THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON 14TH OF JUNE 1979 AT VICARAGE ROAD, BARNOLDSWICK. THE INFORMANT IS NEWTON PICKLES AND THE INTERVIEWER IS STANLEY GRAHAM.
Now then, we’ll continue our guided tour round Barlick. We’d got as far as Crow Nest so I think we’ll move out into the fields now and go to Westfield. Now then, Westfield, now that were built about what? 1907?
R-No, it were later than that it would be about 1912 or 1913, just before the war. [UMP order book and Billy Brooks evidence both say 1911] George Henry Watson started it up [engineer]. Lovely mill, modern in its design you know only two storeys, about 1200 looms altogether if they were all in. Divided into two tenancies it were in my time, one were Robinson Brooks and the other were Proctors. Cross compound Burnley Ironworks engine running at about 76 revs, four foot stroke. It were one of those engines that Burnley Ironworks made a bit cheap but allus looked, they looked like an engine, you see what I mean, by cheap. Corliss valves, instead of having one at each corner of the cylinder, at all four corners, they had ‘em all at the bottom. With dash pots in the middle down to floor level. They allus looked smashing to me and they run nice but they had a fault of course which was the live steam warming the exhaust all the time which dropped the economy a bit but not much I would say. But they were very efficient were them engines, there were quite a lot of ‘em about. Never spectacular or owt like that, fly wheel came loose three times, I keyed it on once and it never came loose again of course. I’m not being swelled headed but I tightened them keys. It had an alternator put on it later in life but otherwise… I put new crank pin steps into one side and new crosshead steps in its life and bored the low pressure valves. Why they all needed doing I don’t know and I never could tell why because me father bored ‘em years before my time. It hadn’t run long enough to have the low pressures bored he told me. I bored ‘em again and put new steam and exhaust valves and I rebored the air pump. But apart from that it hasn’t much attached to it, it ran and ran and gave very little trouble.
Low pressure were corliss and all then?
R-Corliss yes, all bottom valves.
Just in passing, I remember you once telling me about going to an engine somewhere, when you lost a duck lamp and that were a big low pressure slide valve.
R-Oh, that were Calf Hall. They never found the duck lamp! It were missing but they never found it, that were Edwin up at Calf Hall, aye it were up there. Have we to tell the tale about the duck lamp, I mean it doesn’t, it isn’t this district like but we could tell the tale about the duck lamp, this happened at sea of course.
Oh, I think so, aye.
R-Have you heard this tale about the duck lamp. A ship in Liverpool you know, it came in , America to Liverpool and it were due for its engine inspection. So they took all the cylinder covers off and they inspected all the pistons and you know how they were always very particular on ships that all the spanners were in racks fastened to the bulkhead. A spanner for everything and it ‘ud be what, 15 or 17 thousand horse this engine. And t’captain shouted down that they were going to set sail on the tide that night. But the second engineer were a bit worried, all the covers had been put back on after the inspector left and his inch and quarter spanner were missing out of the rack and that’s a very big spanner you know. He says I don’t know, unless someone else has borrowed it, I don’t know where it is. So anyhow, they sail on the tide and as they went slow ahead there’s a clang, clang clang from the top like. They started slow ahead down the river and it were thumping were this engine in the low pressure cylinder. Second engineer says Oh my God, we’ll have to have this cover off again. So they’d gone about two miles down the river and he shouts up and fetches the number one down and he hears it. Get this engine stopped! Quick now, I’ll go and tell the captain. So the captain shuts down and they stop this ship like in the middle of the bloody Mersey. All the tackle were ready and the first engineer tells the second to get all the nuts loosed and shout up for him, he wanted to be there when the cover were lifted. So the first engineer clears off to his cabin like for a smoke and a drink. Well, they get all these forty nuts off that are round this low pressure cover and in a bit, You can come down now Sir! But in the meantime, before they get him, Let’s get this bloody cover off says the second and have a look and see what the noise is. Course, they lift the bugger off and look in and there’s the bloody spanner lay on top of the piston, so they out with the spanner, put it on the rack, drop the cover and popped a couple of nuts back on and then he rings up to tell the chief it were ready. So Sir comes down and says Reight lads, up with that cover. They lifts the cover up with the blocks and the Chief looks in, There you are lads, there’s your bloody trouble, a duck lamp, and it’s still lit! He He He, good is that!
Yes, I know, I like that one. But I’ll tell you, while you’re on with telling tales, just tell me about the romancing bit, where they were romancing about the size of their engines.
