THE BRICKYARD PART 1

One evening whilst kicking my heels at a friend’s house I happened to see an advert in the paper that was laid on the chair. nMost people read the news while eating breakfast. But not I My mother would come up to my bedroom at half past five in the morning and peel me off the bottom sheet of my bed like some one ripping the skin off a banana while shouting, “yu gonna be late, yu gonna be late, yu gonna be late this mornin’”
It always reminded me of an American army bugle blowing reveille, from that point on it was wash, dry, and grab a slice of toast then tear down the road to work as if the devil were at my heels. I was supposed to be at work at 6 a. m.
Sometimes I would cut it too fine and would reach the huge roll down door of Bottom Hoppers just as the bloke in the office was closing it. He would not stop the door to let me through but would crouch down so he could observe my disappointed face as the door began to reach the ground cutting off the sight of him leering out at me. It crossed my mind to offer him a ten bob note at the last minute in the hope that he would be decapitated by the door as its bottom edge hit the ground.

I was day dreaming. I was among the crowd yelling and waving a fist  The tumbrel pulled by oxen lumbered up to the guillotine. The lucky man today was our mate the office timekeeper. Someone next to me muttered, “them buggers are all the same, they get a kick out of lowering the door in yu face” With a start I came back to earth and grinned, and thought if indeed the objects in question were all the same the police would indeed have their work cut out on an identity parade. Hence the expression “well I’m sorry consterbule, they all look alike to me”

Disappointed that despite my efforts to get to work on time did not bear fruit, I was also aware that there was another half a crown down the drain, so to speak. Turning round I would wander back home to get a tongue lashing from my mum, until I got smart and went down to the banks of the Humber River and whiled away an hour and a half watching the boats go by, if there happened to be any. Normally newspaper reading was not in the “do it now” column of my activities. But in this case my eye had focused on a picture of a young lady in the tight blouse and short skirt with legs like an African ostrich, the text informed me she had just won a tennis match. My first impression of the picture was that it was a bloke in drag, and when I suggested it to my friend he said, “silly sod, she got two tennis balls tucked up under her skirt, besides that, no bloke would have nuts that size anyway”. Then I thought, ‘with her lungs she should be an opera singer’ and the last thing to suffer damage would be her nose should she inadvertently walk into a wall.
Reluctantly dragging my eyes from the picture of a milk churn on legs I perused a list of adverts in the next column and one in particular caught my eyes that had now resumed their normal place in my head.

Since it did not stipulate the applicant had to be a B.A. or a brain specialist I thought, “what the hell, why not see what is involved. I would also tell the bloke in the office at Hoppers where he could stick the rolled up door complete with pulleys and chains. On Sunday I thought I would go look at the brickyard that had been advertising for a strong youth.

So after midday dinner on Sunday I got my trusty bike out and was about to set off when my Father’s voice demanded to know, “weer yer off tu, mu’ lad?”
“Down to the brickyard Dad” I replied, I should have known better than to think I was leaving the house without being spotted.
“Ayer chopped that theer kinlin’?”( Have you chopped up the firewood)
“Yis” said I.
“Aye, well keep oot o’ mischief” said he, and shambled back into the house.

I set off across the market place at a brisk pace so I could get far enough away should he change his mind and find me another chore to do. If I was far enough away I would not be able to hear him should he call, thus I would have a good argument should he be in a bad mood when I finally got back home. I tore down George st, narrowly missing an old lady trying in vain to drag her dog across the road, I think the dog spotted me tearing along and decided to stay put until I was past. Then I was down Kings st, and on down Finkle lane. When I got to the railway crossing there was a train in the distance and I knew I had plenty of time to get across. But I liked to watch trains

I stopped and sat there on my bike with my feet on the ground and waited for it to arrive. The engine had a slight side to side movement as it sped toward me and as it reached me there was a huge blast of air that made me move my feet to keep balanced. Then the engine was past and the smell of steam and oil were one with the duddle de dum, duddle de dum as wheels hit the joints in the rails. I counted the carriages as they lumbered by and counted four including the guards van. The guard was peering over the rear partition of the guard’s van like the cartoon one sees chalked on a wall sometimes, just the top half of the head showing and eight fingers on the wall top accompanied by the lyrics, “Leroy wus ‘ere 1937”.
And the guard’s van rocked from side to side and began to get smaller as distance swallowed it up. I thought of the trains that used to run by me at Thornton Abbey, the guard used to wave and I would wave back, but these miserable buggers looked like a cow looking through a fence and couldn’t be bothered. I wondered why they bothered to run it at all. I had counted about five people on the whole train. Then I deduced if you take away the Fireman, the Driver and the Guard that leaves three passengers. Why didn’t the railways use a motor bike and sidecar? Come to think about it they could use a tandem and one bike, which would be cheaper still. Look at the money they would save.

