FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

A lot of that would be 'funny money' Ken. Held in biscuit tins under the bed and often accumulated during the war on the black market.



The final stage of the demolition of Wellhouse Chimney in 1976. It had been reduced in height some years earlier but was then taken down to a stump no higher than the building it was next to which was Brown and Pickles' works.

[Stanley]

This is a Telex, an obsolete method of communication that preceded the Fax and we don't often see them. That makes this a forgotten corner.



Here's the engine it refers to after it was installed in the East Hall of the Science Museum. There is another forgotten corner concerning this engine. The original contract was that B&P were to install the engine as well as take it out of the mill at Harle Syke. This fell through when Newton Pickles was informed it was going to be driven by electric motor and he gave back word on the deal saying he didn't want anything to do with 'clockwork engines'.
He never admitted it but I think this was just an excuse. They made no money out of removing the engine and didn't expect to do any batter on the installation so Newton decided they could live without it.
The irony is that eventually the engine was installed in steam.... But that's another story!

[Stanley]

My friend John Pudney took me on a pub crawl of the East End of London in 1976. What was notable about this was that he was a recovering alcoholic and the glass was a fruit juice. There were many interesting venues that day but perhaps the most striking was a visit to a royal Academician whose studio was in the original factory of the London Rubber Company. (That's right..... LINK) He wore an opera cloak and a purple sombrero and showed us a portrait he was doing of Violet Bonham Carter. I have to tell you this North Country lad was impressed but wouldn't have wanted him as a house guest!
If the name John Pudney rings a bell, have a look at THIS biog..... Not a forgotten corner for me but it will be for most people.

[Stanley]

This morning's forgotten corner is a part of me memoirs..... It's 1976 at Hey Farm......

In mid 1975 I started writing, I had this urge to put things down on paper and wrote the story of my life on the road and at Bancroft in longhand. My sister typed it out for me and I started thinking about getting it published. I wrote to Allan Thomas the editor of Motor Transport in October and asked his advice, he told me to write to a bloke called John Pudney, an established author who he thought might have been commissioned to write a book on the road. I wrote to John in November and received an immediate and encouraging reply, he was visiting the North of England at Christmas and could he call in on Boxing Day and visit me! Needless to say this was soon arranged.
I had to go over to the mill on Boxing Day and on my return I walked into the kitchen and Vera pointed me towards the front room where I heard voices. I stood in the doorway and saw an unusual sight. A large, heavily built man with a marvellous mane of white hair was stood in front of a rapt semi-circle of children, there was Margaret, Susan and Janet and some of their friends. The man was declaiming poetry, definitely a first for Hey Farm. I can remember the poems even now, there was one about a white rabbit and a waterfall and another about the man who repaired the Queen’s refrigerator and couldn’t tell people whether she used Stork or butter as it would infringe the Official Secrets Act! The man was John Pudney, his wife Monica had dropped him off and was going to come back and pick him up later. Once again, I got the sense that a significant life event was happening before my eyes and a quick decision had to be made! Actually, there was no decision about it, I was so flattered that somebody had actually listened to my shout for help and immediately done something about it that I would have listened to John even if he’d had horns on his head and a forked tail!
John and I plunged into conversation and he questioned me closely for about an hour. I have no doubt that my answers were naïve, verbose, arrogant and disjointed but he sorted out the wheat from the chaff. He told me it was obvious to him that I was on the verge of serious changes in my life and that I was quite right, I had something to say and what I should do was get on with it! I should forget about collaboration with him or anyone else but get on with polishing my writing skills and start producing a body of work. He listened to my argument that I needed more education and said that whilst that might be true I shouldn’t let it get in the way of actually doing things. He pointed out to me that I was thrashing about as though I was caught in a net but actually I wasn’t. His analogy was that I imagined myself to be in some sort of a prison but that in fact it only had three walls and the roof was open to the Yorkshire sky. As far as the history, the photography and the writing was concerned, I was ready. His bottom line was that I certainly had it in me to do good work, all I had to do was produce, what route I chose to prepare myself was up to me but he warned me against too much displacement activity, the most important thing was to write. Later on other people told me exactly the same thing and even now I don’t know whether the route I took was the right one, there’s a good argument for saying I would have been better off if I’d started writing seriously then, but as I say, I don’t know. All I can say with certainty is that if I had, I would have missed out on a lot more experiences.
After what can only be described as one of the most stimulating days of my life, Monica came and took John away. A month later he was diagnosed with throat cancer and this eventually killed him on November 10th 1977. From the day I met him until the day he died John and Monica were in constant correspondence with us, he sent me poems for the engine house, his letters were full of praise and good advice and they brought another dimension into life at Hey Farm.



John at home in Greenwich. I was a very lucky lad to tap into this man.

[Wendyf]

Thanks Stanley, I was wondering how you had met him after reading yesterday's post.

