THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 21st OF JULY 1979 AT 16 COWGILL STREET, EARBY. THE INFORMANT IS HORACE THORNTON, TAPER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Tape 79/AD/15
This tape carries on with the descriptions of the taping pictures in the Bancroft Folio. We are starting with cutting out and gaiting up a warp. Now, let’s start on picture 21.
R - This shows the labourer cutting any surplus yarn that’s left on the beam.
There's just one thing before we start Horace, I think 1’d better point out for anybody that’s seen all the pictures, of course they’ll recognize the labourer. The fellow that’s acting as tape labourer is actually Jim Pollard who was the weaving manager, and the reason that was going on will be clear here for people who followed the conversations up to now, was that Bancroft was in a very poor way and we couldn’t afford any spare labour, and so Jim was acting as tape labourer. In the days when we had two tapers, Norman Gray and Joe Nutter, they used to labour for each other. They used to work it, try and work it so that they weren’t gaiting up at the same time. And of course Norman had to go off poorly and never came back, he died in the finish. So Joe was taping on his own using two tapes. Of course he only ran one at a time but Jim used to go in and do his labouring for him. So the fellow that we see as tape labourer is actually the weaving manager, Jim Pollard.
(50)
R - Yes. Right ...
And on 21 he is ...
R- He is cutting, what they call cutting out. He is cutting any surplus yarn off the beam. They are all supposed to be, for instance 20,000 yards each, but if you have had more weight on one back beam than on another, the one that’s had the least weight runs off first and leaves surplus yarn on the others and they all have to be cut off before thy go back to the spinner.
So in effect what happens is that as soon as you get one back beam run out you stop the lot of course.
R - You stop.
And then anything that's left on the others has to be cut out.
R - It's waste is that.
Yes. Picture 22.
R- Twenty two. The labourer has cut the yarn off and after that he starts taking the empty beams away; and the loose ends of the sheet are left hanging there to tie the next set of beams to. Now, here it shows him…
Picture 23.
R- Picture 23 ...
That's Joe, the taper.
Yes. He is getting the beams ready to go in. The taper has to examine all the beams to make certain that they are the correct ones to go in a set. All the ends are correct and the length of the beams are all the same. If you've got one beam at 20,000 yards into a set that the rest are marked 30,000 on, well, you have 10,000 yards of yarn on each, each beam that’s wasted. You can’t do anything with it because when the 20,000 yards were run out that were it. I mean, many a time there’s been a
(100)
mistake made with the spinners. The beamer hasn’t run enough on and you think you have 10,000 yards left on and one run begins to run off. If you are at the front you see your sheet going slack, part of the sheet going slack, you go to the back and one has run off.
I’ve seen that, I’ve seen that happen at Bancroft. I’ve seen cases where they’ve, one beam's run out a long time before the others, and they have
(5 min)
had to get the spinner in. And I noticed that when they put these in They always kept the label. On picture 22 they nearly always kept the labels on.
R- Yes the label’s always tied on the beam.
Yes, or they kept the label next to the beam in the back frame.
R- There’s usually a label fastened to the beam, and a label laid in the yarn and run on to the last one or two wraps. You take the loose ticket out, and you see if it corresponds with the one fastened on the beam.
Aye well I've seen that at Bancroft, aye, in the end of the beam so that when they start beaming they put their two labels, the one they put on the beam and one they put into the yarn, like put on to the drum of the beam before they start, so it gets trapped in.
R - Yes. That’s it. Now picture number 23 shows the taper. He is getting the beams ready to go into the tape. Meanwhile the labourer is sweeping round we’ll see, getting rid of all the dirt and he’s made a good job of it here.
Aye. Oh, that’s it in a well run shop, that would be. I mean on 22, if you look behind the sheet under the front of the sow box you can see all the old size that was lay on the floor there, it was absolutely covered underneath.
(150)
R- But in a well run place, with plenty of labour, and each taper has a labourer, the labourer cuts out and sweeps from the big cylinder right back to the end of the creel and it has to be swept properly. And the taper sweeps from the big cylinder all the front.
Aye, under the fan and under the headstock.
