THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON APRIL 30TH 1980 IN THE CARDER’S CABIN AT SPRING VALE MILL, CHARLES LANE, HASLINGDEN. THE INFORMANTS ARE CHARLIE GOWERS, CARDER AND JOE PILLING, UNDER CARDER. THE INTERVIEWER IS MARY HUNTER.
MH Now then Charlie, I was about to ask you why it was important to put oil on this cotton?
CG Well, when the cotton’s broken up into very fine pieces, practically, you might say in filament..
MH Yes
CG It’s so fluffy and light it’s impossible to make a process of it. It’s impossible to make any density, so we put as much oil on as is possible so that when it goes into the bale it starts clinging together again and making a solid bale. You wouldn’t get the same weight of bale, so when it goes into its further processes it can be used. Without any oil, or in days gone by when we, Joe and I, started, they didn’t use oil, they used soap. They used to boil this soap and put it on with a brush, a circular brush, and they used to absolutely pour it on, so it all had to be carried by hand, they used to be full, your clothes, everything, full of soap. So this was a more efficient way of doing the job, to stop people having to handle dirty stuff and getting full of it, stuck to their bodies and it were far better. Its vegetable oil and it could also have other things added to it, such things like what they call a wetting agent, yet again to make the process of .. there isn’t as much fly in the mill and it aids spinning.
MH I see. So at Spring Vale you only have oil coming through those sprinklers have you?
CG Those jets?
MH Yes.
CG Just oil and water mix. It’s a vegetable oil and it has other things put in like wetting agents.
JP We have that Penticot in haven’t we?
CG Yes, a wetting agent.
MH What did you call it Joe? (Asks for it to be spelled)
JP Penticot
MH And do you know what that is?
CG Not really. When they started with the oil, if I remember rightly, when we first went on it, it’d be very early in the 1950’s when everyone was still using soap, and the oil was first class, absolutely spot on. It was great. There was never a blocked pipe, blocked filter, it was perfect, so the years went by, and they found by cheapening the product, people still wanted it, because everyone was going on it. So it came to such a state that it was such a low quality to what it had been originally, that they started selling this other product to go into it. All means of making money. And that’s just why what’s happened today. It never needed anything.
MH Umm. Now then, from there, after its been oiled, wetted, call it what you like, what happens to it from there?
JP Well it would be 10.02, but 10.01, 10.02, the process just doesn’t follow it. See what it shows here is the cotton build. The cotton that comes out of the devil hole, through the flywheel and that’s oiled as well. There’s two sprays that’s round all over there.
CG Its very important that the oil is put on correctly, and just enough. You put too much on and you’ll get a different colour – it’ll stain.
JP Its got to be mixed right hasn’t it.
CG Yes, mixed right.
MH So in fact, on 10.02 you’ve got the stack that’s building up from the devil, so lets go back to 10.01. So on 10.01 the cotton that we can see there is put into bales, am I right?
CG That is the delivery from the bale breaking machine onto a feed lattice to go to a press.
JP That goes right down to a press.
MH Excuse me one minute, if I can just skip on a bit.
CG This is the press.
MH Did you just come to it, just then?
CG Yes.
MH Just before George starts, isn’t it?
CG Yes
MH On number 15, so from 10.01 it goes into this press, is that right? And then it goes into the warehouse?
CG As its going into this press, this is a proper type, a very good press, its filling one as one is being taken away from it.
MH Oh yes?
CG A very, very good press.
MH Can you explain how that happens Charlie?
CG Tell her Joe.
MH All right Joe? Has he dropped you in it?
JP As its making a bale..
MH Yes
JP Once it’s made a bale, they turn it right round, because there’s two sides to the press, turn it right round, the press, and this side become empty and then what we call the press side, presses the bale what’s already been made, while another one’s coming to the other side. I think that’s the best way (to explain it).
CG I think there’s just one important part about it. When it’s turned, for the bale to be taken out, there are means of passing wires through, so the bale can be wired before the press is taken off it. So when the press is taken off, the door is opened and the bale is just pushed out by hand
JP Onto the truck here
CG To be carried away.
MH Oh, the one that’s laid down? On its side?
JP They just push it over onto the truck, weigh it and take it away.
MH Then it goes into the warehouse, where it is conditioned?
JP Its better stood. Its better stood for at least two days.
CG Having been oiled it needs to stand. Two days is ideal. Three days is pretty good. The longer it stands with the oil on, the more denser it gets, the better for the next process.
MH Like a good fruit cake.
JP Like a good wine.
MH Like a good wine, all right then. Showing a bit of culture here Joe. Right, we’d better go back to where we were, so 10.02. This is the stack that’s built up from the devil room, which we’re coming onto with number 11. I think you have just said, haven’t you, that there is oil and water sprinkled on here as well too?
CG Yes.
MH Now why is it put on again?
CG That is coming from the devils, which never gets no oil on the machines. Only when it is delivered. It’s not possible, unfortunately, with the processes in this mill to spray the oil on, because it must be processed, it must be carried away from the devils and passed through a pipe. Now if they started spraying it as it came off the devils it would start sticking in the pipe.
MH Right.
CG It would start sticking on the Shirley wheel. Unfortunately they made a very bad mistake at the time. They put the stack in the worst possible position, so that when they’ve made a stack it had to be carried a considerable distance to where it was being fed to make a bale. Which was just unfortunate, but they probably had to do it that way because they just didn’t have enough room.
MH No. So, where does it go from there then?
CG It goes back onto that feed lattice..
JP To make a bale
CG And it’s carried by hand.
MH So it’s carried by hand from there to there?
CG Fed on by hand, and oiled again.
MH So
what comes off the blending machines?
CG The blending machines are stopped while that process carries on.
MH Is that right?
CG Yes, you have to stop the blend.
MH So you’ve got a mix of what comes off the blending machines and what comes from the devils to make a bale?
JP No, these are…
CG To make a mixing. The blending machines are made only for comber bales. Now this plant here, this stack, is only thread waste broken up. Broken thread waste, and it’s kept separately. So they make the bales separately and that’s the only way they can tell they’ve got the right production off the devils.
MH Yes, I’m with you. I’ve now got you I think.
JP Once they’ve made a bale, its put into store just the same and then when they come to put a mixing down into the middle room they’ve probably put two or three of them down wi’ em.
CG I told you when they can tell when they’ve got the mixing right..
MH Yes, I’m sorry, I had a moment or two of being a bit muddled. But yes, I’m with you now.
JP See, look, that were originally made… they never used to make cotton bales, they used to feed that onto the bale breaker.
MH Loose?
CG Yes.
JP They used to feed it on, yes, and that’s where the blender came in again up in the middle room; if he put too much of that in, which is lofty, very light, it went through before the others. You got all cotton and nothing else.
End of tape
Transcribed by Catherine Pearson November 2003.
Checked by SCG/25 November 2003