Thomas Ashton (cotton spinner)

Transcription

Hi, we're 'A Level students at Ripley St Thomas Academy in Lancaster, and we all chose to take part in the My Story project. Hi, I'm Kate Charlson, I'm in my last year at 6th form, I study Maths, Psychology, Business and Spanish. I chose to be story collector because I'm interested in how businesses run and thought it would be good to compare businesses from the past and future and see how they have evolved over the past fifty years Hi' I'm Bethany and I'm also seventeen and I decided to do this project because I thought it would be interesting to see how life has changed in the last sixty years Hi, I'm Leah, I'm seventeen and I thought this project would be a great insight into how people lived. I also found it a great opportunity for my future career as I want to be a nurse. So we interviewed Pat Lambert who works at the Vale View Day Centre, which is a care home for elderly people. And she told us about her past work life, and then also what we really admired about her is that she still enjoys working, and she has a completey different mindset to most people nowadays. that she's working past the state age of retirement. My first job was at the mill; I started the day I was 15 And when you went into the mill, people thought you just went in and did the job, you know there and then. You didn't, it was actually a trade, you actually went into a training school. Where you trained for about three to four months to be able to manage the machines. We used to make cotton; spin the cotton for people to weave. Then the cotton would be used for backing out oilcloth or dadoling, and things like that. So that was my job, in the mills at 15. I worked in the mills until I were 19 years old, and that was when the mills actually shut down. They found out is was cheaper to buy the cotton from abroard than actually make it Because a lot of the work in Lancaster at that time was in the mills There was a lot of people became out of work Because each job in the mill, you had to be trained for; once you were trained for that job, that's what you would carry on doing. You couldn't be in spinning one day and go to weaving the next day, because you wouldn't have been trained to do that job. Yes, You used to see people, you know, take their fingers off I actually nearly took my supervisors arm off. My frame had broken down And he was mending it, he was at the bottom of the frame. With the doors open where all the cogs were. And because it was so noisy in the mill You didnt really hear properly, so I thought he shouted to me to switch the machine on, which I did. and I nearly took his hand off. The lifts that we used to have in them days, weren't like the lifts we have now. The health and safety wasn't as good as what it is now. They were like shafts, if you will, just pulling up on a rope. And before my time, there was a young boy who fell down the shaft and actually killed himself. The cotton mill was on Bath Street, and it led onto the canal. Because every mill needed a canal for the cargo boats, the barges, to fetch the raw cotton up. Later on in years it was fetched by road. But all mills were built next to canals so thay had the transport, to transport the cotton. Well, the minimum age, was as soon as you left school, 15. You would be in the training school from three to six months depending on how long it took to train you. Then you'd go, actually working on what you'd call bonus. Where you got paid a standard wage, but you had to make your money up by making bonuses. Yes we did, once we started making the bonuses, we got the same pay. My first wage was three pounds and five pence, when I first started in the mill. Most people would do, because the cotton mills was like a family. You'd have the older end there, and you had the younger ones leaving school and starting. And you become like a family; all the younger ones would go out together at the night club. Floral Hall, Pier, or the dance halls, and so yea, you tended to just stay there. You'd get married, you'd have time off to have your baby, and then go back; you always knew you go back. you know, after you'd had your baby, so yea, if it hadn't have shut down, I would probably be stiil there today. The maximum age, then for a lady was 60. And for a man it was 65 And then you did have to retire, not like now where they've upped the age. No no, it was equal, you could say it was equal. Men and women, the women tended to be in the spinning rooms and the spooling rooms and the men tended to be in the roving rooms and the weaving rooms although you did have women weavers as well as men, but no it was equal. yes, over the years, I've suffered with my hearing. When you're working in the mills you don't actually realise it, because everybody that works in the mill, actually leans to lip read. Because you can't hear above the noise anyhow. It's only when you finish in the mills, do you realise that your hearing has been effected. Yea, I enjoyed working there, and it learnt me to grow up. You'd have the older people who worked there, that if you didn't do your job right, or you'd give cheek, or whatever They'd just give you a 'cuff 'round the earole', and that'd be it. Everybody in there was your mother. You answered to all of them as your mother really. And it did learn you values. Everybody that worked in the cotton mills were relatively poor. But you was all the same, so there was no, like, you know, you've got more than me. Everybody was the same. You was one big family. No I didn't find it hard to get another job. I think for females it was easier because there was shop work. Where, for the boys, there weren't the apprentices and things, so I think it was harder for them. But no I found it quite easy actually to get a job. And I was there for three years, and I enjoyed it. And from the mill shutting down, I actually went to work at Lawson's Toy shop, which was called the Rocking Horse shop on New Street. I was there about three years, and then when I was 21, 22, I actually came to work at Beaumont View, which is this place, which is now Vale View.