way you were treated when you were unemployed influenced you at all?
R- When I was unemployed me brother worked at Carleton and he was unemployed at the same time just for a few weeks not [permanent] he were on short time. Well, there was only me eldest brother and me working. Well we were both signing on. Well, we both got ..for lads I don’t know what it’d
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be, happen 8/- a week. And me mother put a claim in for more money for herself, because there were three not working, still at school, and me brother got a form, he’d to go down to Keighley, they’ve a tribunal to try your case. And he were only a lad at fifteen or sixteen, I don’t know, what, happen seventeen or eighteen, only a boy. And they asked him all sorts of questions about it. You see, “She stayed on and paid for thee.” All sorts of things and… He’d be eighteen and “Are you courting?” No
he weren’t. “Well, do you think [you might be] courting?” No. “Well you're old enough to get married, aren’t you?” He said “Oh yes if I were.” So well, they
couldn’t allow her any more money, because if they did and he got married it’d
be stopped and she’d be back in the same position. That were the excuse they made, wouldn't allow any more money. And she wasn’t drawing off the town or anything, but just expected a bit more for the three that were not working. And all such things as that. And you began to wonder when you were out of work, the bosses could be buying new cars you see? Now Rycrofts, when I were working at Rycrofts, they weren't on full time always. The way the weavers weren’t playing but they dropped the [number of] looms down, you see. Happen on three looms instead of four. Well every man that was on forty looms it’d average out at thirty or thirty five. And they used to count the number of looms that were stopped at Saturday morning and if they
added up to forty looms stopped in 972 looms, one man had to have a week off. If there were 80 looms without warps, two men had to be off. But they weren’t fair because a weaver could have a warp out at Saturday morning and the tackler wouldn’t bother to put it in, the loom were to sweep he'd leave it while
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Monday. But all these looms that had warps out were counted an stopped even if they’d have warps in at Monday. But there were 40 looms empty and so one man had to play off. And the tapers, I used to go in the tape room quite a 1ot and the taper, when it got to Friday night, he’d happen have a couple of hundred yards to run, or Saturday dinner time, we worked until Saturday dinner time then. And he’d to come in at Monday morning and run that set out
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for half past ten or eleven o'clock. When he got his set out “Go home now.” He’d to finish there and then. And he were coming from Nelson, he’d to come to Skipton and run his set out, then finish. It might have been for two or three weeks, I don’t really know. Or a week out, but that were the way they did and I know Rycrofts, the worse period they ever had, the most looms were stopped any time I can remember was this particular year and there were three new motorcars came on to the firm, there were two brothers and the father, all partners in the firm. They each had a new motorcar and that’s what makes people bitter.
Yes. I can understand that Horace. Did you take part in any sport? Were you interested in any sport? Did you follow any particular sport?
R - I played football.
Yes? You played? Who with?
R- Yes. Village team, that were all. And I remember quite clearly I were eighteen and I got a right hammering, punching. And I thought “Now then. Am I going to make my living at this or am I not.” I thought, “Well, you’ll never make a living at it so it’s time you finished!” Way we were at home, I couldn’t afford to be lame. So I packed it in. Quite content to watch.
Yes. How good were you?
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R- Not so good. No, I know that, that’s why I thought “Well, you’ll never make your living at this. Pack it up.” Because there were older people getting their kneecap knocked off and their legs broken at the football matches and I thought “No.”
Round about this time, sometime about then you must have met your wife. When did you meet her?
R- I were twenty five. So that’s about 1925.
Now you were born in 1906 and ...
R- It were 1925. No, later than that, I’m getting it wrong, I were 25.
Yes, so that’d be 1931.
R- Nineteen thirty one. I were twenty five.
You’d be working at Rycrofts then.
R - Yes, I wore working at Rycrofts and me brother were the verger at the church, and he were working at Rycrofts then, quite a lot at Rycrofts and he left Rycrofts and got on the railway, a more regular job and more money guaranteed for work on the railway. And then he got married, so he were working seven days a week. So the verger’s job, he had to pack it up and did do but me mother kept the church cleaning on. It were money for me mother you see to earn and keep you going. And I took the verger job on. You had to attend funerals and you attended the church service, and you attended christenings and weddings. You get, you got paid for it all and one day there were a christening at Carleton and, you didn’t know who it were, you never looked,
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just put the water, warm water, in the font and put the prayer books out or cards with all the service on for the people that were attending the christening, god parents. And this day I went to one and my wife were there, come from Colne to a friend of hers that were farming at Carleton. They’d had a child and she came as godparent I suppose and that were how I met her. I knew the other people that were there from Carleton and I got to the christening tea and that were how we met.
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Yes. Of course there would be certain difficulties there, you were living in Carleton and she was living in Colne I presume.
R- Yes. And I had the church work, I couldn’t go on Sunday but she always came to Carleton. Well, invariably, came to Carleton.
Oh well then she must have been taken on with you and all, at the same time.
R- Well yes. That were how it were.
Aye. Good. And how long were you courting before you got married?
R- Five years.
Now then. Was that because, obviously I mean no offence here, this is just a way of getting at it. How was that? Because you couldn’t make your mind up or because you were saving up or what was the reason for that five years?
