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Doc
Keeper of the Scrolls


2010 Posts
Posted -  17/05/2004  :  12:58
EARBY, 1956 TO 1959


I arrived home in July 1956 with my National Service behind me. The three years since I had left Stockport Grammar School had been quite productive, I had learned a hell of a lot but was acutely aware of how much there still was that I knew nothing about. With hindsight, I was far more street-wise but still basically a young lad, in terms of relationships and emotions I was completely ignorant. True I knew how to kill people, destroy tanks and blow things up but the only concrete addition to my armoury was my driving license. In terms of civilian life, this was my sole qualification.



Father’s eyes were very bad and he was waiting to go into Burnley for cataract operations on both eyes. These were traumatic cataracts and father and the eye surgeon had worked out that they were probably a delayed result of an experiment with dynamite he had carried out as a boy in Australia. He’d put a piece on the anvil and hit it with a hammer! Years later he told me that it blew the hammer out of his hand and straight through the tin roof of the shed he was in. He was blind for a while but had recovered and thought there were no ill effects. 50 years later it was catching up with him.



I took over his role in the shop and soon got into the routine of selling boiled ham and firelighters! Actually, the shop was another valuable piece of experience, I learned about retailing, greengrocery and dealing with the public. We also ran a mobile shop round the district to outlying farms and I soon got to know lots of people and got an intimate knowledge of the roads and tracks. There were three businesses in Sough Mill next door to us, The Forecast Foundry, Bristol Tractors and Kelbrook Metal products. They were a good source of trade to us, we were the nearest shop and sold them bacon butties in the morning, sit down lunches at dinnertime and fags all day. We were also the communication centre for the local street bookmaker, Chris Demain who was in and out all day sending bets through to his bookmaker. The day of the supermarket hadn’t arrived and so every one in Sough bought groceries from us. We did it the old-fashioned way and if someone brought an order in we’d deliver it. The one thing we wouldn’t do was give credit over the counter, apart from the monthly accounts run by the farmers we had no debts at all.



We sold everything you could imagine. It was very seldom that someone came in the door and asked for something we didn’t stock. I even sold a bloke some upright gas mantles with stays one day, God knows how long they had been in stock! We made our own ice cream and boiled our own ham and tongue. Years later there was a programme on TV called ‘Open All Hours’, this was the story of Arkwright the archetypal corner shop proprietor. It made me laugh whenever I saw it because whoever wrote it had done his research well, it completely captured the atmosphere of a small mixed business. As I said later in an interview for BBC Radio, an Arkwright has to perform all the tasks that are needed to keep a large corporation going but he has no help, he has to do everything himself. It was a noble profession!



Just about everything we sold in the grocery line was bought from a wholesale warehouse in Colne called Duckworths. Their traveller would come round once a week and take our order and it would be delivered later in the week. The driver of Duckworths delivery truck was called Luther Bannister and his mate was a young lad called John Northage. It’s funny how your memory can play you tricks, John eventually started his own building business and I used him for all my local jobs. Judy, his wife was to enter the story again when she worked at Bancroft Shed as a winder. I’d forgotten all about John working for Duckworths until he mentioned it one day a few weeks ago. As soon as he said it, everything came back to me as clearly as though it was yesterday. One thing we agreed on was that the old warehouse in Spring Lane at Colne was a rabbit warren of stairs and nooks and corners. Like all old-fashioned grocery establishments it smelt wonderfully of cheese, coffee and spices. Everything nowadays is pre-packed and that essential ingredient of shopping for me, the smell of the food, is missing. We bought butter, sugar, bacon and biscuits in bulk and weighed them out in whatever quantity the customer wanted.



It was bloody hard work. Mother and I ran the whole shebang, father helped where he could but was increasingly handicapped. He was depressed as well because the decision to finish at GGA and move to Sough had been forced on him. Perhaps it would be as well to tell the story of how this came about now.



After the war GGA had quickly moved back into its core business of manufacturing cooking appliances. They had been taken over by Allied Ironfounders at some point and a major re-investment was taking place. I remember before I went in the army that father was very busy planning and supervising a new roller hearth furnace for firing the cast iron enamel ware and then a new type of furnace for sheet metal parts. He collaborated on the design and launch of the Rayburn solid fuel stove and helped with the re-launch of the Aga.



The story of the Aga was interesting. At some point AI had got the rights from Sweden to manufacture and market the Aga cooker in UK. They set up the line, started making it and found they couldn’t sell it. They had a rethink and in the end he and Dr. Greig, one of his colleagues, re-designed the exterior, doubled the price and did some good advertising. Aga sales took off and never looked back.



Sometime in 1954/55 there was a re-organisation of the main board of Allied Ironfounders. I have an idea the outgoing Chairman was called Jimmy Wren. Father had a good reputation with the firm and had close links with many of the senior staff because at some time or another many of them had trained under him. His reputation was enhanced when he got the MBE for war services. However, when the new men took over he was seen as one of the old school, he knew where too many bodies were buried and some one somewhere made the decision to get rid of him. What follows is the story father told me.