[Tripps]

Fascinating post - so he's the one we can assign some blame to for all this.

The start is a Telex message. Forgotten corner as you say. Used one every day at work to speak to other monitoring stations worldwide. No need for 'signed for on delivery' - the fact that you have a print out is not possible without the recipient having received it. This was accepted in the Customs too.

I have no doubt that my answers were naïve, verbose, arrogant and disjointed

Not any more they're not.

PS Stanley said not Wendy.

[Tripps]

I thought I'd never heard of him - but now, to my surprise, I find that I know of one of his poems.
It was literally written 'on the back of an envelope'.

Pudney.jpg

For Johnny


Do not despair
For Johnny-head-in-air,
He sleeps as sound
As Johnny under ground.

Fetch out no shroud
For Johnny-in-the-cloud,
And keep your tears
for him in after years.

Better by far
For Johnny-in-the cloud;
To keep you head,
And see his children fed.

[Stanley]

Nice! I'm glad you didn't think I was simply indulging myself. He described himself as a good hack author. He would write a book on anything if commissioned. At heart he was a poet but couldn't make any money at that. 'Johnny' is the poem everybody remembers but nobody knows the author of.
Speaking of poems. Anyone remember this? Was it Andy Gigglepants that wrote it?

[Stanley]

Phyliss Watson in the weaving shed getting ready for going home in the days when we were weaving out in 1978. The reason I post this image as a forgotten corner is that it's a good illustration of the terrible conditions in the shed. Quite apart from the general dirt and untidiness and the unprotected belts, look at the uneven flag floors and recognise that our heating was never what you would call comfort levels. Yet these weavers loved working in the shed, they referred to it a 'a holiday camp'. I wonder whether it would be seen in the same way today?

[Steeplejerk]

I can smell that weaving shed from the photo

[Stanley]

Linseed oil, Whale Oil and Leather..... Never forgotten Tom.
Thanks for making that comment, it's nice to know the images hit the target.

[Cathy]

One of our Grandmothers worked at Bancroft, I don’t remember the smell, just the Noise. omg!!

[Stanley]

Yes that's right Cathy. All the weavers had damaged hearing......

[PanBiker]

We have a 1930's weavers folding chair identical to that one in the photo. We had loads of them in the union rooms (Weavers Union, later GMB). When the GMB decided to sell the property we lost our meeting rooms and printing accommodation for our litho. We liberated a couple of the chairs as they were all going in the skip. The union asked for them back! We only returned one and keep the other as a a memento of happier times for the party in Barlick, and its a nice chair.

[Stanley]

And nowadays Town Square is full of them on a sunny day.



Wellhouse Mill, 1982. Anthony, last manager of Bendem's small shed in Wellhouse at his desk in his office. Lots of forgotten corners here. Bendem was the last firm to weave in Wellhouse. The desk is the old fashioned stand-up desk from Victorian times. Adapted for modern use by the addition of high chairs. The Burnley Ironworks engine name plate on the wall is from Moss Shed engine, Anthony was the last weaving manager there when they shut down. Lastly, it won't be long now before the concept of a landline phone like that is long gone!

[Stanley]

Another mill manager in his office on the phone and with the addition of pipe tobacco smoke..... Take note of the Kalamazoo ledger on the desk, this was in the days before computers. The firm is still in business making ledgers in Australia. Sidney Nutter in Bancroft Shed office in 1977. A good and very funny man....

[Stanley]

Vandalism is never pretty. Broken windows on Bancroft Shed roof in 1977. The only time it happened in all the time I was there. Once was more than enough.

[Stanley]

Mary Southwell and (hidden by the pipe) Pat ? in the pasteuriser room at West Marton Dairy in about 1950. At that time Mary and Pat were the staff of the dairy laboratory that dis all the testing of milk necessary for hygienic production.

[Stanley]

Westgate in 1892. All the houses to the south of Westgate above Clough were demolished in the late 1950s to make room for road improvements. I am told that the same fate awaited the other side but before that happened the funds ran out. Good!

[Stanley]

An entry in the Young Farmer's Clubs show at Harrogate in 1977. The thing I liked about this class, lining a cake tin, was that it was only open to the young men.....

[Steeplejerk]

Young farmers are in Blackpool this weekend nothing like that that will be on the agenda

[Stanley]

Sorry to hear that Tom....


The late 'young' Sid Demaine with his sheep on the field I sold him at Hey Farm in 2004. His daughter still owns the smallholding and never forgot me giving Sid the right of way through Hey farmyard. Doing that broke the planning logjam and allowed him to build the bungalow at the tannery.

[Stanley]

Long Ing Shed in the 1980s when it was still a textile mill.

[SAC]

I am thinking that is taken on Coates Bridge and is Rolls Royce Bankfield looking at the gate and the railing’s which are still there.

[plaques]

I would agree with SAC. RR not Long Inn. Typographical inexactitude?