THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 20TH OF JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Now, this tape in going to he devotedly entirely to describing the photographs in the Bancroft folio. And, obviously, the first photograph is Joe Nutter. Now Joe is the man who really should have done the descriptions of these pictures but for personal reasons he didn’t want to do any taping and so Horace is going to describe these instead. Now this makes no difference because Horace has worked on the same types of tapes and it will be just a question of getting a good description of what’s happening in the pictures. Now then, the first picture that we are going to describe is
picture number 3 in the folio, and now, Horace, if you describe what’s going
on in that picture.
R- Now, the first picture, it shows what are called back beams being craned up into the tape room at the mill. Now, Bancroft, at Bancroft they bought their beams but lots of places they do the whole processing from the raw cotton right through to the woven cloth. But at Bancroft, they were just a weaving shed and taped their own beams. now the next picture just
(50)
shows the beam…
Picture number 3?
R- Yes, picture number 3 shows the beam coming up on the crane, being brought into the tape room. Picture number 4 shows the beam laid on the floor in the store room, at the tape. Now then.
That’d be the same sort of hoist as there’d be at Johnsons, the one we were on about where the loom fell down wouldn’t it. The same type of hoist.
R- Yes, but that was for taking the weft into the warehouse, Johnson’s tapes were all on the ground floor.
Aye, but I mean that would he the same type of hoist.
R- Just the same yes.
In fact I bet it’s the same firm, it were Baldwins at Burnley. So it’d nearly sure be the same firm. And picture number 5…
R- Shows the beams laid on the floor in the tape room.
Yes. Now these were, these were Manor beams.
R- Yes.
We used a lot of Manor at Bancroft. What do you know about Manor yarn?
R- Well, it were very, fairly good. Good beaming, it were very good were the beaming on Manor. We used to get a lot of beams, and you could run the whole set, 20,000 yards, and you’d hardly have an end down. And there’s lots of things can cause ends to come down besides being bad yarn. Bad beamers getting their ends crossed. When the end breaks when they are beaming, if they don’t turn the beam back and find the proper place for their end, if they just pull it out, and it comes from underneath a few ends. Well, when you are running at speed, that end will pull
(100)
a bunch out. And that was the biggest trouble that I ever encountered where I worked, bad beaming. Because they went too fast, and the electric stop motion on the beaming frame didn’t always work and ends got fast and held the pin from dropping and they'd run on a couple of hundred yards before the beamer noticed. And then they couldn’t turn the beam back, they just scratched it out from underneath and then when the taper were running the beams off in the tape he’d have a bunch out. And he’d have bunches out all over the place. Picture number 6…
Six, aye.
R- Shows the finished warps in the store room. And then all on the left hand side, these are healds that have come out of the weaving shed ready to be, ready for the loomer or the twister to fix them on to the new warps. On the right hand side these are all weavers beams that have come out of the weaving shed and ready to be filled again. And in the roof there are all the heald racks, and healds that are not being used, the sorts that aren’t being woven, they hang them up at the top of the store place on racks.
(150)
(5 min)
How does that compare with Johnsons for being tidy?
R- I won’t say anything about that. I mean, I’m not here to criticise ...
Well I mean, it was noted was Bancroft…
R- Yes, for being dirty.
Oh, Christ.
R- Well, they hadn’t enough staff.
Aye, that was it.
R- It isn’t the taper’s job to clean up, sweep up, but whoever took these papers off, they had no need to leave them there, they have no need to leave all the papers here on the floor. I always made time to keep all round the tape clean and I had a labourer. And we always had to do. What went on at Bancroft wouldn’t do for Johnsons.
No, no, that’s it.
R- It had to be clean. Surgical dressings, and we used to have quite a lot of parties round from hospitals, doctors and sisters from hospitals. And they’d have been amazed if they had seen a place like this.
Yes, but the thing that used to amuse me was that we were weaving a lot for Johnsons at one time.
R- Yes, I dare say, but the hospital sisters didn’t know.
That’s it.
R- Now, picture number 7, this shows what is termed the donkey engine.
Well, both 7 and 8 show the engine but 7 really shows, the main interest in picture number 7 is the arrangement of the fast and loose pulleys because that’s the engine shaft on that side you see Horace, at Bancroft.
