THIS TAPE HAS BEEN RECORDED ON MAY 15TH 1980 AT 119 BURY ROAD, HASLINGDEN. THE INFORMANT IS ROLAND TAYLOR, JUMBO OPERATOR AT SPRING VALE MILL. THE INTERVIEWER IS MARY HUNTER.
Now where were we? We finished on number 4 I think didn’t we.
R - Yes.
So number 5 Roland.
R - That’s bales coming in from John Hall's is that.
That’s a waste firm is it?
R – Yes, Oldham, a waste firm.
So they would be agents would they? They wouldn’t be a textile firm would they?
R - They just supply the cotton. Is that them two with nothing to do, and Stanley has been watching me.
Yes, that’s you in the doorway.
R - At the doorway grafting while they are watching.
You remember the photo do you?
R- Yes, that’s why I’m smiling. I were thinking, they don’t know they are getting caught on a photograph.
Do you know where those bales are coming from? Where they originated?
R- No, because the stuff can come from all over Lancashire going to them. Because they’re collected from all over them bales. They are our thread bales, for the Jumbo. That’s why they are going in that room. If they had been ordinary comber cotton they’d have been going upstairs and you wouldn’t have seen me, I’d have been higher up.
Are they all the same these bales on the wagon?
R- No. That’s the thread bales at the back. You can only see one here, them are comber bales and they’ll be going upstairs.
They’re on their ends aren’t they?
R- Yes.
And they’re comber waste?
R- Yes. That’s comber waste.
Now, can you just tell us exactly what comber waste is?
R - Well comber waste is your raw cotton. That’s what you use before we blend it. You get all different sorts of comber waste. By different I mean your different countries where it comes from which makes it different cotton. That’s why we want a blending. Your thread waste is all the stuff that’s been used, stuff that we re-process.
So the comber waste has not been through any manufacturing process. It’s been through certain processes though to get it to that stage.
(100)
R – Yes, it’s been sorted.
Right. Straightened out, the fibres have been straightened out have they?
R - No not necessarily that, just…
Been cleaned.
R – No, they haven't been cleaned, it’s just been sorted so they have had the good stuff out of it.
Right.
R- This is the stuff that your quality users don’t want.
I am with you.
R - It's not good enough for the stuff that they use but it's good enough for our uses.
Presumably this system of hoisting the bales up is a fairly antiquated system?
R - It is. Like I once told you once over there, it’s like they used to have at the docks. They used to have a counterweight, like it’s electric now is this but it’s on a weight and electric drive’s it. Before they used to have weights on and there were like a shaft and the weight of your bales literally took it up. And to make it go down you put the weight on at the other side to make it come down again.
That’s what was the system here.
(5 min)(150)
R- I wouldn’t have fancied working here when they first opened that mill when they started using electric, well, steam power they started using. A crane like that, I’ve forgotten me dad’s year on a crane like that somewhere, but it’s a few years old is that crane.
So they were using that system when you first came here?
R - Oh aye. They've been using that for years on end.
So how much physical strength is needed to manhandle these with the present system?
R - Well quite a lot like. Your crane takes them off the wagon, you put a truck on this platform here and you drop the bale on it and from there it’s all manhandling right the way along the line. Same as when it goes upstairs there, you drop the bale on your truck and it’s all manhandling again to put them away. Say when you are letting them down again, all pulled over on to the truck and manhandled again.
They are brought down from upstairs in the lift are they?
R- No, the same way. That’s what I say, when Arnold and Fred couldn’t get it off the platform because it were too much of a step from the end of the platform on to the floor. Your platform is just that inch lower than your floor is.
How heavy are those? I know they vary but…
R – Well, in them thread bales there’s normally, how do you want it, in pounds or in kilos?
Well, we’d better have them both I think because I only understand pounds but in a hundred years time they’ll only understand kilos I think.
R- Well, in kilos, they're probably about between 350 and 400 them thread bales and that’s about what, 800 or 1000 pounds.
(200)
That will take come shifting.
R- Well, aye, especially if you haven’t got ‘em balanced well on the truck. A lot of people, they think they look even when they’re on the truck but there is a knack to getting them on the truck right.
Is that so?
R - You get them trucks, the weight is all on your arms, it’s damned hard work.
You have to put them down on the truck vertically as opposed to horizontally.
R- The way that is now, your truck rides that length of it. When you come down on your truck, it’s there and that runs that way up it.
