BANCROFT SHED (8)

[Stanley]

BANCROFT SHED (8)

11 April 2001

Right, this is where the steam engine freaks get their thrills! This week we’ll have a look in the engine house. If anyone thinks this is going to be the idiot’s guide to running steam engines, forget it. It’s no exaggeration to say that I could write several volumes on engines and who knows I might get round to it one of these days. For today, we’ll look at what it was like working in there.
There’s no doubt in my mind that tenting a big steam engine is the best job God ever invented. You were warm and dry, you had control of everything in your domain and everyone looked up to you because they knew that you were absolutely indispensable. This was always true to some extent but by the time I was running Bancroft it was even more so because the craft of running engines had died, there was nobody left. There was only one other bloke in the town who could be trusted with it and that was the man who taught me everything I knew, Newton Pickles. There was another factor, as Jim told me when I had been running the engine for a short time, I was a popular bloke in the mill because I’d put all the weaver’s wages up by thirty shillings a week by running the engine so well.
Another thing that suited me was the contrast with my previous life as a long-distance driver. I could walk down through my own fields every morning and be in my place of work in ten minutes knowing what time I’d get home at night! After all those years on the tramp it was a delight, like permanent holidays.
I always made sure I got to work in good time, especially in winter. Actually, my day used to start at the time I knew my firebeater was due to start to get the shed warmed up. If I got out of bed and stood on the lavatory seat at Hey Farm I could see the light in the boiler house. If that was on, I knew all was well and went back to bed. If it wasn’t, I’d get dressed and get over there because anyone can slip up and oversleep, especially when working hours as long as those in winter, I never played hell with my firebeater if he overslept, we are all human after all.
Assuming all had gone well, I’d get into the engine house at seven, ready for an eight o’clock start. The warmer had been on all night, this was a small by-pass valve that let a trickle of steam into the engine to keep the cylinders and the beds warm. This was essential for a safe start but also meant that the whole of the engine house was warm and welcoming. There is nothing to compare with the smell of a warm engine house first thing in a morning. It’s a mixture of oil, leather and warm metal and you could almost smell if anything was amiss as soon as you opened the door.
The first job was to open the warmer a crack more and put the kettle on. While that was boiling, off into the mill and check for break-ins, leaks, anything that might have happened during the night. Then back to the engine house, brew up for both of us, have a word with the firebeater and have a look round the engine.
Visitors often comment on how clean well-run steam engines were kept. There was a very good reason for this but not many people realise what it is. Apart from the fact that it makes life a lot more pleasant if everything is clean and tidy, wiping a piece of machinery over with a handful of oily waste is the best way of inspecting it. A word here for the young ones about waste. Manufacturing cotton cloth produces waste yarn and a handful of this is the best thing for soaking oil up and wiping down. Funnily enough, it’s no good for polishing when using Brasso (metal polish) as there is a certain amount of natural oil in it and you can’t get a good shine on brass with it. You can use it for putting the polish on but you need a freshly laundered piece of cotton cloth for getting the best shine. A tip here for you housewives who still polish the brasses, get some light oil, like WD40 or sewing machine oil, put a minute amount on a clean rag and when you’ve finished polishing, wipe the article over with the oily rag. You’ll only have to polish once or twice a year!
The next job was to make sure all the oil tins were full. I used to have a can of oil next to each of the major lubricators I had to attend to during the day. If you need oil, you sometimes need it quickly so it’s far better if you have it to hand. Actually I very seldom had to fill any of them because Newton always taught me to fill all the tins and lubricators the night before. If you overslept and were late in to work you could have the engine running in five minutes if you’d done your homework. A good firebeater would have opened the warmer for you anyway, we used to look after each other. There was usually an odd job that needed doing and some oiling to do on the linkages in the cellar. Not all bearings had drip feed lubricators on, some only got oiled twice a day, once in a morning and once at dinnertime.