(200)
R- Well, a tape doesn’t stop for meal breaks during the day the same as they do in a weaving shed. They run from when they start at the morning till stopping time at night.
Now, what’s the, reason why… Why is it that a taper doesn’t like stopping a set of back beams half way through. If he is doing a set he likes to do that set, ideally, in one day doesn’t he, without stopping?
R- It’s not a matter of liking. When a tape stops and the yarn stops on the red hot cylinders, 50 or 60 yards of yarn, you’ve got all of it spoilt.
Yes, that’s it.
R- And if that’s in the middle of a warp it’s spoilt. You don’t stop in the middle of a warp whatever happens. If there's anything going wrong there is a slower motion, you go on to the slower motion and you don’t let it stop.
That's it, that’s that narrow middle pulley, isn’t it?
R- Yes, and when you’re doffing a warp you’ve not to let it stop above a second or two. You are forced to let it stop when you’re doffing a warp but what is most essential is to keep it going.
[This sounds like a contradiction but what Horace means is that you have to halt the process while you take the full weaver’s beam out and gait a fresh one. What the taper does is put the tape on slow motion so it is just creeping round and changes the beam as fast as possible. A skilled man works that fast that only the amount needed to gait the warp rolls off while the beam is being changed. The constant motion stops the yarn scorching on the cylinders. Damage to the warp isn’t the only consideration. If yarn burns on to the cylinder it means the sheet won’t run properly and tapers hate disturbing the finish on the cylinder surface, it leads to nothing but trouble.]
Aye, that’s it, yes.
R- That’s why they have a donkey engine. When it comes to the meal break and the main engine stops and all the looms stop, they start the donkey engine, and it is switched over on to drive with this chain here and they run till the main engine sets on again. If there’s a break down on the engine, what they try to do is tell the taper to start the donkey engine. They don’t want a tape to stop with the yarn down in the size
[Horace is quite right here. I only had to stop the engine once in an emergency and the engine man’s problem was that he had to make an assessment very quickly about the need to stop the engine. In my case it was a fraying rope in the warehouse which was causing a big mess and the men concerned couldn’t grasp why I shot upstairs to the tapes first before I dealt with their problem. Once the donkey engine had taken over no damage could be done on the tapes.]
That's it ... yes.
R- ... or else you have to start and gait up again. And it's a lot of waste, and there’s a lot of money [wasted].
Yes, we always used to, if we had to stop for any reason, we always used to - unless it was an absolute emergency - we used to send up to the tapes first, and tell the tapers that we were going to be stopping, and to get the donkey going.
(250)
(10 min)
R- Yes, that were the main thing.
Now, we are on picture number 9.
R- Picture number 9. Well, it shows the tape gaited up with all the beams in. They're Manor beams and there’s two, four, six, eight beams, and probably there'll be about 300 ends on each beam. That's eight three’s, 24 hundred, 2,400 – 2,500, depending how many ends there is.
Interesting thing about Bancroft tape, I don’t know whether you have noticed it. It’s the fact that it is raised up on blocks at the back to level it up. You see how there’s, at the front of that frame that holds the back beams there’s only just, there’s just a board under the front one, but as you get further back you get to a stage where you have got a brick and a wedge as well. Well, the reason for that was that the mill had risen underneath, and lifted that floor up, and the floor was actually arched.
R- But these have no loose feet on, these two at the back, or these three, why they are so high. Now, these have moveable feet.
That's it, yes.
R- They can…
Adjust them.
R- Adjust them to make it dead level. And you don't want this side of the beam lower down than the other side, or else this side’s running slack. You don’t get an even sheet into your tape. They have all got to be the same level and the same tension on. If you look, there’s [friction] clips on these beams, to hold them tight. Well, if you get this too tight, and one slack you’ll have tight beams and slack beams all in the same sheet. You don't get a good weave then, because the tight beam is taking all the strain. You've got to have them evenly tensioned. With experience you can tell, just
(300)
feel what weight there is on the yarn. And you go round and just feel at these clips, you can tell whether [they are right] They're not to hold it back, they’re just to keep it tensioned.
Aye, just to put a slight drag on, aye.
R- So that they are all running together, and when you come to stop they don’t run away. They’ve just to be so that when you stop they just pull up gradual. Now, picture number 10. It shows the side of the tape from the back right to the front. It shows the side shaft that drives the drag roller and drives the cylinders and drives the headstock.