On another picture are we? All right then, try and describe this picture.
R- Here’s your truck…
Oh I see, you’ve laid your truck flat, yes I’m with you.
R - Now your bale goes on that way.
Right.
R- And like I say, if you get your bale too far up this road you've all your weight on your arms. And you've got your step there that you pull it up on, so if you've got all your weight there as well as having to pull it up…
So, just a minute, wait while I try and describe it. Presumably that end of it isn’t over the wheel like that is it?
R- Yes.
Is it?
R- It’s over the wheel.
It won't fit on?
R- Well, it won’t fit on as I say, the further you get up you get the
weight on your shafts.
(250)(10 min)
So the long side of the bale is laid on the back of the truck?
R - Of the truck, yes.
With a little bit hanging over the bottom end of the truck.
R - Well normally when you have your wires an your bale, most bales have a wire at the foot end of the bale and you try to get that on the footplate of your truck because by that it’s balanced and you don’t get too much weight on your arms.
Yes, I am with you. Thanks for that. What about comber bales?
R - They go the same way.
But they won't be the same weight though will they?
R- No they’re not, it depends on how big the bales are. Like you've got some that’s only about 100 kilos, that’s just over 200 pounds, round about 250 pound. But then again, if you’ve got, some of them combers are about 250 to 350 kilos which is about 600 or 700 pounds. You can get that but it’s very rare you get them that heavy, they are normally about 600 pound. Comber bales, between 400 and 600 pounds, that’s your normal comber weight. Your rovings again are like threads that go upstairs. The weight, in fact some of them rovings are heavier than other threads are, we had one the other day, the other week, that were 1060 pounds which has to go down in the hoist. And the hoist is one of them things which doesn’t like too much weight. So, unless you are sharp on that button you drop about six inches underneath your bottom floor so you have to fiddle around with it and get it lifted so you can get your truck out. And like I say, you’ve got 1000 odd pounds in the bale, and you’ve got me at 200 pounds and Brian and Jimmy at about 100 each so you’ve a bit of weight in when you’ve got the three of us and the bale in.
Oh I see. You used to go down with it did you?
R- Yes ‘cause it’s the only way it would stop. You see it’s not a passenger lift, it’s a hoist. A passenger lift has buttons to control it but my hoist, it only has ‘up’ and ‘down’ so if you want to stop it at the middle floor you’ve got stop it yourself but it’s not made for passengers really. It’s just made for carrying stuff.
Oh I see. I am with you, you’re not talking about this, you're talking about the hoist in the mill.
R- No I’m talking about the hoist. You could get played hell with if you brought somebody up with that. [The outside hoist or teagle]
Well that’s what I thought.
R - I know I’ve done it and got played hell with by Johnny. I got that bale down there and somebody sat on it and it come up and we both got a really good telling off about that!
It’s not very safe I wouldn’t have thought.
R – No it’s safe enough but he just said “What would happen if the chain snapped?”
That’s what I mean. It’s not very safe.
R- Well normally when it goes in like that they’re safe. Them hooks are gripping hard.
Yes, I can see it…
R – But John, Johnny were saying that if they were wanting sharpening, if they were ready for a sharpening there’s always a chance they could slip. If they’ve just been sharpened they were all right but if they’re ready for sharpening there’s just a chance they might slip out.
(350)
Yea. So you say that you’d have a wagon once a day but not towards the end.
R - Yes. Well it used to be sometimes more than one wagon a day. But at the end you were getting one or two wagons a week. If you were lucky, not always that. In fact it got, that last month, it were very rare we had a wagon in except for taking bales away, it were only very rare they come in. And John Hall’s were only coming once a fortnight. In them days it used to come every week. Like when I first went there, Hall’s came every week, Brooks come every week, and Padiham came every week with their own wagon with bales and you were using them. Now Padiham and Brooks haven’t been at all for three years.
(15 min)
What, are they another…?
R- Yes, they are another cotton distributor and Padiham’s the same. Padiham Waste, and they haven’t brought any, they use their own wagon. Well our firm says it’s not worth it, we have got our own wagons to fetch it in when we want it.
Yes. Right, 0K. Well let's move on. Number 6.
