FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Looking at the pic above reminds me of the happy days I had working for Richard. I loved the cattle, the customers and the roads, some of the nicest in Britain. The furthest North I went was Kirriemur and the furthest south was beyond Exeter and just about everywhere in between and all with a good motor. Pig heaven!
In those days (I say that because from what Richard tells me it is no longer the case) the cattle moved in tides that were the same year after year. Good young calves went North for rearing for beef or dairy. Beef calves came back down as 18 month old stirks for fattening in England. Dairy came back as in calf heifers at two the three years old. We had a good market for the best dairy heifers because a lot of our men were farmer retailers and so were making top price for their milk. They would pay double what an ordinary producer could afford. Richard tells me that this secure trade has finished, he could no longer run a business out of it like we did then. So, like the roads, I saw the glory days of old fashioned cattle dealing. It's gone now, another forgotten corner.



Setting off to Exeter with 16 big beasts in my new Leyland Wagon in 1969. You can tell I was busy, the wagon is dirty!

[Whyperion]

Amazing how long some 'temporary' wartime buildings have survived.
My mind is racing of course with the news from Earby and I don't know why but Spud's New Bike entered my head so I have bumped it. I think we all need a good laugh before that becomes a forgotten corner!

Although generally the design of the temporary metal framed tin covered buildings has changed (Industrial Modular I think is the name for workshops etc nowadays) , the traditional design is still avalible to buy and use as barns, garages and storage uses, being single skinned they dont have good insulation abilities - though breeze block internal facitilities are often inside the shell - and for most uses an insulation sandwich is needed , which dies not curve well cheaply.

[Stanley]

I saw a report yesterday about 800,000 small and medium size businesses being in danger of closure as they cannot survive without income. We talk many a time about the disappearance of the Corner Shop, when the dust settles from this lot we might be talking about a decline in the number of independent small businesses. I think you all know what my attitude to this is, we need a healthy structure of small traders to balance the dead hand that the supermarkets would be without the competition. The supermarkets talk about choice but the real choice isn't more and more margarine brands but the choice between a small shop keeping profit in the town and a large company exporting profit. We must do our best to support the small traders, if we don't they will be just one more forgotten corner.

[Tripps]

Amazing how long some 'temporary' wartime buildings have survived.

I looked back at my picture of Mr Gilhooly's (wonderful name) repair shop, and pleasingly saw it had 143 views. That's a lot I'd suggest for such a site as this, and a realistic rough count of the traffic?

[Whyperion]

Might be because The Repair Shop is on BBC1 and a mis-search is finding it !

[Stanley]

Or perhaps because it's such a good find! I'll go with you David and be positive!



Here's a forgotten corner, Fred Dawson milking at Thornton Hall Farm in 1976. If Fred has survived he will be about the same age as me, perhaps a couple of years younger. I know his brother John died years ago.
The forgotten corner is the industry, this part of the world was ideal dairy farming country and almost every farm was a milk producer. In turn this supported a whole network of suppliers from feeds to machinery and a wider dairy industry with two local dairies Dobson's and West Marton. It was such a beautiful economic fit with nature and climate and supported a valuable part of society, the independent farmer. Where did it all go? 'Efficiency' and 'economics' demanded bigger units, better margins and more control and this led to the demise of the Milk Marketing Board and the advent of giant concerns that used their power to drive farm gate prices down to a level where only those willing to move into modern 'industrial' farming could survive.



Farmers like Ernie Dawson who gave their lives to the industry and their cattle became superfluous to requirements. Is this progress?

[Stanley]

Few things are as anonymous as an old shed in a back street. This one is in Back Federation Street and is rather special.



Here's the reason, it is the shed where Johnny Pickles did some of his best work, here he is with the clock for Holy Trinity which was born in this shed.



It was also where he made this copy of the Birch lathe in 1927. This is of course the one I have in my front room. So as far as I am concerned the old shed will not be forgotten, even after it eventually bites the dust.

[PanBiker]

Soon to be a forgotten corner. I noticed yesterday that the former Vicarage on Skipton Road, last used as the Masonic Hall Lodge has now been demolished with only the foundations remaining. A small cluster of houses and a new building for the Masons use are due to be built on the site.

[Stanley]

Newton told me that there used to be a garden railway laid out in the grounds at the Vicarage. They should find a well in the old foundations, there were reports of it drying up in about 1850 when Billycock was building New Mill (Later called Wellhouse) and his men used sand from a pit opposite the vicarage. It resumed flowing again after about two years.

[Stanley]

The scene is when I was Open All Hours At Sough, 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 the old vicarage 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 Asian Flu! 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 the story.
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.

[Tizer]

In early 1957 Tokyo schools had to close due to influenza. This was the start of the pandemic caused by the H2N2 strain, at that time referred to as A/Tokyo by the virologists and Asian Flu by journalists. It spread widely in that year but was followed by a second wave in 1958. In the 1960s it mutated to give the H3N2 strain that caused the 1968 A/Hong Kong pandemic, worse than the 1957 one.