A bloke called Jimmy Braine was sent up to GGA from one of the branches of AI in the south, I think it may have been Sunbury. He was a marketing man and father got on well with him. He was a frequent visitor to Napier Road and father introduced him to his mates in Manchester. One day Jimmy came to father and told him that the reason he had been sent to GGA was to dig the dirt on him so that the Board could accuse him of dishonesty and sack him. He said that when he was given the job it meant nothing to him but as he got to know father he became his friend and realised that he couldn’t keep quiet about it. Jimmy had been in the navy during the war and he told father that there was a Naval Intelligence file on him and that he (Jimmy) had got a copy of it through his contacts. It covered everything in his life from when he had deserted from the Anzacs in 1919 right up to the war years. Nothing in it reflected badly on father but Jimmy wanted him to know that the Board had it as an indication of how seriously they were taking the matter.



As far as I can work out, sometime in 1955 father was hauled up in front of the Board and accused of stealing. He was presented with a list of all the items he was alleged to have taken. Thanks to Jimmy’s warning, father was prepared, he called in his solicitor who was waiting outside and produced paid invoices for everything on the list. Evidently the Board had gone through the records and were hoping father wouldn’t have his copies of receipted invoices but they reckoned without his habit of keeping bits of paper and the fact that he had been forewarned.



The outcome was that the case against him fell through but father resigned in disgust. The terms were that he got paid up to the end of the year, his pension was paid in full and started that day. I’m sure he could have taken them for a lot more but this was what he got. He left GGA immediately and never went back. I still have a pile of letters that he received from every level of industry expressing shock at what had happened. Nowadays ‘downsizing’ is an art form, in those days it was only just beginning and the management hadn’t quite perfected their techniques.



So, father found himself out of a job at 62 years of age and needed to make a living. He was not in good health due to a combination of being gassed in the Great War, smoking 60 fags a day all his life and being grossly overworked during WWII. In the end he settled for the shop at Sough and they moved. He wasn’t easy to live with and mother told me he’d made her and Dorothy’s lives a misery. Things were slightly better when I came back but not a lot! Looking back I can understand how bitter he was. He never said what his original plans for retirement were but I suspect it would have included a lot of gardening and staying in touch with his mates. The last thing he wanted was an entirely new start but that was what was forced on him. When we are in a position like this we usually take it out on the people we know and trust best because that way we know we can indulge the emotion and not get hurt. This is, in my estimation, exactly what father was doing and I bear him no grudge.



Father’s health and mental outlook notwithstanding, mother and I did the best we could. I helped with the shop whenever I wasn’t out going round the farms with the Bedford Dormobile Van we had fitted out as a mobile shop. I always helped with the morning rush, mother and I were quite a team, she made bacon butties as fast as I could sell them, we were very busy. Despite all this, we couldn’t make money. Our problem was that the shop was, in effect, paying four wages because we were all living off it. We had an overdraft at the bank which was Lloyds in Burnley and I made regular trips down there to see Mr Batkin the Manager who was a gent. He was a bank manager out of the old school and was very supportive.



Round about this time I started drinking quite a bit. Nothing serious and it was all beer but I was spending more time in the Craven Heifer at Kelbrook than was good for me. The landlord was Jimmy Talbot and his wife was called Gladys. They kept a good old-fashioned pub and the regulars were fascinating. It turned out that Jimmy was as bent as a nine bob note, he followed me into the gents one night and made ‘advances’ but soon backed off when I told him he was in great danger of having his lights put out! This aside, he was a good landlord and kept a clean house. It was Jimmy who showed me the right way to clean a table top. You should always wipe under the edge of a table when you have done the top. If you don’t, any beer that has spilled dries on under the edge. Next time you are in a pub, run your finger under the edge of the table and I’ll bet a pound to a penny that you feel little lumps of dried beer under there!



The regulars were a delight. There was ‘Dobbin’ Berry and Charlie Lancaster, both farmers in the village. They were always together and had a lovely life. They went to market at Skipton and Gisburn twice a week and both smoked black twist. I remember them going to Gisburn Races one year, this was an amateur steeplechase run by the Craven Harriers, the local hunt. I saw them in the pub after they had returned and asked them how they had gone on. Dobbin said that they’d had a good day, they’d backed every winner bar the last one and if they’d had any money left they’d have had that one as well! The point was that all the winners were short price favourites and Dobbin and Charlie were drinking the winnings faster than they could make them.



A regular customer was Ted Lancaster (no relation to Charlie), he used to come in at about six o’clock and stay until about nine. He drove for West Marton Dairies near Skipton and was always on his way home with a load of empty bottles from Nelson when he called in. He used to park his wagon outside and get about five pints down his neck before he went home to Dorothy for his tea. He lived in the street behind the shop at Sough and so we were neighbours. I got on well with Eddie and it wasn’t long before I was going with him to Nelson on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon, helping him with the work, doing a bit of driving and having a few drinks on the way round. There was no pay but I was never short of milk and cream and it all helped. I was as fit as a butcher’s dog of course in those days and the heavy work of shifting bottles and cans was nothing to me. After a while Eddie would send me on my own with the wagon. I’m sure that Mr Peacock, the manager and partner in the dairy, didn’t know anything about this but who cared.



Soon I was doing days off for Eddie and getting paid by the dairy for doing it, his brother Eric drove for WMD as well and I learned his round and did days off for him. I was getting quite a bit of work and still keeping up with the shop. I got 50/- for a day, it doesn’t sound like much now but in 1956 you could keep a family off that. In 1958 Eddie told me that Harrison Brothers were looking for a driver full time. During the summer you started at 02.00 in the morning and finished at dinnertime so it would fit in with my farm rounds and shop work if mother got some help in the mornings. By this time father had had his operations and though not 100% he was fit to serve in the shop so I set on for Harrisons with an almost new Bedford S type diesel 7 tonner and was King of the Road. The wage was £8-10-0 a week for seven days, start when you like, finish when you can.