R - Well that's so you can see how we put the truck underneath a bale. And again there’s Brian on the right side there and Jimmy on the truck and me on the left. Well even there you've to make it easier for yourself. If you put it down flat you’ll drop it altogether, you've got to pick it up and it's dead weight. Now if you put the bale on the truck with him still
(400)
holding it then he hasn't got to pick that dead weight up, he can just wheel it in, that's why you've got Brian, and me on this side, we've got to pull that bale. See you've got your wall there so your crane won’t come right in to where you want it. So you've got to pull it in on your cable on your crane, on to the truck so they make it easier for him. And then it’s to be weighed on the scales there.
Yes well that's the next I think .. if you've done with number 6, have you?
R - Yes, that’s number 7. Yes that is on the scales there. And the truck goes flat on there your tare weight's taken out for your truck.
The tare weight in really the gross weight isn’t it?
R – No, your tare weight on your scales is that truck.
Not the sacking?
R – No, just the truck so that the weight on them scales is all that’s in that bale. Like your sacking, your cotton, your wires, the lot. That’s in that bale, that's what you're weighing.
so presumably you have this scale set at whatever the truck weighs.
R- Yes. And that ones 350 odd kilos I can see that off them scales. That’s on it’s way for 800 pounds is that one and I can see Jimmy is not looking too keen about it.
And that one will be thread waste will it?
R- Yes, that’s thread waste, that goes behind the Jumbo. That’s your dust fan, your extractor fan.
This at the top left?
R- It takes off the jumbo and the four blending machines all through there. It were a right job getting that up and all ‘cause I gave them a lift. I think there’s 8cwt in that fan there and it had to be lifted up[ with a block and tackle up on to the girders and then held there while it were fastened on.
(450)
When was that put in, can you remember Roland?
R- I should think about six or seven years ago. Like before that was there, the extractor fans we used on the jumbo were on their own, it drove off the drive belt on to the side of the jumbo. And your fan for your blenders were on the bottom end of the room. We used to go and empty their own bags you see. You had to empty your own fly there and take it into the back room and all too. Like your devil extractor fans were in there to start with, so they put the others in with them. So all your dust bags were in one place. If you’re wondering why they were all put in one place instead of being separate, we had a fire on our Jumbo and it set the stack afire as well. So we lost a few pounds there. Rather than do that they put them away where the only thing that can burn is the bag, the dust bag, the extractor bags. They won’t burn anything else, that's really why we had that put in.
You said you had the stack afire?
R- Yes. It were like, you know when you ran the jumbo waste, we used to stack it on the left hand side at the side of the chute.
In a sort of basket, in a wicker basket was it?
R- No, we used to pile it up on the floor.
When it has been through. Yes I know what you mean.
R- Yes. It's ordinarily piled up there.
What, here, on this side of the chute on number 6?
(500)
R- Yes. Well you’re back there then when we were waiting for the bales coming in. In fact we were that low, well it’s normally piled right up there all the way along. Well, before when we had our own fans the dust bags used to be at the other end.
Right, near the door.
R- Near the door you come in from the steps, well, they used to be there. Well we got a spark off the jumbo that went into them bags.
Ah, I see. And…
R- Now It fired them. Now they were next to the stack, so your stack caught fire, so your stack were burning then. So after that they had that put in. It cost them a bit but I think it saved them in the long run ‘cause it fired a couple of times since. That was in the back but it’d only burn the bags, well they can replace them easy enough, but if you have your stack burned that’d cost them a bit to replace it plus the fact that they've used the stack, they've no stack to use till you run. And that bell, if you're wondering what that’s for, that belongs to the boiler, if your flame on your boiler fails you'll have no steam going through, you'll get no pressure, so your pressure comes down, you get not heat in the mill. Well, if your flame failed on the boiler that used to ring and it did ring. So when that rung you used to, well I used to do it at one time, but then Brian, when he come, he started doing it, when that bell went you went down to your boiler and got it going again.
Sharpish.
R- Yes. L I’m not bothered about re-setting the boiler, I just want to turn that thing off. Have you ever heard the bell on a fire station?
Yes, dreadful!
R- Just what that sounds like. It was worse on a Saturday morning if it ever went off. Like if you had no key to get into the boiler house. Well you know that cottage you were on about? Now he has a key to the mill, and a key to the boiler house, he has that in case somebody comes or there's a fire or something like that, for him to get in.
