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.
Nov, I think the last time we were here Roland we stopped on 8.11. So if we start on 8.12 and it’s over to you.
R – Well, that one's a picture of the blending part of the room. There’s three of the blenders there, there should he a fourth one higher up on the left. It shows you the mixing, the blending mixing down there. They must be crafty, they’re not in, some of the workers, must be brew time. Not much you can really say about with ‘em being stopped apart from the fact that the lattice here is fed cotton, a mixture of each bale on to the back of each machine on the lattice there. And each machine has a different mixture of bales for each one, they’re not all the same blends.
So there can be up to seven or so bales and they’d all be different qualities of raw cotton, is that right?
R - All different sorts, yes. Well there's going to be more, there’s only four in them because they’re the Pneumafil (?), higher quality stuff, there’s ten in that bottom mixing, them are all your small hard bales. Because that machine’s run slower than the others to break it up more. See , a lot of these are hard bales, hard pressed bales. So the machine’s set slower to break it up more.
And these machines are in the came room as the jumbo and the previous ones are they?
R- Yes they’re in the same room. Yes.
It seems to be quite a high room. Would that be for a reason?
R - No reason, no. It just happened to be that was a spare room at the time when they were putting blenders in. In fact 1 think there used to be some cards in this room originally. I can just see the humidifier on the top there, that’s for in case, I don’t if it were like it is now, it sends like a spray of water down. Well not actually a spray, like a film of water because cotton should always have a certain amount of dampness in it or it'll dry up and it’s hard work to run it. Get ‘em on mules and they’re dry and they won't run, they just keep breaking down.
They snap do they?
R- It’s the water that puts the goodness in the cotton. That’s why Lancashire used to do cotton more than anywhere else because it were so damp.
That's right yes.
R – Now this is 8.13. It shows you, that actually does show you a row of machines higher up. You can just about see it and there’s actually one, two, three, four, five, six, seven .. you can only see, there’s nine normally and there’s two round the side of the… there's seven come out in a line and two go the opposite way at the back of them, right behind the machine. Because you couldn’t go any further, any other bales into these others and they ran out.
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Why do they put two, why do they put them the other way round or is there no reason for that.
R - Well they are that way for it's easier for the men like. If you put them the other way round you wouldn't get them all in that line, you’d have to put them doubles and they couldn't stretch over the top of it to get to the other bale at the back. Like they're going, they're running diagonal now. If they went the other way they’d have to put .. say they were having them set out now like they are there, you'd have to put two and you wouldn’t be able to stretch over to reach the second set of bales. Like, that way you see, and you can actually roll that, if you started there and you can roll the cotton off the bale, you roll with the press.
Oh 1 see.
R - So you can get an armful off. Well if you have it the other way you've got to pull and tug with it all.
Well how do you get say to this middle one on the far row?
R – Well, there’s a gap down there, in between the bale and the machine.
Oh I see. Right. Sorry.
R- You get, when you put these bales down them two mixings, they actually meet in the middle of the gangway, the gap down it, like you can see on this right hand-side one you can get down the side of the machine. And you feed off, just turn, get hold of an armful, turn round and you are right on the lattice. Again there’s not much you can say while they're stopped. It's easier to describe when they're actually running.
Who decides what the blendings are going to be? Or mixes as you call them.
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R - Well originally, well when Johnny were the manager he first decided what went in each blend. Well when Roy took over he, he knew enough to take over what Johnny left, the only time there were ever a change were if they ran out of a certain lot of bales and you’d have to change and put in something similar to it what you had, you happen to have. But it were, originally it were Johnny's blend. Like there's a lot of things still Johnny’s that were done there.
So basically they’re still the same, and any different ones Roy decides, does he?
R – Yes. Well, he sees Brian first. He decides what there is to decide and what’s to go in.
But I would have thought, getting…
R - Like it wouldn’t be long since, when were it? A month or two, a few months back that Roy and Brian were both off. When they went out and that mixing I knew normally what the mixing is but there weren't one of the bales in. He didn’t stop because neither of them were, I picked one at the side of, it were the nearest to them what were there. As it happened they’d have picked the same one so it, we weren’t so far out because as I was saying when you have been there long enough you have a rough idea of what can take its place. Again that was through working with Johnny so long too.
That's right.