R-Oh, that were Stanley Fisher and old George Henry up at Butts when I were a lad. We’d been working in Butts one Saturday and I’d only be fourteen, I’d only just started. We were making the joint on the low pressure cylinder cover which, by the way, were made with ½ inch lead pipe. Anyway, that’s a story we’ve told before I think. So anyhow we’d finished and it were dinnertime and they’d warmed up and had it running and we’re all sat down. There were the engine driver and his son [George Henry Watson and Frank Watson] and me and Stanley Fisher. Stanley says to George Henry, What were that engine like George Henry that you had before you came to Barlick? Oh Stanley, he says, It were a big ‘un, it were a big engine were that. It were a monstrous thing, I don’t know how big the crank pins were and the flywheel. Then he says to Stanley, Well, have you ever run any big engines? Well says Stanley, I have like, They happen weren’t as big as that that you’re on about George Henry. Why, how big were it Stanley says George Henry. Well said Stanley, It takes a bit of explaining, I don’t know t’weights o’t flywheel and t’beds and that sort of stuff but I’ll tell you this, they had handrails round th’oil holes to stop the oiler from falling in! He He he! Now Stanley, says George Henry, We’re telling lies now and romancing a bit. Well Stanley says, Isn’t that what we’ve been doing for the last bloody hour! He he, it’s all right is that one. Where are we going now?
Let’s have a look at Westfield.
R-We’ve done Westfield!
Not Westfield, Fernbank, I’m sorry.
R-Fernbank, it were a good engine were Fernbank. It were a Pollit and Wigzell, about twelve hundred horse and it ran faster, it were five foot stroke and it ran at about 78 revs.
That’s a fair piston speed!
R-It were a fair piston speed. And also, it had superheat steam on as well. We used to reckon that piston speed up and it were running exactly the same as a Bellis and Morcombe running at 450rpm. It worked out, feet per minute, exactly the same and it were fully loaded all its life were that engine. It never gave much bother.
What were the load on it, what did they have on it?
R-About 1100 horse. Three boilers, six tapes, only two boilers on in summer and three in winter. Used to put all three on in winter just to help him. But I can’t ever remember it having any serious troubles. Main trouble were taking high pressure piston out fairly regularly for new rings, because with high temperature superheat they didn’t seem to last long. I ran it, I used to run it a fair lot when he was off ill. I was there a fair long time at one time. But its biggest trouble were valves sticking. It had the same trouble as yours had at Bancroft Stanley, they were single ported. Oh and it did spoil it you know, Like with me always being interested in th’engines, I were allus dead nuts on single ported valves because they’d swing so far and have that much cover they used to stick like mad when the load was off. You’d allus to be there and screw the stop valve down [to throttle it] and it were 160 pounds pressure. But the engine itself never gave any trouble at all, in fact, the low pressure crank pin block, the adjusting block, were just in the same position when that engine were scrapped, laid on the bottom of the connecting rod, where the fitter had fit it [when it were new] The day it were stopped it were still there. From 1914 to when it were stopped it had never been adjusted.
Never needed shifting.
R- No. We just had one bit of fun with it. I’ll tell you a tale about this. Fernbank had two dams at th’end of the mill and one started leaking, the main one and there were a bit of trouble one morning getting [set on] with the water level being down. We used to have to prime the air pump with a pump before we got going, it were an Edward’s air pump. Well, Jack [Sneath] got a bit fed up wi’ this and got some contractors on to the job. His idea was to repair the dam without emptying it because they’d only a spring to fill ‘em. In fact it were dicey were that water job. We had a Weir pump over a bore hole about two hundred and fifty feet deep that we used to run all summer. So they decided they’d concrete the walls with the water in, grout ‘em you know. They were stone were the banks, stone on puddle. Now in my opinion, if they’d gone about that job properly they’d have dug down the back of the bank and re-puddled it. Got someone in who were used to puddle, like the canal company men that were used to that job but they didn’t. They decided they’d try and grout all these stones with the water in the dam. He rings up one afternoon and said to me father, Send your Newton up Johhny, there’s a queer noise coming out of the air pump. [Laughter from SG.] So I went up, this were about Thursday and he says it’s grinding away rarely Newton is th’air pump. And he were a chap that never panicked or owt like that. He were like you, he’d have his pipe in and be wandering around. I says Is it making a bloody din Jack? He says, We’ll have it out on Saturday. The mill ran then while quarter to ten on Saturday morning. He says we’ll have it out on Saturday morning Newton and have a look at it. It weren’t so big a job to take it out [the piston] it never had been. We used to take it out every year or two for the insurance company, we’d a seven ton travelling crane and all that and we allus could get plenty of help. So off we went up there on Saturday morning, me and me mate, it were Harry Crabtree that were with me. Top of the air pump were the biggest trouble, it weren’t like most standard air pumps, it had a total lid on it with a trunk slide, it were like a vertical engine on its own. And it were a fair big job to get that up like, You’d all the plates to take up in the engine house and uncouple the cross head at the top. It worked off the tail slide at the back like yours at Bancroft. Anyhow, be dinnertime like we were ready for pulling the bucket out. Eh we had a job to pull that bucket out, I think we had about a ten ton chain on it at first, wrapped round the cotter before we got it out, bending everything we were! Anyhow, we gets it out, gets it up on top o’t floor and you know what an Edwards bucket is like, it’s no rubbers on, it just has core holes in, six cored holes and it’s all cored out inside to hold water and to make it lighter. So we just looked at it after we’d wiped it off and instead of it having six cored holes in full of nasty water and cylinder oil as a rule, It were full of bloody concrete! It were solid! It was just like a ruddy great lump of stone that’d come out of a quarry! Oh hell he said, What we going to do about that? I says I don’t know Jack but I’m not going to get on me hands and knees for a fortnight chipping all that bloody lot out! He says we aren’t going to be stopped [the mill] doing that neither! But what were making the noise? Well I says, you know the water grooves round th’outside of the bucket, where have they gone? You know they had water grooves cut in to seal it, About half an inch radius, finish up about three quarters of an inch wide, it had three of ‘em in. Where’s them gone? They were full of concrete and all, it had concreted itself up and made it a perfect fit in the bore but it hadn’t damaged the liner. We spent all weekend chipping as much of that concrete out of the inside of the bore as we could, you know, wi’ a hammer and chisel. It were set good and proper that was. We got the outer grooves cleaned out and then we put it back in and there were never any more bother with it only it were a bit heavier. But that won’t make any difference to the balance of the engine. Anyhow, they stopped the dam from leaking!
