THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 17TH OF JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
So, the picture we're getting Horace is the fact that there is no doubt about it that the Big Mill at Earby was in a fairly run down condition but that that was really due to the fact that it wasn’t a paying proposition, and then there had been the war years. But I think I'm right in saying that it did get to the stage where there was an alteration and that was while you were working there. Now, can you tell me about it?
R- Well, they’d more money to spend. All the space were let, everybody working full time. Before the war half of the place was empty, the ballroom were empty, well Johnsons took that and the Big Mill, Victoria Shed. Birleys used to be there, well they moved out, I don’t know how many years it was empty, and Johnsons took that, well everything was running. They’re drawing quite a lot of money every month and they had something to spare
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then because if they hadn’t spent it they’d have been having to pay it in Income Tax. Because Bill Lancaster once told me how many hundred pounds he had to spend that year. That were excess profit and more got done you see. We got a three throw
pump for pumping the water back into the boiler and more steam pipes in, less waste and we started getting more repairs done whereas before that there’d been 20, well 30 years of neglect.
Newton told me that one of the things that started the job off was they vent down, they were asked to go down at one time, well, you’d got to the stage where the engine was only just keeping up with the load. So they went down and I think you know a bit about that.
R- yes, we’d a job to keep going. Well, everything was on, I think Johnsons[870 looms] had five tapes, Charles Shuttleworth [604 looms]had a tape and Hugh Currer’s [684 looms Earby Manufacturing Company] had a tape. Well you see there were seven tapes going. I think that’s correct, six or seven tapes going, and every available space had a loom in, there was a lot of weight on an old engine like that. And in the boiler room, everything were run down. We started getting new hoppers you see, whereas they had been tied up with bits of wires before, and it were just sheer neglect because they’d no money.
And then they brought Brown and Pickles down to have a look at the engine because it got to the stage where the boilers couldn’t make enough steam to keep the place going could they?
R- Keep it going, yes.
And apart from the coal they were burning. How much did they get up to a week?
R- About sixty ton I think in winter time, perhaps more. But they had a boiler man on that hadn't much idea. Now, the biggest change in the boiler house was when Tommy Almond come down.
Tommy…..?
R- Tommy Almond, he worked for Brown and Pickles.
Almond.
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[Newton told me that they had to have all three boilers blowing off with full fires and water right to the top nut on the gauges in order to start the engine and cope with the load]
R- Almond, and they were without boiler man so they sent him down. And he could get steam out of stones could Tommy Almond. I never saw anything like him. Charlie Scullthorpe left and went to the Armoride, a lot more money and I suppose better conditions. And they got Billy Lindsay on, he came from Gargrave. He said he was a boiler man but they made about as much steam at Gargrave as if for brewing tea. Well, having to come on to a thing like this, oh it was horse work. And I were no
boiler man and my mate weren’t, not same as Almond were. The only thing
that Tommy Almond got dirty were his breeches behind, he were really a marvel. he were. It was amazing, he never used to get a sweat on. Well it used to be running down off us, out of us pants bottom, really, were the sweat. And that’s the difference between one that knew his job and one that didn’t. It’s all right throwing coal on and even more coal but that’s not the way to raise steam. Because he was just using the same stuff that Billy Lindsay had been using and as soon as we started up you could watch the gauge and it were just going down and down. And we’d to go down into the boiler house and three of us wiring in to get the steam back up again. And then we’d leave him, [boilers] right, blowing
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off and then down and down and down. I tell you, I could write a book about the experiences in there.
That’s what we are doing Horace.
R- But Tommy Almond were good, he were good on boilers, but he were nothing on anything else, he weren’t. But he had two lads, worked somewhere in Barnoldswick and he’d been in a public house one day and getten fresh I think, and him being, bragging about being down here, and telling he were going to get his two lads in. He said “I’m going to have yon two buggers out and get me own lads in.” So we thought well, we’ve to be ready for moving before he moved us. But I will give him his due, he were good on boilers, he were. Oh it, we used to go in and oh what struggles we had. When the steam were down and you were fighting to get it back up and get the engine going. Then happen about an hour and down again, all Lindsay could do was open the door and look in. Oh he were nowt!
