at the mill with slaves - a yorkshire experience

8/8/2019 At The Mill With Slaves - A Yorkshire Experience

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Work Man goeth forth to his work,

And to his labour until the evening.Psalm 104.23

Eyeless in Gaza, At the mill with slaves

John Milton Samson Agonistes


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Chapter

At The Mill With Slaves Eyeless in Gaza, at the mill with slaves

Samson Agonistes - John Milton

Schoolchildren left school, started work, worked until retirement, and then died off. Itwas a fact of life that jobs were for life. A career, once begun, was to be maintained atwhatever cost. When I left school, I imagined that the employment I secured would lastforever. That was the culture and expectation of the times and it seemed as if nothingwould ever happen to alter it.

In my later school years I entertained a desire to become a merchant seaman. I had become increasingly aware of the many peoples and cultures in the world, and wished tosee them, taste the differences, and try to understand why they were so different from thatwith which I was familiar. The merchant marine was the only way I knew to achieve thatambition.

When we left school, Pete West and I went along to the Employment Exchange together.A man who interviewed us cautioned us against holding each others hands throughlife. Neither of us intended to so that, we just shared a common idea. Peter said hewould like to join the merchant navy also.

The truth about my desire for a seafaring life was that it was just an idea. I had not thekind of drive that impels men to follow a dream until its completion. I was a drifter: a

passive spectator at what life did to me. Powerless, I went with the flow, and landed

wherever it threw me up.

Peter and I both started work at Sykes and Tunnicliffe's Bankend Mills, Almondbury. Iworked in the weaving shed and Peter worked in the finishing department. As places goit was a good place to work, and sported some interesting characters, among which wasmy mentor, Vincent.


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A steam crane like this one sat outside Radcliffes Builders yardat the bottom of Cambridge Road for years until it rotted.

Try as we might, we lads could never get it to work!

Common Bricks Poor Mans Feast

A Spinning Shed


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Chapter

Vincent'I look at th' yealds, and there they stick;

I ne'er seen the like sin' I wur wick!

What pity could befall a heart,To think about these hard-sized warps!'

Sykes and Tunnicliffe manufactured mohair pile rugs, mats, and pew runners. Their products were first quality. The weaving shed foreman was Vincent. He was a quiet, pleasant man, balding with glasses. He was about forty years old. Although he could notdrive, he had a car and was taking driving lessons.

Every morning he drove to work illegally. He crawled close to the kerb and travelled ataround four miles an hour, just faster than a brisk walking pace. Vincent was my tutor inthe arcane practices of the weaving shed. He was gentle and patient as was his driving.

The weaving shed was the noisiest place I had ever been in. There were about 18 or 20looms working with their clatter and din. Many of the weavers, mostly women, wereeither deaf or had some degree of hearing impairment caused by the incessant noise. Ear

protection was not provided, not even thought of.

All weavers could lip read; it was the only way they could communicate. I never learnedto lip read, but I did learn to shout. The obvious benefit to me was that I could sing at thetop of my voice all the workday long. I loved it. The elderly lady weavers took to me

because I was always cheerful and willing. I fetched sacks of rolled paper weft and placed them next to their machines, singing like Caruso at least, I was as loud asCaruso.

Another of my duties was tying in. This was the method of joining the old warp to thenew, when a beam was changed. The warp was wound round a giant bobbin. Called a

beam, and when this had been used up it was replaced by a full one. The ends of the oldwere tied to the ends of the old, and the knots pulled through the sley so that weavingcould continue. The knots had to be secure or else they would slip and the single threadhad to be threaded through all the complicated elements of the loom. The two ends wereseparated with the forefinger, and knotted with two fingers and the thumb of one hand.

One of the weavers was Michael, a Pole. He had come to England after the war to escapethe tyranny of the new Communist masters. He was courting one of the weavers, a red-haired girl, with temper to match, who lived near the mill. Michael lived in Halifax inlodgings.

He said that his landlady was upset because he kept his coffin in his bedroom. He had asmall collection of gramophone records, including Music, Music, Music, by TeresaBrewer, and Pee Wee Hunts Twelfth Street Rag. He lent me these records, fromwhich time they became firm favourites. I loved Teresa Brewers enthusiasm and verve.


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About this time, early 1950, another singer was making a name for himself. Johnny Ray,a native of Utah, recorded, Cry. I had never heard such emotion in singing. It was achorus of colour, a stream of fast-rising glory, awakening in me an unfamiliar sense of grandeur. I believe that the only emotion I had ever felt was despair. I knew not the joy

of love, nor that life held any joy. Cry suggested to me that there were dimensionsavailable to human feeling that could be beneficial. Around this time, Kay Starr released'Wheel of Fortune, which had a similar effect on me.

I have little doubt but that Michaels red-haired fiance continued to make his lifemiserable long after I left the mill. She shouted at him and threatened him in public. He

just smiled and made light of it. He was probably right to do so, for they rubbed alongreasonably well, in spite of what seemed to be their mutual hostilities.


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Chapter

White Eagles" Since the early 1800's when nicotine was first discovered, smoking has beenconsidered a socially acceptable way of slowly killing one self, often in public.

For many years it was considered perfectly normal for smokers to not only indulgein a habit that slowly turned their lungs to carbon but to openly inflict the same fate on others by polluting the air with deadly nicotine poison...."

USA NCD

Michael was one of the Polish exiles after World War II who felt it safer to be in Englandthan return to live under Communist rule in his native land. He was a nice man, generouswith his time who enjoyed a good sense of humour. He was engaged, so he believed, to agirl who worked as a burler in the Mending department. I dont recall her name but shehad long red hair and a temper to match, which she unleashed with regular ferocity on

poor Michael. Little wonder, then, that Michael sought alternative diversion.

He lived at Halifax near Halifax General Hospital, in a stone built bay windowed terracehouse as a lodger, and upset his landlady by storing a coffin in his bedroom. Apparently

buying ones coffin in anticipation of the inevitable visit of the grim reaper is an ancientPolish custom.

