OneGuyFromBarlick

A ROOF OVER YOUR HEAD 03

The explosion in house and mill building in Barlick came to an abrupt end in 1914 with the outbreak of the Great War. Work on the last shed, Bancroft, had started but was stopped and it wasn't to be finished until 1920. During the war production in the other Barlick mills was hit by a shortage of materials as raw cotton was a feedstock for the explosives industry. 'Gun-cotton' was the favourite propellant for artillery guns.
As the end of the war approached in 1918 the manufacturers fully expected trade to rapidly get back to pre-war levels and for the removal of wartime labour restrictions to result in a surplus of labour and the opportunity to drive wages down to pre-war levels. In other words, happy times are here again! For a while, immediately after the war, it looked as though they were correct. Trade boomed due to the demand for cloth as merchants and the retail trade re-stocked, but this was an illusion. The disruption of trade during the war and in particular the changes in flows of wealth globally had stimulated the textile industries in countries that actually grew the cotton and they had expanded their industries. This was particularly true of India which had been one of our major markets. In 1920 (just as Bancroft was starting up) commodity prices started to rise, the re-stocking boom fizzled out and thanks to research in the Craven Bank archives at Liverpool I can put a date on the tipping point, it was July 1920.
This was the start of the long decline in the mills and contrary to the manufacturer's expectations it never recovered. The immediate consequence was a sharp drop in economic activity in the town. A secondary effect was that in other parts of the country, the new industries, largely connected to light engineering and the motor trade, boomed. Many workers saw the writing on the wall and migrated, particularly to the Midlands. There was no demand for housing and no new money to finance it anyway and apart from a few infills, no new houses were built in Barlick for over thirty years from 1914 to 1945 and the demand for existing houses fell sharply. The outlook for the town was bleak as there was no government assistance and no new industry.
Salvation came from an unlikely source, Adolph Hitler and the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. During the inter-war years the activities of the German Zeppelin Hindenburg had been suspicious, in the course of its transatlantic voyages it seemed to take different routes across Britain and (quite correctly as it turned out) it was suspected that aerial photographs were being taken. By the start of the war the Germans knew the exact location of many of our most important manufacturing plants, especially those connected with the aero industry. The Luftwaffe knew where to strike and as soon as the war started, put this intelligence to good use. It looked as though disaster was inevitable!



Bancroft Shed. The last mill to be built in Barlick.

The Letters Page of the BET is still an effective way of voicing an opinion. Here's what I sent them last week, published this week.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Thanks to David Penney for writing the letter I intended to write. ('Don't be fooled... the blame really lies with the Tories' in Readers' Views on April 7th.)
I too was aghast when I saw the 'This madness should be stopped' headline in Pendle Matters. This is of course hypocrisy and a total disregard for what is actually happening under Tory austerity policies. Social services, the NHS and even education are suffering erosion by a thousand cuts. The latest imposition of the Benefits Cap is going to increase the number of families unable to pay rents, increasing homelessness and rough sleeping. As David points out, these cuts are part of a rolling programme that will continue until at least 2020 and if Cameron's Catastrophe, Brexit, goes badly, long after.
The only thing I would add to David’s thoughts is that we shouldn't let Blair and New Labour off the hook. In their final years in power they were implementing their own brand of austerity, undermining Local Government services and devolving vital services to private companies. Even worse they sowed seeds of dissent in the Labour Party that are still causing damage. I speak as a committed social democrat and Labour Party member but I have to admit I despair when I look at the state of Opposition.
I can remember the election of 1945 and the way Clement Attlee's party built on the legacy of the Beveridge Report in health and housing even though we were virtually bankrupt after WW2. That legacy benefited millions but is now being slowly whittled away. I am convinced that what we are seeing is a campaign by the Tories to take us back to the Good Old Days, the laissez faire ethos of the 19th century by a process of erosion of society. What they fail to recognise is that this will eventually damage their reliance on that society, they will not be immune from the end result but by the time they realise this it will be too late, that damage is being done as I write.
I apologise for being so pessimistic but I can see no light in the gloom.


Stanley Challenger Graham. 10 East Hill Street, Barnoldswick.

Stanley wrote: ↑14 Apr 2017, 06:19 The latest imposition of the Benefits Cap is going to increase the number of families unable to pay rents, increasing homelessness and rough sleeping.

So you are in favour of benefits being uncapped?

Personally I support benefit capping and austerity for those who won't help themselves. If hard times come surely you expect times to be tough and not have an open-ended income source? Similarly if you decide to have kids it is your choice, if you have them make sure you can support them and don't rely on the taxpayer forking out. And people shouldn't get any benefits until they've paid enough into the system and then be allowed to use up a percentage of their 'credit'. It really irks me when I read stories of families drawing tax free benefits amounting to more than I earned. Why should they live in clover? People used to help each other in times of financial hardship, now they don't bother.

Hooray for Benefit Cap and common sense.

No, but what I do favour is a more targeted approach which doesn't hit those genuinely in need. The present system is a blunt instrument and not selective enough. Any system that throws poor people out on the street is obviously flawed and this is what is happening where it has been imposed.

China, have a read at 'The People of the Abyss (1903) is a book by Jack London ' Wiki Link.. or better still have a free read through the Gutenberg Project. Link. This area of London was where Clement Attlee The Former British Prime Minister did a lot of his work prior to becoming Prime Minister. 1945
Makes you think where we are heading with the current shortage of housing.

Thanks P. I've had a quick look on-line and I'll read it when I get a chance, hopefully later this week.

Jack London wrote some pretty powerful stuff and what surprised me when I first discovered it was that his early works were published in Britain by Mills and Boon.

Bumped. The correspondence it triggered is still pertinent today. Notice I was forecasting the Tory project to take us back to the 19th century at least five years ago.....

Bumped again. Apart from the substance of the article, the other details that followed are as pertinent as ever. Notice that in 2017 I was forecasting that the Cameron/Osborne Austerity plan would last until at least 2020. It is lasting far longer than that!

Anyone seen the end of Austerity yet?