One of the big changes after the First World War was the appearance on the roads of cheap ex army wagons. Sagars soon realised this and bought two, a Dennis and a Roma. To our eyes, these were very primitive vehicles. They had solid tyres, oil lamps, no protection for the driver apart from canvas screens and very poor brakes. They could carry about four tons and were limited by law to 12 miles an hour. Despite all these drawbacks, they were faster and cheaper to run than horses. My picture this week is of an Albion army wagon but gives a very good idea of the type used by Sagars.
The regular driver at the quarry in the 1920s was Billy Spensley who later married Jack’s sister Annie. It was common practice for him to take a mate with him as all the stone had to be unloaded by hand and Jack used to do this job from time to time. It gives some idea of how free and easy things were in those days if I tell you that Billy would let Jack have a go at driving on these trips despite the fact that he hadn’t got a license. Jack took to driving like a duck to water and even though he didn’t know it at the time, the pattern of the rest of his working life was set.
A word here about wagon driving. We hear a lot nowadays about the psychology of driving and the fascination it can hold for us. As a long term sufferer myself I can tell you that the disease is far worse when it concerns wagons. We used to call it being ‘cab-happy’ and I can understand exactly what happened to Jack because I was just as bad myself. If you’re that way inclined, there is nothing nicer than being captain of your own ship and hauling heavy loads. The bigger the wagon and the longer the journey the better! When I got my last wagon in 1978 it was the biggest in Barlick and I was at least ten feet tall. Jack came round and admired it and then said to me “Don’t forget Stanley, the bigger the wagon, the bigger the fool that’s driving it!” He was right and I knew it. My wage hadn’t gone up and I had twice as much to clean!
In about 1923 Sagars bought a new Leyland wagon and sold the old Roma. Billy took the new wagon and one morning John Sagar said to Jack “Take a load of random stone to Foulridge with the Dennis”. So Jack did as he was told. Only problem was he was only 17 years old and hadn’t got a license! Over the next few months he was caught three times driving without a license and fined ten shillings for each offence. Eventually John Sagar must have realised it would be cheaper to get Jack licensed so he gave him five shillings and told him to get one. Jack wrote off to Skipton, asked for a license and enclosed a five shilling postal order. No questions, no test, but the magic piece of paper arrived back by return of post. Our hero was legal.
It is very hard for us to realise nowadays just how primitive conditions were in the early 1920s. Apart from a few roads paved with setts in the middle of the town, all the roads were like farm tracks. Jack said that the setts on the main road started at Barrowford. The vehicles were dreadfully under powered, the maximum speed empty was about 15 miles an hour. The lights were oil lamps and had a distressing habit of blowing out as you were driving. A good illustration of both these facts is that Jack was driving home one night through Barrowford and ‘Ginger’, the local bobby, overtook him on his push bike and shouted that his tail light was out! Jack had to stop, clean the lamp and trim the wick and get it going before he could set off again.
The wagons had no brakes as we understand them. The only means of stopping was a combined hand and foot brake that worked on the transmission. These picked up a lot of oil and once a week a careful driver stripped the brake down and boiled the brake lining in strong alkali to clean it and ensure a reasonable brake on Monday morning. Driving down Tubber Hill with a load was a dangerous occupation. You stopped at the top, engaged bottom gear and crept down using both the engine and the brake to hold you back. Even so, Jack said he regularly had to put a wheel in the dyke at the edge of the road to stop himself running away.
There was no cab as we know it, simply a backboard and a primitive roof and canvas side screens. One of Jack’s regular jobs in winter was to plough snow off the road for the Council. The snow plough was kept on the side of the road near the Dog and was a simple wooden wedge with iron sole plates that was hitched to the back of the wagon with a chain and towed along the road. Jack’s regular stretch was from the Dog to Standing Stone Gate and he told me he got to Whitemoor one morning in winter and when he looked he had lost the plough! They went back and found it sitting in the middle of the road at Tubber Hill.
Brushes with the law were an everyday event. Sometime in the mid twenties Jack was courting Mona and was hurrying back home through Nelson because he was going to a party with her. He was caught in a speed trap doing seventeen miles an hour, got a summons and was fined fifty shillings or 14 days in gaol. His wage was only thirty shillings a week and he had to threaten to leave before old John paid his fine. Mind you, he got to the party and in 1928 married Mona and moved to a cottage at Tubber Hill. Things were looking up!
SCG/22 March 2003
An Albion wagon like Jack’s Dennis.