R- Under everywhere, cleans it all off before you start putting any more beams in. That’s when you have plenty of time, you are not rushed, and you have plenty of labour. But if you have no labourer, which was against the Union rules, a taper’s not to labour for himself, you’ve got to have a tape labourer. And one instance, a taper were labouring for himself and he were taking the beams out and standing them up on end, inside the creel, and they weigh about 140 lb does these right big empty beams. He reared one up against the creel, bent down to cut another out and the beam that was stood up fell on to him and broke his thigh. And the firm wouldn’t pay compensation. The Union took it to the high court but they lost, they lost the day. The man didn't get any compensation and the Union paid the costs of the case. They had a QC to represent them but they lost the day and so we got strict orders, we hadn’t to do any lifting out, we hadn’t to touch empty beams at all. If anything happened to us…
Yes. That's it.
R- And the only thing that happened to that man, he got no compensation and he were always lame but the firm promised they’d find him a light job but at a light wage.
Aye, I was just going to say, aye, at a light wage. Aye.
(200)
R- So, really, for your own good, you should obey the rules.
Yes. That’s an interesting thing, we can just digress a little bit there, that’s something which has always struck me about the way industry is run. There are rules for doing things in certain ways but many a time if you were to stick to the rule book the management would be very upset indeed. Well, we have all seen in recent years, where one of the ways that a lot of working men have found to take industrial action is to what they call 'work to rule’, in other words work to the book. And it’s always seemed to me that it's a very interesting field for investigation just how many industries could function if people did observe all the rules. I mean, you know yourself, 1 mean we are talking about taping now. I mean if the rules hadn't been broken every day at Bancroft the mill would have stopped. And yet the cause of it was that the management wouldn't employ a tape labourer. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg?
(10 min)
R- Well, my son-in-law is an inspector, a government inspector for the Health and Safety Council, and the times he’s had to go to accidents where a man’s been killed or badly lamed, lamed for life, that had been through ignoring the rules. And he’s told me times without number that they haven’t sense for their own safety. As long as they carry on ignoring the rules to get a bit more off and they get killed, they get lamed. And he says we’re there to try
(250)
and prevent it. But when we are there it doesn’t happen, we’re brought in after an accident happens, and you’ve to find out why it’s been, how it's been caused, and who's fault it was. And he said many and many a time it’s the man’s own fault, he’s ignored the rules, he knows what he has to do and what he should do but he wants to get a bit more done or it’s just sheer idleness. Walking a few yards or just putting a guard on and he doesn’t do it and he is killed.
But of course, as I say, you know as well as I do there’s many a time when it’s done with the, well, sort of negative cooperation of the management. I mean the management knows these things are going on, but it’s saving then money.
R- Yes.
I mean really, well just about every job at Bancroft was like that. I mean we had no back-up anywhere. I mean, the number of times I had to work on my own on the engines or on the boiler or something like that, and you know, a man should never be asked to work alone on an engine or a boiler. I’m not talking about running it, I'm talking about doing maintenance, you should never be on your own. because you know yourself the traps for the unwary. Somebody, for instance something that seems quite simple like going and changing a light bulb after stopping time so that the weaver will have a light in next morning. And they could never understand why I wouldn’t do it. But what if I went into that shed and changed that light bulbs and fell on one of the looms and happen broke my thigh or something like that, or cut myself very badly. Nobody would find me until the following morning. I’d be there from four o'clock, half past four in the afternoon until half past seven the following morning. Well, how much chance would there be for you?
R- Well, a weaving shed where I was working, there had been some painters in painting the walls, and left the ladders up against the wall. Well, the oiler came in and a rule there was that every ladder had hooks on. If you went up a ladder you could hook them on to the shafting.
(300)
That's it.
R- You couldn’t slip. But there were a ladder near at hand without hooks and this ladder were 20 or 30 yards away. So he took the ladder without hooks, this is dinner time, went up to fill the oil bottle, and the ladder slipped and he fell on top of a loom and broke his thigh, he were never right again.
Yes. Simply done.
R- He said to me many a time when I saw him struggling about, “What a fool I have been!” He’d to walk 20 yards to get his own ladder, with hooks on.
Yes. I every sympathy with that sort of thing. I meant that fellow could have been short of time and pushing on.
R- He wasn't short of time. You were never short of time there. But it were easier to take the ladder with no hooks on, than walk 20 yards in his opinion. And he didn’t live long after. He died 12 months since, and he were always a cripple.