R- Johnny would have put this and he faces them that way on this so I shove that bale in…
Am I right in thinking that getting the right mixing at that stage is probably the most crucial part of the process?
R - Right. You go wrong there and it's .. right the way down the line it goes wrong. In fact we were the ones that got cursed by the spinners if they have a mixing that starts going wrong. They say “What are you doing with your mixings. They're rubbish.”
But presumably, this sort of operation won't be found in any other part of the industry apart from cotton waste.
R- - No, I don't think you do get blending like that, not even in wool and I worked in wool too. They don't mix it the same.
Yes. It's peculiar to a firm like Whitaker's where they're manufacturing cotton from .. it's called cotton waste isn't it?
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R- Yes I think it is. Well the way… Yes, it is cotton waste. And like the trunking across that you can see on the top of the picture. That's the dust extractor, it takes away whatever dust is being made, and there is a fair whack as you can see on the machines, had actually come out of it, but that doesn't take it all away. But it’s bad, we had a break down once and we had to run with no dust extractors and then there were some dust in the room. Now 8.14, this were done on a Friday I’ll tell you, when he did those photographs.
Probably.
R - It were, because they are cleaning. Again .. I wish he'd have come when they were running.
Are none of them running?
R - No. It is, it must he Friday for him to be dashing. The bloke on the right here has a dasher. It’s for dashing the cotton dust off the ceilings.
That job is called dashing off isn't it?
R – Yes. It's the cleaning you do before you start. Like it's no good to start cleaning your machines then dashing tops off, then you have to start cleaning your machines again. And you only start dashing off when you know you are not going to run them again 'cause it's a waste of time doing it if you are going to run them, you're only going to get dust back on them again.
So that's a Friday afternoon job?
R- Normally Friday but mostly, the last few months it’s been all day Friday. Well we've been finished by Thursday night, done all the bales we wanted. Like before then, when I started, it used to be two o'clock
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Friday afternoon before we stopped so you only got two hours in which to get your cleaning done. Well, unless you’d have come in Saturday morning, we used to come in Saturday morning sometimes or Friday night. Like when I first went there we used to work till half past eight Friday night, we got four hours in. Instead of Saturday mornings we did ours on Friday night and got finished Friday night. It got changed to Saturday. See, it’s a lot easier to describe when they're running, you can’t really describe the machines when they're stopped. Like there’s a weight on the left hand-side of each machine, a weight on an arm on the left hand-side of each machine. Now that controls the lattice that the cotton's on, there’s like a door inside and when it’s full it shuts the door, and that controls the fast and loose mechanism on the pulley that drives it and stops and starts the lattice. When it’s full it runs on to the free-wheel, when it starts getting empty the door start’s opening again and it let’s the belt go back on to the drive wheel and consequently your lattice puts cotton into the machine again.
Well that was a very clear description Roland. Don't worry.
R - The cover on the left hand-side at the top…
The half moon shaped one?
R - Yes, well that has a chain drive in there and that drives a beater at the top of the blender and there’s a beater there. You have to open it up a bit. Now the one on the left at the bottom, that drives two rollers inside that turn a spiked lattice for the cotton on to which your cotton sticks. The beater knocks the excess off and back into the bottom so you only get a certain amount going over all being well.
Right. That’s circular as well isn't it? That bottom one?
R- That's the one that I said drives the…
Yes. Is it circular? Just for the purposes of identification.
R - Not really, it's almost square in fact. Just rounded corners on it. It's rounded corners on it, it's not actually a round un. Again you can see a bearing just before you get into your cotton box at the end of the lattice. Again that’s one of your shafts for your lattice. You get cursed and all if you don’t oil them up every day. 'Cause it starts stopping and when you start stopping, your
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lattice has a tendency to snap, like they are only wood. If they start jerking and they catch, you are liable to snap them. And you can just about see one underneath there that’s the roller that drives an ordinary wooden lattice inside and that one just drives up to the spiked lattice, carries your cotton on to that so it keeps dropping on to your spiked lattice as that's going up. I don’t think you can say much more on that one.
Is that a typical feed going in?
R - That's what a typical feed should be like. When Arthur gets busy that's only about half of what he crams on to them.
Because that’s actually quite a hefty feed compared to say, what you put in…
R - That's a little, no that's a little feed is that, to what he normally puts in.
But that’s about right.
R - That is. See, you can just about see the .. well on this other one there’s no actual door on that one, and there is a door inside as well.
