FordeFables
Follow Me:
  • Home
  • Site Index
  • About Me
    • Radio Interviews
  • My Books
    • Book List & Themes
    • Strictly for Adults Novels >
      • Rebecca's Revenge
      • Come Back Peter
    • Tales from Portlaw >
      • No Need to Look for Love
      • 'The Love Quartet' >
        • The Tannery Wager
        • 'Fini and Archie'
        • 'The Love Bridge'
        • 'Forgotten Love'
      • The Priest's Calling Card >
        • Chapter One - The Irish Custom
        • Chapter Two - Patrick Duffy's Family Background
        • Chapter Three - Patrick Duffy Junior's Vocation to Priesthood
        • Chapter Four - The first years of the priesthood
        • Chapter Five - Father Patrick Duffy in Seattle
        • Chapter Six - Father Patrick Duffy, Portlaw Priest
        • Chapter Seven - Patrick Duffy Priest Power
        • Chapter Eight - Patrick Duffy Groundless Gossip
        • Chapter Nine - Monsignor Duffy of Portlaw
        • Chapter Ten - The Portlaw Inheritance of Patrick Duffy
      • Bigger and Better >
        • Chapter One - The Portlaw Runt
        • Chapter Two - Tony Arrives in California
        • Chapter Three - Tony's Life in San Francisco
        • Chapter Four - Tony and Mary
        • Chapter Five - The Portlaw Secret
      • The Oldest Woman in the World >
        • Chapter One - The Early Life of Sean Thornton
        • Chapter Two - Reporter to Investigator
        • Chapter Three - Search for the Oldest Person Alive
        • Chapter Four - Sean Thornton marries Sheila
        • Chapter Five - Discoveries of Widow Friggs' Past
        • Chapter Six - Facts and Truth are Not Always the Same
      • Sean and Sarah >
        • Chapter 1 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
        • Chapter 2 - 'The early years of sweet innocence in Portlaw'
        • Chapter 3 - 'The Separation'
        • Chapter 4 - 'Separation and Betrayal'
        • Chapter 5 - 'Portlaw to Manchester'
        • Chapter 6 - 'Salford Choices'
        • Chapter 7 - 'Life inside Prison'
        • Chapter 8 - 'The Aylesbury Pilgrimage'
        • Chapter 9 - Sean's interest in stone masonary'
        • Chapter 10 - 'Sean's and Tony's Partnership'
        • Chapter 11 - 'Return of the Prodigal Son'
      • The Alternative Christmas Party >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
      • The Life of Liam Lafferty >
        • Chapter One: ' Liam Lafferty is born'
        • Chapter Two : 'The Baptism of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Three: 'The early years of Liam Lafferty'
        • Chapter Four : Early Manhood
        • Chapter Five : Ned's Secret Past
        • Chapter Six : Courtship and Marriage
        • Chapter Seven : Liam and Trish marry
        • Chapter Eight : Farley meets Ned
        • Chapter Nine : 'Ned comes clean to Farley'
        • Chapter Ten : Tragedy hits the family
        • Chapter Eleven : The future is brighter
      • The life and times of Joe Walsh >
        • Chapter One : 'The marriage of Margaret Mawd and Thomas Walsh’
        • Chapter Two 'The birth of Joe Walsh'
        • Chapter Three 'Marriage breakup and betrayal'
        • Chapter Four: ' The Walsh family breakup'
        • Chapter Five : ' Liverpool Lodgings'
        • Chapter Six: ' Settled times are established and tested'
        • Chapter Seven : 'Haworth is heaven is a place on earth'
        • Chapter Eight: 'Coming out'
        • Chapter Nine: Portlaw revenge
        • Chapter Ten: ' The murder trial of Paddy Groggy'
        • Chapter Eleven: 'New beginnings'
      • The Woman Who Hated Christmas >
        • Chapter One: 'The Christmas Enigma'
        • Chapter Two: ' The Breakup of Beth's Family''
        • Chapter Three: From Teenager to Adulthood.'
        • Chapter Four: 'The Mills of West Yorkshire.'
        • Chapter Five: 'Harrison Garner Showdown.'
        • Chapter Six : 'The Christmas Dance'
        • Chapter Seven : 'The ballot for Shop Steward.'
        • Chapter Eight: ' Leaving the Mill'
        • Chapter Ten: ' Beth buries her Ghosts'
        • Chapter Eleven: Beth and Dermot start off married life in Galway.
        • Chapter Twelve: The Twin Tragedy of Christmas, 1992.'
        • Chapter Thirteen: 'The Christmas star returns'
        • Chapter Fourteen: ' Beth's future in Portlaw'
      • The Last Dance >
        • Chapter One - ‘Nancy Swales becomes the Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Two ‘The secret night life of Widow Swales’
        • Chapter Three ‘Meeting Richard again’
        • Chapter Four ‘Clancy’s Ballroom: March 1961’
        • Chapter Five ‘The All Ireland Dancing Rounds’
        • Chapter Six ‘James Mountford’
        • Chapter Seven ‘The All Ireland Ballroom Latin American Dance Final.’
