OneGuyFromBarlick

SOUNDSCAPE

We very seldom think about the 'soundscape', the background noise that we live with every day. A century ago it was very different, it was the sound of horses hooves, often muffled because they were on comparatively soft water bound macadam surfaces. When my dad first came to this country and was lodging in Droylsden he started later than the weavers in the mills and for a few days he thought they all went to work on horseback, what he was hearing was the clatter of clog irons on the stone pavements. During the day it was the muted roar of the weaving sheds and at starting time the sound of the mill steam whistles that reminded workers of the time before everyone had a quartz watch on their wrist accurate to nano-seconds. Because of the primitive state of boiler feed water treatment, almost all boilers were emptied at weekends and washed out. This involved blowing off the steam on Saturdays at dinnertime when the mills stopped weaving. All these sounds have vanished to be replaced by traffic noise and aircraft overhead. I was reminded of sounds when I was doing the interviews for the Lancashire Textile Project and we were talking about the General Strike in 1926. Everyone mentioned the absence of railway sounds, we lost them in the late 1950s of course, the whistles, the sound of the wheels on the rails and the rattle of the loose chain couplings and buffers when they were shunting.
Another sound that we have lost is the noise of Rolls Royce testing jet engines on the test beds at Bankfield and Gill. I can remember the snow being melted at Gill on the field at the back up to the canal. When the bigger fan jet engines like the RB 211 came in, bigger facilities were needed and they were built at Derby.
I was talking about this to friends the other day and they mentioned a sound I had forgotten, the air aid sirens during the war. Barlick was lucky of course, we never suffered under the Luftwaffe like I experienced as I was living in Stockport and they were after the big rail viaduct that carried the main West Coast line, only a quarter of a mile from us so it got interesting. The air raid siren in Barlick was on top of the gas works building that fronts on Skipton Road and is still there. I did a bit of digging.....
In June 2006 I was talking to Walt Fisher about piped wireless in Barlick. He said Stanworth and Shorrocks started it from their shop at 1 Rainhall Road in the 1930s. (The telephone number was 80!) The main receiver and hub of the service was in a yard on the right on York Street just off Rainhall Road. Later they moved to Albert Road opposite the Majestic. During the war they relayed the air raid warning siren on the gasworks building via the relay network.



The buildings in York Street that were the hub of the relay system.

t occurred to me this morning that there was one sound I omitted to mention. The sound of shot-firing in the local quarries when they were active. There must have been a lot of this.

Bumped.

Another sound not heard today, the sound of children playing out, the sound of the rhyme as they played two ball against a wall.

Gloria wrote: ↑05 Jul 2022, 07:17 Another sound not heard today, the sound of children playing out, the sound of the rhyme as they played two ball against a wall.

When we first moved to Barlick we lived next to Gisburn Road school, it was refreshing to hear the kids playing at break times.

The lack of traffic noise at the height of the pandemic lock down was very noticeable and on the other side of the coin because that background was missing the increase of bird songs heard.

We are lucky in that our back street is a cul de sac and so very safe, Often kids playing, and chalking on the floor. A woman once complained in my hearing and I asked her what was the harm in chalking on the floor? The next rain will wash it away.....

Same on the croft Stanley although we don't have a lot of younger kids.

Bumped again. Still good history!