FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

1979 in Bancroft Engine House. Newton Pickles watching John Plummer oiling the engine up. We put anti-freeze in the air pump just in case and had flooded the bores with oil as we ran the engine for the last time. All preparations to protect the engine as well as possible for it's spell of hibernation.

[Stanley]

On the 22nd of September 1934 the Dennis main seam in Gresford pit in North Wales fired killing 256 men who left 200 widows and 800 children. The seam was sealed with the bodies inside it and from then until the pit closed in November 1973 the miners went down the pit to work with 245 bodies still walled up with them.
Accidents like this should never be forgotten. The price of coal.

[Stanley]

Today is the 89th anniversary of Gresford. Give those lads a thought, they are still down there in the Dennis Main seam even though the colliery is long gone.



The present day memorial.

[Stanley]

Bellerophon at Haworth in 2001 after being rebuilt by the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway.

[Stanley]

I don't know where I got this image or where it was taken but it says so much about what used to be called 'The Wakes'. It looks to me as though it was immediately post war, everybody is in their daily wardrobe, evidently no spending on holiday clothes.....

[Stanley]

I started off on another tack this morning but then got diverted when I realised that the name Brooke Bond which was with me for most of my life had vanished. I went for a furtle and came up with this....
By 1957, Brooke Bond was probably the largest tea company in the world, with one third share of both the British and Indian tea markets. The company merged with Liebig in 1968, becoming Brooke Bond Liebig, which was acquired by Unilever in 1984. The Brooke Bond name was significantly decreased by Unilever, however, the Brooke Bond tea brand was reintroduced on sale in 2019 in the UK after a 20 year absence.
However, there was very little mention of an episode in their advertising history that eventually ended in controversy, was it cruel to use the chimps in the advertisements. This is what triggered my enquiry off, I started with the question; How many of you recognise this quotation, "Do you ride tandem?"

[Stanley]

Jim Pollard's looming frame in the preparation department at Bancroft on the last day the mill ran in December 1978. All work in here had ceased as soon as we started to weave out and eventually Jim took the frame home with him, set it up in his garage and carried on looming freelance for Bendems at Wellhouse.
All new orders had been set up on this frame by Jim who was an expert at cloth construction. He was also expert in using healds and reeds we had in stock by modifying them and saving the firm money.
Knowing all this makes this scene an incredibly sad one for me. At the deepest level it is the death of the expertise that made us weavers for the world. All gone now. A Forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

Skipton Gala in 1978. In those days car salesmen saw value in promoting the local MP. I wonder whether they would see things the same way today? I think this may be a forgotten corner, we aren't in the mood for galas or promoting MPs

[Stanley]

Bancroft Mill in 1963. As always, old images like this repay a bit of trouble taken interrogating them. Its a normal working day in June, I know this because the whitewashing of the weaving shed roof windows has been started but not completed. There's a fair load on the engine, if there wasn't there would be a trace of smoke at the chimney top. The tannery across the road from the mill is still a small isolated building, its expansion under old Sid Demaine into a small farm hasn't started yet. The new building to the East of the mill along Colne Road hasn't started yet....
As for what doesn't show in the image, it was not a very prosperous time, there were economic troubles but on the whole we had more security then and life was improving steadily. This was the aftermath of the worst winter since 1947 and we were all glad for a bit of warmth!

[Stanley]

Cloth in Bancroft Shed warehouse in 1977. Bancroft was the last mill running in Barlick and the terminal decline hadn't yet started so this was one of the last times anyone would see what used to be a common sight in a score of other mills. Loom state cotton cloth waiting to be exported from the town. It's still a source of wonder to me that such a well established and honest trade could be extinguished so rapidly by market forces. Definitely a forgotten corner.
Incidentally, Jim Pollard told me next year as we were weaving out that Bancroft was still running at a profit. That's the Market for you!

[Stanley]

Dropping names to David in another thread about Richard Hoggart I was reminded of this.
On Friday October 7th 1932 there was an account in the Craven Herald of the Earby inquest on Albert Hoggarth aged 38, engine tenter of James Street Salterforth. He had been found hanging from a girder over the turbine shaft at Dotcliffe Mill where he was the engineer. In itself a forgotten corner.
However, reading this account reminded me of something Newton Pickles told me which is another forgotten corner embedded in this account. Shortly after the death Newton was one of the workers from Henry Brown Sons and Pickles who went down to Dotcliffe to do a maintenance job on the turbine. While they were there the mill manager asked them to cut down the rope that had been left on the girder when the body was cut down. He said it was upsetting the workers but none of them would go up the permanent ladder to the girder to cut it down.
Only a small matter but I'll bet this thread is the only place in the world where you'll find it mentioned. A proper forgotten corner.....

[Stanley]

Dotcliffe Mill, Kelbrook, after the fire of 20/05/1959, one of the victims of the infamous (And never caught!) Fire Bug

[Stanley]

An old PC of Dotcliffe at Kelbrook, you can see the mill chimney behind the cottages to the left. This used to be an important route as it gave access to the more direct tracks on the moor than ran beteen Skipton and Colne.

[Wendyf]

The houses on the right of the lane were originally an Inn known as Halfway House but it didn't survive far into the 19th century and the arrival of the toll road. Its now split into 2 or 3 cottages. A little known fact is that during the war Terence Stamp and his mother were evacuated from London and stayed with Mrs Watson in one of those cottages.

[Stanley]

George and Doreen Crowther, two of my favourite people. This would be in about 1985 I think. Gone but not forgotten. I tripped over this image when refreshing another post and thought it was such a nice snap it deserved posting here.....

[Wendyf]

I would like to have met Doreen. Where was the photo taken Stanley?

[Stanley]

I can't remember Wendy..... A restaurant in Nelson I think.

[Wendyf]

The carafe of house wine must be a forgotten corner!

[Stanley]

The corner of Newtown and King Street in August 2012. Nothing really significant about this image but it does illustrate quite nicely how we attach a deeper meaning to the word 'corner'. (The tiny coffee shop was known as 'Coffee Corner') I have lots of images of locations in and around the town that are known by the name 'corner'. some as a physical change of direction, some as a different word for 'nook'.
Come to think we have another example of a usage in the title of this topic......

[Stanley]

Here's another example and I'm not sure how it got the name 'Amen Corner'. Was it the home of a divine or is it a corruption of another name?

[Steeplejerk]

Was there a band in the 60s called amen Corner

[Wendyf]

Yes....

[Tripps]

Or it might refer to Augusta National Golf Course but I very much doubt it.

[Steeplejerk]

It must be a common term if a band named themselves

[Stanley]

One more corner to ponder on. This Francis Frith PC is well worth studying. The Post Office still has that wonderful solid brass panel that held the clock, stamp machines and letter boxes. No railings guarding the road, No pedestrian crossing and the original shops still in business. Call me old -fashioned but I preferred that configuration as opposed to the betting shop and 'charity shop' that occupy the space now.