TALES FROM THE ENGINE HOUSE. 1.
Posted: 08 Feb 2026, 02:48
TALES FROM THE ENGINE HOUSE. 1.
Written 20 November 2000
We’ve dealt with some fairly solemn matters in the last few weeks so I thought it was time for a bit of light relief! If you remember, when we were walking up Gillians Lane I said I’d come back to Bancroft Shed at a later date and talk about my time there as mill engineer. To tell you the truth, I could write an article a week for a year on Bancroft and still have plenty of material left over but this week I’ll just tell you some of the funny stories that happened there.
I suppose that when you mention the words ‘funny’ and ‘mill’ in the same sentence, anybody who knows anything about mills will expect tackler’s tales. Well, there are plenty of them and I’ll include a few but tacklers weren’t the only ones who raised a laugh, engineers could do it as well. Right, let’s see what we can come up with!
I’ll start with a story against myself. I’ve always said that you should never underestimate the capacity of the human race to do stupid things and I’m afraid that every now and again I managed to prove my own theory. I was sat in the engine house minding my own business one day when the fire alarm went off, I used to test it once a week so I knew exactly what it was. What I should have done was sprung to my station, stopped the engine, informed the firebeater and got him to slow the fires in the boiler and then investigated. Text book stuff. What I actually did, and I still can’t believe it, is that I immediately assumed that someone had accidentally broken the glass on one of the alarms so I got a spare glass out of the drawer in the desk and the special key for opening the alarm casing, cancelled the alarm and strolled into the shed to replace the glass.When I walked into the shed I noticed three things, Billy Two Rivers (Billy Lambert, one of the weavers) was stood next to the engine stop button with a hammer in his hand just about to break the glass and stop the engine, there was a faint haze of smoke and a smell of burning and Ernie, the clothlooker was dashing up the broad alley with a teapot in his hand!
Billy said to “Have I to break it Stanley?” I said “You’d better not, I haven’t any spare glasses for them!” He was obviously disappointed, he’d worked in the mill all his life and he’d always wanted to stop the engine. Moving faster now, I headed towards the source of the smoke and just got there in time to find out what Ernie was doing with the teapot. He was extinguishing a small piece of smouldering cotton dust on the floor under a loom! I know it sounds stupid but this was very effective, it got right to the seat of the trouble and put it out immediately. Evidently what had happened was that the rocking rail under the loom was touching the floor and the friction had caused a spark which had fired the dust.
I found the broken alarm, replaced the glass, went back to the engine house and then reflected on how stupid we had all been. Perhaps a bit of explanation is needed. The dust or down that floats round in a weaving shed and settles on everything is finely divided cotton and is very dangerous. Apart from the fact that breathing it in can cause Byssinosis, a deadly lung complaint, it is so flammable as to be nearly explosive. I’ve heard old weavers say that in the days when the sheds were lit by gas, the flame of the taper on the end of a pole which was used to light the gas often set fire to the down up in the roof and it used to burn right across the shed just like a sheet of lightning but moved that fast that it didn’t fire anything. How we had avoided the fire spreading and getting hold I don’t know. The other thing was that as soon as the weavers heard the alarm they should have stopped their looms and walked out of the mill but nobody left their post. They just carried on weaving as though nothing had ever happened. If the Factory Inspector could have seen the way we reacted to the fire he would have had a fit and to this day I can’t tell you why I didn’t stop the engine.
The tacklers were a constant source of jokes and funny stories. Part of my job was to keep my eye on what was going on in the mill, keeping my eye on bearings and steam traps and trying to forecast when the tapers would boil up next because we had to allow for this by firing the boiler harder. One of my ports of call was always the tacklers cabins, they lived there when there was nothing for them to do. There were two cabins in the warehouse and I have to admit I spent most of my time in the big one with Ernie Roberts, Roy Wellock and Fred Inman. However I usually popped my head in the other and just wished them good morning. I did this one day just before the summer holidays and Stephen Clark and Albert Gornall were sat having a cup of tea. Albert asked me if I’d look after his tomatoes during the holidays. He had some tomato plants in grow bags on the widow cill and he knew that I’d be there during the holidays because that was when we did all our maintenance on the boiler and engine. Of course I said yes.