Anyway, on 24 Jim’s pulling them up a bit, and pulling them up towards the tape a bit and Joe's lifting empty ones out. And you’ll notice that
(15 min)
we were that short of room in the taperoom at that time because there were such a lot of empty beams stacked about that the drivers hadn't taken back. I don’t know how you went on with drivers taking empties back but they didn’t like to take them. I could never understand it.
R- Well, they wanted a full load, that’s what happened.
Yes they wanted a full load for one shop.
R- Yes. That’s what they wanted but with us they didn’t deal with many firms and they were stacked outside in the street and they hadn’t to be left so long out in the street. I should think they were cleared up every day, the weft boxes as well because they were going every day. They would bring in big loads, there’s been between 30 and 40 full beams on, and
(350)
drop them off in the street and there were a row of houses across, and they were going bang, bang, bang and shaking the pictures off the wall in those houses. And they just rolled them off one after the other, the drivers were in such a hurry. They used to roll them along the road, on the cobbles, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And it were the cause of a lot of damage to the back beams.
Oh yes.
R- You’ve got a set in, and one of them’d be badly gashed, fallen on to another pike that were laid in the road, and you'd perhaps 50 or 60 or 100 yards to …
Aye, ball it off to get rid of it.
R- Ball off. And if you’re balling off one and it’s a ten beam set you’ve lost ...
You’ve lost the same amount off the others. Yes.
R- A hundred yards off each beam, a thousand yards of yarn.
Yes. Anyway, 25 and I think 26 as well, they are very similar ...
R- Yes, they’re similar pictures. They’re lifting the empties out and going to wheel them away, and I can understand the taper. I were talking about standing the empties up because this is a similar place, no room to move, empty beams stacked everywhere. And it were the same in the weaving sheds, wherever they could push a loom they used to push two, really. Where one loom should have gone, only enough room for one alley, they’d put two. You were pushing through and you couldn’t get in between the looms without the picking stick giving you a whack.
Aye. I’ve seen holes cut in the wall at Bancroft for the beam flanges to go in. And you know the bolt on the end of the slay? Slots cut in the wall for them to move in.
R- Yes, to move in. The looms have been put that close.
There’s marks on the brickwork where they’ve rubbed into the wall. Yes.
R- It did want some law bringing out to stop that which they did. Eventually they had to be respaced ...
Aye, respacing.
R- And given more room. And the tacklers, they used to have trucks that had big arms up, legs up, and the beam on top so that the full beam went over the top of the looms. So they could wheel them up the back, there were so little room.
(400)
Yes, in fact at one time, tell me if I’m wrong Horace, but at one time tacklers didn’t have trucks did they. They used to carry them in on their shoulder.
R- Carry them in, yes. And take a mate with them to take hold of the pike and they took hold of the other end. But an endless stream of ruptures among tacklers for that sort of thing.
That’s it, yes.
R- The feet slipping and the beam slipping, and getting trapped. And I say many a time, the things that went on, and the conditions that people worked under, it were a Godsend when the Lancashire cotton industry went out of existence. If that were all that could do for Lancashire it were time it went. You went through Nelson and Colne and Burnley and Blackburn, and you looked down out of the train and saw the houses and the mills and the back streets. It were time it finished, they got all they deserved. It were hard luck for the operatives but it was time it went, it were time.
Yes. Well, you are getting on to very similar ground to what I was on. Last year, when they were talking about preserving Bancroft as a working mill, I used to ask everybody that came the same question, that came with that tale, I used to say Well, tell me sommat, if we preserve it as a working mill, just exactly how it is now, would you come and work in it? And that’s a very similar thing.
(20 min)
R- Mind you, if it wanted preserving it wanted to be preserved with the muck and everything.
That’s it, just how it was.
R- Heaps of paper and dirt and dawn.
Yes, well, that’s what these pictures are for you see.
R- Yes. Well that’s what it wants now.
That’s the only way we can do it you see. Anyway, on 27 they’ve got to the stage where they’re lifting one of the full beams up.
R- Yes, the labourer’s craning the back beam up and the taper’s taking the paper off it as it comes up. But before they got these 26” flange beams they were a lot smaller, back beams, and in lots of cases they hadn’t blocks and tackle, the labourer had to lift them in. But the creels had to be built so high for these big beams, they couldn’t possibly lift them up.