Aye, it must have been good concrete!
R-Aye, it just had one bit of an accident after Jack retired and his oiler went on to it. He’d got t’crank pin hot and he had it well and truly hot, he’d were down in the boiler house you know. One morning first thing, he left it too soon {What Newton means is that you should never leave an engine until you are sure it is running safely and correctly. By leaving it too soon he had no warning the oil was off to the pin.] He’d never turned the oil on and it had seized the brasses up on to the pin and I were stopped all day. I couldn’t get t’brasses off t’crank pin it were that tight. Luckily, Pollitts used to make their crank pins without an outside collar on you know. They didn’t turn them all in a piece like most firms did. They used to put the outside collar on the crank pin separate and Pollits had a trick of fastening everything on with what we used to call counter sunk bloody screws, they were cheese headed screws and they made special screw drivers for them and they’d have a slot in about five sixteenths wide you know. So I’d to take t’collar off and t’crossheads. They didn’t make cross heads orthodox like we knew ‘em. The crossheads all had caps on and you could take the cap off and get the crosshead pin out wi’t brasses. I didn’t like them because they had some great big numb bolts in, about three inches diameter. So what we had to do, I’d uncouple t’crossheads, take the caps off, take all the bolts out, and undo all t’pins. Take t’collar off t’crank pin and then we got the crane down and lifted the connecting rod off the pin wi’t brasses in. We got it working, hell of a job, I were there while about midnight before I got it running. But it made a reight mess of it. I filed t’crank pin up and Jack kept me standing there for three weeks after that job. He said Thart not going! I says It’s reight enough now Jack, it’s cold. He says Aye, it might be cold but thart not going back to t’shop, tha stops here! No, he says, You stop here and make sure he doesn’t do it again! [The oiler] He kept me there for three weeks. And he kept popping down and all, he were about seventy then . He kept popping down and saying No, you can’t go back Newton. Your father can grumble and he can shout and he can do what he likes but you’re not going back to that shop until I says so! And they kept me there for three weeks, just wandering about, well I were running the place weren’t I. For three weeks, that’s what I was doing.
You’d enjoy that.
R-Oh I did. I like to go to Fernbank, it were out in the fields, I used to like to go to Fernbank you never felt like a prisoner. Like you never did at Bancroft.
No.
R-But I went to one at Nelson, I used to go regularly to Sunderland’s at Nelson if old Frank were poorly or owt and oh, I used to be fed up, you know, you were walled in. Like being in a prison. In fact I chucked up at Hendon Mills, I lasted about, oh I did about five weeks when th’engine driver dropped dead on the floor and they were weaving out. I stuck it for five week and then they got a feller from Padiham that had run an engine before. I stopped with him about a week and then I left him. I couldn’t stick it any longer. You were walled in wi’ about a six foot wall, you were just literally a prisoner. But I used to like to go to them shops out in’t fields same as I stopped at Springbank two and a half years because it were on the canal side. You weren’t a prisoner, you could walk out and have a bit of air you know. Made all the difference in the world. I’d never have run a mill that were behind a wall although I ran Seedhill for eighteen months and all you could see there were lean on’t wall and look out onto t’road like you know. That were all like but [at Seedhill] we were on’t canal side there and you could have a walk round the mill on the canal banking. ‘Cause when you’re in a place from what, six o’clock in the morning until blooming near six o’clock at night you don’t want to be fastened in like do you, at back of a gate all the time.
No, well I don’t think so.
R-I don’t think you’d have stuck a shop like that either.
No, I’m sure I wouldn’t. That were one thing about Bancroft, you were free.
R-That’s what I said, you were free.
I mean you could go for a walk, have look at the ducks.
R-That’s it, walk up the mill side to the trees and back again.
Aye, that’s it.
R-But you could get out and have a walk. Trouble were in them shops where you couldn’t, if you walked out you were on the footpath, in the main street you know like Sunderlands and Hendon Mills. And I couldn’t stick it. Now I ran Sunderlands a fair lot at night on’t night shift one winter. Frank had tumbled off the connies and broken his shoulder. Now Cockerill that were there afore, he were an old Roberts fitter, I got him to run it during the day and I ran it at night from six till ten. [Housewife’s shift or moonlight shift.] Now it didn’t feel so bad then because it were dark, ‘cause it were winter time and all you know.