On the far one?
R- Well there’s a little one there and there isn’t on the bottom one. Now by rights, Johnny use to say like “Your cotton should not be higher than that because it's not going to go in.”
Right.
R – But it will go in, it’ll force its way in, but by rights you’re not supposed to go above that, only supposed to be level with that so it goes straight in. Nothing else there about that one.
Am I right in thinking that this feed that we've got in the foreground, the bales have been used quite well because they’re nearly all about the same level which means that it’s been fed properly, it’s been blended in properly.
R- Yes well, near enough. All being well he’s taken a bit off each bale all the time.
That’s right.
R- But I’ve known some that would come and take a great big load of this one and then another and if someone comes in it looks as though they have gone in level.
Right, so basically you take a little bit off each bale per feed on that, that’d be a mixing?
R- Yes. Well, you could take a couple off that on there and then a couple off your other on to the lattice. Because it takes about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, if you didn’t put any on, to empty that box inside.
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Does it?
R - So as long as, within an hour, you’ve got some off each one, you’re going to get a mix. Well, as I say, if you get a big armful off one and another big armful off another you are not going to get it mixed because it’s going to be empty before you get to your last bale.
Right.
R – Now, different number. That’s 79E2027.
Well yes, that’s…
R - Number 9. we’ll start on that and go on just to single numbers.
That’s right.
R- Again, that’s a photograph of near enough the complete room now. You’ve got your jumbo there, and all your four blenders. And do you know I was telling you about that wheel that keeps snapping? If you look against the bale on your right hand-side you've got one there with, it snapped off on the bottom there.
Yes.
R- And the bale’s just been opened there and all. It looks like it went when I just opened that one. Again it's stopped so it could have been lunch time when he took that ‘cause I don’t remember him taking that one. Yes, nothing much you can say about that one, just a photograph of the room.
Of the blending room.
R- Yes. But it is a complete photograph, you can see the jumbo and all four machines in that one. I thought the humidifiers were running but they’re not. Now number 10 is, again it’s a Friday, ‘cause whenever it’s on a Friday you’ll see all the lattices and normally the machines are empty. Because on Friday you’ve to lift the door on the top of the blender. Now you’ve to climb up on the top of each blender and lift the door up and clean the spiked lattice. On the right hand side you can see a door that covers, you can just see the motor on top there. Now that drives the belt that drives the spiked lattice. Now that one, like there's a door on it, on the edge of it, you can just about see the edge of the door. Well that's let down and you take the belt off and you lift that cover up and you've to pike it with a piker in between each lath but you're on .. and it takes a good half an hour to clean, to pike each lattice, ‘cause you've to turn it on the side with your hand as you’re piking. That’s why you can tell there is no cotton in that machine, very little in there 'cause if they were full of cotton, it's hard enough turning when it's empty but if you get it full of cotton it's a hard job for two man there, never mind one. I know because I've done it. Number 11. Well…
No, turn that one actually Roland. Sorry, it's showing through, I haven’t labelled it properly.
R- Well that one's a photograph of, you know we were talking about cotton that goes into the box and we empty that and bale it separate? Well that’s a photograph of the lattice taking that to the press. And I think you can just about see the spray going on to it.
Is it soap, or is it oil and water?
R- Well, some people call it soap and some call it oil but I can wash me hands in it so I call it soap. It cleans you if you wash your hands. In my book I call that soap and then Johnny always used to call it soap. I think it’s BP [the oil company] that fetches it. They do another one that mixes in with it, when we are mixing that soap there’s a textile oil that goes in with it. Mind you, that again is damned good stuff for cleaning, better than anything you can get in the shops. It’s that concentrated it’ll get grease off your hands.
Will it?
R- That’s your devil cotton going into the press. Ready for being pressed if it’s owt like. We have two lots of devils for cotton. There’s the sort we have for ourselves, which we have cotton we call rovings in with it. Well, you can see that there and it’s being sprayed. Now we always have ours with the soap on. Now the other cotton, devil cotton that we do, is for sale. Now that has no rovings in it and it had oil put on it, it were dry, they always wanted it dry. If they wanted anything else on when they got it they did it themselves.
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So this is the delivery end of the blenders and this is the continuous belt that goes past all four.
R- Yes it goes past all four, it’s about 80 or 90 feet of belt and it goes right round.