        • Chapter Eight ‘The Final Arrives’
        • Chapter Nine: 'Beth in Manchester.'
      • 'Two Sisters' >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
      • Fourteen Days >
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
      • ‘The Postman Always Knocks Twice’ >
        • Author's Foreword
        • Contents
        • Chapter One
        • Chapter Two
        • Chapter Three
        • Chapter Four
        • Chapter Five
        • Chapter Six
        • Chapter Seven
        • Chapter Eight
        • Chapter Nine
        • Chapter Ten
        • Chapter Eleven
        • Chapter Twelve
        • Chapter Thirteen
        • Chapter Fourteen
        • Chapter Fifteen
        • Chapter Sixteen
        • Chapter Seventeen
        • Chapter Eighteen
        • Chapter Nineteen
        • Chapter Twenty
        • Chapter Twenty-One
        • Chapter Twenty-Two
  • Celebrity Contacts
    • Contacts with Celebrities >
      • Journey to the Stars
      • Number 46
      • Shining Stars
      • Sweet Serendipity
      • There's Nowt Stranger Than Folk
      • Caught Short
      • A Day with Hannah Hauxwell
    • More Contacts with Celebrities >
      • Judgement Day
      • The One That Got Away
      • Two Women of Substance
      • The Outcasts
      • Cars for Stars
      • Going That Extra Mile
      • Lady in Red
      • Television Presenters
  • Thoughts and Musings
    • Bereavement >
      • Time to clear the Fallen Leaves
      • Eulogy for Uncle Johnnie
    • Nature >
      • Why do birds sing
    • Bill's Personal Development >
      • What I'd like to be remembered for
      • Second Chances
      • Roots
      • Holidays of Old
      • Memorable Moments of Mine
      • Cleckheaton Consecration
      • Canadian Loves
      • Mum's Wisdom
      • 'Early life at my Grandparents'
      • Family Holidays
      • 'Mother /Child Bond'
      • Childhood Pain
      • The Death of Lady
      • 'Soldiering On'
      • 'Romantic Holidays'
      • 'On the roof'
      • Always wear clean shoes
      • 'Family Tree'
      • The importance of poise
      • 'Growing up with grandparents'
    • Love & Romance >
      • Dancing Partner
      • The Greatest
      • Arthur & Guinevere
      • Hands That Touch
    • Christian Thoughts, Acts and Words >
      • Reuben's Naming Ceremony
      • Love makes the World go round
      • Walks along the Mirfield canal
  • My Wedding
  • My Funeral
  • Audio Downloads
    • Audio Stories >
      • Douglas the Dragon
      • Sleezy the Fox
      • Maw
      • Midnight Fighter
      • Action Annie
      • Songs & Music >
        • Douglas the Dragon Play >
          • Our World
          • You On My Mind
        • The Ballad of Sleezy the Fox
        • Be My Life
    • 'Relaxation Rationale' >
      • Relax with Bill
    • The Role of a Step-Father
  • My Singing Videos
    • Christmas Songs & Carols
  • Bill's Blog
    • Song For Today
    • Thought For Today
    • Poems
    • Funny and Frivolous
    • Miscellaneous Muses
  • Contact Me

April 7th, 2017.

7/4/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Thought for today:
"How different is the life and times of young men and women of today compared to the period when I was their age. I remember my time in the mill and having to walk two miles to start work for 7.00 am as the bus either got there forty minutes early or ten minutes late after the hooter had gone. In those days, the penalty was one half hour's wage docked for being one minute late clocking in on the first occasion and if it happened twice in the same week, it was a sacking offence and you were promptly given your cards!
My first job was at Bulmer and Lumb's Mill, Cleckheaton in 1957. I started on two pounds and ten shillings a week, from which I received ten shillings back from my mother to spend on myself from one payday to the next. Until one was engaged to be married, one's unopened wage packet was always handed to the woman of the house and woe betide any male who'd been found to have tampered with it betwixt work and home! Once engaged to be married, the young person would be allowed to pay 'board and keep' until the happy day they planned marriage. This allowed the possibility to save for one's bottom drawer when you moved from parental to the marital abode. It was only by the late 1960's when a young man began feeling a bit aggrieved if he was still tipping up his wage packet to mum after the age of 21 years.
It mattered not how posh or poor a property was that a couple could afford for their first matrimonial home, so long as it was their own place. Anyone with an ounce of self-respect would have preferred to have lived in the allotment shed with their newly-married bride than have her share the kitchen space in their mother's house or occupy the adjacent bedroom! As for saving for a place of one's own and starting off married life on the property ladder, all that was required was three year's economic hardship, scrimping and saving, working all the hours God sent in overtime and forgoing 'the nights out with the boys' for 'the nights in with the girl.' Sticking this out for three hard years was what was required in order to get together the deposit on a modest one-up and one-down terraced house in a cobbled backstreet, in the hope that you would be able to save more money for a larger property before the second baby was born.
