THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON THE 8th of APRIL 1980 IN THE WRAPPING ROOM AT SPRING VALE MILL, HASLINGDEN. THE INFORMANT IS ARNOLD PARKINSON, MULE OVERLOOKER AND THE INTERVIEWER IS MARY HUNTER.
[SG note. Some parts of this transcript were virtually incoherent and I have had to edit very heavily to make sense. The principle I have followed is to preserve the sense and meaning rather than refine the original words. The message is that if you wish to make your own assessment of my accuracy you must go back to the original tape. Sorry if this sounds arbitrary but it was the only practical way to do the job.]
Now then Arnold, where were you born?
R – Well, I were born up in Rossendale General at first, that's the only thing I can tell you but I was horn at Clough Hole Station officially. Like that's where I lived.
So you've always been a local round here.
R- I've always been a local yes.
That’s right. I should explain what the noises are in case anybody…
R- Well they are only wheeling boxes and that to put on the wagon empty boxes, for taking back to Grane Road for filling up again with tubes.
With tubes? For spinning.
R- That’s right.
Very good. Have your family always been involved in the cotton industry.
R- More or less always. Mother were a weaver all her life, father worked inside and all in between. He were really on the level like an outside worker you know. But mother were always a weaver. My sister were a weaver, wife were a weaver so I mean we’ve always been in the textile trade. I mean, but like now, as I say, we’ve had to finish there. One or two bits of things like finishing and closing and everything else.
[Spring Vale was under notice of closure when this tape was made.]
Do you wish that you could still carry on in there?
R- I do wish I could carry on but there is no question of that. I were hoping this would be here while I were retiring, but it hasn't come about so that’s it.
And you’re hoping to get another job in cotton?
(50)
R- No I can’t because there is no cotton. There is only one cotton mill left that’d be really of any service round here now and that'll be such like Smith & Nephews, which is, there’s quite a lot of various stuff but mostly it's medical supplies you know. Nivea cream and things like that like what they're dealing and all the face value stuff, underwear and that for children, they do all that. But that’ll be about one of the only textile mills left. Within another five or six year you can near enough bet on that in here.
And It certainly isn't condenser spinning, is it?
R- Well it isn’t condenser as we know it, not mules, it's all open end ring spinning all the way through.
Was it always expected that you would go into the cotton industry?
R- Well there were nothing else, there were nothing else in this valley. Cotton, felt and slippers are the three basic things in this valley, nothing else, so you couldn't expect nothing else really, you know what I mean?
Unless you left the valley.
R- Well that's it, unless you left the valley you know. I mean, at the beginning I were expected to go into (?) because that’s what I were interested in at first, with school. But I didn’t want to take it up and the simple reason were at the beginning me mother didn't want me to leave home you know, when we were only fourteen then. So that were the reason why I came into the mill.
Was it regarded as sort of deserting the cause if one did leave the valley?
R- Well I wouldn't like to put it as bluntly as that. I mean quite a lot of people did leave the valley because as I say the cotton trade has been deteriorating for thirty odd years, all the time I've been here it's been
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deteriorating. Now we've had quite a lot of arguments and different things about various subjects about it. It’s been a question like, of all these imports they keep saying. Quite a lot of it is, but there’s quite a lot of it being both on the managerial side as well as the working side. But the mills as they are today, in our trade now, in the condenser trade as it stands now, what few there is left, we've always had the lowest of the low coming into it. We haven’t been able to pick or chose into the labour force. because they are not interested in it you see because it’s been deteriorating that long. Now quite a bit of that deterioration has not just come from the management side, a lot has been through such like as Unions being involved in it. They're some of the main stays in shutting a lot of these cotton mills because they were too ignorant
(5 min)
to see the sort of things that they were asking for when they were asking for things. And if a manager or a director of a firm came along and dangled a few pound or a few shillings in front of a man’s face, especially if it were a Union man, all jump at it. And it didn't matter about the rest of them as long as he got that few shillings you see. But then after another month or two, twelve months let’s say, then there’d be another argument about the same particular thing. Then at finishing up there'd be another few shilling. And this is what's happened through the years, that the condenser trade has gradually built itself up into such a reputation like that, that is why a lot of them have shut down because they priced their self out.
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Are you saying that in the condenser trade the Unions were stronger?