Now you can't go knocking him up at half past six at the morning just to get in to knock that boiler off. I know what I’d say if somebody were coming knocking me up at half past six when I had no need to get up. So you’ve got to wait for him getting up, so sometimes like with being in at half six, now that bell's going then till say about half past eight when he gets up. Now two hours of listening to that bell, it drives you, just a bit round the bend. ‘Cause I stopped it once and I got played hell with because I stuffed it up with cotton all round so we couldn’t hear it. I got played hell because 1 forget to take it out again, so the flame failed and nobody heard it. It were off all morning, and so we had the flame fail and nobody knew until it started to get cold.
Naughty . Number 8.
R- Well, that's our jumbo.
Is that it’s proper name?
R - I don't really know what its proper name is, because each mill that had one had their own name for it. Some people call them willows, breaking, running down machines, breaking up machines, jumbo, there’s different names in different places for them. But ours has always been called the jumbo, why I don’t know, it’s been that for years and years, only jumbo.
Presumably because it has the hardest job.
R- Probably, because it does a big job, aye. And like that machine there, the little one on the right, that's a cutter, that’s in case you get a lot of long stuff to do because if you get long stuff going through there it just scorches it.
Scorches it?
R - It scorches it aye. And chance of breaking the wheels at the other end. And till they put that other drive on it used to shatter ‘em quite often. @Cause they had one, that wheel on the far side it shattered and shot a piece this way and it went through my head and it cracked the glass on the scales after it had gone past me. I thought it had gone through me head. Who were on at the other end? Eh, I’ve forgotten now, there were young Frank Smith, that were right, that young lad at the other end and he had a habit, if he had a hard lump gone through he’d chuck it over to go through again. I thought he’d chucked a lump until I heard the crack and looked at the back of the scales and “Hell! That’s not cotton!” It used to be quite often, you’d get a lump in and the weakest part of your machine broke. Well the wheels were the weakest part of the machine. So you got that cutter just for to cut it so that you didn’t get any really long stuff in.
I've never seen that working, actually.
R – Which, the cutter? I think it’s in the devil hole now. Well it were in the devil hole 'cause when they were running that single devil they got a lot of that roving that wanted cutting I know.
So this is the feed end of the jumbo isn’t it. The back end as everyone calls it.
R- That’s right. That’s the feed end.
And this on the floor is the stuff that’s going through.
R- Yes. And these spindles here you see, holding this cover up here, by rights they shouldn’t be there that’s my idea. See, if you get some of your cotton going through there and it catches round your roller that’s a right mess and I can’t see it if that’s down until it’s too late.
And you’d have to cut it off?
R- More than that. Sometimes it wouldn't cut off and if you didn't… I know when I went there at first we did it once and we’d to take all this trunking off, take all your brackets off and take them rollers out and them rollers are heavy.
Even to you?
R- They are heavy, yes they're a fair weight. And it's all time wasted like. It’s a good two hours work to take them out and put them back again, just for the sake of seeing that going through.
How can you stop that then?
R- Well, this handle on your left here, next to the long brush, if I knock that forwards towards that wheel it stops this lattice going. It doesn’t stop the rest, but it stops the lattice so if you get something in you can wind it back, turn this big wheel and I can wind it back out.
You can wind it backwards in fact.
R- Yes. I can wind it back out from there. But if you want to stop it altogether, the handle here on your right hand, you can just about see it there underneath the guard rail there.
(650)(30 min)
At the very front?
R- Well yes, on the right hand side, that’ll stop the lot, it’ll stop the front end as well. But I only use that if I’ve used the bale or I’ve another job to do. I always said that were dangerous though, that lever that stops the lot. Like if you push that down there, like it’s all right if you’ve got a small hand, but I got in the habit, I held my hand on the inside there knocking it that way. That way I’ve always got the chance of cracking my knuckles on that big wheel as I let it go ‘cause you’re very close to that wheel as I let it go. ‘Cause it’s close to my hand is that…
And presumably that cog wheel can motor round?
R- Not to that extent. But even if it’s going slow and it hits your knuckles…
You’d know about it.
R- Even when it’s stopped and you go like that you’d know about it. You’d crack against it because, no it doesn’t go like that, it goes like that and when you do it’s like that because there’s the weight of it underneath, pulls it down. Like you’ve to really lift it up you see, to about straight up.
Twelve o'clock.
R- and just start turning. And once you got past twelve it goes down with a jerk. So if you happen to be looking somewhere else when you're knocking that off, which happens quite often if I'm looking to see if there is a mixing out on them blenders. If I don’t look what I’m doing and I let it go and don’t let go of the handle as it goes down I might have cracked my knuckles on that wheel.