(450)
Aye, we used to get a lot on smaller beams actually. In fact if you notice, these Manor beams on these photographs aren’t full.
R- No.
They were beggars at Bancroft for getting part sets in. It were very seldom you saw a full set come in you know, or one that was full up to the flanges, you know, full right up.
R- But if you had, an order for 20,000 yards, and these all held 30,000 yards and these were the beams that you had, what could they do but leave them half full?
Yes, but the trouble was many a time with Bancroft that even if they had the order that would have taken the full set of beams, they only used to get part sets at once because the trouble was ...
R- They had to pay for them..
Well, the trouble was really with running one tape for the complete shed Horace. And the fact that you see at one time we had 500 looms running and we had 28 different sorts in the shed. Now, what that meant was that if you put a tape on to do say a 30,000 yards set, it was running that long on that sort that the other sorts were running out. And what they had to do was get a set which, say, in this case probably, I think actually this is a 20,000 yards set. It’s on one of the photographs you can see it written on it. They used to get a 20,000 yards set, get that out and get another sort in straight away which they were waiting for as well. It was a big problem running about 300 looms but running 28 sorts. Well, there was about 30 sorts then probably in the shed with one tape. And many a time I’ve seen the tape stood still waiting for a set of back beams coming in, when there were two or three sets waiting outside on the runway which could have gone in.
R- Could have gone in.
The thing was that, the one they were waiting for was the one that they wanted.
R- Yes, looms waiting for it.
Yes. And if they’d put one of the other sets in, you can bet a pound the wagon would have turned up with the other back beams then. Well, that was the problem all the time.
R- And you didn’t want a lot of weaver’s warps in hand, they are only getting dried up.
That’s it, yes.
R- 'Cause they got dry if they were standing there for months. And the next picture is just a similar sort of picture.
Ah well, 28 and 29.
R- 29, they are all the same sort of thing, lifting the beams into the creel.
30?
R- 30, 31…
And 31.
R- Yes and 32.
Now, on 32 they are actually setting off down into the creel, and you can get an idea of the muck that used to lay about on the floor. Good view of the creel that held the side ends ...
R- Yes, and the gantry with the blocks, the blocks on. Yes.
Yes, with the block, the stretcher and the runway. But 1 mean, look at the muck down the side of that tape.
R- Well, I wouldn’t have stood it.
No, well, I mean actually, it was beyond a joke up there you know. I mean it was just, they’d got to those conditions over the years.
R- Well I couldn’t have worked in that, I couldn't have worked, no.
No. I couldn’t.
R- Among dirt like that. But they’d had to just forget it. It meant working or playing.
And some people can forget easier than others.
R. Yes.
Aye. Now in 33 they’re just settling a beam down in the ...
R- Into the creel. Yes.
Into the creel, and it looks as if Jim is just ...
R- He’s screwing the stand back, you see, screwing this bracket back, so that a beam’ll go in.
(25 min)
Yes, that's …
R- You can tell when they’re coming down whether it’ll go in or not.
Aye, and I don’t think, Jim’s put the washer on the end of it. I think that’s what he’s doing there, he's just going to put the washer on the end of it.
R- A washer on the end.
Because they used to put a washer on to bear behind, didn’t they.
R- Well, you can tighten up on to your washer, tighten your beam bracket on to your washer on each side and it holds your beam steady. You don’t need much of a weight on, much of a clip.
That’s it yes. And of course these brackets can be adjusted one way or the other
R- Yes.
To line the beams up to each other. Yes.
R- That’s what you’ve got to do. When you’ve got the full set in you go to the back and look along them, and get your labourer to open them out or tighten in, you see. You get them all in a line. If you don’t do that, when your set comes to the front there’s some a lot further out than others. You want them all running practically edge to edge as your sheet comes through. And going to the other squeeze roller, if the yarn together is getting the size evenly on them.
(550
34?
R- 34, similar to 35.
Aye,34 and 35.
R- Somebody’s been wasting the film here.
No, they’re all different Horace.
R- 36, 37 each.