And, and just to make sure I’ve got this right, from here it is baled.
R- It goes into the top of the press and it’s baled. Yes.
It then goes into the warehouse to condition it, in other words so the soap or oil can soak through it properly.
R- Well, it’s not done for that actually. Once it’s had the soap on we can use it straight away. We’ve had to do that before now when we’ve been making for sale and we’ve had to rush some of our own through just to finish an order. We’ve to put it straight in. I’ve known us do the mixing here, bale it up and bring it straight back into the blending machine to be blended. You can’t just shove it straight in. We’ve done it like that, it’s been baled and brought straight back into the same room to go into one of them mixings. See, they’ve put one of those, one of our devilled roving bales, they’ve put one in the top mixing and two in the other three, two or three of them in the other three mixings. See that is better cotton than a lot of comber we can buy, that’s why we can sell it because it’s better than a lot of comber we can buy. It also makes our blend a lot better. Like if we didn’t put any of that in the spinners would be flying round with their hands in the air. Well, seeing as we are getting a bit confused now, this cotton on the conveyor belt now is not coming out of the blenders, it’s the devilled cotton that’s come out of the cotton box in the same room.
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There you are, 8.10.
R- On 8.10 on the right hand-side about half way down the room you can see like a brick wall with two doorways into it. And you can just about see some cotton in it. Now the cotton from that box is carried on to the lattice by hand and the blenders are stopped. So the devil cotton is baled up on its own then it is brought back up to be mixed with the comber bales. Are you right now?
Right, now I understand. So in fact it’s merely being used as a conveyor, it’s nothing to do with the blenders at this point.
R Not at that point. But as you can see the blenders are there to feed on to it when they are running.
Right.
R- ‘Cause on that one you can tell the difference between your devil cotton and your comber cotton that comes out of your blenders because when it’s devil cotton like this it's all fluffed up and there's plenty on the lattice because you are feeding it on by hand. Now, when it's coming out of your blenders there is a lot less than that on the lattice, it's very low down .
So basically it's one of those sort of funny things that has developed because of moving new machinery into an existing place. Because basically what’s happened is that the stuffs come up from the devil room below.
R- No, I’ll tell you how it actually happened. Originally when I first went there, that devil cotton was fed into the first two machines.
Two blending machines?
R- Yes. It was carried, and you could keep up with a devil just moving it on them two machines.
From the cotton box.
R – Yes, as well as your blend. But we got two people working here, a father and son, one was a deviller and one used to feed on these blenders. Now they used to let the box pile sky high and instead of a bit going in every bale they'd stop the devils then and the father would come up with the son and it’d all go in at once. So you didn't get a blend of devil cotton then, you got it all in one or two bales. As 1 said the manager caught them doing it so he said
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“Well, we’ll stop this. As soon as you want to mix bales up like that, you can stop them blenders and you can bale that on its own then we’ll know what’s going into them bales.” And ever since that time they really caused the extra work because it is extra work, and you lose on your ordinary bale through it. And you could keep up with it by just putting it on them top two machines. Just put a couple of armfuls on each time while you were putting our mixing on and it kept level with your devils. But they just let it pile up and put it all in at once.
Yes, I see.
R- So instead of getting every bale with a bit of devil cotton in you're getting about, like I say we did 36 bales a day, well we’d get about 28 bales with none in and then you got about 8 bales with all of it in. So Johnny made them bale it separate so we knew what was going into every bale. That conveyer belt was actually used as a belt for your blending machines.
And presumably then, beforehand, it didn't get this soap, oil and water on it.
R- Oh yes it did, as I said, our own always had it on. So then when you started on your bales you didn’t put any on. And then again, if they hadn’t done that they would never have been able to sell because they never thought about selling it then. It all used to go into our machines.
So when was the oil and water put on the devil cotton then?
R- There's two sprays over the top of that cotton box we were talking about, there’s two sprays in there.
Right.
R- Now when you are running your own you put them sprays on, so you not only do it to get it off here, ‘cause like I say, on here you’d only get four sprays on it. Now when the blenders are running there are six sprays going on them. But you cut the top two out because you are not feeding from them, so you really need them two in the box when you are doing it for ourselves to make up for the two you are mixing on the lattice.
Yes, right, I’m completely in the picture now. Thanks Roland.