I pushed off with my feet and got my bike moving and turned down the lane at the side of the house when I noticed the man working in the back garden of the house. I stopped and said, “good afternoon” and asked him, “ do you know where the foreman to the brickyard is”
“Yis” he said.
And after a long pause I felt a bit awkward because he had stopped working and was gazing at me waiting for the next line, and I didn’t know what the next line was, so I plunged in with “Do you think I might speak to him?”
“Warrabout?” asked the man still looking at me as if I was about to attack him.
“Well, he was advertising work for a strong lad” I said.
“Aw! was ‘e now”,  said he, now leaning on his spade, “An’ ah suppose yu naw weer there is wun?”
While I was digesting this remark he lifted the spade a little and stabbed it into the ground, and leaving it standing there came over to me and grinned.
“An’ ‘ow owd are yu then? he asked.
To save the further cut and parry of a questionnaire I reeled off where I had been born, and when, but not to the minute, nor did I know why.
Blame yu Dad son an’ nivver yu Mam”, said he with a quick grin.

He then informed me he was looking for a strong lad to work in the clay pits straight away.
“Yu can start termorrer”  he said
When I informed him I would not leave Hoppers without giving notice he was disappointed and said there were lots of young fellows wanting the job.
I suggested it might be more expedient to give the job to one of them.

When he realised I would not leave without notice he smiled and said, “An owd fashioned lad wi’ principles, ah like that, yu can ‘ave the job, start when yu‘re ready”.
So I gave my notice in at Hoppers and was pleasantly surprised how many of the blokes there said “sorry to see you leave us young ‘un and mind how you go” I left on Friday night.

Monday morning came and informed by the foreman that there was no café in a brickyard I set off armed with a flask of hot tea and some sandwiches in my saddlebag. I went across the railway line and down the lane that led to the river Humber. Most brickyards were along the banks of the Humber river stretching from Barton to New Holland. On arriving at the lobby, the lobby was part of the brick building that included the Mill, a tool room and a big room where doles of clay about a foot square were stored for a year so it could mature. The matured clay would then be used for making roofing tiles. Tiles and bricks made from clay are not unlike the ceramic flower pots we buy today. The making of bricks and tiles is more complicated than I had at first imagined. To begin with clay must be dug and piled into a heap where it will mature for a year.  The following year that clay will be loaded into a skip, the skip being a tip up container on wheels that ran on a narrow gauge line to the clay mound where two men would fill it until it looked top heavy. I also noticed all the sacking and old tarpaulins covering the heap of clay that was about the size of a football pitch. One bloke told me they were to stop the frost in winter destroying the nature of the clay.

I arrived at the lobby, a small brick built room with a fire grate in it to warm the place in winter. Also one could boil water to make tea if one so desired, some blokes would toast sandwiches near it. Working in the brickyard was totally different to working at Hoppers in that at Hoppers I was a number but here I was a person, and we were like one big family. I counted two men at the pie, as the clay heap was called, one man at the hoist operating the winch that pulled the loaded skips up the ramp. In the main brick shed were another three men.And in the tile sheds there were four more making tiles with what looked like a huge sausage machine on iron wheels. The foreman and another man were always busy with the kilns where all the bricks and tiles were fired to make them as we see them today.
Some of the machinery must have been a hundred years old, I thought. There were lots of other things to be grateful for.

I was out in the fresh air 90 p.c. of the time. Also I now started work at 7.30 a.m. and finished at 5.00 p.m. I was earning twice as much money, but my mother decided I should pay more board.I did not object to this until a friend of mine ( John Kitchen) informed me what he was paying his mum. He worked at another brickyard but we still kept in contact with each other.The first day was uneventful. I was told to go down to where there were two men digging spits of clay and loading them into a skip. On arriving at the clay pile I was greeted with “na then, yu the new tram lad then?”
“Yis” said I,
One of the blokes said “we fill ‘em, you push ‘em”
“Push ‘em tu the bottom of that slope an’ yu hang that steel cable wi’ a hook on it tu the skip”.
“An’ keep yu eye on it till it gits tu the top, cos if summat happens an’ it starts tu cum doon ageern, git oot o’ road cos ‘app’n it’ll kill yer iff’n yu try tu stop it”.
The other chap broke in with “aye e’s reit , let the bugger goer”