R- Well, until they were all working at home I would never have thought of getting married. I wouldn’t have thought of starting courting. And then, you couldn’t get married haphazard in those days. Well I wouldn’t, you’ve got to get some money behind you. And then I thought about me mother you see. There were three [at home and] though they were getting [older], there were me brother, he were 27, sister were 24 or 5, and a brother 21, me youngest brother 21 or thereabouts. And I wouldn't have got married till they were all grown up, not for nothing. And so we just had to go on and wages weren’t big, you had to try and save what you could do and live and have holidays. But with both of us saving we furnished this house, we rented this house.
We’ll get on to the house in a minute Horace. Where did you get married? What was the date you got married?
Nineteen thirty six. Thereabouts, September.
Yes, that’s it. September 1936. Now what was your wife’s job then?
R- She worked at the Colne Co-op. She managed the branch shoe shop at Colne. Now there were a lady in the shoe shop down here, she were leaving to have a baby, gave up.
That’s the Co-op shoe shop, yes.
R- Yes, Co-op shoe shop here, [Earby] Gave up here and my wife applied for it and she got this shoe shop, manageress.
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Was that in 1936 as well?
R- Yes, 1936 and that were why it were possible for us to get married. There were no houses to be got in Skipton. I had my name down for a council house but it were hopeless. But in Earby you’d have a pick of a hundred houses, things were that bad. All these streets here were all empty, and up there all empty. Barnoldswick were the same weren’t it.
Yes.
R- And with my wife working here she knew all the houses and one were coming empty here and it were a fair good house so she asked for it and got it. And we got married. It were September holidays 1936. You couldn’t afford to have much time off. Of course, Colne holidays and Skipton came together.
Aye. Now by the time you got married, obviously you’d been courting for five years and you’d been saving up and you are moving into a rented house. How did you go on about furnishing it then, were you able to make a fair job of furnishing when you came in?
(40 min)
R- Every room furnished.
And this is when you went to Ledgard and Wynn’s. That’s it, you told me about that didn’t you. And you started off with…
R- Everything. Not this, everything.
That’s not this three piece settee that we are .. sorry
R- No. We had one, a good one but me mother, during the war… and then me mother, I’m digressing a bit, me mother…
You’re right.
R- Me mother had a three piece and it were worn out, and there were none to buy. This is during the war, and they lived in the room which it were in. It were a house and a kitchen and they lived in the front room and it were jiggered. And so I said to her “We’ll let you have ours. We seldom go into the front room.” [So we let me mother have it] and we’d get another one. And we were without in this room. I used it as a work shop, kept my bicycle in here and all that sort of thing. And when the war come on you know, travelling by bus were very difficult. There were no petrol for motor cars and persons that had motor cars. Well the bus started up Skipton, and I were working down Broughton Road and it were just straight past, you couldn’t get on. [Because it was full] So I thought the only thing to do is to get a bicycle. And I cycled for years to Skipton and back. I don’t know how I did sometimes, the roads
were that slippy.
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Yes. So, you were working down here in, you were living, you and your wife were living in Earby, she was managing the Co-op shoe shop and you were still working at Rycrofts and you were in the warehouse then, piece-looking.
R- Then.
Yes. Now how long did your wife carry on working after you’d got married?
R- Katherine were born in 1945.
That’s your daughter.
R- Yes. That were nine years.
Aye, nine years
R- She gave over when she were expecting, you see?
One thing I meant to ask you Horace, and if I don’t ask you I’ll forget. You said that you rented this house when you first came to it. I know this is going to sound crazy now, but what was the rent of this house when you came into it in 1936?
R- Twelve and sixpence, everything. It were enough to say what houses there were in Earby, it were a good house but we paid 12/6 and I think the rent’d happen he 3/6 or half a crown or 3/6. And water rate in as well.
Yes. Now wait a minute. I’m not just .. now when you said 12/6, …
R- In old money.
What did that consist of, that was the rent of the house…
R - And the rates was in it.
Oh the rates was in as well.
R- And the water rate. You see, that landlord, he’d have a rake off for paying that rate to the council, he were responsible I think. They do yet don’t they? They used to do.
Now then I’m not sure. It could be.
R- They do, they’ve a discount.
Aye, for collecting the rates.
R- For being responsible. They, the landlord pays on demand. Well I don’t. Ever since we bought this house, and they do in Earby you get your rate paper in two halves. Well we paid one half and then waited six months and paid the other, we always have done. And when we went under Pendle, they banged it all in in one lot. Well, I said we’ve been here for forty years and that’s how I pay, I’m not changing it for Pendle or anyone else. And he [the rate collector] weren’t for taking it and I says “Pick that money up, half of the rates, if I put it back in my pocket you won’t get it at all till the next six months so just please yourself!” So he signed the paper for half of it and tore the slip off it. For half of the rates and that’s the way I’ve carried on..
Aye. I’ve never paid it all. I think I did once and I regretted it after. So, how many children did you have?
R- One.
Just the one, Katherine, yes.
R- Yes well, my wife hadn’t such a good time. She had two or three operations after she was born, prolapses. And we never had any more, well, I don’t think she could have, couldn't have any more children.
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(45 min)
So this house, basically, was furnished as it is now.
R - Yes.
Now you worked at Rycrofts right through the war. And you were in the warehouse all that time. Now then, at the end of the war presumably, well you tell me what happened that made you change your job.
R - Well there were a stop notice put on you, reserved occupation. And at the end of 1944 that were taken off.
SCG/09 March 2003
6015 words.