His landlady was obviously not Polish and saw something bizarre in the custom of thisman from a far country that she had only heard of because of the depredations thatcountry suffered during the War.

Thus it was, that when Peter and I accepted Michaels invitation to accompany him to the

pictures in Halifax one night that we had to wait outside in the dark and cold of acheerless Halifax suburb after Michael appeared at the door at our sounding the door bell.His landlady did not like strangers waiting in her house, not even for a man who had hiscoffin stored upstairs.

Michael was just a little bit embarrassed at asking us to wait outside because he knew thatin Poland the custom was to bring visitors and friends into the house, especially on cold,dark nights in inner city suburbs. Not that Halifax is a city, but you get the point.

To ameliorate our potential discomfort, which was swiftly realised, he handed each of usa cigarette and saying he would not be very long, disappeared back into the warm, light

house. We looked at the slim cylinders under the flickering gas lamp and saw thesplendid insignia of the Polish White Eagle in shimmering silver line on the paper sleeve.Somehow, the cigarettes in our hands eased our discomfort by elevating us into the ranksof adulthood, even manly adulthood.

Finding our matches from somewhere, we lit up, inhaling deeply in the damp street, andimmediately and in concert erupting into fits of coughing.


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These are strong, said Peter. I agreed as best I cold manage in between paroxysms of coughing alternating with very short and painful periods of breathing. They were notonly very strong, as we persisted drawing on them under the street lamp, but they burnedquite differently from English cigarettes. I had to fight for breath to get air through themand it was a losing battle.

Then, we noticed that the lit ends were glowing for about an inch instead of being glow-red only at the burning tip. A few more puffs and like lightning from the heavens werealised that in the dark and in our ignorance and in our efforts to look manly, we had putthe wrong ends in our mouths and lit the hitherto unknown to us filter tips.

Hiding our ill-lit cigarettes under someones privet hedge, we became at least temporarilynon-smokers. When Michael appeared we explained to him how much we had enjoyedhis Polish cigarettes. Even though we were young and neither of us brought up with anygreat sense of formal social etiquette, we understood that Michaels engagement to theginger-haired girl was a burden that he could neither enjoy nor abandon, and so we had

tender feelings for our kind friend.His was a world of incomparable displacement from the world he knew when he enteredthe war as a young soldier in his Polish homeland. He could not return to his home, nor could he write, telephone, or otherwise contact his family for fear that the Communistgovernment bring pressure to bear on his family because he was living free in the land of liberty.

He had a home, with a landlady who thought him odd, which he was not, well, not very,and a fiance who expressed her love for him by berating him and demeaning him atevery verse end. He needed a couple of friends even if they were half his age. Well, hehad us and we treated him right. That is, except in regards to the gramophone records.

He very kindly lent me his few 78 rpm gramophone records including one by TeresaBrewer, Music, Music, Music! During the short time I had them to play on mymagnificent three-part gramophone, I sat on one on the bed in the small attic. The brittle

platter cracked and gave up the ghost. When I returned the records to him, I was tooembarrassed to tell him. I had not yet learned that mistakes could be confessed,compensation made, and forgiveness obtained.

My childhood was characterised by a blame culture in which even the smallest error wasmet with condign chastisement. Michael was puzzled but did not press the loss. I amsure that he had suffered greater disappointments in his life and was not about to fussover a record, even a hit record.

My time at Sykes and Tunnicliffe was short, lasting only three short months. Boredomwith the job had set in, as it would with most of the many jobs I had, and it was time tomove on. Moving on meant leaving Michael behind. We said an uncomfortable

goodbye and I never heard anything of him since that day.


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If he is still alive, he will be in his early eighties. I hope he found someone to love him better than did the red-haired burler with the irascible and explosive temper. Someone totreat him well, understand his darkness when he remembered his past, weep with himwhen he thought of home and his refugee flight that separated him from his family, and Ihope that he managed to see them when things improved.

I wonder if had children, perhaps a son called Michael who inherited his fathers gentleways and simple trust, and who would smile to remember the coffin balancing on top of the wardrobe and laugh out loud at the thought of two of his fathers youthful friendslighting White Eagles from the wrong end one misty wet night under the gutteringgaslight of a Northern street far from the lights of his beloved home.

If such a one there chance to be, Heres looking at you kid! You had a great dad!


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Chapter

Having My Ears Lowered Like characters in Beckett,

We've convened on pneumatic thrones, all head,

Our bodies checked in a checkered cape. We heed The quick scissors, the length of a snippet Our covert fingers coax from tent to floor.

Aidan Rooney-Cespedes

My regular barber was just round the corner from Westgate, opposite Sparrow Park onUpperhead Row. There was one style, and the coiffure was topped-off by a generoushelping of Fixative, an early type of epoxy resin that set the hair like Welgar Shredded Wheat . Nor rain, nor hail, nor snow, nor any wind could move the hair dosed with this

primitive super-glue.

On the right side of my neck is a small pimple that has always adorned it. I can not feelit, so when I can not get my hand to it I am never sure exactly where it is. Visits to the barbers as a lad were always nerve-racking affairs, because the haircut was finished off with an open razor shaving the neckline. I was terrified that the blade would slice off the

pimple, and so shrank visibly under its advancing stroke.

I never dared mention this to the barber. In my antique period, I remain nervous whenthe hair stylist all the barbers are dead gets out the open razor. However, since fewstill resort to this method of clean finishing, there is less need for my historical anxiety.

Sykes and Tunnicliffe laid on a shooting brake, driven by Harry, which left the junction

of New North Road and Westgate each morning, Saturdays included, at 7 00 am. It was parked the other side of Westgate opposite my barbers shop, and took workers right intothe mill yard, saving us having to walk from St Michaels church in Almondbury, whichwas the trolley terminus, a good mile or two from the mill, overtaking Vincent as hecrawled carefully and illegally up Ashes Lane.