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R- Now 10.02. Now that is a better picture of your cotton box where you actually see your cotton piling up there. The wheel in what we call a Shirley Wheel [after the Shirley Institute] and the cotton hits that and it turns it down into the box. Like, before we had that, there used to be a, a fan, a suction, and it used to go to the room above it then drop it down. We got a lot of bother one year especially, with static
electricity and the cotton was sticking to the trunking, went all the way up, and you
were finishing, you were running for about half an hour, having to stop, climb all the way upstairs and get a ladder up and climb on top of the machine to push it down because it was stuck to all the sides in the trunking going up there. And the best way to cure it is to get a Shirley Wheel. And again they're more reliable. Right on the middle of the picture on the top that's a motor and that, have you seen the size of the one on the jumbo? Well it’s very nearly as big as that. And yet on that, up there on a couple of block and tackles, damned hard work because I gave them a lift to put it up, and it were damned hard work getting that up there. And like they changed all the trunking with putting that there, that’s the only reason they started doing all the lot when they did it. They started it just before the July holiday and they finished it while we were on holiday, most of the trunking. And again like you can see just underneath the trunking of that fan motor a pipe with the nozzle where the spray is. And there’s one same as this on the other side of the Shirley Wheel. Well you can see it but you’ve got to look close. There’s, right underneath that fan is a nozzle like you see on a hose pipe, just there. You only see about six inches there but it's a bit bigger and there’s taps on the wall, just above your wall on the right hand side level with that dart-board which shouldn't be there. There’s taps on the wall there, on the girder there. Now the one on the left hand-side at the button, now that turns the oil off, stops it going into the pipes at all, it won’t touch that oil if you turn that off. Now there's like a twin one then comes out of that. There’s one on the left and one on the right. Now ones full of spray on the right hand side ‘cause if you are taking the cotton out you don’t want to be showered with the soap as you are bending down to pick it up. It comes out enough to wet you through. Now the two taps on the right hand side of the girder, now that pipe, and there is one on the other side next to that spray as well, that long one, you can just see the dark coloured one. Now they are like nozzles on a hose pipe and they are always fixed open and they had water in tem. So if there’s a fire comes up from the devil hole into there you have at least a bit of something to put it out before you have to go for the hose pipes. While you are getting the hose from the bottom end of the room near enough the middle of the picture.
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And there is one near your scales isn't there?
R- Yes, there is another one just farther up to your right hand side and another one at the other. Well, two more at the other side of the room. But by the time you get to that hose-pipe, if you haven't got those [fixed nozzles] on it, the cotton, like that will be blazing.
That’s right,
R- So you’ve got to turn them on while you actually go for the hose pipe. And there is a, where you see the dart-board here, just to your right hand-side there, there's a fire bell. First thing you turn on the fixed nozzles, then you turn the hose pipe on, you turn the fire bell on because there is no way you’re going to fight it on your own. I know because me and another bloke tried it once when they first started doing overtime and there were only two of us worked. There were him in the devil hole and me upstairs. Now if you get one row of devils firing and you are upstairs you are not so bad if you get that way. But that night, all three rows fired at once. And not only that, they fired on the last cylinder. And when they fire on that last cylinder you've got trouble because it’s right on the lattice then when your fire goes and if it’s your left hand row of devils it’s straight down the chute and right upstairs. S he rung his bell for fire down there, I couldn’t go to help him because .. Now 1 couldn't go to help him with all these three because that was my fire, my cotton box were ablaze, and as I said the dust bag from the devils are in that back. Now they were blazing and all. So I had a hose pipe there and we are fighting a losing battle now, if there were four of us like they put on after that they might, like I said, they learn by your mistakes, they had four working then. But we had in fact, Jesse, he were called Jesse who were running the devils and he had to leave his devils blazing while he went to ring the fire brigade. In fact they said we did well to control all that because it didn't spread out of there, and his didn't spread off the devils. In fact the insurance bloke shook our hand, because he said “You’ve saved us a few quid. It's cost a bit as it is but if it had gone any further it would have gone into the bales.
So easily, so easily.
R- Like you see the cotton round here, it only needs to spread out and hit the other bales and the lot's going, and it's happened once.
I’m sure.