R- Well they were. they weren’t stronger but they were wore foolish than being stronger. They wore more, they were more foolishness in that lot, they could never see, they could never see what were happening to their selves or anything else. That were the basic thing really. Apart from that as I say, the managers, I mean they were quite at fault and all. They never opened their mouth as long as they were drawing something. But the biggest asset to our trade has been the unions and that is true is that.
The biggest asset?
R- The biggest asset to shutting quite a lot of them is the union involved.
Because they had encouraged imports and therefore…
R- Well not encourage imports as much as they like, they said like they’d been trying to avoid, they've never tried really to avoid them because they've never been strong enough to take it up. In the condenser trade you’ve about seven or eight different small bits of Unions. The same as we have the spinning room, we had the mule spinning department, now that was classed as one Union. Now when I started in this trade thirty odd years since there were a matter of about fifty odd thousand
male spinners between, I’m talking about Rossendale Valley like, including Blackburn and Burnley and things like that you know, there were in the region of about fifty odd-thousand.
Is that right.
R- Now they've got down to, as a matter of fact now there isn't above, I don't think there is above a hundred now left in the whole country. And that were only this one area like. Now we've had quite a lot of representatives like, as far as government’s, concerned, no names like, what’s supposed to represent this particular valley; but there is not one of them yet ever spoke up about the depths in our trade. They’ve all opened their mouths
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when they've been round here but when they’ve gone down London they've just opened their mouth for a quarter of an hour and then shut it up for the rest of the time. So nothing’s ever been said in that respect you know. But they all had their own particular political views about them.
Would you call yourself a Union man?
R - No not really, I pay Union, but at the bottom of it I don’t like the idea of being called a Union man because they don’t represent what I want to say. They represent what they want to say. We had the argument about the [closure] upstairs in the mule room and about this redundancy job. Now that’s the only thing I have to say about
that, I don’t like the Unions, not as we have them. But we have to be in.
Yes. I think you’ve said you left school at fourteen?
R- Yes.
Did you begin at this mill then?
(10 min)
R - No I didn’t learn, I didn't come to this mill till I were twenty two. I’d been married about six months then when I came up here. The first job that I had in, not in this particular trade, were in a woollen mill. Now well that had the same kind of
[experience] reflecting through the years as what the cotton has. I started in woollen,
I started in mules, that were at Rawtenstall. Now I did just over two year there, in the mule room.
As a spinner?
R - Well not as a spinner, learning. In the mule room you’ve to learn more or less basically putting your own ropes on, putting your own belts on and all that. You'd to piece them yourself. Now in the cotton trade although a lot of them did the same thing there were quite a lot of them which had, as we call ourselves now, the mule overlooker, which were supposed to do all them particular jobs instead of the spinner doing them so that the production were going on at the other mule then you see. You see they could concentrate on that. And if it were a job big enough, or too big for the overlooker you were supposed to help him out at that time. But basically like as I say, in the woollen industry you did have an overlooker there but more often than not the overlooker… I mean it only happened in one or two odd mills in the textile trade. We happen had a couple of pairs of mules you know, the overlooker or a carder would be involved in them both. But in quite a lot of mills they had a carder and they also had a mule overlooker which were in touch with both lots of their own section. you know. That’s how it used to be. But you couldn't, as I say, when I started at the beginning you couldn’t walk out of school more or less and walk into the mule room, not just at that time. You had to spend so much time, you did at least twelve months or two years you'd be working in the card room piking bobbins, carrying bobbins and things like that you know? You'd be putting them on the mules, you wouldn’t be in the mule room. That were the idea really to give you the basic facts of how to carry a bobbin and treat it as what it should be. You know, for when you did go in the mule room. Then when you did that, then you'd got a chance then of going in the mule room. But mostly the lads that were interested in the mule room were actually going in the mules and piecing the ends up and helping the spinners to put bobbins in because the spinner were getting the value of it because each mule were being set on that couple of seconds sooner than what
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it were if he were putting it on on his own. So he never interfered with that particular job. The only thing that the old overlooker seemed to [avoid] and that were to show you anything about the headstock till you'd been there a while. When I say a while, you'd happen be in that mule room two year but you wouldn't touch a headstock unless the spinner were off and then somebody came along and said “Well, can you carry on running it?” But you’d to watch all the time, the overlooker wouldn’t show you. The spinner what were in charge of the mule he wouldn’t show you at all. It were like the tacklers were trying to do and still do in the tacklers trade, they are what they call a closed shop. That's a Union [concept], that’s a closed place. Now the mule room was something similar but as the war started that had to lose its face value you know? So they started getting one or two more in. Now, the main thing about what I say about Unions, they allowed the managers to start, what’s it called…? [diluting the labour. SG] Letting people come from outside Irrespective of their age or anything and start learning to piece up. Now they'd pay them a wage and a good wage in one sense to get them into the mule room to learn to piece up, put bobbins in and set it on. Now that were one of the downfalls of the spinning room were that, for the Unions allowing it to be carried on. You see I mean you could fetch a lad out from being twenty odd and thirty odd, put him in a pair of mules and along with it he
were getting a standing wage, he were all right, he wasn’t bothered. Well
they did that quite a lot when the war came on and quite a lot of mills had that process in mind all the time. And it were a poor do and that's when the Unions should have stepped into that part of the job. But instead of that they let it carry on and that were a bad thing for the mule room were that because it didn't help. It didn't help the spinners what were in there, it cut them down.