So armed with this disquieting bit of news I got neck ache trying to see out of my left ear. I got used to paddling in mud and wet clay, I began to eat like a horse, no, I did not don a feeding bag with a strap to hang it round my neck nor crap in the street. But I did put on weight and began to fill out, hitherto I had always been a skinny kid. Or as one of my friends once observed, “when ‘e stands sideways yu can’t see ‘im”.  What had at first had been a difficult job I found that now it was quite easy. I was also more awake. Being brought up on a farm has its advantages. I learned early in the piece that you never ever walk behind a horse without letting the horse know you are there first. And some horses you don’t walk behind unless they are hobbled. You could get your head kicked in. And if you happen to be at the back end of a cow when she decides to slightly raise the tail you move smartly to one side other wise your smart suit could suddenly look like a soldiers camouflage outfit. In short I was always on the look out for the unexpected. So the day the cable snapped when the skip loaded with about a ton of clay I was well out of the way.
I had pushed the loaded skip to the bottom of the ramp and hung the hook onto the skip, then waved up to the bloke on the hoist I watched as he moved the lever. The cable leapt as the slack was taken up, then slowly at first the skip moved, then picked up speed and rumbling was half way up the ramp when a noise like a shot gun going off and a piercing whistle from the bloke on the hoist. Where I had been stood there were now just skid marks, and I was out of harms way while the now freed skip came roaring down the ramp. I guessed it was travelling at about 50 m.p.h. when it hit. “ayup, git oot o’ road young un” roared a voice as a length of light rail line curled up and the plates holding it snapped and the free end whipped in a vicious arc then hung in the air vibrating like one of the bass teeth on a polyphone.

There was a heavy soggy thud as the heavy clay laden pan on wheels hit the bank. It took about an hour for the three of us to dig it out of the bank, empty what was left in it and restore it to the lines. We also had to remove the now bent bit of line and replace it with a repaired bit kept as a spare. The bent bit would go to the blacksmith and he would restore it back to shape then it too would rest on the bank waiting for the next runaway skip to damage it. Fortunately we did not have too many runaways.

Some days it rained and we would shelter under an upturned pan. But sometimes if it looked like it was in for the day. We would knock off and retire to the lobby. I used to like it in winter when it rained, we would all congregate in the lobby and discuss who was on the radio last night and what was on at the local cinema.
“Did yu naw owd Smiddy ‘as gone an’ kicked it?”
“’E ‘ent ‘es ‘E, well al’ be buggered, a’ thowt ‘E wur gud fer another ten yeers app’n.

“Fred’s missus is up stick ageern app’n” ( pregnant)
“Ah thowt Fred wer in’t clink”
“E’ wer last ah ‘eerd”
“aw”
“Well app’n sumbody’s ‘ed it in fer ‘im then”
“aye, shouldn’t wunder”
“app’n a few’s ‘ed it in fer ‘im”
“d’yu reckon”?

There would be a period of silence except for the rain pouring down outside. Most would be staring at the merry flame of the fire, some reflecting on what had been said, others with thoughts far away.

These blokes were sitting on planks supported at each end by stacked bricks. As one enters the lobby one sees a row of blokes against the left wall, at the far wall there are some more, and on the right there are two blokes yon side of the fire and two this side of the fire. On the back wall half way up is a board with pegs. Hanging from some of these pegs are coats, hats, and the odd tea can, a bag with a bottle peeking out of the top. One bloke pulls out a tobacco pouch and fishes out his old pipe and begins to stuff it with tobacco. “Ow much d’yu yuk through that thing ivery week Les?” queried one bloke. The bloke with the pipe paused, and thought, then came back between puffs with “thick end o’ three oonces, ah shouldn’t wunder”
“well if yu fall in’t pit yu’ll niver droon”
“yu reckon?’
“Aye yu bloody lungs ul niver git wet wi all that tar in ‘em, watter proof lungs mate that’s wot yu got”
“Well” said Les, “if’n ah can’t droon me moneys bin well spent cos a can’t f—n’ swim neether”
And guffaws of laughter swept round the lobby.
“It’s stopped rainin’”
“‘as it?”
“yis, app’n”
“naw it aint, come in ‘ere ‘an put wood in’t o’el. ( shut the door)
The speaker was at the far end of the lobby so he could not possibly see if it had stopped raining, but was relaxed and loath to move.
“ luk at time” he continued “ ent worth goin’ startin’ ageern, besides thes all termorrer not started on yit”.
Someone growled “go back tu sleep, app’n we’ll wacken yu (wake you) when it’s time tu go ‘ome”.
 “Aye, well stoke up fire, ah could just as well stop ‘ere an’ go tu sleep as go ‘ome and git wet through”
 

Part Two

       T.O.B.1997© Tam