But I couldn’t stick it during the day for so long being hemmed in like that. Anyhow, where are we going now?
Well there’s been such a big gap this summer. We’ve done the Big Mill at Earby haven’t we? [SG and NP waffle on for a while, decide that they haven’t done Earby but then remember Salterforth Mill}
Wait a minute, There’s one mill we’ve forgotten, Slaters at Salterforth.
R-Oh, Salterforth, lovely. Slaters at Salterforth, a little Roberts tandem, cost £395 to be made and put in. Slide valve low pressure, slide valve high, Meyer cut-off gear, which’ll take a lot of explaining will that, I don’t know where to start. It’s a Porter governor working some cams advanced and retarded which altered levers on the slide valve steam chest. These levers were connected to a double slide valve with some pots in and this gear altered the opening of the ports and so altered the cut-off and governed the engine. [A normal slide valve can’t be adjusted for cut-off, this is dictated by the way the valve is made and so the engine can only be governed on the throttle by an equilibrium valve. The Meyer gear was an attempt to change this and they were very effective but soon replaced by corliss valves and later drop valves. The only engine I know that has this gear is the Yates that I moved from Jubilee at Padiham to Masson Mill at Matlock Bath in Derbyshire.] Very efficient gear. It run at about 40 or 45 revs a minute, it’ud be four foot six stroke, beautiful flywheel, gear drive. The hears just ran like wood wheels, you could hardly hear ‘em, just rumbled, it were a beautiful thing. I had a few weeks there at one time, they had a fire you know. It brought the engine house roof in and it weren’t long afore they had it running. It bent the governor shaft and I went down, I were only a lad then, I went down wi’ the men and we soon had it straightened up. They got a good joiner there, Tom Parker, and he soon had baulks across and a new roof on. Oh, happen be running in a fortnight or so. And then during t’war it stopped and after t’war, me father said to me one day, Jim Slater’s rung up from Salterforth Newton and he wants you to go down there and get the engine running, will you go down? I says Course I will! So I went down and Donald Plummer had got t’job of engine driver. He were with his father running Coates Mill and little Donald, he’s at Wellhouse now, he got th’engine at Salterforth after the war. So off we went to Salterforth and Donald’s already there. He’d got it cleaned up and it looked alright but they just wanted me to give it the once over before they ran it. And it were funny, I looked at the flywheel, it weren’t cased in then because that‘s where the fire had started and I said to Harry, It does look funny that flywheel, I’m going to get me father down here. And I came up to t’shop and I says segments on Salterforth flywheel, they do look a bit funny to me, they’re a little bit out. He says How much? Well, I says, You can feel it with your finger. Oh he says, don’t bother me wi’ it, they’ve given us a free hand, lift one off. Just like that, lift one off! They weighed about two ton apiece be about ten inches wide about eighteen inches thick, they were the rim of the wheel. Just exactly, more or less, like that wheel at Harle Syke so you know what I’m talking about. They were cottered you know. So we got some girders across and some tackle up ‘cause they’d put the new roof up without girders, it were just oak baulks. So we put some girders up across two [of the baulks] and we got some blocks on and gets the cotters knocked out and we lifted this segment. My God, it were a good job we did! You know these segments have a square hole cast in where they fit on top of the arms and then you’ve a cotter hole through your segments and a cotter hole through the top of your arms and you’ve gibs and cotters in there. Well in there you’ve a two and a half inch square dowel that your cotters fastened to that ties your segments on to the top of your arms. They were both broken were them dowels. So we lifted that quietly on to the floor and Harry says hadn’t we better take another off? So out of six segments that made the gear up, it were a six arm wheel, there were five of them dowels broken. Them segments were just hanging on the top of them arms wi’t sheer fit of being cottered that way. It were just a ring loose on top of six arms more or less, except for one dowel. There were every one of them broken them dowels, right slap in the middle. That ‘ud be done in the fire you know. When the wheel expanded with the heat of the fire it’d stretched them dowels but when it went cold, when t’arms pulled back again to their original length, it’s broke ‘em off, every one. And that engine had run like that , it must have run ten years after t’fire like that. Anyway, we put all new dowels in it of course and put the segments back on, all the gearing back on and we were there many a week with that job. We got it running and it ran until the end of its days with no trouble. We just had one little do with it, we put a new equilibrium valve on it. It were an equilibrium valve knock-off and thee insurance were getting particular about stop motions. We tested it and found that when we knocked it off it wouldn’t stop. So we took the equilibrium valve out and it were very badly worn. So em father and Denis took particulars for a new one and they made a new valve for it. [What Newton is talking about here is the automatic stop motion on the engine. This is a mechanism which is triggered either by a violent fluctuation in engine speed, up or down, or by breaking the glass on a box in the mill very similar to a fire alarm. The way the signal actually stops the engine is that it triggers a mechanism that shuts the steam off. On a corliss valve engine this is easily achieved by breaking the linkage to the valves which then stay shut. On other engines it was effected by a spring loaded stop valve which shut itself when the catch holding the spring was released by the signal. On the Salterforth engine an older system was used, the signal actuated a special type of valve which could be closed by a simple weight. This was achieved by making the valve very easy to close. The problem with normal valves is that when they close they have to act against the boiler pressure on the valve. The equilibrium valve was made with two seats arranged so that boiler pressure acted against the outside surfaces of both valves with steam passing to the engine through a central passage between the valves. This meant that the weight of steam on the two outside surfaces opposed each other and achieved equilibrium at any port opening, hence the name given to the valve. The problem with equilibrium valves is that as the two valve faces are a fixed distance apart, it is crucial that both faces coincide with each other exactly when the valve closes. This is the problem Newton is about to come across. SCG.]