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And the rubbish we got! When there were a right coal shortage we got a lot of slurry. All it were was breeze, they called it slurry. It’s supposed to have been washed off coal, it were nothing but dirt. And the first day it came, mixing it with coal, coal and this slurry together. We did ever so fair, managed to fiddle the day out and went home and when Charlie Scullthorpe came up at morning to get the steam up, it were one solid mass, set everywhere this slurry, it were just same as if we’d filled the pipes with concrete you know, right up into the chamber above. Everywhere solid, you never saw such a pantomime. [The slurry had set in the large pies which let the coal down from the overhead bunker to the hoppers on the stokers. These would be shut off at the boiler when they burned off at night and had set in the pipes, blocking them.] We got it cleared and got going, a man to each boiler but when it were going on there were no flame. The only thing that came off it were just a blue light, just flickering, a black mass and just flickering. So the job soon stopped, there’d to be no more slurry.
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So the next move, word comes through there were no coal for us, we could have some open cast but it were in big lumps. [what Horace is describing here is similar to that described by Newton Pickles on Tape 78/AG/03 when he and Harry Crabtree were trying to fire Clough Mill on American Lend Lease coal in 1946. The date is right as well. This was brown coal and very poor. I burnt some at Bancroft in 1976 when we got to the back of the stock pile, it had been there for thirty years. It was terrible coal.]And they brought some big loads from open cast workings, big lorries were coming and tipping it in the yard outside. And you know what ironstone’s like? Well brown, that were all it were like, it wasn’t black same as coal. Some of it were but the main were this brown stuff. And people everywhere in Earby were short of coal and the first day when these loads come and were tipped in the open yard they were “Can we have a bit of coal?” “Aye, go on, help yourself.” And George Shuttleworth, one of the tenants, “Could he have some?” So we put some in a sack and put it in the boot of his car and he brought it back the next morning! Because we knew what we were using, using on the boilers, it’d hardly boil a kettle. We had to break it right small, it came in big cobs and we’d a sledge hammer apiece. There were a man to each boiler and they were tipping it in front of the boilers, and you were breaking it up and then throwing it on. And all it did were change colour. It went on, black and brown and it just went to white. It didn’t go any less, it were the same lumps you raked out. I know one afternoon after that come we cleaned out every boiler seventeen times. It were just a matter of throwing it on and it
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changed colour. Of course the mill were stopped, just everything stopped, you had to struggle on getting steam up and get going again. And all the lot went on like that just as though there was a hole in the bottom of the boilers. My God, summer time and cleaning out seventeen times! You just got so that, do you know, that day, when it come to night I couldn’t lift my arms up. By Gum! So that finished the open cast, anybody that got any brought it back, glad to see the end of it. But it were just brown, main of it were just brown and you’d a job to break it. My goodness!
And then eventually they got, when they did start to get going, they got Brown and Pickles out and bored the engine, didn’t they.
R- Yes. Well I were in at that low pressure, on the right hand side as you went in. I know it’s 41 ¼ inches inside diameter.
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And they come down to start on the job and the engine house ceiling there, it were flagged up above in parts. As you came out of the engine house it were all flags so as it were fire proof. And holes bored through, and you fix your blocks and tackle and we’d to crane it [The piston and rod] up out of the cylinder and let it down on to the floor. And we didn’t let it down on the plates, it’d have gone through. And so you hooked off one set of tackle
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on to the next, two or three sets of blocks and tackle you had, and you hooked on to one and then hooked the other on and let this go and swung it a bit further till they got it through the door. And it were down a lot of steps and up some more steps, and on to a landing, we had to get it along this room into the warehouse and to crane out of there out of the door on to the lorry next day. Anyway we’d got it on to this landing and they said that they’d just lower it to the ground. They said “We’ll finish for tonight. We can’t get it to the doorway, it’s impossible to get it to the doorway tonight.” And so there were me and Wilf McKie and we looked at it and we thought
“We can shift this thing, we can shift this between us.” And we got a long wire rope and fixed it on, craned it up and put it on a loom bogey, and got it balanced so as the piston rod were straight out. I tell you. And we fixed blocks and tackle on at the other end and we had it under the crane in no time. But it were a good job they’d got that crane altered. Right in the top of the beam chamber they used to have an old winch at the end of each beam so if they’d anything to do they could wind it up. Well when Johnsons got the looms we fixed that in the warehouse and over a pulley to bring the looms up into the ballroom. But we’d to slow off at Johnsons. Eventually when they started