On that tape the cylinders weren’t driven Horace. They were just dragged round.
R- Well at Johnson’s it was such a light sheet, we taped the warps there, 400 ends of 44's. And if they hadn’t been driven, the strength of the sheet wouldn’t have pulled it round.
No, it wouldn’t have pulled the drums round. Yes.
R- It wouldn’t, they all had to be driven. And it were all friction, it weren’t a positive drive, but if you used friction you could tighten the friction up a bit if you thought that one cylinder were overrunning the other.
But isn’t it true to say Horace that it’s a good thing anyway to have driven drums because you don’t take as much elasticity out of your sheet?
R- No you don’t. And you can regulate the pull on the yarn with your front roller, your drag roller, if you put extra round of cotton on.
(350)
Ah, is that why they have it cottoned?
R- Two rounds of cotton or three, four rounds of cotton, you can tighten your sheet up. For a heavier sheet you can put more cotton on, you can just set it so as its tension’s right.
Aye, the drag roller’s covered with cotton isn’t it.
R- Yes. It isn't for fancy. It’s for your tension.
And I thought it was just for grip.
R- No. And sometimes, if your sheet is running slack, left hand side is coming slack, well, you put a piece of cotton on that side ... about 6” wide if it’s just about that much that that’s running slack. You put, and taper it off, about a yard or two, and run it on, and it tightens your sheet up at that side.
Aye. Now, well we’ll mention that again when we get round to the headstock.
R- Yes. And these doors, when you’re running, if you have any loose ends comes off the yarn, off the warp, or any breakages, they tend to run round the cylinder. If it’s sticky sizing they run round the cylinder.
(15 min)
And these doors are so as you can open them, and put your arm in, and cut what they call ‘lappers’ off. [In the local dialect, ‘lap’ is an alternative word for ‘wrap’.] And then they go forward with the sheet.
We used to get a lot of them at Bancroft Horace because those, especially that big drum on this tape that we are looking at, the surface was very rough and odd days I have seen it, and certain types of yarn, I’ve seen it pick threads up out of the sheet. They were sticking to it and you get a weak shop [in the yarn] and one would break and start wrapping round the drum.
R- Yes they would. It might have been sticky sizing, that would do it. But it’s usually when it’s poor yarn, loose ends coming through, they haven’t stood the strain and they have broken. We used to weave a lot of lints at Johnsons and that were 5's
(400)
count and it were usually very good stuff we got, there were no breakages on 5’s, it ought to have been like cracking band. [Strong string] Well, we got a set one time, and they were big beams, like these, and they wouldn’t hold their own weight from there to there, it were that soft and poor yarn. As you stood and watched them they were dropping, just that length of yarn, it wouldn't hold together.
Just from?
R - There to there.
Just from the back beam down to the bottom roller.
R- Bottom roller. It wouldn’t …
So what did you do? Cut that out or send it back to the spinner?
R – No. I complained, we sent for the spinners and they said they made, nearly all their stuff went for making motor car tyres. Well, I said God help them that are having the tyres. But it had never been cleaned right, there were pieces like chips in like bits of wood, and well, it were that soft it were just useless. So there were a consultation with the manager and this chap from the spinners came and then he came back in a bit and said “Will you do your best with it?” And a pound note or two changed hands and so… And that were from the spinner to the manager and I suppose that a few more notes stuck to the manager’s fingers. But I had to fiddle it out and do my best with it. When I sized it they wove all right, but they just wouldn't run off the beam. And that were the worse lot of yarn that ever I had. For fives, usually, run in lints, you had a lot of work with them because you were always doffing, because the warps were that easily, that soon filled. I remember one set, I gaited up, ran a set and made 23 warps and gaited up again in a day. I were on nothing but lints that week and I just took particular notice. That were I doffed 23 warps and gaited up twice.
That's going on a bit.
R- And laid them in, but they were soon full, you had no sooner doffed a warp, wheeled it to one side, got your other empty, and you were nearly ready for doffing again. I went round the back to see if everything were all right and came back and you were ready for doffing again.
How many cuts would you be getting on a beam? [Cuts are pieces of cloth.]
R- Four. Short ones.
What’s them, 100 yards?