[Stanley]

I was a strong, fit young lad and it felled me! I can remember having to go up the stairs on my hands and knees.
I just went for a furtle and found this in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: "This upsurge in cases was the result of a second pandemic wave of illness that struck the Northern Hemisphere in November 1957. At that time the pandemic was also already widespread in the United Kingdom. By December a total of some 3,550 deaths had been reported in England and Wales. The second wave was particularly devastating, and by March 1958 an estimated 69,800 deaths had occurred in the United States."
How do these figures compare with now? Have we forgotten the lessons of the past? Are we over-reacting? Or is it just that this modern world demands much higher levels of 'safety'. It's a bit of a puzzle as well as a forgotten corner.

[Tizer]

In 1957/58 we had insignificant protection from vaccine, antibiotics were less readily available on a worldwide basis and on, average, world health was worse then than it is now.

[Stanley]

I'm not trying to minimise what's happening Tiz. Just reminding everyone that we have been here before and survived.
This topic is going to change slightly from now on as far as I am concerned.This week is the last week of Stanley's View as we know it as the Barnoldswick and Earby Times ceases publication and is replaced by in integrated edition for all areas. As part of this all 'nostalgia content' is being ditched, I come under that. They say, optimistically, that this is a temporary measure but don't hold your breath, I very much doubt whether it will ever return. This week's edition is to contain both the final episodes of the 'Fall of the Bracewell's'.
I don't intend to stop writing and my intention is to continue with a series of occasional articles but it remains to be seen how I will manage these without the discipline and deadline of a publication date! I'm not getting any younger.

[Cathy]

Sad to read that it is the ‘end of an era’ for you Stanley. But you are someone who needs to get your information and opinions ‘out there’, so I don’t think you will stop all together. We’ll continue to hear from you , even if only on OG.

[Tizer]

He'll never be a `Forgotten Corner' himself, Cathy!

[Stanley]

You are of course right Cathy and apart from OG I have other avenues including a wide international circle of correspondents.
Tiz, don't kid yourself, we are all largely forgotten corners as soon as we retire! Nowt wrong with that, we escape the limelight but most importantly the responsibility! Unless of course we are in a profession like architecture where you are responsible for your mistakes in perpetuity.
I remember being attacked by an armchair engineer for what he regarded as a mistake in an engine build from thirty years ago. He was wrong but I told him that the engine had run for 30 years, was still running and if there was anything wrong with it it could be down to the people who had looked after it all that time.
The SCG problem solving mantra starts, Is there a problem? If there is, is it mine? Most problems go away at that point. The most usual 'problem' is where to allocate the blame. Once you have managed to ditch that and concentrate on consequences you will find you get on much better.
These are often forgotten corners.

[Stanley]

I was stuck this morning and looked back into the topic for inspiration. I found this from eight years ago...
Every town and village has forgotten nooks and corners that slowly fade into obscurity and eventually get destroyed or altered fundamentally by the march of progress. When this happens there is a frantic search for images and information but it is usually too late. It might be a good idea to post images and descriptions of any examples we know so that there is some evidence for researchers. Don't limit it to Barlick, any examples gratefully received and archived.



Here's an example in Barlick. Ripe for development, it can't survive much longer. This is just below Commercial Street in Barlick, on the bank of Butts Beck. These units are the old Shambles for Barlick, used by many of the local butchers for slaughtering and butchering meat. The beck was a handy waste disposal unit. The gap nearest the camera is where Briggs and Duxbury had their original workshop until the 1930s but it burned down later. At one time they extended into the building on the other side of the ginnel and constructed an over-bridge to join the premises together.
I was a bit out with my time scale, the Shambles still survives exactly as it was then. Perhaps the reason is that they are actually the foundations for the buildings above on Commercial Street and even if anyone wanted to do something about the present structures they would have to get control of the whole block and demolish the lot. This makes it too expensive, there are cheaper options elsewhere in Barlick. For this reason I fully expect it to still be unchanged in another eight years! We live and learn.....

[Stanley]

The Corn Mill and the gas holders in 1982. All gone now that we have a National Grid of gas mains but it reminds us of the days when the gas works ran on coal and was a municipal enterprise.



They were part of the townscape in 1978.

[Stanley]

The gasworks in 1963. Dismantling had already started on the site. The retorts had gone long before when gas production ceased in April 1954 in favour of gas piped in from more efficient facilities under the NW Gas Board formed by nationalisation in 1948. Now the gasholders are also redundant and were being demolished.

[Stanley]

The Vicarage in 1963. It was already the Masonic Hall and Vicarage Road wasn't adopted. The garage was Windle's garage of course. I used to go down there every day to deliver Barlick Bottles into the West Marton Dairy fridge in the farm buildings at the bottom of the street. There was a back gate into Wellhouse Mill that gave direct access to the part rented by Rolls Royce at one time but it was rarely used.
Definitely a forgotten corner now!

[Big Kev]

Certainly is, completely gone now and footings in place for new housing...

[plaques]

Please correct me but wasn't it a Buffalo Lodge? Buffs an imitation of the Free Masons but at a workingman's level. Never did understand these secret societies.

[Stanley]

As far as I know P they were full on Masons. The Ivory Hall used to be the Rose in the Valley Lodge of the Free Foresters. Don't know of any Buffs but that doesn't mean there wasn't a Lodge.

[PanBiker]

My Uncle Bob used to be Grand Master of the Barlick Lodge at one time. It had "Bob's Place" in sprayed graffiti on the door for a lot of years.

Yes I know, Bob really was my Uncle.