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spending more money they’d get a proper crane, one of them where you pushed it that
way to come up and this way to come down. And there were a fellow, I never knew his name but they called him Darwen Dicky, a little fellow he were, he had the job of putting it on. So it were all right for bringing skeps of weft up, but when Johnsons started getting broad looms, and they’d probably weigh 15cwt, it wouldn’t hold, wouldn’t have the brake and it wouldn’t bring them up, wouldn’t move them off the lorry. And eventually they sent for Johnny Pickles, it were either bringing looms up or taking them out. No it were bringing them up off a lorry. And Johnny came, crane
were all right, there were nowt wrong with the crane, but he complained about the brake wouldn’t hold and it weren’t right. When you let your handle go, instead of the brake going on, it just went down to the ground. And then if you got it part way up it’d pull up but if you let go of it, it should have stopped there to be ready to come in, but it didn’t. It used to go quietly down again. And so Johnny said it was all right and he brought one of the men down, this Darwen Dick that had put it up. “Get one
on your big looms on.” And Chris Taylor were there that had sent for Johnny and “Take it up.” he says to this fellow, and so he took it up. And “Let go.” So he let go, thump! That loom just went down to the bottom like an express train and smashed into hundreds of bits, hundreds of bits. That was when Johnny's face went red. And there were Chris Taylor, a smashed lorry. There were Chris Taylor cursing away on the bottom and “I fucking well knew it weren't right!” Chris had seen,
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he knew it wasn’t right. Hee Hee! But he played hell. And he’d fixed it up all wrong
had this chap. When you let the handle go, instead of the brake going on it, it lifted it off, that was what he’d done. Eh!
Aye. An old teagle hoist.
R- Aye, that were the only time I saw Johnny nonplussed. You know, he come marching in and …
You knew Johnny before, Horace?
R- Oh yes I did. I were the verger at Carleton Church and there were this very old clock. A farmer made that. A chap called William Cryer and it cost about £90. And he made it and there’s very few wheels in it, wheels about so big.
About 2feet across, 3feet across, aye.
R- Yes. And the pendulum was about 40feet long. The clock faces were about three quarters of the way up the tower and I was thinking about 65 feet high is the tower, the clock face. And then the pendulum’s above that in the clock chamber and it goes right down to within a yard of the ground and it moves 9 inches each way. It’s a lead bob about so big at the bottom and then a wire till it goes out of sight and then it’s wood, pieces of wood fastened together with metal plates till it gets up right up into the clock chamber. But this bob is painted blue and then there is gold balls all round for fancy. I think it beats 15 times a minute because I used to time it for a minute. [The length of pendulum for 15 beats to the minute is approximately 52 feet according to the Watch and Clockmakers Handbook.] One job that we used to do was tolling the bell when anybody died. They used to say “Will you put the bell in? Me father’s dead.” Or “Me mother’s dead.” And you said
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“How old are they?” They’d tell you so you went and started tolling the bell at minute intervals for half an hour. You used to count the beats of the clock for a minute, they were dead on 15 times a minute. But I’ve strayed away from Johnny’s tale, well he were making these clocks. He made one up here for the Primitive Methodist Church and he made one for the Catholic Church, Barnoldswick. Johnny made that clock. And he were coming over to Carleton to get ideas. He used to come over at Saturday afternoon with a pal of his, Alec Irkett, and they used to go on, get a fair skinful of beer and I were always up there at Saturday afternoon. They’d land up about half past two, turning out time, then we’d go. And he’d spend his time watching the clock and measuring it. And Johnny said there were something on that clock that were on before free wheels were invented. There were a right big fan on, about this wide and vanes on for when it struck. Now there were a free wheel on that exactly like what's on a bicycle. When the clock finished striking the fan went on .. click, click, click, click
That’s it.
R- And it’s exactly like the free wheel on a bicycle. And Johnny said that it were made before free wheels on bicycles had been invented.
Aye. He’d know would Johnny.
R- Yes, and he always told me that. And when he were making this clock I used to go over to Barlick, he had a workroom in a wooden hut in the back garden. [at Federation Street.] I used to go, I spent hours with Johnny of a night, when he were making this clock.
That's it, yes. Newton was saying that ..
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that Johnny always had a good word for you like, you know. Because I think you know, Newton was a bit of a .. I mean we’ve got to recognise these things, Newton was a bit of a fiery, sharp sort of bloke.
R- Yes. Aye.
And I mean, you were at that time, but I mean it’s quite possible that you got the wrong impression of each other. I don't know, but ...
[I’m doing my best to be diplomatic here. Horace and Newton never really got on well because they were both right all the time, a bit of a barrier! There was a history of friction between them which I had to get round in order to keep Horace on side.]