Now wait a minute, 36, they’ve got that beam in now, that beam’s in its position now and Jim’s setting off back with the block on the runway for the next one. Then of course, that’s repeated for every beam that they put in. And then, when they’ve finally got all the beams in we get round to actually tying up. That’s it, now 37, what's happened there?
R- You’ve tied two beams together.
Those are the two back uns and all, that’s it.
R- Yes they’ve all…
Ah now wait a minute. Let’s just get this straight. No, that’s it, these on 37 aren’t the two back ones. They’re the two next to the back, because it were an odd number of beams. There’s one behind you see. I think it was seven, there were seven beams in this set. Yes.
R - One, two, three. We, the label will tell. Three 43’s Beams and four 44's, 20,000 yards.
No, the thing is thatI1 was trying to fetch out there was that starting from nearest the tape, you tell me if I’m wrong, starting from the sow box, they tie the ends of the beams that are next to each other together, Like they are on picture number 37. But then at the back, if we look on picture 38, at the back there’s one beam on its own and they’ve put a loop on the ends on that to put the rod through.
R- Yes, well this is the odd beam.
Yes, that’s it..
R- You put a loop on and the back beau is the bottom one, you go up, pull it through under the rollers, under the creel, right to the front and just lay your ends down there.
Yes. Well, what’s happening in 39? They are just passing the rod underneath. They’re going to take it back and pass it under the roller aren’t they?
R- The tin rollers, yes.
And then take it forward.
R- Yes. And if it’s even set you do that with every two beams and then when you get to the front… It shows on number 40, they are just bringing it to the front.
Well, number 40 follows directly on from 39 doesn’t it. They've just brought that rod round the tin roller right at the back of the creel and they are passing it forwards underneath the other beams. And then 41 will show when they’ve got to the front if I remember rightly. Ah no, on 41 they’re just lifting those ends up.
R- They tighten them up to get this slack out, you take hold of the yarn and pull them, get them all tight up here before you pull them forward under the other beams.
(600)
Yes. And then you finish up in 42, you’ve got to the front and you’ve got the ends of all the beams together because they are at the front now. And they are drawing all the ends back to give themselves plenty of slack aren’t they.
R- Yes. And yet you look at your beams to see where they’re slackening. You rub your fingers on them, it pulls the slack ends up. You get them fairly even there, and on picture number 43…
They’re dividing the ends, they’ve cut all the bunches off and they’re just getting ready to tie them.
R- They’ve pulled the last one through and that’s the finish. And then you see they’re pulling them up and getting them fairly even there. And then, here, they get all the ends together.
On picture number 43, yes.
R- On 43. They get all ends together and drag them up and pull a yard or two off to get all the beams tensioned. On number 44 they divide the sheet.
(30 min)
Here in number 44 they’re dividing the sheet into two, the ends that are going through the tapes into two and then they tie them on, two knots. Well, they haven’t done that here, they have only got one knot, and one knot here. But this will be split in two.
Yes, and there will be two knots, at either side, yes.
R- Yes well he hasn’t done that. He has only made three.
Ah but there is another one. There’s another one there.
R- Oh yes, you can see it out at the side, yes. Well that’s what they usually do, you make four knots, unless it’s a right big sheet, thick yarn and a big number of ends and then you’ll make perhaps eight knots. If you don’t, there’s that little room between the copper roller and the drag roller, the flannel covered roller, the squeeze roller, that it won’t go through. It’ll break your knots if you have your knots too big.
Yes, now on picture number 46 Joe’s just turning the steam on, he is putting a bit of steam into the size beck.
R- Not yet, he shouldn’t be, because they’re doing something here with the flannel.
Yes. Then when I did this there was a frayed end on the flannel, so they decided they’d draw it back.
R- Yes, they draw it back ... when you have been running a day or two the flannel gets worn, it gets bare and tends to get holes in and split. And it makes badly sized warps if your flannel isn’t in good
(650)
order you have got to attend to that. You shouldn’t let your flannel get badly damaged because if it gets a split in it or a hole in it it’s leaving a wet spot every time. And so they just, well it’s looking at you, see, it’s split here is the flannel.
Yes, he’s just dragged a bit off, in fact they drew a fair bit off.
R- To see what it were like?
Yes. And in 46 you can see they are cutting it off.
R- Cutting it off, yes.
