We left our hero last week in Harry Palmer’s father’s milk float jogging quietly across to Burnley with half his left hand blown off. It would be a good thing at this point to explain exactly what had happened.
The ‘brass tubes’ that had caught Jack’s eye in the quarry hut were detonators. These were small tubes filled with a very sensitive and powerful explosive. They were used to initiate a larger explosion for blasting rock in the quarry where the main explosive used was ‘Black Jack’, a modern form of gunpowder. Truth to tell, they shouldn’t have been lying about, but should have been securely locked up. I know that Jack was in the wrong but so were the quarry men at Sagars and this was to have an interesting sequel.
When Jack started poking the sensitive explosive with a piece of wire it exploded. He was holding the detonator in his left hand and when it went off it blew off half his palm most of his thumb and the three smallest fingers. He told me that it hurt…..
When they got to Burnley Dr Watson took charge and the first thing they did was put Jack to sleep with chloroform. When he came to he had 68 stitches in his hand. Dr Watson told him that if he hadn’t been so young he would have amputated the hand at the wrist but had decided to leave him as much as he could. He said that if he wanted he could have a new thumb but he would walk badly for the rest of his life because he’d have to pinch a big toe! Jack wasn’t sure whether he was joking or not and they put him to bed.
It was a long slow job healing up, Jack was eight weeks in hospital but eventually he got back to Barlick. His hand was still tender but he was starting to use it as well as he could. One thing was certain, he need never worry again about having to work in the mill, a weaver needs all the fingers they have so he started to look round for a job. He soon found work, him and Bobby Lambert, who later had a joiner’s shop, ran Tommy Sandham’s milk round for him. Jack said that Tommy was fond of his drink so he and Bobby had sole charge most of the time. He stayed in this job for about twelve months.
I think you might remember me saying not so long ago that every cloud has a silver lining. It’s amazing how something that seems a disaster at the time can turn out to be a good thing. Jack’s accident is a case in point. He said that it worried him at the time, quite natural, what young lad at sixteen wants to lose half his hand? But as time went on he realised how well he was adapting. True, he couldn’t weave but it wasn’t stopping him doing much else. He said that the biggest problem was fastening the button on his right shirt cuff! But he soon mastered that.
As time went on his injury kept him out of the army in WW2 and so probably saved his life. Of course he didn’t know this at the time but he was about to get another bonus because of the accident.
Remember me saying that the quarry were really at fault because the detonators should have been locked up? Well funnily enough, John Sagar, the man who owned the quarries, must have had a bit of a conscience about this. Jack met him at the top of Tubber Hill one day and John asked him how he was going on and what he was doing. Jack told him and the upshot was that John offered Jack a job. Jack took it and in 1921 started his career as a quarryman.
Jack said that he thought Sagar’s had been fined for not keeping the detonators secure. Whether this influenced John Sagar he couldn’t say but he did tell me that he thought John had been very fair with him because he pushed him on in the quarry. Jack started as a tea boy and running errands but before long he was working on the stone saws learning the job.
One of the things we forget nowadays is how important quarrying was in Barlick at the turn of the nineteenth century. In 1906, evidence was given before the Light Railway Commissioners about the amount of traffic Barlick could generate by rail. There were 250 men engaged directly in the gritstone quarries and these were Sagar Brothers, Edward Smith and John Sagar at Tubber Hill, John Sagar at Salterforth Quarry, George Sagar at Waterworks 1 and 2 quarries, Dalton and Higgins at Waterworks Quarry and Whitham trading as the Salterforth Stone and brick Company at Park Close. In addition there were the limestone quarries on the east of the town at Rainhall Rock, Greenberfield, Gill Rock and Thornton.
The stone in Sagar’s quarry at Tubber Hill, Loose Games, was a warm sandstone much favoured for building. The stone in Salterforth Quarry was much harder and was used for cills, jambs, steps and engine beds, anywhere where maximum strength and wear was needed. Both top and bottom quarries had to be sawn from blocks, there were no regular vertical faults and this was the job Jack was put on to.
We’ll leave Jack there and look at the quarry work in detail next week. It looks as though our hero has landed on his feet despite having a serious accident. He was to work for Sagar’s for 18 years and despite John Sagar’s reputation for being a hard man, found a good boss there. Funny how a weekend prank and an accident triggered off a satisfactory result.
SCG/1 March 2003
Inghamite Chapel, Salterforth. Built with stone from Salterforth quarry.