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Do you feel then that there should have been some sort of training, official training?
R- Well that is what it used to be, there used to be a training and you could nearly all say, I mean meself, I know I were twenty odd before I get put on to a pair of mules to look after meself or put in charge of one mule. But in the last fifteen or twenty years there’s lads come along, they’ve only been in the mule room three years, some even less than that and they still go on to a pair of mules. But it’s only because of the simple things, they’ve learned how to piece an end, put a bobbin on and set the mule on and get the mule ready for doffing. Now what I say is that, they are mostly the four basic things. Once you’ve said that they don’t know anything else about the mule except them four particular things. They don’t know why they piece that end up from the spindle to piece it up properly.
They understand the processes but they don't understand how it works.
R- They don’t understand how it works and that’s another fault that the managers allowed to go on. Now I mean, we get a lot of stick, same as us all. They [management] come along many a time and they moan and groan about bad cops going down, bad piecing up but that is exactly where it started in the first place. Now if they hadn’t allowed it [the dilution] or the unions hadn’t allowed it, it could have been a better proposition all the way round.
Do you think that something as complicated and skilful as spinning could be learned by formal methods like going to night school for example?
R- Yes, that were the thing really. We used to have to go to night school to learn the working parts. I mean you can work in a mill, we have them now, I mean Roy here, although he has been in it for near enough forty years, and he’s done this job himself when he were fetched on to it, but he didn’t really know how to start on the mules because he had been to night school for carding. And when you go to night school you learn so much about the card room but basically you learn on what you are going for, the card room or the mule room. Now unless you are working on them, that’s the only way you’ll learn. The night school is a good thing to learn for that particular thing.
So you think it would be a good idea.
It would be but as I say you couldn’t get them interested. They weren't interested because I mean they stop, I mean the schools never took no interest, you can't blame them. As I say, for years the trade has been going down, down and down. So the schools, although they fetch these children around, they don't have no particular teaching at school to want to learn ‘em to think about the textile trade. It’s a downgraded thing now to think about coming into the textiles. And you will get that at school. I mean, me own children come out with that question. The teacher says “Oh, you don’t want to go in there.” But that’s happening now.
I think it's the whole concept of factory life.
R- Do you know that’s what it really is, the old factory life as it stands.
Would you consider that the conditions you've worked in through your life in cotton, has been .. that the conditions have been tough?
(20 min)
R – Well they have, they've always been tough in one way but I mean they've been pleasant, we've had pleasant times as well as bad you know? And I mean, me own personal self, touching wood, for the thirty odd years I’ve been in this trade I've only ever had one week, or is it? It might be a fortnight, but only about a fortnight I've had on the dole. Now, I don't really call that bad as far an that’s concerned. The mill, the mill running .. I mean, varies from one mill to another. This particular mill what we are in now is an ideal setting in two rooms especially as I say.