Harrison Brothers was a small haulage firm operating from Smearber Farm, Elslack and was owned by two brothers, Jack and Billy Harrison. Jack lived at the farm with his wife Corinne who taught at Springfield School Earby. Billy lived in Thornton in Craven at Ivy house, half way down the hill on the same side as the shop. His wife Beryl (though she liked to be called Fran) did no work, she considered herself above such mundane things. Old William Harrison, the father, was a farmer at Smearber Farm, Elslack but had started the in business as a coal merchant to supplement their income. By 1958 they were full time hauliers concentrating on contract work for the dairy, picking up all the farm milk and carrying three loads of bottles a day, one to the WMD depot in Skipton, one to Keighley depot and one to Davies Dairy at Bradford which was owned by WMD and run by ‘Cowboy’ Jack Dennison. They had four wagons in all, My S Type diesel Bedford, TWY 972 which had an ‘A’ license, it could carry anything for anybody, I did cans and Keighley bottles, Billy’s J type Bedford which had a ‘B’ license and could carry our own goods and some for other people, this did local cans only, another S Type with a 22ft, flat which did cans and the Bradford bottles and was driven by Harold Stone and lastly, Jack’s wagon which was a Neville forward control conversion of a J type Bedford, he did cans and Skipton bottles. Both the latter ran on ‘Contract A’ licenses which sanctioned carriage of other people’s goods but only on the contract specified in the license. We were paid for the depot to depot bottle haulage and the farm pick up of raw milk by the Milk Marketing Board.



The Neville was without any doubt the ugliest and most uncomfortable wagon I ever saw in my life. The idea was that by fitting a forward control cab instead of the standard Bedford bonneted one you could gain an extra 18” on the length of the flat. At the same time Harrisons built the flat about 6” wider than normal so it would take 6 cans or stacks of milk in a straight line across the flat instead of having to stagger one row. The idea was superb as regards loading but there were two major drawbacks: the extra 6” in the width meant that it was far harder to get it through narrow gateways and remember, at that time most farm gateways had been built with horse drawn vehicles in mind which were far smaller and more manoeuvrable. The second problem was that because the weight had been moved forward there was a lot more weight on the steering. The Bedford J type was never light on the steering when loaded and in those days there was no such thing as power steering. It was almost impossible to steer especially when cans were decked up on the front. We used to oil the king pins in the steering about three times a week. The procedure was to jack up the axle to take the weight off the pins and inject oil into them while the thrust bearings were open. Even this treatment couldn’t make the Neville driveable. Someone at some point, I think it was Harold Stone, addressed the problem by taking off the original steering wheel and substituting a larger diameter one which was originally off a bus. The only problem with this was that it was very close to the windscreen and you had to be careful your fingers weren’t at the front when you went over a bump because if they were, you stood a good chance of having them trapped as the cab flexed. This extra leverage helped the steering but played hell with the steering box and its mountings. Jack was once coming over Priestholme bridge at Gargrave when the bottom bearing detached itself from the casing. The consequence was that instead of steering round the sharp left-hand bend the wheel screwed up like a piano stool and the wagon carried on forwards straight through a closed gate into the field!



Priestholme sticks in my mind for another reason. There is a small area under the lee of the railway embankment which for some reason is called New Brighton. Robert’s travelling circus used to winter there in the 50’s and 60’s and Bob Taylforth of Priestholme farm used to take their muck and spread it on the land. He once told me that you had to be careful with the tiger muck, it had to be mixed with the elephant dung or else it burned the grass off it was so strong! Now there’s a bit of horticultural information you won’t come across very often!



One place I remember where the deficiencies of the Bedford’s steering were demonstrated every time was the sharp ‘U’ turn at Thornton off the Barnoldswick Road on to the main A56. You had to get in exactly the right place because half way round the turn, as the wagon went over the steep camber on to the main road and the chassis flexed, the steering would lock solid on full lock and you couldn’t free it until the back wheels had crossed the camber and the chassis had straightened out. Any deficiency in your original course was disastrous as you couldn’t reverse up the steep slope to gain steering, you had to get it right first time.



West Marton Dairies was a small bottling dairy and creamery which was originally started by Sir Amos Nelson’s brother Gilbert. Sir Amos had made his money in cotton manufacturing in Nelson and was very rich. He owned Gledstone Hall and all the land around, including the village. The dairy was first started to deal with the estate’s farm milk and gradually expanded until it was the largest bottling plant between Blackburn and Bradford. There were large piggeries at the back of the dairy. Originally started by Gilbert Nelson to provide an outlet for skim milk from the creamery production, by 1958 they had been sold to Marshalls who were pig farmers at Bradley near Skipton. The pigman was Harry Addyman and later he kept the shop in the village as well, his wife ran it.



In 1958 WMD’s main business was bottling milk and making cream. Some surplus milk was separated and made into butter but this was not regular production then. This side of the business grew in later years. I took over my job from Ernest Hartley who was a good lad, I’d known him for a couple of years while I was spare-driver for the dairy. I spent a week with him learning the pick-up places and then I was on my own. My job was slightly different than the others and it was the reason why Ernie wanted to finish. The Keighley depot fridge wasn’t big enough to hold the quantity of milk we took there so in summer, milk delivered in the afternoon for next day delivery would get to a dangerously high temperature. The solution was to refrigerate it at Marton and take it in first thing in the morning on the day it was needed. As there were two other drops, one at Crosshills near Cowling and one at Crossflatts on the other side of Keighley and in addition, you had to load 8 tons of milk on your own at Marton, you had to be at the dairy loading by 03.00 in the morning, every morning, seven days a week.