Did you find those guards a bit of a nuisance?
R- No, they weren't, until when we were stacking and we were making a fair stack. Once you started carrying them from that back end you had to squeeze past them, otherwise they weren’t that bad.
Now for some reason, 8.01 is back to the bales.
R – Yes. I think that's when we'd finished fetching them in. That were the last one. Like I say, we were waiting for ‘em coming, ‘cause I’m getting ready to take that one behind the jumbo to open it up ready for using on the jumbo.
(700)
What are you doing there?
R- I must be getting ready to pick it up, no cutting the string.
The underneath one?
R- I’m cutting the string yes. It’s tied all round the edge is your bale with string, I’m cutting the string underneath the bale there.
To get this end piece out?
R- Well, it doesn't actually quite, that goes all the way across but you fold it over so when you tip your bale over it goes underneath your bale and this big one, it goes all the way round from there right underneath and up to the top. So when it goes over that big piece comes off on its own, it comes off in one piece. And you’ve got the long one that goes over, just over the top, and up the sides. That comes away when you’ve finished your bale, that’s left on the floor.
Yes, it’s quite an art even thinking that one out! OK, let’s see the process, so 8.02.
R- That’s a bale that we’ve taken off the scales and put behind the jumbo. I was there cutting the wires, then you can see where I’ve took the tare underneath, like this one you can see now. That’ll come off in one piece. And the wires like, you cut them and if you look I’m cutting near the top of them wires, that means the joint is some distance off the floor. See, when you take your wires off your bale they unclip. The joint runs through like a clip and you can unclip them. Once you’ve unclipped them you’ve got your lengths near enough the same size. If you make them odd lengths, by the time you come to tie ‘em up to throw them away for scrap if you cut them all different sizes you are more likely to cut your hand when you’re trying to tie them up. Get them all the same size and there’s less chance of cutting your hand. Like I cut me thumb once on somebody else cutting one. They’d stuck it through the tare with it being a long one. Well I got used to cutting me own and it were also the opposite way to what I put them on. I always put them on so all the round ends of the wire were all at one end and all the sharp ends at the other so you know you are careful on them sharp ends but you’re all right on the others because you can’t cut yourself. But you get some silly twit who puts a wire on the opposite way round so you don’t know about it, and also it has a tare on the end of it, well, I went like that to get hold of the tare and that wire were the other way round and through the tare and when I went to get hold of it went right through me hand. I had a lovely dance and all. I told everybody in the mill to make sure I got the right person, the one who put it there.
(750)(35 min)
Presumably there is a lot of pressure on these wires so that’s why your mates having to hold them down?
R- Yes. In fact that’s probably where I get me speed from. I can move me head faster than most boxers. You get that, you cut them and it’s just like a whip lash. Have you ever seen an elastic band when it breaks, well the wires are just like an elastic band when you cut them, it flings the wires up, like you can stand that far away and still get caught by them. With the length like. You can stop them coming up that way but you can’t stop them coming down. So if you happen to be stood too near there, like one bloke that I were telling you about the other week, he caught one one day and his wife had nothing to do with him for a week or two because it caught him in rather a tender spot.
Not too good!.
R- Especially when he went to have it doctored. He didn’t think so.
Yes right, we’ll move on to 8.03before we get side tracked Roland!
R- Well, that’s the same bale that I’m starting to feed on to the jumbo. You can see there is one or two long pieces there, strands like that are all right when you get thick lumps that are long but that sort needs cutting. Now you can see the arm that can knock the jumbo off a lot easier than this one on the right. It’s the one with a proper handle on it.
Oh I see, with a sort of triangular end piece.
R- Well you turn it right the other way and it'll stop the whole lot.
What’s this one then?
R- Now this long rod one. It's like a .. so you've got your cylinder there and underneath the cylinder there's like a trap door. If you got some metal in you can hear it rattling on it. Well if you leave it there too long it could fire it. If you push that rod it opens that trap door at the bottom and anything heavy is going to drop out underneath the cylinder and just pull it back and it shuts the door up again.
(800)
I’m with you.
R- I know what there is there.
Do you know?
R- Like that’s where the hose pipe is.
On the window? Yes.