With a straight mark.
R- Yes. He’s cutting it with a knife, that’d be it, and Joe’s either holding it or…
Yes, he’s cutting it, yes.
R- He is cutting it this way.
Yes. They both cut at the same time right across.
R- And it’s no good taking it across by the weft threads because many a time they’d be bowed.
Aye that’s it, yes.
R- You have got to cut them straight and then you have a straight edge when it comes through your roller and it’s squeezing accurately. If this is bowed it doesn’t squeeze there and there. You’d think it would but it doesn’t. Now, they’ve got the ...
Aye ... 47 yes.
R- 47, they've got the end of the flannel cut up, they’ve got the sheet tied up and the taper will be looking round to see that all the clips are on and the beams are all right, there’s nothing undone that they should have done and he walks to the f front then and puts the lap ends …
Aye. On picture 48 he is putting ...
R- 48. He puts the lap ends on what they call a dummy. It’s a barrel of wood that they put in the front to take the waste yarn on. And here there is the warp that he’s just doffed, hung there, ready to he taken away into the preparation room. But if you have a labourer he is attending to that while you running through. And you run on the slow motion quietly away till it all gets tightened. You go and look at your set, all the back beams are right, there’s no ends down and you run through a few yards till it’s straight. That’s number 48.
49. They’ve drawn that flannel.
(700)
(35 min)
They drew it, on 47 the cut edge of the flannel is just where they left it. Now, before they started they drew, oh a good five or six yards of flannel out and laid it on top of the beams and in 49 rather they’ve got the tape running slowly and they’re just guiding that flannel on to the squeeze roller so it takes up nice and evenly on the barrel.
R- Did they put a new flannel on?
No.
R- Now, we had three flannels, six yards, we had 18 yards of flannel on. And when the top one was getting done, you pulled it off, just happen one round, you threw that to waste. That left you two flannels on and you pulled the next one off and laid it on top of the set, and pull the next one off. Then you went to the store room and you got a new length of flannel, six yards, and you put the new length of flannel on the bottom, on to the iron roller. And on the iron roller there should he a piece of asbestos round, round the iron roller, and then a cotton fent. {Fent is the local name for an odd end of cloth.] Then on to this you put the cotton fent just under the edge of the asbestos sheet so as that bound it, and then when you come to about 18” off the end of the cotton, running it on, you put the start of the flannel. You ran your flannel on carefully, held it tight, your labourer at one side and you at the other. But before that you had to tear the selvedge off, both sides of this. And that was one thing you ought to do, you can see where the selvedge has been torn off.
Actually what had happened there you see, we were getting to the far end and they couldn’t afford to buy any flannel, and what we had done about a week before that, I have some pictures of them doing it, they had to take the flannel off the other tape and put it on this tape.
R- That’s it you see.
They had run out of flannel.
R- Run out and they weren’t getting any more. In olden days, when there were heavy sized stuff, china clay, they used to take the flannels off at weekend and they had a trough there full of water and they left them steeping in there all the week end to get a lot of the old size out.
I’ve seen Joe do that with our flannels.
R- Well, that’s what we used to do, put them in this trough, like a pig trough it were, and filled it with cold water and left the flannels in.
It’s just at the back of this tape, we’ll probably see it in a minute or two. We’ve caught glimpses of it before. And the two off them used to wring them out over the trough.
(750)
R- They would do. There used to be a lead lined trough, wood trough, lead lined so it didn’t rot away. Number 50, he’s just finishing putting the flannel on. Now, to stop the end of the flannel flapping about when it were running you know, on picture 51 they’re taking a side end and the tape’s running slowly, they’ve put the roller down, the tape’s running slowly now. And he’s taking the side end, putting it on to the rollers and he is running it backwards and forwards across the flannel roller to hold the flannel down.
I think they had two each.
R- Yes. Well, that’s what they are doing, but he’s only one there and Joe’s reaching his hand out. Jim has it in his hand and Joe’s reaching his hand out to take it off him and bring it across here. You see he’s only one, there’s nothing here. Anyway, recovering the flannel roller’s finished and on, we go to the front, picture 52. Joe’s just slowly running the sheet through, he’s run it through and got it straight and he’s dropped the ends into the raddle or wraith, as they call it.