My days work then was to get up at 02.00, I had the wagon at home with me so I had to drive in to the dairy, back into the bottle dock and open the fridge. The bottles were in stacks of five crates, 20 pint bottles to a crate. Each crate weighed 56lbs so a stack was two and a half hundredweight (118kg.). There were usually 72 stacks but the back ones might not be full ones. A full load would be 9 tons. The good thing about this was that it was downhill from the fridge to the wagon but even so, it took 45 minutes average to load up. We put the firmest stacks on the outside and any dodgy ones in the middle. The only fastening was a rope across the back of the load. Then drive to Sutton, near Crosshills and drop about ten crates at a retailer who was waiting for them, next stop Mr Dover at Crossflatts on the other side of Keighley then back to Keighley depot where, with a bit of luck, Wilf would be waiting for me.



Wilf was my helper at Keighley, I set the crates on the side of the wagon and he lifted them down on to the floor. Then he would chuck the empties up and I would stack them. The only problem was that Wilf was steward at a working man’s club in Keighley and if he had got loaded the night before he might miss. If he did, all I could do was get on with it myself. Many a time I lifted the whole lot off and loaded the empties myself. Your hands got very hard and used to crack at the joints, I’ve seen me leave blood all round the steering wheel as I left after doing a solo run. I used to waken in the morning with my hands set like claws because the blood in the cracks on my finger joints had dried and shrunk during the night. My first job when I got up was to run the hot water and hold my hands in it until the skin softened up. I look at them now and marvel at the way the human body can repair itself, I never suffered any permanent damage.



I got half an hours rest as I drove back to Marton where I unloaded the empty bottles on the dock in front of the washers and then went round to the can dock to load my clean, empty kits for the first of three loads of cans. The 18ft. flat held 82 kits and if we needed any more because production was high, we would deck up the first few rows behind the headboard on planks and rope them on. 82 full kits weighed just short of 7 tons and we could get another 2 tons on the deck. We picked the cans up on the road side usually, on some big farms we would go into the yard. The full cans were on a milk stand at roughly the same height as the wagon. I would pull the same amount of empties off as there were full ones and then throw the full ones on in their place. Every can had a ticket on saying how much there was and which farm it came from.



Back at the dairy we backed into the can dock and unloaded the cans one at a time on to a short conveyor which led to Jack, the tipper. I put the cans off in order and he weighed each farmer’s milk into the dump tank from where it went, through filters and a cooling coil, to the storage tanks. Jack would sniff each can of milk to make sure it was good because one dirty can could contaminate a whole tank. From Jack, the cans went to the washer and emerged at the back of the dock as clean, dry, sterilised cans ready for re-loading. WMD was on galvanised twelve gallon cans in those days. An empty weighed 48 pounds and a full one 168 which was exactly what I weighed stripped off. I mention this because many a time I had to lift the cans off the floor on to the flat. It’s hard to believe now but I used to throw them into place in the middle of the wagon flat. I was talking to a young friend of mine some time ago and he told me that it would be illegal now to expect an employee to lift the empty can, never mind a full one!



When I had finished my third load I didn’t put the empties back on, they were stacked at the back of the dock to await my return from Keighley the following day. I would fill up with diesel if I needed it, have a crack with Wallace Neave and Tony Midgely in the WMD garage and then get back to Sough with an empty wagon ready for the next day..



Three days a week when I got to Sough I had to go out straight out on the farm round with the mobile shop. Father would have stocked the van up for me so I would have a quick bite to eat and away. The rounds took on average 4 hours so by the time I was back and had taken the perishable goods out of the van and stowed them in the fridges in the shop, it was about 19:00. Just time for a quick bite and then into bed ready for the off at 02:00 the following day.



This was the routine all summer, no holidays, less time for the pub and far too much work. Mother worried about me and that winter, 1957, I went down with Asian Flu. I have never felt as ill in my life and it was the first time since I was a child that my mother had to send for the doctor. Arthur Morrison was my doctor in Earby and he was wonderful. The best way to explain how he treated me that winter is to take you forward 25 years. I called round at his house, Windy Ridge, in Thornton one day and Kim, his wife, who was a doctor too and partner with Arthur at Earby, said that I was out of luck because he was in bed with flu. I said I’d go and sick visit him. I think she smelt a rat because she followed me up and stood outside the bedroom door. “Now then Arthur, how are we today!” he looked awful. “Bugger off, I’ve got a bad dose of flu.” “Come on Arthur, the trouble with you is you never have anything wrong with you and when you get a bit of an infection like this you think the world is coming to an end. Take plenty of aspirin and fruit juice and stay in bed for a couple of days. A drop of whisky won’t harm either.” He shot upright in bed and was as mad as a wet hen. I told him it served him right, that was exactly what he had said to me 25 years before when I had the same thing! Give him his due, he saw the funny side of it, I spent an hour with him and then went home. Mrs Morrison said it served him right and she would tell all her friends. I think she drove Arthur mad with it in the end.