R- Aye. But not with Johnny but .. if I were right it didn’t matter who it were, I told them so. I’d lots of does at the mill. I told Chris Taylor if I were right, and I told Crowther and I told Alan Smith just what I thought if I were right. And if I knew I were right I stuck to it, never mind what they said. And I used to curse ‘em right well.
What sort of things would, I’m interested meself you know, having done the job meself, in the sort of problems that you had with the owners. You know what I mean. It isn’t a question of what you fell out with them about, it is the question of the problems that you had with them. I mean, for instance, at Bancroft I used to have great difficulty in persuading the people who actually owned the mill that it was possible to save money by spending money.
R- Well, we’d never anything to do with that. Bill Lancaster were the man that gave the orders. Even though he weren’t there we had to report to Bill and tell him what we thought. And he’d say “Send for Johnny Pickles.” you see.
Yes. Aye, that’s it.
R- We’d not, we couldn’t order anything, we couldn’t do anything only do the work. And I know one time when it got to Christmas, Bill had been off his work for months but at Christmas Day we always said he’d have got off, up off his death bed to come down to collect the Christmas boxes! Anybody that he bought stores off or gave work to, joiners and builders and oil and coalmen, anybody. He were down there, they came the day before Christmas.
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And we all knew he were dying but he come down there and he were coming down on to the bridge and looking to see if they were coming, and then as soon as they’d been he went. He had a little motor bike and he lived up Stoneybank but that’s what he did, he got off his deathbed for his Christmas boxes.
Yes. I’ve heard the same thing from other people so I mean it isn’t stories out of school. I mean I’m not even asking you to say anything about this, but I know that .. Newton’s told me that there was always a great mystery down there about what happened to all the brasses that were bought for the shed, there were three sets of brasses ordered and they vanished.
R- And men used to come with lorries, strangers, and we’d to put all the scrap on, and we didn’t know who they were. Bill Lancaster would say “You’ve to put all the scrap on”, pipes and brass and anything, any castings anything there was about, put it all on to lorries. I know a fellow come one time, he took loads and loads. Over the boilers, there were a room above the boilers and all over what’s the blacksmith shop now, were two storeys and it were full of stuff, they cleared everything out, brasses and all the lot. There were pigeon-holes for stuff, the lot went.
Anyway, when Brown and Pickles bored that engine, and they put new air pumps in and all, in the devil hole, didn't they. Newton’s told me all about that. And that led to a great improvement in the way that engine was running. Now that’d be done while you were oiling that engine were it?
R- Yes, it were.
And then, at that time you were doing some maintenance work for Johnsons weren’t you?
R- Johnsons yes. Colonel Johnson I think they called him. I suppose he were American, he were an American, Honorary Colonel, he were coming over. And there’d to be a right clean up in Johnsons, and everybody that would work at nights and week ends, they could do, at Johnsons. But they put me in charge of the clean up operation.
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You were still actually working for the shed company?
R- Shed company. I worked for the Shed Company me hours and then Saturdays and Sundays and nights I worked for Johnsons. You see all the ladders, all sorts of stuff belonged to the Mill Company, for cleaning up and washing the pillars down. All the oil off the pillars and painting them and light fittings all to be taken down and washed. There hadn’t to be nothing. It were the first time
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Colonel Johnson had been over, and [Percy S ] Lowe were only a paid man, he wanted to make a good impression and in the engine house it all had to be extra clean. The floors were white, we used to use Gunk, and it could get the flags clean. And everything polished up. He’s to come this afternoon.” And inspect, well they didn’t inspect, just walked through. Yes, and it got a thoroughly bottoming, Law said it didn’t matter but he said it had to be clean. And I saw them coming through. and it were just the same as if he were a man being taken with diarrhoea. He didn’t look sideways, he were just talking with Mr Law and another fellow as they walked through the shed and down the warehouse, and as they were going down the warehouse somebody pressed the stop button somewhere. Not in Johnsons, somewhere in another part of the mill. And it stopped, and he just turned to one over there, “What is it? The tea break?” That was what he said because I were about there. Anyway, it were nothing, a belt off or something. Anyway we started up again and he were really amazed, he just leaned against the wall in the engine house and watched it going up and down, he were amazed with the engine. But everything got a thorough cleaning up and all the, what they called the Dockyard. The road outside, all cleaned up, all the weeding done, no weeds about, everything cleaned up.
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And so, we are getting close to the stage now where you made your big decision and decided to move from the shed company to Johnsons themselves.