Dennis and I went down at Saturday morning a week or two after to put this valve in. We puts this valve in and we’d made a special cutter to re-cut both seats, you know, right good, grind them in and both seats touching perfect. Puts it all together, sets it on and knocked it [the stop motion] off. I just tapped the hook and knocked it off. No, it didn’t stop! Well, [Johnny said] We’ll have to put a vacuum breaker on it. I said, I told you about that didn’t I, it wants a vacuum breaker on! [Even when the steam is shut off, the vacuum in the system can keep the engine going. The cure is to have a valve in the system between the low pressure cylinder and the condenser which opens to atmosphere and destroys the vacuum.] Oh, me father says, it’s nowt isn’t that. We put a vacuum breaker on you know, piped it up during the week ready for coupling up. Coupled it up on Saturday. Right, start her up Donald, reight big stop valve hand wheel, you’d have thought you were starting Mons, it were about two feet in diameter. Started it up, knocked it off, it didn’t stop did it. Tells me father. He says, It’s an odd do is this, you’d better go down and grind that valve in again, re-face them. So I goes down meself with Bob Fort this time. We re-faced it again with the special cutter, just took a thou off, ground the valve in and I turned round and I says to Bob, It never bloody well will stop! Oh, he says, don’t tell thi father, don’t tell thi father what tha says or there’ll be a reight row! I says It never bloody will stop. Go on Donald, try it again. Sets on does Donald, knocks it off, it slowed down but the bugger wouldn’t stop, it just trailed on without vacuum until the air pump sweltered. [boiled] So I went back to t’shop Monday morning. Well, how you gone on wi’ it this week? That’s how he talked you know. Were it all right? No, I said, It’ll never stop, it’ll never stop in a bloody month of Sundays Johnny won’t yon thing! That’s what I says, well it won’t will it? What’s ta mean, it won’t? I says it never bloody will stop! He says, Why, is it cracked in’t seats or sommat? I says No! He says well what’s up wi’ it? I says Well, it’s a cast iron box and tha’s made a brass valve. Oh bloody hell fire! He says. Just like that. Get that pattern to’t foundry, up to’t Ouzledale and tell ‘em to make a cast iron one. He he he.
Aye, the heat were expanding it and it couldn’t…..
R-Course it were! The brass were lengthening a sixteenth more than the bloody box. He he he! Thought they were doing something clever when they put a brass one in. Gun metal, lovely thing it were, all fluted and bloody ribs on. I just says to Bob that morning , I says We’re wasting us bloody time, we might as well have been out courting or sommat, it never will bloody stop.
Eh dear!
Me father were , What’s ta been doing? It never will stop. What’s up wi’ it, is the box broken? I says No, tha’s made a brass valve hasn’t ta! Just looked straight at me, Bloody hell, get that pattern to t’Ouzledale and get a cast iron ‘un made, get it in next Saturday. He he he. It must have been a sixteenth longer than t’bloody box when it got hot!
Aye it would be wouldn’t it?
R-And it ‘ud be whistling through the top seat as happy as a lark would t’steam wouldn’t it. Engine kept trailing round and round at about five revs a minute. Just same every weekend, we went to, trailing round at about five revs when we knocked off. It never stopped, it were getting enough steam to keep it going.
Just keep it treacling along.
R-Aye, that were Salterforth. But we electrified Salterforth oh, 1955 or 1956. It were one of the first jobs to get electrified. Boiler were done tha knows. Me and me father went to Yates and Thom at Blackburn, it were a special size boiler and you couldn’t put anything bigger in the boiler house. I think it were only a seven footer, wi’ two fire holes. I think it were a seven footer or seven foot six, it weren’t an eight footer anyway, because an eight footer wouldn’t go in there. There wasn’t room for the side flues. And the side flues were narrow enough, they used to have a job to flue ‘em. Me and me father went to Yates and Thom and they promised to make us a new boiler. Anyway, the insurance company did a rotten trick wi’ ‘em at Salterforth, they pulled ‘em their insured pressure down from 120 to 100psi. Now you could only just manage wi’ 100 pound when you’d all the looms running. They said you’re all right now, you can sit on that for ten years. They walked in the summer after and said it’ll have to come down to 80pound. That did it. They more or less condemned it and they’d just had new connies put in and all. So me and me father went to Yates and Thom , the insurance company give ‘em a bit of grace, to see whether they could make a new boiler for it, and they said they could. They said they would make them a new ‘un. Anyway they weighed one thing against another, they talked about package boilers and me father said it wouldn’t do, he said it’d just prime it away. So they decided to electrify the shafting. We put motors up on the wall, you know, electrified the shafting and after that they sailed on. It ran a lot of years and they kept the boiler in, oh, that were another thing they told ‘em. Righto, if you do away with the engine and electrify the shafting we’ll let you keep your boiler and work it at 60pound for the heating. One winter, and that were it. It ran one winter and they condemned the boiler altogether. They’d to go out and buy a new boiler.