Thinking about Asian Flu reminds me of when I had a bad cold while working for Lionel Gleed. He said he knew what would cure me and dosed me with Day’s Red Drink in hot milk. This was a cattle medicine and I found out in later years that the chief constituent in it was strychnine! I have to admit it cured me but I can remember having a very bad night.



I’m struck as I write this how much things have changed in respect of the way we look after our health. Things were different fifty years ago, we didn’t automatically think that a doctor had the cure for everything. Indeed, those of us who could remember Diphtheria, TB, Scarlet Fever and many other diseases which modern medicine seems to have eradicated knew for certain that there were many ailments which doctors could do nothing about. If we had something wrong with us our first instinct was to self-medicate. I still do it now and doctor my own dogs as well. Mind you, I’m not saying that we never went to the doctor, just that we relied far more on our own resources. I remember particularly the time at Sough when I found I had a carbuncle under my arm. I never hear about carbuncles these days, they were a nest of boils which could be extremely painful and, if it was sited in a part of the body that had no spare flesh, like the back of the neck, could put so much pressure on the underlying structures like the spine that they could be fatal.



Mine was in my armpit and was very painful. I poulticed it myself for a while but in the end went to the doctor. He gave me penicillin and zinc and castor oil ointment for the dressing. It faded away and healed up but came back again under my other arm. I carried on working but it was very hard and one day as I was making my regular delivery to Mother Hanson at Admergill Farm, Blacko she asked me what was wrong with me. Old Mrs. Hanson was a real character, she used to keep the Moorcock Inn on Coldweather in the days when they brewed their own beer. Sally Carter, who lived with her husband Jim just above Green Bank farm on Gisburn Old Track used to work for her in those days and she often told me about how busy they used to be in the days when a trip out to a pub on the moors like the Moorcock was the only holiday many workers ever saw. At the time when I knew her she lived in a small cottage in the yard of her son’s farm. I seem to remember there were only two rooms and she always had a coal fire roaring up the chimney even in the middle of summer because she did all her cooking on it. She still wore long dresses down to the ground and was a throw-back to Victorian times.



I told her I had a carbuncle and she told me to take my shirt off and let her have a look. She’d just given me my usual mug of tea and whisky so it seemed churlish to refuse. Off came the shirt and vest, she had a look and told me she had just the thing for it! She rooted about in one of the drawers and produced a piece of what looked like yellow candle wrapped in oiled paper. Out of another drawer she produced an old cotton petticoat and tore a strip off the hem. She folded the end and, after warming the candle in front of the fire she smeared some of it on the bandage and clapped it on the carbuncle while it was still hot. I don’t think I’ve ever had such pain in my life! She held it on until it had cooled a bit and then wrapped the rest of the bandage round my upper arm and shoulder and secured it with a safety pin and some sticky tape. “Leave that on until I see you next week!” she said. I asked her what the yellow stuff was and she told me it was ‘diathrum’. I had a look at it the following week and found it was actually ‘Diatherm’ which was a horse medicine! God knows what was in it but I left it alone until the following week when she repeated the treatment. It was worse that time because I knew what was coming!



I had told father about this and he was very interested to know how it was going on. He kept pestering me and on the second weekend I finally relented and told him he could have a look because it was feeling a lot easier. I got my shirt off, took the bandage and the poultice off and father gave it his expert attention. “That’s ready for coming out, it’s ripe.” he said. I protested that there was no way I was going to let him muck about with it but in the end he persuaded me and, getting a pair of pliers, he gently got hold of the core and slowly pulled it out. I can’t describe the feeling, it didn’t hurt but I could feel it tugging inside my flesh. Father was right, it was ready, it came out clean and was about the size of an old half-crown with several roots about two inches long on it. All that came out of the wound was a bit of watery blood, there was no doubt about it, Mrs Hanson’s ‘Diathrum’ had done the job! Father cleaned it up, put some disinfectant on a lint pad and bandaged me up again. It had healed perfectly inside a week and Mrs Hanson was delighted that she had succeeded where the doctor had failed. She reckoned that the cause of it was because ‘my blood was too rich’ and she recommended I stop drinking Massey’s Stout and go on to King’s Ale. I did and I never had another carbuncle.



Reading this, I can well imagine what a modern doctor would have to say about this level of home treatment. I can understand this but all I can report is what happened, I had a painful condition and this old lady cured it when penecillin had failed. What more do you need to know?



It wasn’t all work at Sough. I managed to find time at weekends to buy the odd dog or two, go for walks on Kelbrook Moor and get up to mischief at the pub. This included breaking my duck as a virgin in a quarry up Kelbrook Old Road so that was all right! I bought a Jack Russell terrier bitch off Dick Allen at Lower Sandiford Farm, Blacko. I called her Bess and she was a topper, we went miles together both on foot and in the wagon. A relationship with a good dog is a very special thing and I had a beauty there. The sad thing was that Bess had a terrible death. It happened later when we moved to Barlick. She ran onto a broken bottle in some long grass in the field and it slit her belly open. I took her to the vet. He sewed her up and for a while she made a good recovery, she even jumped on my lap one day. Then she went missing and a few days afterwards the RSPCA inspector called in to say that they had found her but had put her down because she was in such a terrible state. Losing a good mate like that because of somebody else’s stupidity is very hard. Mrs Allen made Dorothy’s wedding cake when she got married in 1959. I went up to collect it but called in at the Heifer on the way back and had a skinful. I woke the following morning and realised I had left the bloody thing in the van in the rain all night. Luckily it had come to no harm but it was a bad moment. The wedding with Bill Kinsey went off OK and Dorothy went to live in 40 Norris Avenue next door to where she was born.