R- Yes, that were when Tommy Almond had been telling “I’m going to get shut of yon two buggers.” because he were in the boiler house
And he eventually took the engine over didn’t he.
R- Yes. And then he got his lads in you see. But I left and went to Johnsons and then Wilf McKie gave his notice in and went to a firm at Nelson, Greys, somewhere near Marsden Park. Now he were a good man were Wilf, he were one of the best and right handy and a good worker, he were a top man to work with. He were champion were Wilf. Well I could see that Tommy Almond meant to have us out, he were down in the boiler house, we were in the engine. He were wanting the engine and getting his two lads in. Well, I told Chris Taylor what were going on, he said “Oh, never mind, we’ll find you a job.” He’d find me work you see, somewhere. He says “Don’t take no notice, we’ll find you a job.” So Alan Smith, that were the under manager, well, I don't really what he were. He were under Lowe, he weren’t a weaving man though he knew it. But he used to go to Manchester and he used to do the office work and getting orders at Manchester. But he were all right were Alan, a grand chap, you never saw him lose his temper nor get mad. And he come to me once and he said “There is a taper leaving. Would you like to learn taping?” “Oh aye -
I says - a good general idea.” “Well - he says - you can give your notice in.” And so I did do. And I started to learn and went to the dry taping for a bit and eventually Maurice Lomax were leaving or left and I went on to that big, what they call Big Tape. Well there were, you were running two
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headstocks like and you’d got to mind what you were doing. Your tensions had to be right you see on both headstocks. I were going to just draw you a bit of a sketch, but if we go down some time, if you are coming next week we can go down. You’ll see what I mean.
Yes well, we're getting now to the stage where we were when we backtracked a bit you see. So really we’re getting to the stage now where we want to start with looking
through the pictures describing taping.
R- And what they’re doing.
Which, you know, that’ll be the best way we can describe that. But I don’t think there’s much point starting that today. So I’ll just see if I can get you going on [some other things] This has turned out to be two tapes full of tidying up and odds and sods. I’ll just see if I can turn you on now, to get you going. We’ll switch on to something entirely different. I’ve already had a go at you about this but I think there there’s hidden depths to you Horace. Politics. One of the things that I’ve to be very careful about is, obviously I don’t want to start, I’m not trying to make you say the things that I want you to say but it seems to me that you’ve done a lot of thinking about things that I’ve done a lot of thinking about as well. Things like the condition and status of working people. This is one of the reasons why I’m very interested in the second world war because what I think happened, and we’re talking about textiles now, is that up to the second world war the manufacturers, the mill owners, had never been in a position where they were short of labour. It had always been a buyers market, they’d always had tramp weavers stood at the door, there was never any such thing as looms being stopped because they hadn’t a weaver to go on to. But with
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the second world war two things happened. I’m giving you this bit of a sermon just to trigger you off. Two things happened, one was that a lot of able, fit young men went off to the war. A lot more effort was put into things like munitions and that meant that labour, what labour there was left, there was more call on it which made labour short for the textile industry. Another significant thing happened at the time and you’ve already touched on this in a way, it was the fact that industries were moved from places like Coventry. I mean, round here it was the Rover Company, and they took over premises, there was Sough Bridge …
R- Carleton Mill.
Carleton Mill. Did they take over Carleton Mill as well?
R- Yes they did, Carleton Mill.
Yes, Wellhouse, Calf Hall1141 .0
R - Aye, Rover down here, yes.
Grove?
R- Grove down here, yes, they’d all that.
Grove. Yes. Well now, when that happened what happened in effect was… You were saying that other industries found it very very difficult to set up in these places because the mill owners owned all the land but that changed all of a sudden and new industries were introduced, and for the first time people found that it was possible to work in an industry where they had certain things like a guaranteed week, and a good wage, and good conditions. And canteens and tea breaks and things like this which they’d never had before. It meant that, this meant that the old textile manufacturers
and the mill owners had to start re-thinking their ideas about how they treated the workers. Now it seems to me that one of the things that happened was that they didn't realise that this had happened, even though it was set in front of them. There weren’t enough moves made in the textile industry to improve the lot of the workers and to keep the workers. I think that a lot of them thought that after the war things would revert back to the old system and it’d he “Happy days are here again. Big Boom. Plenty of profits. Of course it never happened.
R- No.
Now, how far am I off the truth with that sort of thinking? Would you say that I’m beginning to get somewhere near the truth of what happened in the textile industry?