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That’s the middle room and the top room, we've got the lighting and everything else, you’re not forced to look at artificial lights like, over the top of your head, like they have to do here in the bottom room. Now all as a bottom room spinner can see that's the four walls round him. Now in the middle room and the top room they can look outside, and see quite a bit more outside. Now once over there weren’t a lot of that, the windows were either washed up with whitewash or something else to stop the weather from getting into it. Because this trade is ruled with weather, quite a bit of it you know? And that’s another point I mean, coal has gone that dear, they've gone on to oil, and now they're finding oil's going dear so they are cutting down in that respect, everything that goes round it. I mean part of the idea of the closing points at all this, that and the other .. the costing has gone up tremendously.
Has the cotton dust ever bothered you?
R - Well it hasn’t bothered me personally but I know three or four of my friends that has had that do you know, but they've been in the card room side, not in the spinning
room side. I've never heard of anyone in the spinning room having it, I know there’s been one or two like tried for it you know. [under industrial compensation] But I mean they’ve never actually had it, not with dust, the job you’re talking about.
Yes. Do you mean the lung disease?
R - The disease on the lungs. I've never heard of any spinner having it. One or two have had nasty accidents like in years gone by. I’ve seen one lad who is a cripple, he were crippled down one side. You see that were when the old engine were running. And they used to stop the mule, this is going back twenty odd years since, just when 1 were in the army I met this particular follow. When the old engine used to
be running the mules. As the engine were stopping the mule were
stopped and they'd be cleaning them or oiling or anything you know. Now sometimes if they weren’t careful and put the catch over on to the stop rod to stop it from setting on. Because it were dinner time and the engine were stopped they didn't put that stop rod over and sometimes the engine would set on rod would go on and the spinner would be in the middle.
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Now that happened a time or two you know. But, that weren't the machine’s fault as much as it were the spinners fault himself for not being careful and not thinking.
That’s true. You had two years at the woollen mill, and during that time you learned the trade of spinning ...
R - Well I learned the trade as a spinner. I were piecing up, putting ropes on which is basically the same except them in a woollen mill is a little bit heavier than what the cotton is. And then like the different set up in drafting at compared to cotton.
And what did you do after that?
R- Well, I came out of the woollen when that shop closed. I went to Longholme first. Now I went there for spinning but I were put on condensing. Now that was what they had to do, go on condensing for so long before you came on to the mules. I were at Longholme, like not so long before I finished there. And then I come over here to Carr Parkers.
To where?
R - Carr Parkers across the road. That were another cotton spinning place, mules. I went there. And I went there on the same idea, to go in the mules, but because I worked in the card room down at Longholme I still had to go in the card room over there. And I were over there up to going in the army more or less. Then I came out of the army and I thought well, I’m not having no more card room now, I’m going in the mule room. Well as it were, I had to do another couple of months in the card room then I got put on to the mules and that’s where I stopped. And I were just…
And was that here?
R – No, that was over the road end at Parkers.
So you went back to your original job after the war?
R – Yes, oh yes, we had to do. We had to do that, you couldn’t come out of the army and just walk into any other place, you had to go to the place that you worked at when you went in the army. Well I mean, the job were left open for you. You couldn’t pick or choose, the jobs were left open for you. And just at that time you couldn’t do it because if you wanted to move from one
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job to another you had to go to the Labour Exchange to get what they called a green card. And you used to get a card off them and say “Well, I’ve got a job at such and such a mill.” Well they had a vacancy. “Oh well, all right then.” But they had you down then, you see and that were more or less to cover for the forces mostly because a lot used to try the dodge. So they got catched with that you see, they couldn't start unless you had a green card.
So you finally got to the spinning room at what was it, Parkers?
R- That’s right. I were twenty one before I started in the mule room roughly, I’d just turned twenty one and I started over at Parkers. Then I went to Hargreaves, I was up at Hargreaves on a pair of mules up there, same thing, condenser spinning. 1 was up there for just twelve month roughly and then I came to Spring Vale where I’ve been ever since.
So how many years is that Arnold?
R- Well, altogether, apart from when I had a bit of a discussion, a bit of an argument with the management, that were us old manager. I’ve been here now for about twenty eight years. As I say I broke my service once for about six months, through, oh that were the same principle, the unions.
Yes well you needn’t bother telling me something like that.
R- Well I mean that were it, that’s what it were really about, that were the union.
And presumably you rose to be overlooker here?
R- From here yes.