The army had never knocked the farming out of me, I even got a bit in while I was in there. While in training three of us who had been farming were sent to help get the harvest in for a farmer called Walter Jackson at Grange Farm, Hatton Heath near Chester. We ran a threshing machine in the harvest field while the locals cut and carted 14 acres of oats. It was a good break from training and we got paid as well! In Germany, while we were at Gatow, me and a couple of mates helped the farmer on the airfield with harvest and on the night of the harvest supper we were setting off for Putlos with the guns. The family came down to the station and brought us our harvest supper to eat on the train and it was very good. Back home, I still leaned towards farm work and I soon got friendly with one of my customers up Old Gisburn Track at the back of Blacko, Abel Taylor, Greenbank Farm. I used to go and give a hand when he needed it, no money ever changed hands, I just enjoyed the work and learning about the way he farmed. If I tell the truth, the fact that he had a lovely daughter, Margaret, was an added attraction. I was very strongly attracted to her at the time but, perhaps luckily, she was only 15 and there was too much of an age gap. I’ve always said that if she’d have been five years older I would have taken some stopping!



I count myself lucky that I helped Abel because he was one of the last farmers I knew who was still farming in the old-fashioned way with a horse. He had a good horse called Dick who was the king pin of almost every operation on the farm. Apart from hay-carting on a small wagon made out of an old Austin Heavy Twelve motor car, if Dick didn’t provide the power it was done by hand! Muck spreading was done the old way, the muck was loaded by hand into a two wheeled cart and then Abel would lead it down the field and I would pull out small heaps with a drag which was a heavy fork with a straight handle which had tines bent over 90 degrees so that it could be used as a rake. The heaps would be left until the frost had broken them down a bit and then Abel and I would go out with a fork apiece and spread the heaps by hand. Once spread the muck was rubbed in with the fork to further break down the clods. The trick was to keep the heaps dragged out of the cart small so that you didn’t have far to throw the muck and could easily reach it to rub it in.



Haymaking was a great event on these high farms, the whole of the farm economy depended on a good hay harvest and as it was done by hand, it was much slower and therefore had more chance of being spoiled by the weather. Abel had a Bamford Two Horse mower with a French water cooled engine driving the cutter bar. It was called a ‘Two Horse’ because if it had been driven in the normal way, by the turning of the wheels as the horse pulled it, two horses would have been needed to pull it. The fact that the cutter bar was driven by the small water cooled engine meant that all the horse had to do was drag the mower round so Dick could manage comfortably on his own. Abel took great pride in the fact he could mow right down to the sod, he took his time about mowing and made a good job. The engine cooling was simply an open topped water jacket round the cylinder and as the mower went round some water would be lost by evaporation but most by simply spilling out as the mower went over uneven ground. An essential part of the equipment was an old baked bean tin and Abel would stop at frequent intervals, bail a drop of water out of the ditch and top up the water jacket.



I remember one day a bloke came to demonstrate a new type of tractor mounted mower which had two rotating drums and could cut grass far faster than a cutter bar. Abel showed him into a small paddock which needed mowing so the lad could demonstrate the machine. We leaned on the gate smoking while we watched him. He went at a hell of a speed, in no time flat he had felled the grass and was coming out. He got off the tractor and asked Abel what he thought. Abel thought for a minute then he said “It’s fast, but I couldn’t help thinking about my dad mowing that piece while I was watching you. When he got on the bottom length he would hang the reins over the handle on the mower, get some twist out, cut some off and rub it up. Then he’d fill his pipe and light it a couple of times before he got across the bottom of the field. It seems to me lad that you wouldn’t even have time to light a fag!” He never bought the mower, he just wanted to see one working and get some grass cut free.



Once the grass was in swathe from the mower it was left to dry for 24 hours in good weather and then had to be turned. Turning the swathe let the bottom side dry and also uncovered the ground it had been laid on and let that dry as well. It was just as important for the ground to be dry as the grass itself. Dry hay on wet ground absorbs the water and will never dry properly. The turning was done by hand with a hay rake, it’s amazing how quickly you can get on when turning but even so, the whole of the field has to be walked and it’s hard work. Everyone turned to for this task, Margaret, her mother Maude and anyone else who could be dragged in, the more the merrier. If your neighbour was slack that day he and his family would come and help and the favour would be returned later. If the weather was good, in another 24 hours it was ready for shaking out. This was done with a shaking machine pulled by the horse and was about the hardest work Dick ever did. Once abroad, the grass would be left for another day and if the weather had been kind, it was now ready for rowing up by hand, another rake job, and then carting back to the barn.



Carting was done by forking the hay up out of the row, passing it to the loader on the wagon and he loaded at until the load was as big as could be safely carried. This was forked up on to the stack in the barn and the process repeated until the field was cleared. At this point Margaret came into her own with the ‘Rover’ or ‘Donkey Rake’, this was a large rake with curved metal tines and you dragged it round behind you picking up all the loose bits of hay which had been missed. The rakings went to the barn as well. Of course, this four day cycle only worked if the weather was good. It used to be heartbreaking when you had to put the grass in foot cocks overnight and then shake them out by hand the following morning as soon as the dew had gone off. Sometimes you did this over and over again and the quality of the hay deteriorated all the time.