It is told that when the local Bobby happened on the same stretch of road that Vincentwas criminally traversing, something right inside the Bobbys collar required the urgentinsertion of his stubby forefinger to claw away at the manifestation, and also involved therotation of the Peelers head away from the scene of the crime.

One of the warehouse men cut hair as a short-back-and-sideline. For the princely sumof one shilling - an hours wages for me - he gave a haircut that was pronounced byanother worker to make me look like the Duke of Windsor. Despite the unique absenceof Fixative it was a shilling well spent. I had been paying one shilling and sixpence for what seemed like forever.

The extra sixpence was probably for a bottle of Fixative. Barbers may well have pre-empted car mechanics who charge every customer for a full can of Plus-Gas and a box of


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sterile hand wipes. These fall in the category of lifes little extras that help grease thewheels of commerce. Of course there is more much more but who remembers?

If I had known that I would want to remember all the details someday, I would havetaken more notice and might even have made notes.


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Chapter

The Place of Humour

The world of work was more pleasant than school had been. There were new things tolearn, and new people to meet. I learned some important things about humour. When aschoolboy, the major employment of humour had been amusement. Walter Fox and Ishared similar, but not identical, senses of humour. He was more urbane than I was - andI was more unrefined than he was. The differences were visible at the peripheries of our dispositions.

At work, I learned a lesson that I had begun to learn at school; that humour was a usefuldefence against the attentions of those with little sympathy for a boy struggling to growup. After three months in the mill I became bored and sought fresh employment.


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Chapter

In The FoundryWith roots of iron there is metal in the air,When the cupola melts white iron glares.

Richard Mikolajewski

I applied for a job as an apprentice core maker in the foundry of Thomas BroadbentsCentral Ironworks on Queen Street South. I went for an interview that went well,although I did not mention that my Dad and Granddad worked in the machine shop. I gotthe job and started in the dirtiest place I had ever seen. It was a huge foundry,manufacturing some of the biggest castings imaginable.

I worked at an iron table, making small cores out of sand. The sand was rammed into acore pattern that was usually in two halves held together by spiked clamps. First, the

pattern was brushed out with paraffin to prevent the core sand from sticking to the orange painted interior. Then the sand was put inside and tamped to make it compact.

Metal sprigs were pushed in to help maintain rigidity during the moulding process. Oilwas added to the sand to harden the cores during baking. I always used plenty of oil,

because of which the cores were easy for the moulders to handle as they fitted theminside their mould. I was complimented and told that I made the best small cores in thefoundry. I was somewhat pleased to receive this accolade.

Huge furnaces melted tons of pig iron into white liquid ten times hotter than Hades place. This was spewed out down a channel by a furnace-master who filled the mighty

steel cauldrons that giant overhead cranes took tons of molten metal in giant ladles to thehuge moulds laid out at various parts of the foundrys dusty floor.

Spitting sparks of white and red fire, the massive vessel were tipped over to pour out thewhite hot metal into the mould. It was at once warm and exciting. The down side wasthat after they had completed pouring, they threw black sand onto the pouring place, andthe sand gave off an caustic odour that was nauseating. I had to go and stand by the milehigh main doors in the open air to stop myself retching.

On my first day as an apprentice, I was asked to go to the upstairs store and ask for aLong stand . I presented myself at the window, made my request, and was asked to

wait where I was. After ten minutes or so the storeman returned and asked me if that waslong enough. I had had a long stand and enjoyed the joke.

It was a regular thing to send new boys on a fools errand somewhere to ask for a longstand, a box of sparks, a bucket of steam, a straight S hook, or some similar impossibility. It was a gentle initiation into the world of work.


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Besides hydroextractors for commercial laundries, and heavy ironwork, BroadbentsCentral Ironworks made X Craft midget submarines during WW II.

Thomas Broadbent & Sons Ltd X Craft Midget Submarine at Aberlady Bay Alex Morrice 2005

HMS Expunger - Midget Submarine by Broadbents 1945In Chatham Historic Dockyard Museum


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HMS ExpungerOverall length 53.14 feet

Displacement 30 tonsBuilt by Thomas Broadbent & Sons Ltd - 1945


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Chapter

The Light That Failed

I remember The Light That Failed as a dramatic poem vividly illustrating theconsequences of the failure of a lighthouse to send forth its warning. The title wasapplied to almost every failure of illumination during my childhood, and burned so deepinto my psyche that I still recall it when a lamp bulb expires or some other failure takes

place. But there was one other occasion when the memorable words were ecphoriatedwith a mixture of triumph and savage amusement.

Having left school at Christmas 1949 and commenced my day labours as a weaving shedweft and everything else boy for Sykes and Tunnicliffe, Bankfield Mills, Almondbury, ashas been told, and departed from their employment somewhat summarily, having

determined that they could not advance either my interest or my skills, I took employment as an apprentice with Thomas Broadbent & Company of Queen StreetSouth, Huddersfield, as a core-maker.

Cores are used by moulders to ensure that molten cast iron does not occlude places thatneeded to be clear. I worked with core boxes made in two halves that were held together

by iron dogs driven in at each end. They were then filled with core sand mixed withspecial oils so the cores thus formed could be baked hard but would easily crumble whenthe moulds were broken open after casting.

To prevent the sand sticking to the sides of the core box, paraffin was liberally applied to

the inside surfaces before the sand was packed in and rammed solid. My iron bench helda treacle tin full of paraffin with a one-inch paintbrush to effect the application. Mostdays I used about three-quarters of a pint of paraffin. Each evening, after cleaning my

bench off, I trotted to the stores with my tin to fill it ready for the next days work.

It was with some measure of disbelief that I arrived at work one day and found my tincompletely empty. Had I not filled it the night before? I had a clear memory of doing so,

but my memory never being too hot as far as day-to-day events was concerned, I decidedthat I had been mistaken and trekked to the stores to obtain the smelly magic fluid so Icould get to work and quickly forgot the puzzlement that had gripped me as I stared intothe bottom of my empty tin.