What were the problem with the boiler then?
R-I don’t know, age, that were all that were wrong with it.. I don’t think they could find anything wrong with it. They never said get some rivets in it or weld round the fire tubes or get new front lengths in the fire tubes. They just condemned it at t’finish up. There were a bit of a do going round then though, there were a lot of boilers condemned just round about that time that were built in the 1800’s. That engine ‘ud be put in about 1885 or sommat like that?
Yes, it would be something like that.
R-You see what’s happening Stanley with such as Pendle Street and all them shops with engines in of that age, they had their engines modified and new boilers put in in the twenties. Well, they were all right, they sailed on. But such as Salterforth that had never had any trouble with their engines never did any modernising. They should have modernised it after the First World War and put boiler pressure up to 160psi with two new cylinders in which would have saved ‘em coal. It ‘ud have saved the price of the job but they never had it done. See, the old people thought, it ran beautiful you know, you couldn’t hear that engine from outside. I had an experience there like, one afternoon. I run it a time or two when they [the engineer] was poorly sick. Heh! I used to like to got to Salterforth and I fell asleep outside on the form, middle of summer and you were on your own you know. You’d both the engine and the boiler. Nobody used to come round to see you. I woke up and shook me head, I looked in through the door and I had 40pounds on the clock! He he he! I’d just about from here to there and I’d only forty pound on the clock. I soon woke up Stan! Straight up to th’engine, it were going, just. Downstairs to get some greasy waste in the firebox and get the fire going. And do you know, I got steam backup, big shifts and little shifts and nobody came anywhere near!
Aye.
R-I don’t know what speed the engine were running at, about 30 revs happen. It were still going, t’governor were laid on the bottom, equilibrium valve absolutely wide open, driving on the low pressure and it kept going and there weren’t a soul came near. I looked at that clock Stan and I had 40 pound on and how many looms would I have running? 600? He he he. I were literally running on the low. [pressure cylinder]
Yes, I could never really weigh this up at Bancroft. I’ve seen times at Bancroft when we’ve had some trouble of one sort or another. I’m thinking in particular of one time, it was when George was driving the engine and I was running the boiler. The pulley that drove the governor ropes came loose on the fly shaft.
R-It did.
And what happened was it were coming round [on the shaft] till the stud just caught hold and drove it at the right speed for a minute or two and then it gave up and started slipping again. Big does and little does and I mean that governor was all over the place and God knows what that engine was doing.
And nobody ever came near.
R-Do you know, it’s funny you should mention this, Walter were only telling this story to me the other day ‘cause it was him fastened the pulley.
Aye.
R-I must have been out somewhere, he fastened that pulley did Walter and we were only talking about it stood at t’side of the clock lathe the other day. He says Dosta remember the governor pulley coming off at Bancroft? I says Aye, you went to that though didn’t you. He says it were that slack I could pull it round on the shaft.
Probably what Walter didn’t tell you was that he hadn’t got a bloody key that’d fit!
R-No.
Allen key, oh it were a funny do were that.
R-There isn’t much room there is there!
No, that morning, it were and Allen Key, it’s an Allen screw.
R-Allen screw in it, Aye.
Inside it, right down inside the casting, it’s a big Allen grub screw, a big one.
R-Aye.
That morning, it were fairly cold weather if I remember rightly and I had plenty of steam on you know. Everything were going all right, brewed up and bacon sarnies going, you know, everything going nicely and I thought it’s bloody funny, I thought…..
R-Running queer is this thing.
You know you could hear the shafting through the wall….
R-Boom, boom…..
Shafting were going [speeding up and slowing down] I thought bloody hell! So I went up into th’engine house and George is stood there, I mean you know I didn’t think much of George, but anyway, he’s stood there at the stop valve and he was compounding the error you see because what was happening was, he’s stood there, as I said I had plenty of steam on, and he’s got it shut down so the governor were running wide open, the regulator had it wide open.
R-Aye, the regulator rack had it wide open.
Regulator were wide open and as he saw the governor bars drop [as the pulley started slipping] he ….
R-He put more steam on.
He were putting steam on.
R-Put some more on, well, it weren’t half motoring then I’ll bet.
To open it up and yes, the thing was that as soon as he did that…. I mean they perhaps don’t realise unless they’re so far into engines. But the thing was that normally, when the governor bars dropped they’re opening the steam valves anyway by lengthening the cut-off. But the thing was that they weren’t dropping because there was no bloody steam going in.
R-No.
They were dropping because they weren’t driving…..
R- ‘Cause the pulley weren’t going round.
And there were plenty of steam going in in the first place.
R-Aye, they were dropping ‘cause they weren’t running at the right speed from the pulley not driving from the shaft.