During the holidays I popped in each day to water the tomatoes but half way through the second week I realised that they were looking a bit ropey so I got hold of my mate Ted Lawson and brought him over to have a look at them. He just took one glance and said “You can forget them, they’ve got Blossom End Rot!” I said “Oh my God! Albert’ll kill me, he’s father and mother to these buggers! What can I do?” Ted said “Nowt, just leave ‘em alone and you might as well stop watering ‘em, you’re doing no good at all here”.
Came the Monday when we started work and I kept away from Albert’s cabin as long as I could but in the end I had to go in and face the music, it was a painful interview! To put it mildly, Albert wasn’t impressed, as far as he was concerned I was personally responsible for the death of all six of his children and I don’t think he spoke to me for six months after that. I can’t think why but everyone started asking me for tips on the cultivation of tomatoes!
My favourite tackler and a good mate was Ernie Roberts, I’ve no doubt that you’ll hear more about him in the months to come but this week I’ll tell you a story he told me. Before I start I have to apologise to my more refined readers, in order to tell this tale I have to mention dog muck several times. The story concerns a new landlord who took over at the Cross Keys many years ago. On his first day he got everything ready and opened the doors at 11am for the dinnertime trade. There was one bloke waiting on the doorstep and he came straight up to the bar and ordered a pint of bitter. As the landlord was pulling the pint the bloke says, “Wheer’s t’snuff? The landlord said “You what?” He said, “Wheer’s t’snuff? Landlord says “What snuff?” Customer says, “There’s allus some snuff on the counter for’t customers!” Landlord says “Eh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that! I’ll mek certain we have some toneet when you come in”.
So, come three o’clock the landlord sets off into the town to get some snuff but it were early closing day and all the shops were shut. As he walked home in pensive mood he happened to step on some dog muck which crumbled under his boot. (Now at this point I should explain to my younger readers that in the days when dogs were fed proper food instead of marrowbone jelly their muck was hard.) Anyway, the landlord looks at this dog muck and he thought, “Bloody hell, it looks just like snuff!” So he swept it up onto a piece of paper he had about him, took it home and ground it up fine before putting it in a saucer on the bar.
At half past five the landlord opened for early doors and the same bloke was stood on the doorstep. In he comes, straight up to the bar, orders a pint of mild and says “Eh, I see you've got some snuff!” and takes a big pinch and sniffed it up each nostril. The landlord watched him, fascinated. The bloke sneezed, blew his nose and said “By hell, that’s some good stuff, it’s cleared me head. There’s a strong smell of dog muck and I couldn’t smell it afore!”
Oh dear, I wonder if anyone else thinks that’s as funny as me and Ernie did! Sorry about that but it does make me laugh. Ernie was a lovely bloke and wouldn’t harm a fly. One day I asked him to empty his pockets out on the table, tacklers carried their tools about their person. There was a piece of string, a knife, some spanners, a steel rule that was used for tea stirring, back scratching and tucking the cloth in on the front roller when you were gaiting a loom but never for measuring, all sorts of small tools and right in the middle was a Fox’s Glacier mint. I asked him what the mint was for. He said that if a weaver was a bit depressed for any reason he always gave them a mint to cheer ‘em up. Ernie reckoned that the odd Glacier mint passed out during the day did wonders for production. He was never afraid to tell stories against himself or his calling, he told me once that tacklers were “Weavers wi’ their brains taken out”.
I don’t know why there was this legend about tacklers being stupid. It was a highly skilled job and an experienced tackler made all the difference to a set of weavers. It paid him to look after them because each tackler had a set of looms and he was paid a bonus on top of his basic wage which depended on the production from his set, the more cloth, the better his wage.
One more tale from Ernie, triggered off by the glacier mint he carried for the weavers. He said that he knew some blokes in Colne who were tarmac layers, they’d do your drive for you for a reasonable sum and if you wanted a really special job you paid extra to have small lumps of white quartz embedded in a pattern down the sides. These blokes did a drive in Barlick and a few days later the householder rang them up to say that he was having a bit of trouble, every dog in the district was coming up his drive and licking the lumps of quartz set in the sides, he wanted to know what he could do. “Nowt” said the tarmac man, “They’ll give up in a day or two”. They did and all when they’d finished licking out the glacier mints that had been used to make up the number when they ran out of quartz lumps!