That might have been that if I had not had exactly the same experience on the followingmorning. I was a shy lad, not given to asking questions, and the reticent men whoworked either side of me either did not see my bewilderment or ignored it. Thus passedmy mornings for the rest of the week. Every night I filled my tin, every morning it wasempty. Being hesitant to ask my neighbours, but becoming increasingly concerned andnot a little cross, I determined to act to nail the culprit, for I was convinced that I was

being robbed.


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That night I went to the stores and poured what remained of my paraffin into the spill bucket under the forty-gallon barrel and then repaired to the cold water tap, that stuck outof the wall shining bright in the dirty dark moulding shop, I filled my tin with water. Icarried the tin back to my bench and put it in its corner and, with a peremptory Bye to

my neighbours, headed for home.

When I arrived at my bench next morning the water was gone. I developed a theory thatconcerned the core maker to my left, Jim. He was a middle-aged, portly, taciturn, pipe-smoking gruffian who had worked at Broadbents since Methuselah was a lad. Thosewho know pipe smokers will understand that they can do anything with their pipes exceptkeep them alight. To save on matches, that cost a penny a box, Jim had made a light bydrawing a string wick through the lid of a treacle tin, which he filled with paraffin andkept it lit on the shelf next to his bench.

This morning I kept an eagle eye on Jim and his perpetual light. Taking out a long red-

ended match, he struck it and applied it to the string wick. The wick lit briefly then wentout. I knew I was on to something. He took out another precious match and striking itapplied it to the wick. This lit even more briefly than before and then dimmed todarkness. Jim began striking matches and trying to light the lamp, but by now, the wick would not even take light.

I watched Jims face take on a series of expressions that defy description as simple perplexity was transposed through a series of ascending mysteries, eventually resolvinginto a pudgy red enigma. It was at this point that he started thinking the unthinkable.Using his trowel to prise off the lid of his lamp, he held the tin under his nose and sniffeddeeply. It is an interesting and amusing spectacle to see daylight penetrate a dark placeas come to pass in the murky recesses of Jims turgid mind.

Its water! he exploded, as if water was foreign to the planet. I got the distinctimpression that he thought someone else was to blame, but I jumped in anyway in anuncharacteristically loud voice, pressing home my advantage on the heels of hisastonishment.

You have been stealing my paraffin, and now I have found you out in your perfidy, youblack-hearted villain! I roared loud enough to attract the attention of all in a thirty yardsradius. The foundry stopped work and a dozen or so pale and puzzled faces, appearingatop dirty black overalls, turned to look at red-faced Jim, compounding hisembarrassment, as the awful truth of his unmasking dawned on him. He had been foundout and had nowhere to hide.

That was the last time that my paraffin disappeared and Jims light, with a new wick, burned as bright as ever. Things settled down in our corner of the core shop as Jimreturned to his inner life and occasional grunted greeting, and I set about thinking aboutmy next job. I had been there almost three months and their time was up.


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After three months I left, having become bored and I secured employment with the Co-operative Wholesale Society in their transport department at Deadwaters, behind StThomas Road.

Broadbents, Jim, the foundry, and the core shop, slipped from the front of my memory

as my life moved on to other places and other concerns. Years have passed and I haveexperienced many things that have had greater claim to be remembered than Jims pipelighter and my missing paraffin.

Yet, from time to time, my memory revisits that dirty sand-strewn corner of Broadbentsfoundry in Queen Street South in old Huddersfield, and I wonder what happened to Jim.If he is alive, he will be more than a hundred years old so it is probable that he now looksupon another world. And I wonder about his passing: did Jims light fail? Did he gohome in the dark or had he enough oil in his lamp to see him safely through? I wouldlove to know.


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Chapter

Drivers Mate Days

At the Co-operative Societys Transport Department, I was a drivers mate to WillyWood, who lived in one of the Co-op houses on St Thomas Street. He was a cheerful,

bright sort of chap, but subservient to a fault. We travelled to various branches of the Co-op scattered around Huddersfield and district, delivering groceries to customers homes.Some days we would pick up branch orders from the warehouse at Deadwaters.Deadwaters was so named because the canal that ran behind the garages had been

blocked off.

The warehouse smelled of wonderful things. Sides of smoked bacon, sacks of Demerarasugar, sacks of currants, raisins, and sultanas, and a hundred other spicy smells from

goods exposed to the air. Biscuits were packed in big biscuit tins, not wrapped as theyare today. Sugar was sold in conical twists of blue sugar paper. Everything was soldloose and weighed out.

Willie and I made a good team, except on one occasion. We were delivering from theAlmondbury branch behind the Parish Church. Some discussion took place between meand the manager, during which I said something to him - I dont recall what - that Willietook exception to. He kicked me savagely in the groin, exclaiming, Dont you speak tomy boss like that! He had hurt me quite badly. The manager was visibly mortified,although he said nothing to Willie, but when we were leaving he kindly gave me a bag of sweets as compensation for unjust suffering. There were gentlemen in the world, and

although I did not often meet them, this was one.

I worked at the Co-op for six months. Then I learned that I could earn twice as muchworking in the brickyard at Birchencliffe.


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Chapter

Bricks Without Straw

I went and got a job at The Huddersfield Brick, Tile, and Stone Company that had, by1951, reduced itself to a brickyard, having nothing more to do with tiles or stone. It hadtwo good-sized kilns of the continuous firing kind. The chambers ran round the kilns, sothat one kiln would be filled with bricks by setters, then the doorway was bricked up andsmeared over with a coat of lime and cinder mortar to prevent loss of heat or gas. Acouple of chambers away burnt bricks were removed and stacked in the yard ready for collection.