R- Yes. Now that's where the dust bags used to be. See, they used to be there and I’d covered them up with boards. They had some long like doors, I had that so I could stack round otherwise I could only go to there and that wouldn’t last long.
It was falling into it, yes.
R- No, it weren’t that. It just wouldn’t last that long when you were getting your bales down. But if I covered them up I could stack all the way round them. Once it fired and it went over the top of the boards into the stack, it also set fire to the doors. And like your hosepipe, I don’t think it were there then, it were put there afterwards. So we had to get the hose pipe from down here somewhere which were a fair way to go with it. And there weren’t much pressure on it if I remember right, it were a dry summer and they were short of water. It’d be about ten years ago now, during the summer.
1968 was it?
R - I’m not sure what year, it’d be about ten years ago anyway. And there weren’t much pressure on the water mains. No, we were having a job putting the fire out.
Do you know why are the window cills all sloping?
R - I don’t know, I have no idea and they all do, all the lot in the mill.
I just wondered if it was to stop people putting stuff on the window cills and stopping the light coming in.
R – No, I don’t think so. I don't know whether it was right but I got told it was to stop people having a brew when they weren’t supposed to be having one.
Oh 1 see. Because there was nowhere to…
R - See, you couldn't put your pot down and go on the floor. Now whether it were right or not I don’t know. But going back when them mills were made I can believe it’s right.
Yes. OK. Picture 8.04.
R- Well that’s just a close up of the lattice with a feed on.
Is that a normal feed?
R – Yes that’s a normal feed, not even hammering it there, probably
because I were being watched. Again you can see me so you can see how far down that’d got. It’d be down to there.
You wouldn’t see a thing would you.
R- I wouldn’t see anything wrapping round there.
(850)(40 min)
But presumably it has a safety catch?
R – It’s supposed be a safety thing. See, you’re supposed to have that down really, to stop you putting your arm in while it’s running.
Wouldn’t be much left of your hand if you got it in there would there?
R - It wouldn't do owt to mine, because I just go like that and it’s too thick for it to go through. But if you let your finger run through it can make a mess. Like if you let your fingers go right through to the cylinder, your cylinder would rip them to shreds, there wouldn’t be no such thing as stitching them back on. I once had a piece wrapped round me wrist and pulled it in that, went over the top and just caught me thumb and it only caught one thread so I snapped the cotton. But somebody like yourself, or a smaller person couldn’t have done that because you wouldn’t have been able to snap it. Because it were about that thick were the cotton that’s wrapped round me wrist. It marked me wrist but I just snapped it as it pulled. In fact I had to have three stitches put in round me thumb there. And that were through a piece of cotton just wrapping round, just pulling me arm. Now if that guard had been down I’d probably have broken me arm because me arm would have cracked up against there. There are advantages and disadvantages with all these safety things they put on sometimes.
Yea there are.
R- But again, that’s what it’s for, it’s a safety to stop your arm going in. I never used to bother like that ‘cause I used to get played heck with off Johnny here for that, ‘cause if I got cotton wrapped round there and it were only this I’d pull it off anyway even while it were running and Johnny never did like me doing that.
No, I don’t suppose he did.
R- But he knew he were wasting hi time telling me to stop it, I still do it.
8.05. Roland. Now what’s that?
R- Yes. Now that’s my mate Jimmy at the other end.
You call that the front end don’t you, the delivery end.
R- Yes. That’s the delivery end. Now that is down .. you'd think he were praying, always praying were t’lad. You have a roller underneath where he is and some of the stuff is short, it drops through instead of coming up through these two rollers at this end here. It drops underneath. So you've got to get down and scrape it out from underneath. Now your two arms there are for lifting this top roller and you lift that if you get a thick lump, it starts sticking on it if you lift that up it gives you a bigger gap there and you've a chance of that lump coming through.
(900)
Like a mangle I suppose.
R- Yes, it is similar to a mangle. Like if you lift it up it allows that bit extra to come through.
On the left?
R- Yes, on the left hand-side. Now then that were the wheel that kept breaking with the old drive. Now this is the new drive they’ve put on with the ‘V’ belts and it runs on a motor from underneath. Now before, it used to run off this itself, off the main drive which were where it got all that power from. See, with putting this small motor on they’ve cut the drive down so it drives off the small motor whereas before it were driven off the main drive which is a few thousand revs a minute. So when it went, they could go every week them wheels, it used to fly all over. In fact the main reason why they changed that were because they couldn't buy any more of them wheels, and even them that make them hadn’t got any more. And to make another wheel, a special, like that it would have cost them three or four hundred pounds apiece. Well it weren’t on weren’t that, not the way they were cracking up.