Thanks to all of you who have taken the trouble to ring me and comment on these pieces. If you’ve any corrections or requests feel free to let me know.
20 November 2000
Written 20 November 2000
We’ve dealt with some fairly solemn matters in the last few weeks so I thought it was time for a bit of light relief! If you remember, when we were walking up Gillians Lane I said I’d come back to Bancroft Shed at a later date and talk about my time there as mill engineer. To tell you the truth, I could write an article a week for a year on Bancroft and still have plenty of material left over but this week I’ll just tell you some of the funny stories that happened there.
I suppose that when you mention the words ‘funny’ and ‘mill’ in the same sentence, anybody who knows anything about mills will expect tackler’s tales. Well, there are plenty of them and I’ll include a few but tacklers weren’t the only ones who raised a laugh, engineers could do it as well. Right, let’s see what we can come up with!
I’ll start with a story against myself. I’ve always said that you should never underestimate the capacity of the human race to do stupid things and I’m afraid that every now and again I managed to prove my own theory. I was sat in the engine house minding my own business one day when the fire alarm went off, I used to test it once a week so I knew exactly what it was. What I should have done was sprung to my station, stopped the engine, informed the firebeater and got him to slow the fires in the boiler and then investigated. Text book stuff. What I actually did, and I still can’t believe it, is that I immediately assumed that someone had accidentally broken the glass on one of the alarms so I got a spare glass out of the drawer in the desk and the special key for opening the alarm casing, cancelled the alarm and strolled into the shed to replace the glass.When I walked into the shed I noticed three things, Billy Two Rivers (Billy Lambert, one of the weavers) was stood next to the engine stop button with a hammer in his hand just about to break the glass and stop the engine, there was a faint haze of smoke and a smell of burning and Ernie, the clothlooker was dashing up the broad alley with a teapot in his hand!
Billy said to “Have I to break it Stanley?” I said “You’d better not, I haven’t any spare glasses for them!” He was obviously disappointed, he’d worked in the mill all his life and he’d always wanted to stop the engine. Moving faster now, I headed towards the source of the smoke and just got there in time to find out what Ernie was doing with the teapot. He was extinguishing a small piece of smouldering cotton dust on the floor under a loom! I know it sounds stupid but this was very effective, it got right to the seat of the trouble and put it out immediately. Evidently what had happened was that the rocking rail under the loom was touching the floor and the friction had caused a spark which had fired the dust.
I found the broken alarm, replaced the glass, went back to the engine house and then reflected on how stupid we had all been. Perhaps a bit of explanation is needed. The dust or down that floats round in a weaving shed and settles on everything is finely divided cotton and is very dangerous. Apart from the fact that breathing it in can cause Byssinosis, a deadly lung complaint, it is so flammable as to be nearly explosive. I’ve heard old weavers say that in the days when the sheds were lit by gas, the flame of the taper on the end of a pole which was used to light the gas often set fire to the down up in the roof and it used to burn right across the shed just like a sheet of lightning but moved that fast that it didn’t fire anything. How we had avoided the fire spreading and getting hold I don’t know. The other thing was that as soon as the weavers heard the alarm they should have stopped their looms and walked out of the mill but nobody left their post. They just carried on weaving as though nothing had ever happened. If the Factory Inspector could have seen the way we reacted to the fire he would have had a fit and to this day I can’t tell you why I didn’t stop the engine.
The tacklers were a constant source of jokes and funny stories. Part of my job was to keep my eye on what was going on in the mill, keeping my eye on bearings and steam traps and trying to forecast when the tapers would boil up next because we had to allow for this by firing the boiler harder. One of my ports of call was always the tacklers cabins, they lived there when there was nothing for them to do. There were two cabins in the warehouse and I have to admit I spent most of my time in the big one with Ernie Roberts, Roy Wellock and Fred Inman. However I usually popped my head in the other and just wished them good morning. I did this one day just before the summer holidays and Stephen Clark and Albert Gornall were sat having a cup of tea. Albert asked me if I’d look after his tomatoes during the holidays. He had some tomato plants in grow bags on the widow cill and he knew that I’d be there during the holidays because that was when we did all our maintenance on the boiler and engine. Of course I said yes.