Yes, so you started in the wheelgate.
R- In the, well as you call it, yes, in the mule gate, it’s right is that.
What’s it called?
R - Well they do call it that, they do call it mule gate, it's right is that.
Wheelgate they call it?
R – Yes, well right, they do call it that.
Yes, very good. Right Arnold. Well we've been through most of what you’ve done in your life, and we could probably spend a lot longer but in view of the time and the fact that you are leaving and everything perhaps we’ll start on the photographs. We’re looking at number 14 in the spinning folio and from now on we’ll look at the photographs of Jim spinning and perhaps we'll ask you Arnold to make any comments that you want to make as we go through them. And when you’ve said all you want to say about one photograph you turn on to another.
R- Well as I say, on this first photograph you can't really say so much because Jim is stood there with his arms folded for a start, on his hips. He’s just watching the mule running backwards and forwards which
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basically is the mule. The only thing you really can say about that photo is that under the conditions, as what they’re working, it's an ideal set for it because he’s stood there watching this particular pair of mules, five hundred and ten spindles and not piecing anything up. So he's not running around in any sort of haphazard way or running his self off his feet in your first photo.
So things must be good.
R - Things are good in there on that one. And I mean, basically the mule, there isn't another thing yet has been fetched out that can beat the mule for evenness in speed or anything else. It’s the most even machine there is going is the mule, in
equality and everything else that it produces. The only thing about it is that they can’t get such a large percentage of cotton on the cop as the ring frame can. That is really the only thing that spoils the mule.
So in other words you have to doff more often.
R- You are doffing more often. Every time they doff they break all the ends. Now I mean, we moan and we groan about piecing ends up but every time a mule doffs we break all it’s ends. And that’s five hundred and forty ends being broke every hour and a half, happen two hours you know depending on counts and various things what’s on. They're breaking all them ends and then start rewinding again on the tube. But that is really the only thing about the mule is that one particular thing. And that’s that.
This is in the top spinning room?
R - This is the middle room is that.
The middle room.
All wood, Maple floors, it’s grand to walk on provided they’re looked after. I mean as a lot of the old spinners, same as what you can see there, them floors are looked after. They used to give them the long brush, put a rag round the head and they used to go round polishing them floors to take all the oil up. The oil gets in, varnishes the wood and keeps it clean in that respect. It’s nice to walk on and it’s nice to work in.
What's all this about spinners wearing vests not wearing shoes.
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R - Well they didn’t use to, they do now, you’ll not see so many. [In bare feet] I don’t think you’ll find one now in the Valley. Myself, if I go into the mules, which I have done from time to time because we’ve been short or something else, as soon as I get in that pair of mules my shoes come off.
Do they?
It's more comfortable walking and working in bare feet than it is working with shoes on. The only thing about working like that is the particular type of tube which we have. If they happen to drop on your toes you know about it, you feel it you know. 1
I should think you jolly well do!
R- But what used to be before you know, your feet were like another pair of hands for you in years gone by.
That’s what I heard.
R- We didn’t have tubes, we used to spin straight on to the bare spindle and all the cops at the bottom used to be starched.
Starched?
R- Yes, like sizing you know, what they put on.
Yes anyway.
R- We used to wind on, run about three or four draws, they used to call that whipping. And they used to, as the mule’s running in, stopping on the back and just run it in that little bit and then lift the folder up and rewind it again with their arms. And they do that about three or four times. Now that cotton then which were winding on there would wind itself underneath the bottom of the cop right? That made that cop bottom hard. Now, when that were done you used to get a small can with a brush on at the bottom and fill it up with this starch paste and you go all along your spindle bottoms, cop bottoms, with the starch, that’s made it hard so when you spin on top it wouldn’t break.
Yes I am with you.
R- Then that started failing and so they started putting them on paper tubes. That were the next thing, paper tubes coming in. Well the paper tubes were ideal because
you didn't get that breakage you didn’t have to whip them at the bottom you know
and you could gait up more faster and that. The tubing were the next thing
that came in where the spinner used to have to put them on his self. Now they
started saying well we are losing money. So that were the next introduction, after a few year we started finding tubers, or young Piecers to help in the mule room, more or less to help putting tubes on. Well that’s how it's carried on from there. But it’s gone from paper tubes which we don’t do now but they usually do down at Higher Mill. It got from paper tubes to going on what we call Welsh Hats. Now them’s a cardboard tube with a small tin at the bottom, that were the next one. Then they fetched these kind of automatic looms out and they found out the Welsh Hats and the paper tubes were no good.