(20 min)
R- Oh no. No it wouldn’t be. Well sets would happen be, well, on 5,000 ends, right full beams. There might be 100 yards cuts, but no, not so much. When I had run 23 warps that would be the set. But that’s a thing that’s gone out, they don't use lint
in hospitals now there is no poulticing. They never weave lints at Johnsons [now] but one tape could have done with being on them all the time. But they couldn’t keep up to have more than one tape going because they wanted other things so they could have had more orders but they just couldn’t tape them, because they couldn’t cope with them. Now, that’s about all I can say about this picture. There is the steam trap down here, and there is a bucket here. I don't know whether it’s leaking or what.
No, I think that was there for emergencies.
R- What, if it got on fire or…
It were on fire more than once, were that tape.
R- Oh, I see. That’d be….
Trunkings were full of muck. Well, you can see it hanging down outside the trunking, the fluff, full of muck.
R- Yes, of course, aye. Well, at Johnsons they did away with all that, they got metal, the dirt didn’t stick to them.
Aye, trunking, aye.
(500)
R- Yes. New trunking, it cost £500, that’s a lot of years since. But they had them taken off, and a firm of tinsmiths came and measured up and put new trunking on. But before the tinsmith came they had taken all this away and they just said to him “We want new trunk making for this.” So he made it, they arrived, there were no doors in. So you couldn’t get in there, so the first day when I started up, when I had any lappers I had to lay on my back, here.
Get in between?
R- Right, reach right underneath. And that were how to get the lappers off for here. But he came and ...
But the factory inspector wouldn’t be right suited about that would he?
R- No he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t.
What was it like, did you run it without any trunking on?
R- Oh no. But I have been to firms where there was no trunking on. Just a right tall room and fans in the top, and steam just drifted up. I think it’d be Scapa.
At Scapa? Aye.
R- Yes. I think it were, or else another firm we went to, Ashton’s, the towel makers.
Yes, Ashton Brothers, aye.
R- Yes, They were weaving towels and we went there.
Aye, at Ashton under Lyne.
R- Yes. There would be about five double tapes, but not tandem, the same as a tandem bicycle, just these broad tapes and they were split in the middle, taping two narrow warps, Number 11.
Number 11.
R- Number 11. This shows the sow box. And the yarn is coming off the beams on the bottom roller, up over two rollers here, and then this roller that you can see there, that’s the size roller. This handle here, you turn it and it turns the roller down into the size so that the yarn’s
(550)
immersed in the size when the tape is running. If we didn't do that, the yarn wouldn’t weave. Now, the next roller is the squeeze roller, that’s covered with flannel but the bottom one, the bottom roller is copper. The object of this roller, it’s very heavily weighted, I think it’ll be about 4501b here in this roller, is to squeeze the surplus size off the yarn and squeeze it into
(25 min)
the yarn you see. It has two purposes, it squeezes the surplus off and squeezes the size into the yarn. If it were just running through here, and no squeeze roller, it [the size] wouldn't get into the yarn, it would just be on the top. It wouldn’t coat all the ends.
There is something on there I have often wondered what it was for Horace. Where the sheet comes up from the bottom roller, and goes over those two rollers at the front, there is a little roller just runs on top of it, What’s that there for?
R- Well, I told you about tension in your warps. Now, if these hadn’t enough tension and they were slack and you stopped your tape suddenly, this yarn’d go slack. And this is what they call the drop roller. It drops down these slots and takes the slack. Keeps your sheet tensioned.
Takes the slack with it.
R- That’s a fairly heavy roller is that. But that’s the drop roller you can see and when you stop. When your set’s out, you have cut these loose, you lift this drop roller over here into these slots and it stops it falling out at the bottom on to the floor. That’s the object of that, if your beams run away, it keeps them tensioned. If you are running yarn with a lot of twist in and it ran away you’d never get started again. It’d all twist up …
Aye, now that’s snarl up isn’t it.
R- Snarl up, it’d all snarl up if there wasn't that drop roller.
(600)
Aye that’s it.
R- Now we run a lot of crepe bandages here. They were awful to run but they used to try and tape them. But as soon as ever they struck the heat they all curled up. You see they wanted, they wanted to [weave] crepe so we had to eventually run them dry, but that wasn’t a right success. You're running them dry, and if there's a loose end or end broke here, before it had got to the other end it had twisted round happen a foot of your sheet and that was a fresh start, cut your warp up
Yes.