During the holidays I popped in each day to water the tomatoes but half way through the second week I realised that they were looking a bit ropey so I got hold of my mate Ted Lawson and brought him over to have a look at them. He just took one glance and said “You can forget them, they’ve got Blossom End Rot!” I said “Oh my God! Albert’ll kill me, he’s father and mother to these buggers! What can I do?” Ted said “Nowt, just leave ‘em alone and you might as well stop watering ‘em, you’re doing no good at all here”.
Came the Monday when we started work and I kept away from Albert’s cabin as long as I could but in the end I had to go in and face the music, it was a painful interview! To put it mildly, Albert wasn’t impressed, as far as he was concerned I was personally responsible for the death of all six of his children and I don’t think he spoke to me for six months after that. I can’t think why but everyone started asking me for tips on the cultivation of tomatoes!
My favourite tackler and a good mate was Ernie Roberts, I’ve no doubt that you’ll hear more about him in the months to come but this week I’ll tell you a story he told me. Before I start I have to apologise to my more refined readers, in order to tell this tale I have to mention dog muck several times. The story concerns a new landlord who took over at the Cross Keys many years ago. On his first day he got everything ready and opened the doors at 11am for the dinnertime trade. There was one bloke waiting on the doorstep and he came straight up to the bar and ordered a pint of bitter. As the landlord was pulling the pint the bloke says, “Wheer’s t’snuff? The landlord said “You what?” He said, “Wheer’s t’snuff? Landlord says “What snuff?” Customer says, “There’s allus some snuff on the counter for’t customers!” Landlord says “Eh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know that! I’ll mek certain we have some toneet when you come in”.
So, come three o’clock the landlord sets off into the town to get some snuff but it were early closing day and all the shops were shut. As he walked home in pensive mood he happened to step on some dog muck which crumbled under his boot. (Now at this point I should explain to my younger readers that in the days when dogs were fed proper food instead of marrowbone jelly their muck was hard.) Anyway, the landlord looks at this dog muck and he thought, “Bloody hell, it looks just like snuff!” So he swept it up onto a piece of paper he had about him, took it home and ground it up fine before putting it in a saucer on the bar.
At half past five the landlord opened for early doors and the same bloke was stood on the doorstep. In he comes, straight up to the bar, orders a pint of mild and says “Eh, I see you've got some snuff!” and takes a big pinch and sniffed it up each nostril. The landlord watched him, fascinated. The bloke sneezed, blew his nose and said “By hell, that’s some good stuff, it’s cleared me head. There’s a strong smell of dog muck and I couldn’t smell it afore!”
Oh dear, I wonder if anyone else thinks that’s as funny as me and Ernie did! Sorry about that but it does make me laugh. Ernie was a lovely bloke and wouldn’t harm a fly. One day I asked him to empty his pockets out on the table, tacklers carried their tools about their person. There was a piece of string, a knife, some spanners, a steel rule that was used for tea stirring, back scratching and tucking the cloth in on the front roller when you were gaiting a loom but never for measuring, all sorts of small tools and right in the middle was a Fox’s Glacier mint. I asked him what the mint was for. He said that if a weaver was a bit depressed for any reason he always gave them a mint to cheer ‘em up. Ernie reckoned that the odd Glacier mint passed out during the day did wonders for production. He was never afraid to tell stories against himself or his calling, he told me once that tacklers were “Weavers wi’ their brains taken out”.
I don’t know why there was this legend about tacklers being stupid. It was a highly skilled job and an experienced tackler made all the difference to a set of weavers. It paid him to look after them because each tackler had a set of looms and he was paid a bonus on top of his basic wage which depended on the production from his set, the more cloth, the better his wage.
One more tale from Ernie, triggered off by the glacier mint he carried for the weavers. He said that he knew some blokes in Colne who were tarmac layers, they’d do your drive for you for a reasonable sum and if you wanted a really special job you paid extra to have small lumps of white quartz embedded in a pattern down the sides. These blokes did a drive in Barlick and a few days later the householder rang them up to say that he was having a bit of trouble, every dog in the district was coming up his drive and licking the lumps of quartz set in the sides, he wanted to know what he could do. “Nowt” said the tarmac man, “They’ll give up in a day or two”. They did and all when they’d finished licking out the glacier mints that had been used to make up the number when they ran out of quartz lumps!
Thanks to all of you who have taken the trouble to ring me and comment on these pieces. If you’ve any corrections or requests feel free to let me know.
20 November 2000