Once the hay was in the barn it was a solid lump and when it was needed in winter it had to be cut out in cakes with a hay knife. It was essential that it was properly dry before it was stacked because if there was too much moisture in it it would heat up to the point where spontaneous combustion started and the whole lot would fire. This was quite common and many of the barns I worked in had charred roof timbers because at some time or another they had burned down.



One year Abel decided to make sileage instead of hay. He hadn’t enough money to buy the proper equipment so we did it by hand, we carted the grass out of the cut swathe and stacked it in the barn like hay. It was killing work and many a time I was so poorly after stacking all day that I didn’t even have any appetite for supper, a serious matter! I have an idea that the juice from the sileage penetrated the wall into the house that first year and turned Maude’s wallpaper black in the best room!



One year we went down to Wheathead Farm and helped them make hay as well. I’ve forgotten what the relationship was but it was all in the family. Wheathead was interesting because the farm is mentioned in the Pendle Witch trials and I was assured that there were fairy rings there! Witches weren’t mentioned much but were taken quite seriously. If pressed Abel would dismiss the whole idea but he once admitted to me that he wasn’t very keen on going down into the bottom of the back field after dark. There was a steep gulley and in the bottom were the remains of Malkin Tower where old Mother Demdyke used to live. I have to admit that on a dark night in the back end it was very easy to let your imagination carry you away. All right, we know there’s nothing in it but speaking personally, I’m happy to stay away from such places.



I used to help Abel with other jobs as well. One regular task was to disconnect the pipe from the water supply which was a spring up the hillside and pump water back up the pipe with a force pump to clear some of the sediment out of it. This was the only water supply to the farm and was totally untreated, a very common situation in those days. During the fifties electricity was being laid on to these farms. Up to then they had survived on oil lamps and candles. This was a great benefit especially to the wives because they could leap forward into the twentieth century with modern domestic appliances.



Helping with the work on these farms was good because it gave me an insight into what a farmer’s life was like when working a horse and hand labour system. It’s no wonder that the number of people employed on farms dropped so rapidly when mechanisation took over after the war. It was a hard life and bred hard men and women but there was much to be said for it. Let’s put it this way, given the choice of working in a modern factory system and an old-fashioned horse farm I’d take the farm any day.



Back at Sough and Kelbrook the pub was a good place for a bit of relaxation and a laugh. Eddie and I were in there one night at early doors on our way back from Nelson. It was a cold wet time and we were both wet through. Gladys had a coal fire roaring up the chimney and we gradually thawed out helped by two or three pints. Gladys had come through the door at the fireplace end of the bar and was having a warm. Now at this point, she was quite ill. She had a ruptured diaphragm and was waiting to go into hospital, we were all a bit worried about her. We talked for a while and then she set off to go behind the bar for something and gave a shout, she was evidently in great pain. We sprang to her aid but she wouldn’t let us touch her. She stood there rigid as we hovered not knowing what to do. Then she visibly relaxed, moved a bit and told us she was all right. “Was it your stomach Gladys?” asked Eddie. “No you bloody fool, my suspenders were red hot!” You see, men don’t have these troubles so how can they be expected to know?



We were in the pub one night and a bookie from Barlick was in having a pint. I must have been flush because I put a fiver on a horse to win, this was half a week’s wage! The following day I went in the pub and Fitton was there and told me it had won, I’d never even looked in the paper. I must have had a funny turn because I put it all on the longest priced two year old second favourite in the paper the next day and left Fitton to pick it out. I rang him the following morning and he told me the name of the horse. I forget how much I’d won on the first horse but the second came in and I had £370 to draw! To put this in context, it was 9 month’s wages! That was the last bet I ever made on a horse apart from an odd flutter in a sweepstake on the Grand National. I made up my mind that as far as horses were concerned, I’d go to my grave in front of the bookies. I used some of the money to buy the tape recorder that I used to record my father’s life story so it was a significant moment.



I was having a quiet pint in the Heifer one night when a bloke came in with a black dog. It was a beautiful animal, a classic lurcher, whippet and cur crossed with greyhound and labrador, he said it was bred in Colne which was where all the best poaching and running dogs came from, they still do to this day. To cut a long story short, money changed hands and I took it home. Mother went spare when she saw it! However, it was young and beautiful and she soon quietened down. Father took an interest in it and agreed it was a likely looking animal. A couple of nights later me and Bess took our new playmate up on to Kelbrook Moor to see what it would do. It was a disaster, the only thing it would hunt was cats! I tried and better tried with it but never got any improvement. Apart from this it was a fine looking animal, I took it to the pub one night and everyone admired it. I exaggerated its virtues slightly and came out minus dog and a fiver in pocket. It was a shame but the dog was useless. I saw the bloke later and he and his wife were delighted with it, All they wanted was a pet, I’ll bet it had a wonderful home!



The pub was the centre of a lot of our spare time activities and I’m sorry to say we sometimes got up to mischief. There was a pensioner in the village at the bottom of Waterloo Road who had some loose slates on the roof so we said we’d fix them for her. We got a ladder and put one of our mates called Arthur on the roof, I forget his second name but he was a house painter by trade and lived at Sough. While he was up there we took the ladder away and went to the pub. Some time later we heard there was a bit of excitement going on in the village, the fire brigade had been called out to get him down! I know it sounds childish but everyone knew what had happened and thought it was a good laugh. We got Arthur drunk and then took him home and I’ll never forget him standing on the back step waving goodbye to us as his wife hit him behind the ear with the long brush. She was a formidable woman!