I think he is either narrowing it in or moving it across.
R- He is moving it across. This one’s moving it across and the other one with the long handle, the longer handle on, that’s for winding the raddle in and bringing it more to your width.
Aye that’s it. Yes, because that one on the right hand-side, you can put it on a ratchet that worked off the motion to bring it in at the end.
R- When you were getting to the top of the warp, to get more on the beam, they used to what they call ‘Neck it in’.
We’ll get to that because there’s some pictures of that Horace.
R- Yes. Necking in. Now, 53, Joe’s looking here to see if his sizing is all right. And it probably will be because you get used to the job but they’re things that you have to check all the time, that it’s pumping or he might have gone to see if a new lot has boiled up properly because if there were a great variation in your sets. If you have been using a very strong sort of sizing for the set previous you’ve got to let it down with water. You’ve got to calculate what you have been using before, measure the depth of your sizing, reckon up how many gallons you hadn’t run, put so many more gallons of water in and boil it up. Or if it were going onto a stronger sort from a weak one you’d got to strengthen it up. You got a bucket of water and
(800)
(40 min)
mixed the sizing and kept putting shovels of flour in, and mixing it up. Make it like porridge, so many buckets, calculate what you thought would do. Then teamed it into the size box, and boiled it up. That were to get your strength up, because on this sort of sizing you’d to mix for each set, or should have done. But with an up to date place you didn’t, it worked different. In the tape you had one stock sizing all the time. The heaviest you’d ever need, that were your stock sizing and every sort you got after that you calculated and you set your clocks to let it down to the strength you wanted, on the new Shirley boxes. It were all done by magic, turning wheels and that sort of thing, but you had to do the reckoning up what you wanted, what strength you wanted. It made the job a lot easier, and once you had got everything set and your sizing had been mixed to the proper strength everything worked automatically, supposed to do. Just the same as all automatic things, they had a habit of going wrong. There were too many floats and bits of wire and diaphgrams and electric lights. It all worked with electricity. It were all right when everything were running all right, but if you had a power cut, and the voltage were reduced from, 230 is it here? 240?
No 250, most of the time.
R- 250. Well, it were all set to run at 250, if the voltage were down, the same as when there were power cuts and you were down at 200, everything were all to cock. Those were the things you had to watch. But after a while Shirley found out that it wouldn’t do – I’m speaking about the Shirley box - and they did away with all these fancy electric lights and diaphragms and floats hung on bits of spiral wire and a diaphragm in the bottom of your box, and the weight of the size was supposed to work this diaphragm. When your sizing were heavy it pressed it down, when your sizing got lighter this diaphragm was supposed to come up and work this
(850)
electric switch and let the water come in. But if you had been cleaning the size box out, the labourer washing it out, if he had been in with his hand had given this diaphragm a knock, it were only about the thickness of a jam pot cover so as it’d work. Well, that was a thing, if that was all wrong then everything was out of order then. If the diaphragm got fractured a bit, or they were that thin they used to split. So Shirley had another think.
(45 min)
or whoever were the back room boys. They did away with all that and went back to the old principle, a more sophisticated way. Your size used to be regulated with a float roller. When your float roller went down it opened a valve and let more size in, and when your float roller came up it shut the valve. It were pumping from the size box all the time but the float roller regulated all that. Well, Shirley came out with a small edition of that. You had your stock size and your yarn were taking the size up for the required amount that you’d set your wheels at. And if the size level went down at all it worked this float and let the water come in and the size were coming in at a predetermined volume all the time. But if it went down a bit, it’d be getting stronger, more water came in and it were all worked simply with a small float onto your water supply. It’s done away with all the fancy valves and the diaphragms and mistakes with low voltage and high voltage.
That’s it.
R- On the new Shirley box. But this [the Bancroft setup] is just the old fashioned method that started, well, 150 years since.
They did have a float on but of course it was in the sow box. That were just for keeping the level right in the sow box. And the pump on the side of the size beck that you can see in 53 worked on a scotch yoke and it was pumping all the time.
R- Yes, and a relief valve.
Yes, and a relief valve. That’s it, yes. Right, we’ll leave that now, because we’re getting near to the end of the tape and we'll start the next tape with picture number 54.
SCG/04 April 2003
7,041 words.