How often was it breaking?
R- Well, the last, before they changed the drive, that last twelve months it broke nine wheels. But you see, if you like, say we had a few spares like they had two or three jumbos at one time, and they’d gone through all the spares by then. Well, they would with nine breaking. And they bought two and that cost them five hundred pounds I think for two news wheels and it bust them in two weeks, the two of them. So they were saying that were rather expensive.
What was causing them to break?
R- When you get a lot of this really coarse stuff it takes a lot more breaking. Like normally you just get a bit in a bale now and again but when you’re getting a few bales with a lot of it in there’s nothing you can do about it then, even, I tell you, I used to try to feed it, it’s likely to gather round your main cylinder, you know it wraps round it doesn’t pull it all off. So you’re starting getting a lot on your cylinder and it goes in bump, so that the weakest part it bumped against broke.
I see.
R- I don't think there’s anything else on that one. 8.06 now that's where your feed’s coming through there.
Does everything look normal?
R- Apart from he’s getting a lap on his roller. He’ll have to pike that, on your right hand-side on that top roller he's got a bit of a lap going on. Again, he shouldn’t be running like that, that cover there should be down.
But then he wouldn’t see that it’s lapping.
R- No. You’d see that there because it only goes at that but you wouldn’t see if there were a lump on the doffer, that’s the small ones are called the doffer, the big uns are the cylinder. Well, he wouldn't
(950)(45 min)
see the lumps on that doffer it that were down. Normally he has that down anyway, but if it’s running bad and he leaves it up he can see if it’s not pulling it all off. Because if it doesn’t pull it all off, when you leave it on there it builds up and it scotches here. Them wheels scotch [jam] and you’ve to stop them trying to do that. If it doesn’t reverse back you’ve got all these bolts on the left and right hand side on this little plate, you’ve to take them all off so you can lift that roller a little bit higher to try and pull it out which is hard work. In fact you can see that’s that wheel goes at a fair speed but that's nothing to the speed it used to go on the main drive. Now you can see the rings on it there, your spokes. When it used to run off that main drive you couldn't see them spokes. So if it bumped, and away it went. ‘Cause like they were only cast iron, not like they were steel or owt like that. In fact if it was steel I think it’d break the machine so that’s probably why they didn’t make them out of steel, they made it out of cast iron ‘cause they knew tat were the weak point. And that were going to go. 8.07. I don’t think there’s much difference there.
He’s taken the lap of though hasn’t he?
R- Well he has. I think that were what he were doing on 8.06.
Oh yes, in fact in 8.06 he’s got a piker hasn’t he. In his hand?
R- Yes, he’s got a piker. It’s like he were lifting up to take that lap off but it’s gone through. He’s deep in thought isn’t he.
Yes, he’s contemplating things here.
R- He is worrying in case it does it again. You can tell, there is stuff that is likely to wrap round your rollers is that.
Because it's longer threads?
R- No. It’s, what should I say, it’s fine stuff, like it’s fine cotton and the finer it is the moiré chance there is that it’ll wrap round , you only need a small rough piece on there and it starts wrapping round. And like his worst trouble is like, say he gets hold of a handful to stack it, between leaving there to stack it and coming back if it hooks on the moment he walks away and he hasn’t seen it, by the time he gets back that roller’s completely full and it’s a nice mess undoing it.
(1000)
Oh there’s like blocks that the cotton is running over at the bottom. You’ve got a roller and then a plate and they might look like blocks of metal. Well I suppose they are blocks of metal but they’re magnets. They’re for, if there’s any bits of metal in your cotton that’s coming through the magnets will draw it out, or is supposed to do so.
I was going to say, does it work? Because I would have thought that it pulls it off again.
R- No, it’s surprising. They’re strong magnets, you can drop a big key on it and hold it firm. But I mean you get your little bits like runners off ring frames, such as that and it’ll hold them as it comes through.
It's always amazed me that it is such a manual business. You’ve got to get down on your hands and knees to pick that up when it’s gone through.
R - Yes, no easy way to do it. I said I could do with a lattice running from there into the chute . I won’t tell you what they said to us. It might not be fit for a lady’s ears anyway.
SCG/01 July 2003
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