The fires were maintained by a firer who worked on top of the kiln but under a roof.There were plenty of windows around the upper floor, all of which were glassless. There

were rows of firing holes, each with a round cast iron lid of six inches diameter, whichthe firer lifted with a steel rod, hooked at the end, then shovelled in some slack coal. Hehad to wheel the coal up a steep ramp to the firing level from a big heap at the foot of theramp. Except for wheeling heavy wheelbarrows up the ramp, firing was a steady job.

After several days of continuous firing, when all the bricks had been fired, he would putno more coal into the chambers, but would advance the fuel which was ignited by theheat from the previously fired chamber. His was a perpetual journey around the kilnsupplying fuel in the correct quantities to the right chambers.

When the chambers were broken open reminiscent of Howard Carter opening the Tomb

of Tutankhamen the heat would still be intense, so the drawers wore leather guards over their fingers and thumbs. Everyone wore clogs in the brickyard as protection against theheat from the kiln floors. Between the rows of bricks were wedges of coke. We took thecoke home in sacks and burned it on our fires. It was an excellent fuel.

The works foreman was known as Rowley his name being Roland. He was a nice, kindgentleman with a quiet sense of humour. Our day started at 7 am, but because of the oddassortment of people who worked in the brickyards, we rarely had a full team in the brick

production shed at start time. Rowley would say , If I ever come in and find you all working, Ill die of shock. He was in little danger of early death.

What I liked about the brickyard was the variety of the work, and the changeable dailyround as different needs required me to perform a variety of tasks. It seemed like theanswer to my interminable boredom.

I enjoyed the brickyard work, hard and demanding as it could be, and liked most of myfellow workers.


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Chapter

Brickyard CricketGod give us grace to see

The grandeur in the soul of erranty.Florence Ripley Mastin

After I had worked at Sykes and Tunnicliffes, Central Ironworks, and the Co-operativeWholesale Society, I turned my attention to the brickyard at Birchencliffe, where theHuddersfield Brick Tile and Stone Company made common bricks. The major attractionwas a better wage.

The mill had paid me a shilling an hour for a forty-four hour week, whereas Broadbentshad paid me twenty-two shillings and sixpence for the same time, but I was learning atrade. I cannot remember how much I was paid as a drivers mate for the Co-op, but the

brickyard took me up to three pounds and ten shillings for forty hours, and paid overtime.

The brickyard was a veritable treasure-trove of some of the most remarkable characters Ihave ever met. But, I come not to memorialise those worthies, but to tell about BrickyardCricket. The name of the game broadly hints at the essential nature of the game.'Brickyard,' besides being a nominative is also a modifier and directs our attentiontowards the differences between the civilised game of bat and ball that calmly play out onEnglish village greens during our long, hot summers, and the fight for survival defendinga wicket in a brickyard.

The game equipment, for example, is different than that used by grammar schools andabove, even though they are made from like substance. But whereas pukka cricket batsare fashioned from willow trees, Brickyard bats are made from any old plank that is lyingaround and not actually holding up a building.

Willow bats are made on an industrial copy lathe to ensure that each unit is identical tothe thousands produced each month in the cricket bat factory, and then fitted by pressureand glue with wound and rubber-sleeved three-spring shock absorbing handles.Brickyard bats are made by first cutting the orphaned plank to length, and then incisinglong slots a third of the way in on each side and cutting through from the outsides toconnect them, leaving a chunky square handle protruding from the integral blade.

No rounding of the handle, no cord-whipping, no rubber sleeve, and no shaped bladeapart from, the shape it was when it had been sawn by the Brickyard Bat Maker, who wasusually the maintenance man who had access to a powered hacksaw. It was as heavy andas deadly as a war club, and could double for one when the game turned nasty.

The ball was a genuine cricket ball a corky that had seen better days, but which wasstill lethal if it hit the face or head.


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The pitch was any more or less piece of ground between the two mammoth brick kilns,and the wicket was chalked on a convenient wall, preferably one without windows.

The rules and regulations for Brickyard Cricket are not written down in The Rules of Cricket, maintained for almost three hundred years by the Marylebone Cricket Club, but

are carried in the hearts of Englishmen of a certain temperament everywhere. The Queenof the Iceni, Boudicca, knew them by heart, and almost beat the Romans, but she wasthwarted by their inability to limit their fielding team to eleven men.

The Rules state that, The captains are responsible at all times for ensuring that playis conducted within the spirit and traditions of the game as well as within the Laws.Backyard Cricket has no teams, and no captains, so it is to be little wondered at that attimes things get a little robust.

Cricket Proper is a battle between two teams of gentlemen each trying to outscore theother team, and get them out in as many ways as possible. It does provide for some

spectacular moments when leather on willow reaches epic proportions. On the other hand, Brickyard Cricket is epic from the beginning. It starts out epic and gets epicer witheach passing second.

The Brickyard game is between all those who are not the one person batting at any givenmoment and the rest of the players. Any number can play, and there is no provisionmade that anyone has to be gentle. The fundamental premise is Get them out or knock them out! In cases of severe injury, there is no stopping play, no assistance from first-aiders, and no whimpering. The game must go on!

The provision of thirty minutes for lunch break does tend to make players frantic to getthe batter out and get themselves in for a few moments of glory - or gory - dependingon the unfolding of events and the venom of the bowlers.

Talk of fast-bowling in cricketing circles will never fail to raise the name of 'Fiery'Freddy Trueman, the Yorkshire fast bowler who made strong mens knees shake andtheir legs buckle beneath them when they saw the tousle-haired ogre begin his run up todeliver intercontinental missiles disguised as red leathered cricket balls. 1.

Freddy wannabes at Birchencliffe could move the ball with equal speed, but had anadvantage that regular cricketers did not enjoy. Cricket matches are played on grass, andthe twenty-two yard long pitch is cut very short, and rolled flat with a heavy roller, toiron out any lumps and bumps that could deflect the ball in unexpected directions.