(700)(35 min)
Because why?
R - Well they couldn’t get them tubes in the batteries you know, to drop down.
I see yes.
R- So I don’t know really how true it were about it, but they said that Boardman’s, which I’m employed for now was one of the first ones round here that found this particular tube, metal tube, that we spin on now, they were the first ones to fetch the metal tubes round here and they’ve had quite good success with them metal tubes.
And that’s what you have…
R - And that what we spin on now.
Yes, I’ve got to get one of them I think.
R- Yes, that’s what we are spinning on now in the metal tubes and as far as I could gather them were the first ones round here were that. But we found out that the metal tubes were ideal.
Yes, very good thank you. When I’ve first been I’ve always seen Jim in shirt sleeves.
Yes well that basically is because when they’re putting their hands in between their ends you see and picking the waste off they are not dragging at their other ends. You can put your hand through and pick the waste up where if you have a shirt sleeve or try to pick up an end with your jacket on then you catch on to the other end, you can break two or three ends down at each side of the one that you’ve pieced up.
Yes, he had stripped off when he let me have a go.
R- That’s it, that’s the way.
But it's obviously warm enough though as well.
R- Oh well that’s the one thing the mule room’s always wanting, humidity.
Yes.
R – If it’s a little bit damp outside and it’s warm it’s ideal.
So that the cotton doesn’t break ...
R- That's right, it helps to keep it together. If you get a frosty morning like this morning, and the frost gets inside the mill, especially in the bale processing, then it gets through to the mule room and you start getting a lot of that breaking down. It
makes the cotton very brittle as simple as it seems and you get a lot of breakages on that. We’re ruled a little bit with the weather but as I say, through the years, and Ill give the managers their due on this, they have tried to get the humidity as near right as they could. But as I say the cost of the heating and everything else today is costing that much that they’re having to cut back even on that. When
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we had the old coal fires the steam were in all the time and very seldom went out because the coal were there, the heat were already in the boiler and the factory kept warm. And then the firebeater used to build up at morning so they could get the engine going so it were always warm. Now with this oil and going on electric you don’t need them, you didn’t need the heat so the oil fires are automatic but the price of the oil is going up that much it’s putting more cost on again.
That's right, OK, 41 we are now.
R- That's right 41, but that is the same, your mule has gone on the back. It is now spinning at its fastest, waiting to reach, rewind back on to the cop.
What do you mean when you say ‘On the back’.
R- Well, what we call, you see although you’ve got, we call this the front and that is the back, but in actual fact your mule running out to the front as you call it, we call that the back, the wrong way around to…
So like when the mule is out the middle…
R- When the mule is out at full stretch we call that the back.
I see.
R- Now when it gets there the spindles are revolving at their fastest righto, to put the twist in.
Right.
R – That’s when the twist is really going into it then. Now then, when that process is finished the folders, they change over and then the mule starts going back into the roller beam. When it's done that then it start back, right?
Yes I am with you.
R - Now that’s as far as that picture is concerned. There is nothing else in there excepting as we have already said.
(40 min)
There are three men though.
R- Well this lad here was only put in for helping out because the tuber wasn’t working at that time you see.
So they’re just about ready to doff?
R- He's getting ready for doffing, the cops are getting nearly full. Right?
Right. Yes.
R - Now your next picture, number 42, that is, the mule is getting ready now for doffing, they have it stopped on the back, the folders are changed, they are pressing the folder down to put a hook on.
What does the folder do?
R - Well the folders, one winds and one guides.
Guides?
R- Yes well it guides the ends as, it keeps the end taut, it keeps them really, really tight and the other one winds it back on to the cop with a rail that’s at the bottom which you can't see in this picture. And that is what they call, now they're getting this mule ready for doffing so they're hooking the folder down the winder will run the mule in a little bit so as the ends will finish up right underneath the bottom of the tube butt.
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So that it’s easier to start again.
