Sorry about this, but for the second time in three weeks I am forced back to the subject of sudden death. I’ve just read my BET and seen the report of the death of Phyllis Watson.
Phyllis was one of ‘my’ weavers when I ran the engine at Bancroft and it’s not many days since I had a crack with her when we met on the street in the town centre. It was a real shock to see the report and I’d like to extend my sympathy to her family, she will be sorely missed.
I only knew Phyllis because of our contact at Bancroft and so my experience of her is limited. However, I always got on well with her even when she was playing war with me about the shed being cold in winter. Truth to tell, if she decided to give you a dressing down she had a sharp tongue! Funny thing was that the more she got on at me the more she made me laugh until in the end even she saw the funny side and would storm out telling me I was a daft b****r. However, most of the time she was good for a laugh.
I used to walk round the shed regularly during the day looking for hot bearings, checking the temperatures and generally making sure that everything was running smoothly in the shafting. Anything else was down to the tacklers so I was never really in the weaver’s bad books. This meant I could have a crack with them as I went round and Phyllis was usually good for a laugh. I remember coming across a group of them having a good laugh round the boiler in the warehouse as they made a brew and it turned out they were having an in-depth discussion of exactly what Marlon Brando did with half a pound of butter in the film Last Tango in Paris! This went completely over my head of course because a young lad like me knew nothing about such things…..
Another memory is during the very hot summer of 1976. This caused me all sorts of problems in the shed. It was obviously the hottest weather since the shed was built in 1919 because the shafting expanded to the point where it was rubbing on the walls at the ends of some of the cross shafts. I had to cut a couple of inches off the ends of about four shafts. Another consequence was that the timber frame which supported the glass roof over the ladies lavatories shrank to the point where there was a danger of it falling in and injuring someone. The management wouldn’t pay for overtime and so I had to do the necessary repairs whilst the mill was running. This meant of course that the toilets were in use! I remember on one occasion I climbed the ladder outside and called a warning to any ladies in there that I was coming onto the roof. A voice came back from the depths; ‘Oh get on with it lad! You won’t see anything you haven’t seen before!’ Guess who it was…… I have to tell you that during the course of that little job my education took a massive leap forward but my lips are sealed.
Another thing about Phyllis was that she was one of a group of ladies working in the shed who were notable for the fact that they looked just as clean and tidy when they went out of work at night as they did when they came in at starting up time. Her weaving space was always tidy and I know that the manager, Jim Pollard, counted her as one of his best weavers. His standard line was ‘If I could have a shed full of weavers like her we couldn’t half get some production’.
The weaving shed wasn’t a comfortable workplace. It was incredibly noisy and dangerous for anyone not used to the environment. I was always amazed that we had so few accidents from unguarded belts, picking sticks that could break your elbow and rogue shuttles flying out of the slay that could easily put your eye out. The floor was uneven stone flags and the weavers had to carry all their own weft. The funny thing is that if you talk to the old weavers, many of them described Bancroft as a holiday camp. Somewhere that they looked forward to going into every day. Part of this was the camaraderie of people who were all in the same boat, knew exactly why they were there and used humour and friendship to oil the wheels of the day.
If I’m building a picture of a handsome woman with a good sense of humour who was a good and reliable worker who was always neat and tidy, I’m doing a good job, and yes, you’re right, I had a soft spot for her, who didn’t? Looking beyond that, you might wonder at my title, The Forgotten Army. It goes back to what I was saying about John Plummer two weeks ago, it was people like John and Phyllis who ran this country. The management and the politicians can argue as they will but without the workers who put up with appalling conditions by today’s standards there wouldn’t have been an industry or an economy. In the end, all the money came from what I once called The Lost Legions of the Industrial Revolution; people who went into work every day and did incredibly skilled jobs for very little reward. We have memorials for the war dead and occasionally some for specific disasters but what we really need is something that recognises sheer dogged hard work over many lifetimes. Think of the number of bottom drawers that were filled and children reared with the wages that came out of the weaving sheds in Barlick.
None of this alters the fact that Phyllis is dead. I know that her family must be devastated and my sense of loss is nothing compared with theirs but we are all poorer when someone like Phyllis leaves us. I have to admit I almost smiled when I saw that she died quickly after being struck down on her way to play Bingo, I think that if she had been given a choice, she would have liked that. One thing is certain, she will not be forgotten and the memory is a good one. I can still hear her saying ‘Right, you can close your eyes now for a minute’ as I clung to that lavatory roof. Nice one Phyllis, rest quietly, you did more than your share.
Phyllis in the centre with two of her mates having a break in the tackler’s cabin at Bancroft in August 1978. Wonderful women….
29th February 2008.