The ground inside the brickyard was mostly mud to which was added on an accidental but historical basis lumps of brick, collections of coke, ash, coal, plasterers lime, andlumps of wood, together with whatever body parts were knocked off intrepid batsmenwho took up their plank-bats and asked for leg and middle. That gave the ball plenty of

1 See Freddy in action: http://www.cricket.mailliw.com/archives/2006/08/31/video-of-fred-trueman- bowling/


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choice to fly off at curious and incredible angles taking the batsman, and sometimes histeeth, by surprise, and in severe cases, by ambulance.

As unlikely as it seems, I still hold the world record for distance travelled by a struck ball. The north end of the old oval kiln opposite the feeding shed was the site of the

wicket, and muscle-man Farrell, an incredibly strong brick drawer, bowled a Yorkiethat came in an almost straight line towards my nose.

In flash of brilliance, such as Nelson showed at Trafalgar, and that caused the Australiansto lose Tobruk twice, I swung the bat around with vigour as if I was hurling it away fromthe deep south side, connected with the ball whilst continuing to describe an arc on aslightly upward trajectory that only ended when I and my bat were actually turned to facethe end wall of the kiln.

The ball had lifted high in the air and flown across the row of terraced houses that backedonto the yard at Prince Royd, and entered the open upstairs window of a number forty

three Halifax bus on its way back to Huddersfield. It was discovered by cleaners four months later and had travelled an estimated six hundred miles in that time. Surely aworld record. As is common with non-legal forms of cricket, I was declared Six and out!

That was long ago, and, as William Wordsworth said, Another race has been, and other palms are won, commonly paraphrased as a lot of water has gone under the bridge but there remains some tasks in life that can only be handled properly in the spirit of Brickyard Cricket. It is the only approach to a dangerous and sudden situation whenrecourse to the safety of a committee to spread the blame is impractical, and animmediate response is essential.

It is in those terrifying moments that I feel again the roughness of the bats handle in mygrip, and swing at the looming problem with determination, and all my might and main,and feel once more the satisfaction of having knocked the situation for a six over thestone rooftops of the nearby houses.

Despite the lost ball, the inevitable groans from close comrades, and the impatience of allduring the hiatus whilst a substitute missile is located, the thrill of having despatched

Farrells Best Yorkie into another state of existence is exceeded only by the suddenslaying of fire-breathing dragons that disturb the tranquillity of peaceable folks, or threaten the security of the vulnerable.

Whether the intended victim is an adult unable to see the perfidy of someone who hasgained their confidence, or a child in the hands of an abuser, the Yorkshire CricketResponse has never failed me yet.

The vision of the idly curious was limited to seeing only men at play with primitiveimplements: hard working men taking a break from dangerous employments inoccupations that could see them crushed by falling rocks, lose limbs to runaway tubs,


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blown to pieces by dynamite in the quarry, have backs broken and muscles torn as theystruggled to right a heavy load of bricks on a barrow whose slick wheel was sliding off asix inch wide metal plate, drenched in rain, or severely burned by ash in the kiln thatlooked cold and grey on its surface, but which glowed white hot inside. They saw only a

pastime in the stream of hard lives; little thinking that the way we played our game

instilled lessons in life that could be obtained in no other university.

Brickyard Cricket readies one for the anomal and unexpected, provides a ready androbust response to intimidation, and sends bullies on their way, not rejoicing, but withsomething to think about in respect of their future behaviour. Now thats what I call asport!


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Chapter

Dramatis Person

By the nature of the varied and demanding labour, brickyards attract unique and eccentriccharacters.

Long HarryRowleyChristadelphian clerk FarrellKaneWillie the Firer

Luther EdwardAgnes? Marshall? HayesEliFreddy & JimmyLeslie the Little man - educatedDoris the Glamour grannyPlasterer


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Chapter

The Fighting Parson

When I had worked for eighteen months at The Huddersfield Brick Tile and StoneCompany, at Prince Royd, Birchencliffe, I experienced my first foray into the minefieldof labour relations, by striking for parity with the brickie, Mr Kane, and was sacked for my trouble, so I took a position in Sharratt's brickyard about a mile or so down the Ellandside of the Ainleys, on the main Halifax Road.

In the Birchencliffe brickyard, I had been known as a Mormon boy who took pocketsized scriptures to work and read them in his idle moments. While this caused no

problems, it did raise a certain amount of interest, but was mostly viewed as being justsomething that I did and left at that.

When I moved to Sharratt's, my religious observances were seen as aberrant andunacceptable behaviour for rough folks in rough employment. After I had been workingthere three days, I was sat at my machine taking off newly-pressed house bricks, when Iwas approached by the resident thug demanding to know if I was religious. I replied inthe affirmative, whereupon he invited me to fight him. To my surprise, I accepted hisinvitation without flinching, raising my voice, or taking my eyes off the raw bricksspewing from the mouth of the mechanical press. He seemed equally surprised.

He disappeared round the corner of the brick hole to reappear two minutes later to ask meif he could bring a friend with him to the fight so that it would be two to one. Again, I

said that would be just fine. He left but came back twice more, each time adding to thelist of his protagonists who were to take me on at dinner time in the field across the roadfrom the entrance to the brickyard. Each time I told him that his suggestion was fine.

The last time he came with a mounting number of lieutenants, with some exasperationevident I told him that he could bring whoever he wanted and that I would fight them alltogether. On his last visit, he informed me that his armed force had reached the unlucky-for-some number and was thirteen strong. "That's fine," I said placidly. "I'll see you at one o'clock. I may have smiled.

At one o'clock, I crossed the road carrying a large bottle of the yellow lemonade, made in

the factory by the side of the sunlit field where I stood, drank, and waited for the horde toarrive. At the end of the lunch break, when I was full of lemonade but very lonely fromthe opposing army's failure to show, I walked back into the brickyard and resumed work.From time to time, young men would walk around the comer near where my machinewas situated, look at me, and walk back. This happened twelve times.