It was always a good idea to go out and have look at the mill lodge, the reservoir of water outside the mill that was the source of the cooling water for the condenser and essential for running the engine. I have known kids to open the clough during the night and let all the water out. On the other hand, if it was raining very hard it was a good plan to crack the clough open a bit and let some water out at the bottom as well as what was going over the cill. This got rid of a lot of sediment and helped to keep the lodge clean. Another little job was to unlock all the doors and I also used to run the tea urn and make sure it was boiling in case any of the weavers wanted an early morning cuppa.
By about twenty to eight everything was ready and the firebeater had opened his fires up and was building up for a start. It took about quarter of an hour for the boiler to respond to a change in firing rate and his target was to hit about 150 pounds pressure at exactly eight o’clock with high water, full fires and hoppers. Mills like Victoria at Earby that were very heavily loaded had to start with all the boilers blowing off. Walt Fisher’s father, Stanley, who ran Moss Shed was so heavily loaded that even with all his boilers blowing off he couldn’t get the engine up to speed until breakfast-time when the bearings in the shafting had warmed up. At Bancroft, we only had about 600 looms running and so we never had any trouble like that. Mind you, in winter we started with the shed lights on and this loaded another 150 horse power onto the engine so you knew you were driving something.
At ten to eight I went round and turned all the lubricators on, a last check on the governor and regulator to make sure they were set right for the load and then, at two minutes to the hour, open the stop valve and quietly start up. There was no need to bang all the steam on, this was very dangerous and wasn’t needed because the weavers wouldn’t start knocking looms on until you had got up to speed. At eight o’clock you were on speed and watching the regulator as the looms came on. Sometimes the governor needed a bit of help to cope but by five past the hour you were settled into the collar and could walk round and check the oils again.
In a well run engine house this was the time for a walk round the shed to say good morning to your friends and do a quick check on the shafting and other little matters. Have a look at the tapers, say good morning to Jim Pollard the weaving manager and then a look down in the boiler house and a crack with the firebeater. All being well, another brew and sit back and congratulate yourself on having the best job in the mill.
Basically, all you had to do for the rest of the day was keep going round the oils every ten minutes or so, do any odd jobs around the engine house that needed attention and listen for any change in note from the engine that could warn of a problem. It was a condition of the insurance that the engine tenter was always in the house while the engine was running. In practice you could afford a five minute walkabout with no problems but it was a brave or foolish man who left the engine for any longer than this, it was asking for trouble.
I had a comfortable armchair in the corner of the house and have been known to fall asleep while the engine was running. The funny thing was that if anything went even slightly amiss you woke up immediately. I used to have regular visitors and one was John Wilfred Pickard the retired doctor. He always took my pulse when he came in and I once asked him why he did it, he said that he checked mine and then his own. He reckoned that mine was always running at the same speed as the engine, 68 revs a minute and that his settled down to the same beat after he had been sat with me for about ten minutes. He said the engine was very good for you in this respect! I checked it myself after he told me and he was right. He gave me his old stethoscope to use on the engine and it was very useful, you could hear the rings clicking in the grooves at each end of the stroke. I still have it here in the house, a fond memory of an interesting bloke.
Of course there were times when things went wrong, that’s a subject for another day, however the great thing that was in your favour when this happened was that one phone call to Brown and Pickles brought an instant response in the shape of Newton. He would drop everything to come to an engine and I don’t think he ever charged us. If I wanted some time off I just called Newton and he would come up and run for me for a day or half a day. Again, no charge, he enjoyed doing it so much. As far as the management was concerned, it was a private arrangement between me and Newton but he never took any money off me.
If you’re sat there thinking I’ve painted an over-rosy picture of life in the engine house, you’re wrong. This was exactly how it was. As I said at the beginning of this piece, it was the best job God ever made. It was certainly the best job I ever had and I have very fond memories of Bancroft. How many people think like that about their place of work today? As I’ve said before, when the mills closed we didn’t just lose employment, we lost a way of life. Today’s youngsters have many advantages but they are certainly the losers as far as work is concerned. I know it was hard at times but on the whole, Bancroft was the happiest working place I have ever been in in my life and I’m not ashamed to say that I miss it.

11 April 2001