R- And then it’ll wind on and they can pull them off and the ends won’t [fall off] even though they have been broken, they can put the tube back on, and then let it run in again, so that it starts winding straight on the tube. Instead of piecing up. But there is nothing else there.
There is a little trolley?
R- Well, that trolley that’s in the wheelgate, that is only for when they doff those cops off. They put them into the box so that the weft chap comes along, he shoves the box out and fetches it out into the warehouse ready for loading on to the wagons for going back over to Grane Road for weaving.
In there a special way of filling that up?
R- No not like it used to be. When we were talking before about paste bottoms, then they usually doff them into what we call weft tins. Now there, you had to be careful because if you dropped them they break. They are really supposed to put them in as regular and straight as they can, they get a few more in and they don't break, the cop won't break unless it’s absolutely had a good bang because it’s on that metal tube. There is nowt really in that except they are supposed to keep them straight, but not the same as they used to have to do with the starched bottoms.
So it's not a specific size?
R- No, they’re not a specific size. Them cops are filled, they’re governed from start to finish. You can’t get them any longer than them. You can make them a bit thicker, or you can make them a bit thinner but you can’t get them any longer.
How do you decide when they’re full?
R- We have what they call a stopping motion in the headstock. What we call the stopping motion is attached underneath what we call the front of the headstock. This is a small lever and as the mule’s running backwards and forwards the motion’s turning, the small screw is going forward all the time. So when it touches a small bar which runs across, the small screw hits that bar and starts lifting it. Now when it gets up to that particular height there is another small lever underneath the headstock and that drops down and stops the mule from backing. It’ll let it run up but it stop[s it there on the back.
So it's not for the spinner to decide?
R - No it’s not. Sometimes when we go on to Welsh Hats, we have one in the mule room now running on Welsh Hat, we don’t bother to set that, we leave it to the spinner to decide. They can see to them themselves but some will try to get more on them than they should do and then they have them running over the top. If they do that they make it hard work for the weaver. Because the battery fillers have to pull all that yarn off before they can put them in the battery. The spinner makes it hard work if he does that and it’s up to one of us [overlookers] to tell them if we see them doing it, which they do every now and again.
I think you said there were fifteen hundred spindles did you?
R- No, five hundred.
Five hundred.
R- There's five hundred and ten spindles on this mule.
And there will be five hundred and ten on the other?
R - And five hundred and ten on the other.
And you have two men on each thousand.
(45 min)
R- Yes. Well there is a pair of spinners for a pair of mules. But that doesn’t say much because we had some down at Higher Mill which were seven hundred and odd spindles. The same thing, two men looking after them. Depending on what sorts they were after. Some of our spinners now that come from Higher Mill thought these were classed down as broad gauges as far as they were concerned because theirs were a narrower gauge but smaller. Now that kind of thing varies with the amount of spindles. All them were the same. Now in this next picture 43, they've actually got their mule run up, and they're ready for taking the cops off. Although they're talking like instead of getting on with it. But they've actually run the mule up and they are ready for taking the cops off. All the ends are reasonably tight, they don’t make them too tight because if you do the ends break. They just run it so far as to keep a reasonable tension on the threads.
The threads seen to be tighter on 43 than they are on 42.
R – Yes because as I say on 42 they were getting it ready. So, you see, when the mule backs itself up, just runs that little bit in, they shove what we call the counter folder down. So by shoving that counter folder down all the ends take up that little bit. The other winding folder that we talk about, they put a small block of wood on, a block at the
The headstock, wind it down, that folder, then the counter folder runs right back
underneath the butt of the tube. Then it’s wound on to the bare spindle is the end, and in 43 they’ve ran the mule in and the
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end’s gone underneath the butt of the cop on to the bare spindle. And that’s how it comes to be that little bit tighter so that when they doff, that end’s still there on the spindle. Are you right with that one?
I am, forty four.
R - Well that's in the same process. Well you've got one more talking to two more. Well, I can't say nothing about that because that’s exactly the same you see? You've got two identical photos there. The only thing is on this particular one Donald were over here, these two were talking, you’ve got the same picture, but these talking to them two then.
They're probably having a great discussion as to how they are going to doff.
R- No. There is no such thing as that. They are having a great discussion on which would be the easiest way to get out of doing the job first, or what football and cricket were like this year, week before or something.
SCG/14 June 2003
7,447 words.