From that time on I was known as The Fighting Parson," and lead a life free of harassment and scorn, my new workmates showing conspicuous respect for an unlikely


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Christian warrior. What the young brawler never discovered, because he was too afraidto find out, was that if he had fought me, even by himself, he would more than likelyhave knocked the stuffing out of me.

I have not had many fights and have only lost one of those I have had. I do not like

fighting and would rather avoid confrontation, but there are times when decent peoplehave to stand up fearlessly or fearfully for what is right, simply because it is the rightthing to do.

Twenty years following this adventure, I worked at Shaw's Pallets in Dobcross,Lancashire, over the Pennines from Huddersfield. One worker was six foot two inchestall and a bully who used his size to intimidate smaller men, and we were all smaller thanhe was! I witnessed him perform an act of high foolishness that could have seriouslyinjured another operative. I went across to him and told him in no uncertain terms that if I ever saw him do anything like that again I would report him to the management andwould expect them to deprive him of his employment and press criminal charges. His

response was grunted belligerence.Later that day, whilst queuing to "clock out" he pushed in the queue. I took exception tohis unfairness and told him to get to the back of the queue. He became belligerent butthis time he added threats and imprecations to his fuming. I invited him out to the back of the factory to fight it out. He stood stock still, looking into my face to gauge myintentions whilst figuring his options. I have never exceeded five feet seven-and-one-half inches in height, and I weighed about eleven stone seven. He was about ten years my

junior and weighed in at an athletic fifteen and a half stone.

His thinking done, he said that if he fought me he would miss his bus. I said that if hefought me, win, lose, or draw, I would give him a lift home in my car. He thought somemore before his courage folded, then, grunting, he joined the back of the queue, with hismachismo evaporated, his power publicly shredded, and his bullying days at an end. Mystock rose immeasurably. I was regarded as courageous, with an alternate reading of foolhardy, charges to which I plead guilty due to derangement. My would-be antagonistsuffered from uncertainty, but most of all from pure cold fear, as is most often the casewith bullies.

It is quite possible that I would have lost both fights miserably and I knew it. But thereare times when we have to risk defeat, even be prepared to lose in order that truth,righteousness, and justice, are given their proper place in our communities. And we needto know that some things, like truth and love, are worth fighting for, and we lose onlywhen we stand silent and indolent in the face of injustice, hatred, prejudice, or unrighteousness.

The truly Christian life has been lived when, at its end, we can declare with Paul,

I Have Fought a Good Fight, I Have Finished My Course,


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I Have Kept the Faith

To be right and please God, it is sometimes obligatory for us to take on the enemy, evenwhen he is bigger than we are, more vigorous than we are, and even when he comesagainst us in battalions!


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Chapter

Going For a Soldier Ben Battle was a soldier bold And used to wars alarms,

Til a cannonball took off his legs And he laid down his arms

Thomas Hood

I continued to enjoy my spiritual and social development among the Latter-day

Saints. My time among them was pleasant and rewarding and I soon felt very much at

home with them. They were unquestionably supportive, and to a young lad of my

experience and disposition, that was no small thing.

I was baptised in December 1950, having spent late summer among my new

friends of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the first branch of the

Church in Huddersfield for some time, and finding new friends and good companionship

in the several branches of the Church in Halifax, Dewsbury, Bradford, and Leeds, in

what was then the Leeds District.

The year 1951, I passed in work and at Church, for the most part, enjoying both

but for entirely different reasons, but in 1952 the long shadow of conscription fell across

my life as I became increasingly aware that some time in 1953 I would be conscripted in

to the British Armed Forces of the Crown to serve in one or other arm for the

compulsory two years. So I joined the Army to avoid the being conscripted. That is the

only reason I can think of as to why I signed on for three years regular Army service

rather than waiting.

No doubt it was all clear as day once upon a time, but now I can only guess. I

might have thought Id do the extra year and get a bit more money. I cannot think of anything more heroic than that. Satisfied with the extra thirty shillings a week, I was not

unhappy at being referred to as a thick regular by my National Service comrades.

Until I had to report for duty, my employment continued, and I somehow managed to geta job on the building site at the rear of Brock Bank during the erection of the houses


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there. The company building them was Erith of Kent. I was put to work with a lumphammer and a cold chisel chasing channels in the walls for wiring, and knocking drainholes in them to carry the waste outside. This was during the time that my mother started

baking again.

Her teacakes were the size of a small beret, the weight of a medium brick, and the densityof concrete. However, they were substantial and one of them went a long way. Thesewere what I ate for my dinner on the building site. Very filling.

During an absence from work because of sickness, I obtained another job at ElliottsBrickyard at Lepton, and worked there for the period of my sick leave from the buildings.I am at a loss to explain my thinking or my condition, but it is true. After my sicknesswas over, I returned to Erith's.

One of the carpenters on site was big Dave Valentine. He was a Rugby League player who played for Fartown, as Huddersfield Rugby League Club is known. Dave Valentine,was one of the small but select band of Scots who made a major impact on the sport of rugby league, which celebrates an important centenary on Friday, September 1 2006.Valentine was undoubtedly the most famous of the Scottish rugger players, the former

Hawick union player leading Great Britain to win the inaugural Rugby League WorldCup in 1954.

Dave Valentine

Details from the Sportal Rugby League World Cup 2000 Greatest Players site

Dave Valentines place in rugby league history was already assured before the inaugural 1954 World Cup.He had already won eleven test caps, played in Ashes-winning sides in 1948 and 1952, toured Australasia

Toasted Buttered Currant Teacake


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with the Lions earlier in 1954 and won a host of major honours with a sublimely entertaining Huddersfieldteam. He had been capped by Scotland at rugby union and in league he had been a mainstay for thecelebrated Other Nationalities XIII.

A virile, hard-working, strong-tackling loose-forward and a leader others would follow, Valentine wasoffered the captaincy of Great Britain for the first World Cup when stand-off Willie Horne turned it down. Itcould have been a poisoned chalice for many of the returning 1954 Lions also decided to forego theexperience and injuries ruled out other candidates.