That’s it, it’s just like the engine running at its right speed and somebody shouting to George It’s not running fast enough. And then he opens it up to make it go faster.
R-Aye, it wasn’t….
And of course it wasn’t governing at all and the bloody thing was going up and down and the ropes were flogging and I stood there for a while and then I said to George What you doing? And got a mouthful of slaver like.
R-Oh yes, you would do.
So I said to George, There’s sommat wrong with this engine! And he wouldn’t listen to me.
R-No, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t.
So I walked up the side of the engine and watched and then I came back to him and I said, It’s your governor ropes, they’re slipping. I couldn’t see it were the pulley that was slipping.
R-Pulley were slipping on the shaft, it were the ropes.
I thought it were the ropes, I could see the ropes slowing down.
R-Aye, course, we experienced this later on didn’t we.
Aye I said, Your governor ropes are slipping. They bloody well can’t be! He says. Anyway, in the finish I says, You blow the bloody mill up then, I’m going back into t’boiler house, but you’re wasting your time there! Anyway, he started to realise himself….
R-You blow t’bloody mill up! Aye.
He had to stop it because it was getting away on him.
R-Aye, stop, he’d to stop, aye course it would.
It were even frightening him and he was thick! Anyway, he got it stopped and I walked up the side and got hold of the ropes and pulled and you could….
R-Pulley.
You could pull the bloody pulley round.
R-Walt said you could pull it round on the shaft.
You could just turn it round and it were screwed right up.
R-Aye, he said it were perfectly easy.
Aye, anyway I said to George, That’s where your trouble is. And he says Nowt o’t bloody sort, it should be like that!
R-Nay…..
I thought Christ Almighty! You know it makes you wonder, I’ve often said. It makes you wonder about some of them because you know, he hadn’t the faintest bloody idea.
R-No, a lot of ‘em were like that.
Aye, and anyway, Walt comes up and I stood there for a bit, it was the first time I’d seen Walt you know, and in come this feller and I heard him ask George if he had a key for the pulley. George says No. Well says Walt, we haven’t got one either! I don’t know if we have one down at the shop that big. I stood there a minute or two and then I says, Well, I’m only the bloody oil rag round here, but I’ve got one of them keys if you want to borrow one. I can have it here in ten minutes. Walt says Eh, hasta? Fetch us one back then.
R-One at home, Aye.
You’re right, aye. So I brought it back and I brought two and I says Here’s one for this and here’s one for you and all.
R-One for spare!
Aye, I says Take it back and if you ever need another one…. And do you know, I don’t think Walt liked it when I give it him!
R-No.
I don’t think he liked it when I give it him but he took it, aye.
Took it, oh, we were only talking about it the other day about that job.
Aye.
R-Then you and me had the same experience, you rang me up one morning and said, Come up here Newt, there’s sommat wrong with this lot.
Aye.
R-You said I think the governor ropes are slipping, what can we do t’middle of the morning, we can’t send for the rope chap! I says No, we can’t Stanley so I just grabbed ‘em didn’t I and the oil that came off the back of me hands would’ve filled a bucket. We got some farina [potato starch] on ‘em and ran the week out.
[I got the rope chaps from Kenyons at Dukenfield in at weekend and they put three new governor ropes on.]
And t’funny thing is those ropes never got oily again. That oil had been in for donkeys years, it were George putting too much in the eccentrics and it were splashing all over. And I’ll tell you a funny thing. I walked into Whitakers the other day [Whitakers at Helmshore where I was doing the spinning photographs for the LTP.] yesterday, and I saw this feller sat in the canteen and I looked at him and I said, I know thee! He says I know thee and all! I said it’s Kenyons isn’t it? He said Aye, and it were the rope splicer. They were splicing ropes on the drive to one of the spinning mules, this forty horse motor mounted up in the ceiling and driving two sets of mules. Originally it had been a rope drive but what they’d done, they’d converted it to V belt drive, they’ve worn out and then someone has realised that in order to put new V belts on they’ve got to split all the shafting. So, what did they do, they put Brammers on [Brammer belting was a patent V belt made of there layers of rubber links held together with rivets. You could split the belt, put it round the pulleys and replace the rivet.] These started to run in the bottom of the pulley grooves and so the museum brought Kenyons in to put it back to rope drive.
R-Cotton.
And the funny thing was that cotton ropes were half the price of Brammers! There were three inch and three quarter ropes and the price for Brammers was £500. So they got Kenyons in and they were putting a rope drive on it.
R-Back to normal. Like they were originally.
And do you know, it was a treat watching them putting them in.
R-A treat to watch ‘em.
They were stretching them between the pillars and then they put ‘em on, they had ‘em up and spliced and on. I’ll tell you what, they had ‘em on faster than I could have put Brammers on!
R-Aye, it used to be a treat to watch ‘em. Them Brammers are a blinking nuisance aren’t they.
They’re a fiddling job.
R-Oh what! They are that.
And by the time you’ve got them on they’ve stretched and you have to take another link out.
R-Uncouple and take another link out and about half a dozen more to get at it!