R- Well in fact it’s happened a couple of times, but once it were really bad, all the lot were going. And like I said, before that Shirley Wheel were put in it went straight upstairs. Now the fire went upstairs as well where we always had our bales stacked. It fell on them and all. So you had the top room going, the middle room going and the devil hole blazing at the same time and that cost a few pounds 'cause a lot of bales once they’ve been burnt they're spoilt. They have to be thrown out, they’re no good to you Now your number 11, now that is the devil hole. Again it's stopped. Now again that must be a Friday ready for cleaning and it's not like him leaving a feed on unless he's had a fire and stopped before they got on again. 'Cause if you have a fire you knock the devil off, you stop them completely, if it’s a small one you just stop that row.
Yes. Now this in the room down below?
R - yes, this is the room underneath the blending room. It’s a devil hole.
Devil Hole.
R- No wonder they got that name, Devil Hole.
Yes, I’ve seen it and it always amazes me.
R- And I think it’s originally how it got it’s name because they called them Devils because they fired so damned much. Like the old fashioned folk, such as our grandparents saying “The bloody Devils are firing again!!” Like ‘devil’ used to be a swear word for our grandparents whereas it isn’t now. So you said “Devil!” And so it like got it’s name from swearing at the things firing rather than ….
Yes. I wonder what’s the proper name for them. Breaking down machines I should think.
R- Well, I would say they would be something like a breaking down machine but they could break a lot more than cotton too. They took one blokes head off did them, right off!
Did they? Really?
R- Took another bloke’s thumb off, because Sam Riding, one of the directors, it had stuck to… Again the bloke were doing what he shouldn't be doing, lifting the cover up before it had actually stopped. It had been knocked off but devils take a quarter of an hour to stop from the time they press the button. So again, if you’ve got your hand caught that’s really what them guards were put on for, so that you can't get too close to them but they are also damned inconvenience too. All right for that factory inspector saying "Do this, do that for safety”, but it doesn’t help the work. It can make it damned hard work and that really does make it hard work. Like you can only feed on that at the back, and if you’ve got three devils and that’s clearing in two minutes.
(35 min)(750)
Now you've got three to feed. It could take you two minutes if it needs sorting out, if there’s some rough stuff in. Now you can’t send lumps through because of the tendency to fire on lumps. So you’re sorting it out and by the time you’ve finished that you’ve got to start on this one again. So it got that you are non stop feeding all three. Well, without them guards you could feed a full lattice .. It takes five minutes to feed in. So you got time to feed, if you’d fed all three you could sit down and watch them for a second. But you are sorting out with that guard, feeding on the back of each one, you don’t get a minute. And it’s all right, like I say for those Factory
Inspectors with their little rules and so on. Like on this front big wheel on the devil here, see, it’s covered in. Now every Friday all them have to come out and the same with them at the other side, you can see they’re covered in. Now all you’ve got is a finger tip to hold them and they are a fair weight. I’ve had my fingers trapped there, somebody slipping off and my fingers were underneath. Well before they went on, you could get hold at the wheel like that, no way your fingers were going to slip off them. But they said you could get your arm through them and get it trapped. But them wheels on there, they only move slow. Now I could understand it if it was one of them fast wheels, like your one with your rope drives on, now them are fast, they really shift do them, they need guards on. But a thing that is going slow, if someone is going to leave their arm in long enough to get their arm trapped they deserve it. 'Cause I think it takes a minute to turn completely. If you are going to leave your arm in a minute while it's turning then you want your arm trapping . There is no way it could happen. Again, it’s more of a hindrance to us than a safety measure. I think there’s four or five of us had our fingers trapped. Like if you’re greasing or oiling you tend to have a bit on the end of your fingers so if you get hold of them it just slips off, it’s not your finger that catches it, it’s the person at the other side. And by the time you’ve shouted it’s too late, it falls that fast you’re fingers are trapped. Because you’re watching your own hand not what your partners doing. Well, when you’ve done it long enough…You're used to your partner, you are not watching what he’s doing, you know what he should be doing. But if it slips off and your fingers are underneath and it damn well hurts. Like there’s two steel rollers and there’s no gap, well very little gap, I don’t think there is more than an eighth of an inch between them so you’ve got your fingers which are about a half an inch, a fair crunch when it comes down. You do shout ten! And again, if you’ve noticed in them pictures there’s two buckets in the alley way because if it’s only a small fire a bucket of water will put it out. See, the more water you put on the longer it takes to dry out and the longer you have to wait before you can set it on again. And all the time it’s stopped it’s losing money. So you use as little water as possible. Again, if you put too much on you’ve a chance of rusting something, it doesn’t matter how much you clean, sometimes it’ll rust. Like it is now with them kids the other day. It’s really rusty now.