If you’re thinking that I was never out of the pub you’re almost right. There was tension at home and no TV! Life in Sough was all right but I was only slowly getting over the withdrawal symptoms after two years in the army. I missed the life, the guns and my mates and often wondered what I would have been doing if I had taken Colonel Rodger’s offer up. It was fairly obvious that we were only just holding our own. If it hadn’t been for my wage from Harrisons we would have been in trouble, the shop couldn’t support all of us but we had no alternative. Pressure was building for change yet again.



9246
Author Replies  
gwynhewb
New Member


6 Posts
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 15:08


hi there. yes, my grandad, who kept the kelbook newspaper shop next door to the heifer- 1945ish to 1958ish, was the original arkwright!!!
i see my grandad very time i watch the repeats. i think my grandad drank at the stone trough cos of the chap at the heifer!!!!

can you remember who had the fish and chip shop opposite????

i am at the moment collecting info on grandads life............ he was a barlick councillor at one time and a JP and magistrate.....in the area...........any idea where i could find out any details???

we all emigrated to tasmania in 1960........... i am currently back in londo n




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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 16:24
Jimmy Talbot was the landlord at the Heifer (wife was Gladys Refearn as was) and yes, he could be a very irascible man as well as having some quite peculiar habits, at least from a young man's point of view....

Albert ? and his wife ran the chippy.


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Hatepe (R.I.P.)
Regular Member


280 Posts
Posted - 06/02/2005 : 22:56
Morning Stanley from the Antipodes,
Albert Speak kept the fish shop and his wife was called "RIA".
Jimmy Talbot also went by the name of "Banana Jimmy" since he used to stand the markets with a fruit stall selling BANANAS of course!!!!
I was once in the Craven Heifer having a quiet pint before going home for my evening meal and George Ashby came in with his driver called WIDDUP. George was having a cup of tea and suddenly he asked Jimmy Talbot if he'd ever seen a "flying saucer", Jimmy said "no" and George tossed the saucer his tea cup was in through the fancy glass window. Deadly silence. However George just told Jimmy to get it repaired and send him the bill!!!! I believe that was the last of that.
Aye Hatepe


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 07/02/2005 : 07:39
Another one for the index Bob. I knew the name Speak and Ria but had forgotten. George used to go in the Heifer regularly when I was drinking there in the late 50s. I didn't really know who he was than but I knew a serious boozer when I saw one. It was around that time that Ouzledale Foundry was seriously going off the rails and the Forty Thieves went in to sort it out as they had money in the firm. All very sad because Harold Duxbury was the hatchet man and the upshot was that George lost his seat on the board and it took many years for the wounds to heal. Thankfully the firm was saved and is still thriving, long may it continue. Another name you will know from that time was Gordon Carr. Also a regular attender at the heifer.....


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Hatepe (R.I.P.)
Regular Member


280 Posts
Posted - 07/02/2005 : 08:08
I remember Gordon Carr well, the company who owned the mills I managed in Earby (A. Speak and Co - yes, actually Albert Speak's first cousin)used to send Gordon's dad, Anthony Carr an order for 10,000 pieces of 2 x 2 twill cotton goods regularly and I had the job of delivering it by hand to the Mill at Crow Nest.
Why by hand???? Well our boss, Mr Frank Speak used to like to know just how busy our commission weavers were - as the old lad used to say when I reported back to him - "All to do wi'd price I'll offer 'em for the next order......!!!!"
Gordon Carr was nowhere near the business man that his Dad was, just a happy go lucky big lad.
Aye Hatepe


R.W.KingGo to Top of Page
Another
Traycle Mine Overseer


6250 Posts
Posted - 07/02/2005 : 08:55
HAtepe, was Anthony Carrs known as "t'Sheeting Shop"? Regards, Colin.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 07/02/2005 : 18:37
Yes, Crow Nest always had a lot of wide looms and we all bopught fents from there to make our sheets from. Good winceyette, made warm cotton nighties as well....


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
Hatepe (R.I.P.)
Regular Member


280 Posts
Posted - 08/02/2005 : 03:43
The sheeting shop was Albert Hartley's and under foreign ownership it is still selling sheetings, but most of it is imported, and processed at Crow Nest. Sad days, 'cos not only had we the looms and the top class weavers, tacklers and other skills. That era will never be repeated, many times over the last 40 years I have cried out for half a dozen of my best workers from the mills at Kelbrook and Earby, but unfortunately through family connections they wouldn't budge and come to NZ for what I consider is a better life for them and their children.
But who am I????
Aye Hatepe


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Hatepe (R.I.P.)
Regular Member


280 Posts
Posted - 08/02/2005 : 03:52
In reply to ANOTHER Anthony Carr's had over 1000 looms at one period, mainly 45" fast reeds with the ability to weave cloths up to 40.5" wide and odd shafts like sateens, three shaft jeans, plains and 2 x 2 twills.
Most of the twills we gave to them had 112 pick per inch, so 10,000 pieces meant that they had at least 10 weeks weaving for their entire shed, if they wove a piece per week of 100 yards in length. So our orders even if they were a bit cut throat gave stability to Anthony's work force.
Cheap imports meant that the clothing industry for linings would take owt for linings, so Lancashire/Yorkshire went to the wall.
Sad days.
Aye Hatepe


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