R- So what they did eventually, they bought just the headstock and the beam stands and fixed the beam stands behind the headstock and the splitting rods the same as is at front, but no tape no cylinders.
No sow box, no cylinders…
R- No nothing, it hadn’t to be touched with any wet and then with heat or anything, or else it just creped up. And they’re weaving them, thousands of them, no trouble at all. Cling It, it's a trade name, Johnsons trade mark ‘Cling bandages’ for elbows. And ‘Conforming bandages’ some calls it, they conform to you. You see?
Yes.
R- Yes, and if you have your elbow or knee bandaged up, you can bend, and it keeps it tight all the time on the knee.
Yes. And then tightens up again when you straighten out again.
R- Yes. When you straighten out, with being crepe. But that’s the object of this drop roller.
Aye. Another thing about size boxes Horace, size is very corrosive isn’t it?
R- It is. There has to be no iron in it.
That's it. That box is cast iron, but it’s lined with copper.
R- With copper, copper lined. Oh yes it has to be.
Yes. That’s terrible stuff, isn’t it. Size can eat anything away.
R- It is, it can.
And another thing which always fascinated me about the tape was the fact that the bottom roller that’s under the squeeze roller in the size, the shaft through the middle of that is an iron shaft through a copper roller and it's split like a bow in the middle so that it can stand the expansion and contraction.
(650)
R- Yes, ah yes. But you see, here’s, that’s a wood roller, but it should be a copper one.
Yes, now, the second one’s a copper one isn’t it.
R- That’s copper. Not that, that’s a tin one.
Tin one? Aye, yes.
R- Tin one, and that’s wood. I don’t know why, and that’s a tin one. But that’ll be a lot stronger than the ordinary rollers because it takes a lot of weight.
Yes, they were a fair weight, but the one that’s the big roller that’s inside the size box, under the squeeze roller, we renewed that one. In fact you can see there on that how the gland’s leaked there, and that’s all size that’s drying out on the outside.
(30 min)
R – Aye.
Aye. Actually it sheared off at the end of it. It sheared off and we had to put another [spindle through it] And the way it was worn down was nobody's business, terrible.
R- Oh yes. Well I once had an end came loose. All the copper bolts worked out. Well, it didn't fall off but they were all working loose, and I noticed they were rocking about. And, they were all working out. And this bevel here is to lift the roller up on to…
Yes, on the squeeze roller.
R- Yes, lift it on to the top there.
Aye, that eccentric cam with the handle on it.
R- Yes.
There’s one at the other side as well isn’t there.
R- Of course, that’s to let it down is that one to let it down to squeeze. Oh yes and that doesn’t bring it up on to the top, but we used to have a pipe, and the labourer would come and put his part of the steam pipe on one end and I was on the other. You lifted it up on the top if you wanted to pull your flannel off.
Aye, on to that rest, yes, yes.
R- You see when you want to pull your flannel off or put a new flannel on.
Yes, actually, when we get a bit further on they are just trimming the flannel on that tape. Now then, 12 was just a picture I did of the bearing on the big cylinder because it showed the name of the maker.
R- Howard and Bullough, 1919. The tape as I were on at Johnsons were earlier than that but it were a double headstock. But the second headstock had been bought in 1925 off a place that must have gone bankrupt. They bought this headstock and not the cylinders. And this pipe out of the end, that is the drain pipe for the condensed steam.
(700)
Tell me about that, what we were talking about the other day, about a cylinder filling up with water. Tell me about that.
R- Well, there were two of us working at that particular time at Johnsons. I were on one tape and a chap were next to me on another, and I could see he were having difficulty drying it. He were going slower and slower and slower. And he says “I can't dry. I don’t know what’s to do.” So I went across to look and I tried his steam trap, there were nothing coming out. And I could tell then, felt at his cylinder, it were nearly cold, well, it were warm, that were why he couldn’t dry. And he went on running. I said “It’s your trap, it isn’t working.” But he went on running a few minutes longer and then there was such an almighty bang. And the weight of the water in the cylinder, It was, well, I’m trying to think, it was one of the biggest cylinders that were made…
Aye it'd be getting on for 7 or 8ft diameter and 5 feet wide.