What, the devils?
R -A lot of things. No they got some kids broke in the other day.
Really?
R - When were it? T’other Sunday, and they let eighteen fire extinguishers off all over the cards, all over the scutcher, turned those pipes all over everything. Spinning room was flooded. In fact they were stopped all day Monday just cleaning up before they could even try to set on. And like they had hose pipes on there, well they are rusted, the mixers are not running now but it would have been the same if they had been running, you’d have had a job a real full day cleaning up again before you could set on. But as I say your fire buckets are there so if it’s only a small fire you can use them. That saves using your hose pipe, like you can see one hose pipe on your left, near enough the middle of the picture where the drive belt is on the left hand side. If you look at the bottom of there you’ll see another hose pipe there. Now where this photographs been taken from , on the wall where it’s been taken from, there is a bigger hose pipe, it’s the one we use more than any of the others because it has a bigger jet on it, you can get at the fire better plus the fact that it will reach right to the other end of the devil hole. Now these on the side, and same on the other side wall, they’re shorter, they’ll only reach about two cylinders. And again, aye, you can just about see the reel on the top at the right hand side, there is another big hose pipes up at the top end. So, if you’ve got a big fire and you put your fire bell on , if your grinders are coming in from the card room like, they’d come through the rubber doors at the top there and they can go straight to the big hose pipe if it’s a big fire. If it’s only a small one they won’t bother they’ll come and help where you are.
Now they've got six cylinders haven't they, those devils?
R- Yes, there’s three rows each with six cylinders. There’s two rope drives on the front of each devil and two rope drives at the back of them. Now you can just see on the left, at the bottom on this left hand side one. Now the top on the right hand side there you have a belt drive that runs from the right hand side on this front lot and from the left hand side at the back, opposite to where your rope drives are. See, it drives from the back end of your rope drive on the front one and in the back end of the rope drive from the far side. So you’ve got your belts running, one drives the front three cylinders and your back one drives your back three cylinders. And they drive off a shaft that comes straight out of the motor as drives all the lot. There’s one motor, you just see the doorway to it, half way down the left hand side. Inside there’s a big motor and by big, I mean big.
It will have to be to drive them all.
R- What is it? The motor itself is about two feet high and four feet wide, round about four feet square and about two feet high, that’s just the motor itself. Then it has ‘V’ belts in that drive actually running off the motor to drive the shaft. Now have you ever seen them ‘V’ belts, them pieced ‘V’ belts? [Dawson Speedona were a very common make in the larger sizes] Now they’re normally about that size and pieced together with rivets like it's what shall I say, well on the devils and the jumbo like you get an ordinary drive and on most of your smaller motors the individual pieces in the belt are about two inches long. Each piece before they make the belt up, and about half an inch wide. Now that is each piece and there are a lot in an ordinary belt. Now in the devil hole drive, them pieces are about 12 inches long and three inches wide and about two inches deep. So you can imagine the size and I think there’s four belts on. So you can imagine what power there has to be to drive four that size and that drives all the devils now. This first row, well you can’t just see it but there is a girder up above and there’s a smaller motor on there which will drive just one row. They put it on originally because that big motor is that old they’d have a job replacing it if it went badly wrong, that’d be it, finished. Like small things they have managed to replace them like new control boxes and wire boxes and so on, they’ve replaced them but the old motor, the big one, if that went badly wrong it’s that old they couldn’t replace it. Well they got that one motor on the girder to see whether it would run one row. And again they were thinking like if they got a big fire you’ve to knock the other motor off and stop all three rows. You couldn’t run two and fight the fire. But it also, well if you had one motor on each row you could stop that one row and just use the other two.
While it dried out?
R- Yes, or while somebody were cleaning it up, you could still run the other two rows.
Yes, right.
R - And you wouldn’t, like that motor was, Now I don’t know what it would cost now but five years ago it cost five pounds just to start that motor. So if you’ve got to knock it off because you’ve a fire it’s costing you, well I’ll bet it’s costing ten pounds now to start it. Ten pounds is a lot of money just to start a machine up where it wouldn’t need to be if you could just stop that one row.
SCG/02 July 2003
7,606 words.