Occasionally, there were those shot-gun weddings where a couple who'd been found wanting had been 'caught short' and were given what neither had expected. At such times, the parlour curtains would be partly drawn by the shamed parents to signify the loss of a lifelong dream for their once-virgin daughter while the pregnant bride-to-be would be forced to abandon hope of her all-white wedding dress along with the full church ceremony she might otherwise have had. Instead of walking proudly down the church aisle with her father by her side, she'd have to borrow a two-piece Marks and Spark's costume from Aunt Dot to wear at the five-minute-do they'd have at the Registry Office to which only close family members had been invited; though not all might come. For these trapped couples, they had no other option than being obliged to live with their mother-in-law until the baby had been born and a return to work was again possible.
Once newly married, the new husband and now man of the house returned to a lifetime of handing over unopened wage packets to the new woman of the house; his wife! She had now assumed the role of the chancellor of his exchequer and would grant him an agreed spending allowance for sweets, tobacco and beer rations after the rent and other necessities had been met. And if there was nothing left.......(wait for it)......... he got nothing but fresh air to put back inside his pocket to play with!
Though work in the mill or factory could be arduous and life in the home wasn't always a bundle of fun, there was always merriment to be had between the mill workers, whether young or old. All the mill hands seemed to have been born with a wicked sense of humour. Workers in mills came in both sexes, all sizes and all ages, and it was this wide and varied mixture of daily social contact that kept the tedium of one's routine working day at bay. During their first day of work, every new worker in the 1950s and 60's was sent to the storeroom for the 'glass hammer' or a 'long weight' and were not seen on the mill floor again until day two. If today's Saturday night revelers and boozers think that they invented the practice of 'mooning,' then they never saw what happened to the new boy's trousers the very first day he had occasion to walk through a room of women machine workers who were determined to baptise his manhood in their tried and tested textile tradition, by oiling his todger!
By 1960 and the age of 18 years I had changed textile mills and was working a standard 11-hour-day with only one break of a half-hour at dinner time. We could all go to the lavatory, have a smoke or mash a cup of tea, providing we didn't stop the production line and kept our machines running in our absence. Hence, the practice of one machine operative looking out for their mate's machine was born and 'multi-tasking' first came into existence! You see, mill workers knew that to keep the cogs of the British Nation turning, a pairing agreement was essentially required with one's work mate; a practice that the Members of Parliament later stole off the mill workers of Yorkshire and Lancashire.
For the vast majority of us workers, we stayed in the same job for life. We lived on the same street with, played with, went to school with and worked in the mill with the same village folk we'd grown up with all our lives. From this close community bond, we forged lifelong friendships and found marriage partners who knew and accepted our ways. When we married, it was invariably within our own class and those who dared to attempt to cross the social divide via the back door of wedlock were soon discovered once they opened their mouth and started to speak or were presented with a knife, fork and spoon to eat with in polite company. Often, the first 'give away' sign as to which side of the railway track one had been born on was discovered whether one 'ate' or 'dined or 'went to the 'lavatory' or 'toilet.' The clincher though was the time and title of their daily meals: you see, their 'dinner' was our 'tea!'
And yet despite such social differences and class distinctions that aren't experienced today, I wouldn't have changed one bit of my early life and work experiences for all the Cappuccino coffee one could find in today's Costa coffee houses. Bright children from working class homes could progress to the university via the 11-Plus exam pass to Grammar School and social mobility was possible for most to better their lot in life, if they chose or had the opportunity to take it!
I progressed from mill labourer through the ranks of working foreman, supervising foreman and mill manager between the ages of 15-26 years of age and I will always remember my earliest years in the mill as some of the happiest days of my working life. It was a hard life at the time, but it was a good life and an honest life and I'm so pleased that I was a part of those memorable times.
When I look back on the 1950s and 1960's, I know that I lived through a time when great change was happening throughout society, though I could never have realised then how much of the country I had grown up in and loved would one day be lost forever to the people of England. Never could I have imagined the loss of proud practice, treasured heritage, cultural values, community spirit and the breakdown of the nucleus family which have occurred since. Never could I have believed that, as a nation, we would forever lose these precious aspects of 'the good life' to the ravages of sterile modernity and European emptiness!
I feel so so sorry for the youth of today. Though it was always a struggle from crib to grave for the working class man and woman, even in the 1950s and 60's there were choices we could make and there was always light at the end of the tunnel one could glimpse. Any struggle felt during those years wasn't a fight for sheer survival as it appears for so many to be today. I feel intensely for the young of the New Millennium as they continue their struggle through the economic collapse, mass unemployment, insufficient housing stock, educational loans, credit card debt and the moral morass that leaves millions mired in seemingly hopeless circumstances. Never in my wildest of dreams would I have believed how many people in their late thirties still live at home with mum and dad in 2017.
I will end for now as I'm about to have dinner in two hours' time. I'll leave you to figure out the time of day it is!" William Forde: April 7th, 2017

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.