R- It was 10ft circumference [diameter actually]I think. Would it be so much? I can’t just think now.
Oh it could have been more than that ...
R- Aye, it could, it would be, because when you were stood I were about here to it. And the other, the other half of the cylinder were way up well above your head.
Yes, aye. I know when they are out on the floor they are big uns, those big cylinders, they’re over head height.
R- Yes. And the shaft had broken, the trap hadn’t been working and hadn’t been getting rid of his water. And the tape had gone on running and it filled it with water till the weight of water in it broke the shaft off.
Yes. Well, one of those drums could easily hold a thousand gallons of water you know. And a thousand gallon of water’d be, what, it’d be about 10,000 pounds, you’d soon get 5 tons of water in.
R- Yes. And why that had happened, this were Monday morning. Now, we didn’t know what had happened. But inside this cylinder there’s buckets that catch the condensed water and leads out through the steam [drain] pipe. They’re fastened round the inside of the cylinder. Well, the weaving shed didn’t work Saturday morning. Well this taper complained about a bucket being loose, when the tape was running you could hear it rattling. So they'd told the plumber to come in at Saturday morning and the tape labourer were there, and took the lid off the cylinder and sent him inside to solder
(750)
(35 min)
this bucket on, which he had done. And they put the lid back on and the taper came at Monday morning and nobody said anything. He started up and when it all came out, the plumber had let a lot of loose solder run down into this bucket he had been soldering and he said this bucket had caught it and when the tape had started it had gone down this pipe and blocked it all up in here with solder , down here. The
water couldn’t get out. Well, it was stopped ever so long, and we couldn’t do with that tape stopped, we were always busy, they had to run, and run and run whatever happened. We were working over at night to keep the shed going because it was such light stuff, the warps.
That was another place where the donkey came in handy, it meant your tapes could run on overtime.
R- Yes we could. We were always running.
Yes, we used to do that at Nutters fairly often. Now, 13, an overall view of the two tapes.
R- Tapes.
At Bancroft, because you can’t be expected to know it Horace, the left hand one would do a 56” beam but the right hand one wouldn’t. It was a fairly broad tape the left one, well, for Bancroft you know. It was a broader tape than the other.
R- Well at Johnsons they had two like that. They’d take 68” but they always ran two warps at once, they were split in the middle.
That’s it, yes.
R- But they did get some broad looms eventually and they had to be run in these tapes.
Yes, this were the broad one.
R- Oh, this one?
Left hand one, the 1919 one. That tape, the other one was 1903. You can get a good idea there from the way all the dawn was clinging to the pulleys and belts and pulleys and troughing in that room it…
R- Well it gives a good idea what conditions were like, for people weaving in a weaving shed. No wonder they had weavers cough and died young with bronchitis, the lungs full of sizing and china clay. This place, I don’t think it’d be swept but once a year, if then.
Well, I know for a fact that when that photograph was taken it was at least two years since it had been swept.
R- Yes, you see.
(800)
The only time they swept it Horace, it was when the insurance came, and played hell.
R- Yes, that was the only way.
That was the only time they did it and sometimes it used to make me wonder, the insurance men used to come and never say anything. In fact when this picture was taken, the insurance blokes had been not long before, and they played hell about the sprinkler pipes which you can see up in the top.
R- Yes.
They said they were going rusty in places. Now those pipes are very heavy gauge pipes on sprinklers. In fact I think they might be cast iron pipes. And sprinkler pipes, I mean, cast iron going rusty on the outside means nothing but they made us paint all the pipework in the taperoom.
R- Taperoom.
But they never said anything about all the dawn and muck up in the roof. And so what we did, we just brushed the pipe off and painted it.
R- But that’s the way it used to be Slingsbys, but they were always swept once a week and Slingsbys were a heavy size shop, china clay. And they did get a lot of dirt about but it was swept every week, there were no messing.
Yes of course, but as you say, they ran without a tape labourer you see. In fact, they used to labour for each other. There were two tapers, but Norman Gray went off poorly and never came back to work, he died, and Joe carried on running both tapes, he used to run one tape, and ...
R- While the other were being gaited up. Aye.
Yes, one at a time. And then Joe, and Jim used to act at being his tape labourer, the weaving manager was actually his tape labourer. I tell you! Everything was run on a shoe string at Bancroft.