Well, I reckon that once they’d got it up on the pulley it took ‘em about ten minutes to do the splice, that’s all. There were two of them working and it took about ten minutes once they were set up. Another thing here, there’s been one or two arguments lately about the length of the rope drive at Ross Mill. [Bacup] These lads used to do Ross so I asked ‘em how long the drive was to the top floor. The little feller sat there and smiled, I said go on, tell me exactly how long it was. He said 303 feet!
R-Grief!
He said that were the length of it.
R-That were the length of the drive.
And he said I’ll tell thee sommat else, when we knew that one were coming up we went off sick! What a bloody job it was, he said.
R-Aye, I never knew Ross, I never went into Ross.
Oh, he said it were a muck up in that rope race, Oh God he said, It were terrible.
R-Were it that bad? I went to that mill at Preston to give a quote for electrifying, is it Dalkeith? It’s on the main road side. It were spotless were that rope race Stanley. Six stories. It were spotless, you could walk on them landings, it were just like they’d been boarded. We went to take particulars to quote for motorising it but Whittakers at Oldham got the job and it nearly bankrupted ‘em I think. It ‘ud have been a big job would that, putting a motor on every landing.
They’d have to be big motors and all!
Aye, they were big motors but the problem was getting ‘em up there. We’d to price for electric blocks and that you know.
Yes. Now look, just to finish this tape off, you said something part way through there that’ll be puzzling a lot of people. You were on about the handwheel on Salterforth engine and you said you’d have thought you were starting Mons.
Aye, you would.
So just a word or two about Mons engine.
R-Well, I only used to go to Mons to look at it, I never worked on it. It were a tremendous thing, oh, how wide were the flywheel, it’d be twenty five feet wide, you know, that waterwheel we were on with at Pately Bridge, it were like a toy width ways! Cylinders, oh you could have had a dance between them. Low pressure stood well above your head you know but to me it did run rotten. Why I don’t know, ‘cause I never worked on it, I even telled the engineer. I says, Oh, your engine does run rotten and he says Look at me Lumb's governor chart and it were waving about an eighth of an inch! I says I can take you to a Cole Marchant and Morley at Barrowford and you’d have to sharpen your pencil on a match box to draw his. He says What! I said you’d have to sharpen your pencil on a match box to draw Sam Holdens, Holmefield Mill line on your chart, it were that fine.
Some of them used to have a chart on the governor to show the revs.
R- Oh aye, they had a chart on if management were a bit particular you know. For times, what time you started, what time you stopped and your speed.
And his were waving about?
Oh it were doing, an eighth of an inch were his waves and he thought it were good! Sam Holden’s were just like a draughtsman’s pencil line. You know they only had a wheel, like a pipe cutter wheel, running down that chart with a sharp edge on. Not sharp enough to cut the paper of course and that’s what it drew, the width of that edge on that wheel. Never varied from starting time to stopping time didn’t that Lumb’s governor. Well Mons should have been the same if the engine were set up properly. Oh and it did run rotten and knock. I don’t know, they mustn’t have been spending enough time on it that’s all.
When you say knock?
R-He must have been sat in his cabin all day!
When you say knock, do you mean in the cranks and what not?
R-Crank pins, crossheads and air pump motion. He took me downstairs to have a look at the air pump. It were run independently with a separate connecting rod run off th’edge o’t crank pin on’t low pressure side. Aye, it’d be about as big as Bancroft connecting rod were that that run th’air pump. And the air pump were jumping up and down on’t floor for about two inch. He he! Sliding about you know. He said A lot of people’s tried to fasten it. Well I said, Give me the job and I’ll fasten it for you! But no, they never did, they seemed to do everything themselves you know. Any old road. He were a nice chap were the engineer, he’d been there a long time and all.
It were about three thousand horse were that engine weren’t it?
It were four, four thousand horse were that engine. There’d only half of the mill been built, it should have had another half put on it. It were one of the biggest engines that ever came into this country.
Aye, horizontal.
R-It were a Belgian made thing. [It was built by Carel Freres of Mons which was why the mill was named the same. The mill was originally to be called Hare Mill but when Carels put money into it they made it conditional on the mill being renamed.] It were made in Belgium and it had no keys in the flywheel, the fly wheel boss were shrunk on the shaft.
Were the boss steel then?
R-It must have been, must have been a steel casting ‘cause it were double you know. (two flywheels next to each other like Ellenroad and Trencherfield) ‘cause it were such a heck of a width you know.
Then the flywheel would be keyed into the spokes?
R-All the arms were keyed into the boss with the usual method, gibs and cotters.
They’d be fluted would the spokes, they’d be round spokes?
Yes they were. They were all fluted columns I think but it were boarded in, you couldn’t see. Well, that’s all I know. It’s first thing I noticed when I walked down the side were that. Eh, I says, There’s no keys in the flywheel! No, he says, They’re shrunk on are t’bosses. Oh, it were a tremendous shaft, I bet it were nigh on three feet in t’middle where the flywheel boss were. And it were clean, spotlessly clean were the thing.
But knocking!
R-Oh it did run rotten, it did run rotten.
SCG/15 November 2000
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