History shows that Valentines party of underdogs went to France and confounded both the sceptics andthe opposition. Britain probably never had a more inspirational captain as Valentine led them to a 16-12victory in the final against an excellent French combination. That final at the Parc des Princes proved to beValentines last appearance for Great Britain. What a way to finish.

Dave hammered screws into the floorboards to fasten them into the split steel joists thatsupport the upper floors. None of the screws ever saw a screwdriver, except what hecalled his Manchester Screwdriver.

From Eriths I went to work at Sharratts brickyard, near the top of the Ainleys on theElland side, and it was from Sharratts that I enlisted.


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Chapter

The Initiative Test

The Army Recruiting Office was in Kirkgate, opposite the Parish Church. Some time inJuly 1952, I took a day off work and made my way to the office, answered somequestions, filled in some forms, and was sent to Halifax for a medical.

Looking up Kirkgate

The instructions to get to the doctors surgery in Halifax were simple and verbal. After getting on the right omnibus I followed the directions and duly arrived. The trip for medical inspection was a simple initiative test. It is told that some would-be soldiers arestill wandering around Halifax muttering into their beards: these failed the test.

Halifax Piece Hall


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Returning to the Recruiting Office clutching a brown envelope describing my rudehealth, I was invited to fill in some more forms. When it asked for religion I said,Latter-day Saint, which was questioned by one of the staff.

Have you ever heard of that? he asked the sergeant with the bright red sash on.

British Army Recruiting Sergeants Badge

A man may claim any religion he likes! said the sergeant in a firm voice, and that wasthe end of the matter. The only problem with being a member of The Church of JesusChrist of Latter-day Saints as far as Army service was concerned is the fact that the box

in which a soldiers religion is transcribed in his AB 64 Part One is one inch long. So,while it accommodates RC, C of E, Meth, Bapt, and so forth quite nicely, abbreviatingthe full title of my Church was problematic. However, after some discussion we settledfor Latter-day Saint in small squashed letters.

I was eventually invited to stand and take the oath of allegiance to Her Majesty QueenElizabeth II, her heirs and successors, from which I have never been released, exceptmentally, then given the Queens Shilling, that I converted into jelly babies on the wayhome. I was a soldier. Well almost!

I had been given a date to join the training unit of the Corps of Royal Electrical and

Mechanical Engineers at Blandford, and supplied with a travel warrant to travel there bysteam train. The Corps is colloquially known as the REME pronounced REEMY despite a REME captain instructing us to refer to it by separate initials, R E M E.

Thinking ahead, I went to a barbers shop at Green Cross on the way home.

Give me soldiers hair-cut, Ive gone for a soldier, I said in an important voice. Yes, sir! he replied in a voice that betrayed his former khaki days. In a flash a cape


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surrounded me, following which, with sudden despatch and a million inconsequentialquestions from the veteran, his silver scissors flew, electric shears whirred, and my shell-like ears fell several feet towards my feet. Wading in my crop of hair, the barber held upthe mirror.

That should do, he said. I agreed. We were both wrong, even though I had never hadmy hair cut as short as he cut it in all the years I went for Short back and side, pleaseto the barber shop next to Moxons coal office opposite Sparrow Park as a boy. I breezedout of the barbers hut with the glowing confidence that I had met the Armys rigoroustonsorial standard. Ambrose Bierce defined being positive as being mistaken at the topof ones voice. Subsequent events at Blandford proved him right.


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Chapter

Peter YullWe saw the anguish of his soul

The branch members variously received news of my enlistment. In any event, militaryservice was inevitable, and I should have had to go in another five or six months anyway.Kath Crowthers brother, Peter, was my age. He enlisted shortly after I did. He wentinto the Fleet Air Arm, becoming an airframe engineer, and served for many years.

When Peters marriage broke up, he wandered lost and lonely for many years, notkeeping in touch with his family which was a source of constant anxiety to them. OneSaturday, many years later, when I was going to the London Temple, Kath asked me to

put Peters name on the prayer roll, which was not then a common practice in the UnitedKingdom. I added his name, and the following Thursday he walked unannounced andunexpected into his parents home in Kirkheaton.

He was never active in the Church again, but married a girl from his village, Kirkheaton,started a new family, and became a leader in his local branch of the British Legion. Hewas a gifted pianist, a good man, and a loyal friend.

Kath had another brother, Billy, who joined the merchant navy. He was lost overboardone New Years Day. The Huddersfield Sea Cadet Corps held a service of remembrancefor him at the rear of their quarters on Old Leeds Road in which a wreath was placed onthe canal in a brief but touching ceremony.

There is a double sadness in such a loss. Ones mind can never discover exactly whathappened, and that gives reign to imagining all kinds of terrible things, as if the loss itself was not terrible enough. There is something of comfort in knowing where the beloved isresting. A grave is a focal point for grief: a place of pilgrimage where remembrance of times past, and present hopes can be fused.

Moreover, while this does not abolish grief, it does lessen it. There is some satisfactionfrom being able to visit such a place that is not available when the resting place of the lostone is unknown. Humanitys fears tend towards the worst, as expressed in WordsworthsThe Affliction of Margaret .

A strong faith is of great comfort. As Joseph Smith said, While we weep, we do not weep as those without hope. Religion had taken over my life and infused it with newmeanings. I took it seriously, reinterpreting life and myself in new ways. I do not meanthat I was perfect, or even a good example. I was still being made. Dennis Livesey onceremarked of me at this period that I was struggling to grow up, and he was right.

Peter did not return to activity in the Church, and I saw him only one further time whenhe visited to attend some function. He married a girl from Kirkheaton, lived there,


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worked nearby, was involved with the British Legion Club there, and died far too youngand a stranger, he who had once been my closest friend


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Chapter

at the mill with slaves - a yorkshire experience

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