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R- Well you see, lots of the young fellows went to the war, part were killed and part got trained in other jobs. For instance if a man went into the airforce and he were a fitter they trained them as a fitters. And lots of them were drafted into the monitions work. Well, they wouldn’t come back to weaving again once they got their training. There's such a lot of men working around here at Rolls Royce, they were what they call dilutees at that time. They’d only allowed them to take so many trainees to a proportion of skilled men and it was supposed to be that when the war finished they had to finish but they didn’t do. There’s people that got working at the Rolls
that are still there, there’s dozens of them worked there till they were 65 and then retired. And they got into the Rolls Royce as trainees. That’s what happened. And the wages got to be better, a chap could afford to keep his wife at home, all that taking children out at six o’clock at the morning, that finished, taking them out, getting them child minding. That all finished I don’t think there’s any of that now. The women stay at home now, the wages are better. They talked about, well, my wages were £3-15-0 and there were chaps I were palling with had £15 and £20 a week they’d draw.
At the same time that you were only.
R- And I was stuck there. [Rycrofts] But there were men, perhaps a bit older than I am, a lot of tacklers who were working in munitions, armaments. Well you see, they’d never had such wages. Well, they didn’t go back into tackling. And plumbers, there’s any amount of plumbers working at Rolls. You know there’s all sorts of jobs I suppose on an aeroplane engine that plumbers can do, and maintenance work. Painters left their jobs and went there. They’d never go back into painting where they were out of work six months of the year. Because painting and decorating is the most imposed on trade that there is. Same as an uncle of mine were a joiner, and if someone said they were a painter, he says “Well, any damn fool can paint.” Which they can. Like painters classing themselves same as a joiner and cabinet maker. Well, it were unthinkable. And there’s less children, you don’t see families of nine or ten. When I lived in Carleton there were a family there, it were seventeen [children], Kays, ever so many of them lived at Barnoldswick. And so there weren’t the girls to go in the mill. And then, a weaver, oh, looked down on, there were nobody that said they were a weaver now, they can’t get them into the mills.
Why do you think that is. And I think you’ve hit on another important point there Horace, that weavers have always been looked down on. For instance, the hierarchy in the mill was always, it started at the top with the management and then it worked down, there were the tacklers, the warehouse men. They varied but happen somewhere near the tacklers, on a line with tacklers were the tapers. The engineers liked to think they were a lot better than anyone else but really he could be lined up with the tacklers. And the weavers came last, the only person that were lower than the weaver were the loom sweeper.
R- That were it.
And yet, I’ve always said that actually the weaver and the loom sweeper were probably the two most skilled people in the place.
R- But you see, whoever made bad work it always finished up with the weaver. The weaver caught it all. But we always had a saying, “There were no bad weavers, There were only bad tapers and tacklers.” The weaver would never admit to being a bad weaver, there were just bad tapers and bad tacklers. But regarding money, when I went to Rycrofts at 21 we’ll say, I had 45/- a week. The tackler had £3 and the taper 3 guineas, tapers were the best paid, and then it gradually crept up you see. But that’s how it was.
And of course in those days like, the tackler would be on 100 loom sets, well, probably not at Rycrofts.
R- Fifty, fifty.
Yes because at Rycrofts they’d be jacquards in there wouldn’t they?
R- Very few. There were checks. Aye, there were check looms. But very particular stuff.
Aye. Well that’s why Rycroft’s ratio of tacklers to looms was so high. And I mean, at that time, and we’re talking about a rag shop, a taper would be taping for happen 300 looms and a tackler would have a set of 100.
R – Hundred and twenty here. At Johnsons they were 120 looms.
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Yes that’s it, some went up to 120, yes.
R- But weavers here [Johnsons] could put their own warps in, men weavers didn’t wait of the tackler if the tackler had a lot of warps out, then they’d gait up themselves. But it were a very particular place were Rycrofts and as they got on to more silk they took a lot wore skill with the tackling so they dropped the [number of] looms to 42 and they dropped the warehouse men to 42.
Which seems to me to be a sensible way to run a weaving shop. Of course their answer to it in the old days was to pay the tacklers on the weavers wages wasn’t it, and that was a pernicious thing.
R- They did, aye, it was a pernicious do, it was. But you got to know your tacklers, you got to know your weavers when you were a warehouse man. You know who your good weavers are and if there is a bad tackler. And you know how much you’d to do in a week, if you got any bad pieces you put them on one side and sort your good ones out and then spend more time on the bad cloth to make it good, as near as you could.
SCG/29 March 2003
6,361 words