R- Well, times were bad you see, it were either running like that, not having any spare labour about, or going bankrupt. And workers had to choose between being out of work and working under conditions like this.
(40 min)
That’s what I was telling you about. If you look at the traps on this nearest tape Horace, can you see the pipes coming off the vents at the top, you know, the air vents. Those pipes coming off there and going right up and out through the topping. When they had heavy sorts in there, if they had eights or tens, they’d have to open the vents.
R- They’d have to run with their vents open all the time.
They used to open the vents and let them blow all the time, because otherwise they couldn’t get the cylinders hot enough to dry it. Or at least, they could dry it but it meant running so slow that it were uneconomic. They couldn’t dry it quick enough, it was the traps that were wrong you know, those old traps, they were just absolutely buggered. In fact Joe, at one time, quite seriously, told the firebeater that that was where the steam came into the tape and it went out at the other side through the big pipe.
R- But you could always change your wheels here.
On the headstock?
R- If you go slow you could dry anything, dry anything. The lowest wheel would
be about 10 or 12 teeth or less than that probably. But you could dry anything on a tape. What the tape would pull the cylinders would dry if you change your wheels. But that’d be because you wanted to get on and get a lot
(850)
off. I used to run some very heavy sorts at Johnsons, 14s and what heavy stuff.
That 8’s was the worst stuff we used to do. It used to come from Castleford I think. A place at Castleford, and God, they were big beams. And I used to say as soon as we knew the tape had started on those you could open the stokers, both stokers up a notch. And that used a lot of coal on your stokers. And then opening them up one notch, it meant a lot of coal. And I used to say that it took about 1 ½ cwt or 2cwt of coal, to dry each beam that come off. And they used to laugh at me, but by God, they could swallow coal. And of course they swallowed size and all, drunk size. .
R- Aye, they would do. But these tapes, they were very efficient these modern tapes, always going wrong. There was too much about them, the high speed tapes, they were always going wrong. But them didn't [The older types] The only thing that
you could ever expect to happen would be your fan belts breaking, or your driving belt. If, when you had gaited up at the morning, and there were fairly decent yarn, and you got everything right, you could, if your warp’d last long enough, you’d go home.
Oh aye. I've seen Joe go off to put a bet on while the tape was running.
R- Yes. They were very efficient, there was nothing to go wrong. There were flannels in here for the friction. Well, they lasted a lifetime. Flannels and metal plates, the same with the clutch.
Aye. Yes, well, we’ll talk about that. We are talking about the take up motion at the front aren’t we now? Well, we’ll talk about that, we’ve got a better picture of that later on, and we'll talk about that then. Because, I’ll be quite honest with you, I’ve often wondered what the drive was inside there.
R- Metal plates and flannels, that’s all there were.
Yes. Picture number 14.
R- Picture number 14 shows a full beam. This is the front of the tape, it shows a full beam and it’s ready to be doffed.
Wire mesh guard.
R- This wire mesh guard is a guard to stop you getting your hands fast, but I’ve been used to another sort. It was a board across here, fit very close here, came here and it were on a swivel, you could turn it back out of the way when you were running slow and then when you got going again, you turned this board down so there weren’t any fear of getting fast in it. And a taper never wore a tie.
(900)
(45 min)
Aye, Joe once got his tie caught, and luckily the scissors were handy just at the side. But it could you know, it could kill a fellow just like that, couldn’t it.
R- Yes, strangle him before ... if there's nobody about it’d strangle him. I know a taper, his labourer had gone home one dinner time for his dinner and he were left alone and he reached underneath the tape to take a lapper off and on the tapes there should be room in between the two cylinders for your arm to go up.
Aye that's right.
R- Get your arm up. But on this particular tape there wasn’t and he got his arm up, reached under and got his arm in, and he were there all the dinner hour shouting and shouting and the tape running and eventually the labourer came back and heard him but they took his arm off.
Where were that at?
R- Spring Mill. It were a man called Denton Willis.
At Earby?
R- At Earby.
Bloody terrible eh? Because them cylinders would be red hot.
R- Hot cylinders. Anyway he were fast there all the time the labourer’s home for his dinner, and he lost his arm through it.
SCG/01 April 2003
6,830 words.