Tape 198
Mr Cecil Joslin was born c 1914. He was interviewed on 13 August 2004, when he lived at Cerine, Braintree Road, Witham.
For more information about him, see Joslin, Cecil, in the People category
The original recording of this interview is held at the Essex Sound and Video Archive. To listen to the recording, please contact them at ero.enquiry@essex.gov.uk or 033301 32500.
[???] shows words that are not clear enough to interpret and so have had to be omitted.
[?] after a word shows that its interpretation is not certain.
Later explanatory additions by JG or the transcriber are in square brackets [e.g. explaining locations etc.]
[See also photos in JG’s collection M2092-2114, M2145-M2152.]
Side 3
Mr J: Anyway, this other manager, he was with me there and watching me working, which (Q: Mm.) and I got on all right with him, you know, although he used to say sometimes, you know, he’d see you ‘Get on with you worrk[sic]’, he used to say, cause he was Scots. (Q: That was Mr Small, you mean?) But otherwise, he, I think he thought a lot of me, and that, you know. (Q: That was Mr Small?) Mr Small. So, Andrew Small. So anyway, I was put in the sand blast. Well, the sand blast is a place, you know what divers look like, when they get in, you’ve got all, you’ve got to have a mask over your face, and that, yes, tied down and that, and there’s air blowing through this, and there’s trickling, water’s trickling down the front of you. And the doors, you shut the door, you know, there’s a metal door, and they’re all metal sides and that, and they must be two of you working there, in case one dropped[?] dead[?]. And you have a hose, and that throws out metal, like salt, like sand, you know, they call it sand blast but that used to be metal chippings, you know. And that used to, you used to clean the windows what got rusty and that, used to work all down the windows, and turn them round and that, you know, and I done that for fourteen months, you weren’t supposed to have eighteen months in there. That got me beat, you know. I stuck it as long as I can. And when I used to go home and have a bath, and that, all the metal used to start rusting the bath, you know, what, you’d got certain amount, you know, into your body somehow. And so I went down the doctor’s, so he gave me a certificate, to say, like, this man needs a change. So I went in on the morning and handed it to him. ‘Oh, I get these two a penny’, he said. If I’d got somebody with me at the time, he’d have been for it, because I mean a doctor when he signs a thing, he signs it for your good, don’t he, he don’t sign it for, over … Anyway, I, I said, well, it turned out that they finished sandblasting and that, and then, just after the War, like, that come up again, they wanted sandblasting, you know. So they took me off of welding, to go on sandblasting again, and I said ‘I’m not going.’ So I went and told the shop steward, I said ‘I’m not going, he knew what had happened. So I said I’d like a pass-out, so he went and told the under-manager I wanted a pass-out. He knew where I was going, up the Labour Exchange. He phoned up the Labour Exchange, and told them about me, so when I gone up the Labour Exchange, I said, I know, you know all about it, I said, cause under manager’s told you all about it. He said ‘Well’ he said ‘in the army’, they said, ‘they do the job first and question afterwards’. I said ‘I already done the job so I know what it’s like, so I’m not doing it.’ I said ‘I don’t care what you say’. I said ‘I’m not going in that place no more’. So of course, I never went into work for about six weeks, and I stuck it. And my mum was worried, and that, cause that was sinful[?] wasn’t it. My mum was worried, so, she used to go and help the lady in a smallholding and that, her husband like, run a bit of a farm.
And she was telling her about me and that, so she said, I’ll see my husband, and her husband said ‘Well, send him along’, so I went there. I went on the farm for a little while. Throwing manure about with a Land Army girl, and [laugh] and doing out, putting the straw on the stack, and hoeing and that, so, I liked that job but I mean, he only wanted casual labour you see. Anyway I got money for it, so that’s that.
Q: Was that during the War still?
Mr J: That was just after the War. (Q: Just after the War, yes.) And well, the War was still on in … (Q: Japan?) Japan and that, but ours had finished, and cause I reckon I got have got him reprimanded if I’d have went through the Tribunal, cause he took me off the job, that War work, you know, and put me on a job of ordinary work. And anyway, I didn’t bother, so I carried on. Course, the Labour Exchange here, sent me to Braintree, cause they didn’t want [???] [???], so I used to have to cycle to Braintree to see what they’d got me to do, [???]. So they said ‘Well’, there’s a job going at Lake and Elliott’s’, they said, ‘to do with welding’, they said, so if you’d like to go there …’ So I went there to see it, cause I used to live not far away from there, so, and I see the manager, and he said ‘I don’t think that’s a job for you, you want’, he said ‘it’s not the job you’re looking for’. So anyway, when I went there it was the same, similar sort of thing, in a cubicle, they were burning, searing[?] the metal away from places what were flawed, you know, so they welded them up for the different things what they were making. I thought ‘Well, I ain’t going to stick this.’ I said ‘No I don’t [???] the job.’ So they decided that, you know, I’d have a chance of going to … Plaistow[?] (Q: Oh really?) after my job, cause they wanted welders down there, and I reckon they were starting to make these petrol stations, what they, you know, what floats[?] and that, you know, on the water. And that, but I thought, ‘Well, I don’t know, I don’t want to go there.’
So anyway, it happened up that the under-manager told my dad, he said ‘If he don’t come back’, he said ‘he’ll get the sack’, you know. So I thought ‘Well, better go back.’ So I went back, anyway, and, when I got there, the old sand blast was still open and that, and they [???] and I should go in there, so they took me up there, and so I dressed up like a girl[?] and of course I picked the pipe up, and, it was like lead. I said ‘Well, you can’t work this thing’, I said, ‘anyway.’ So he just thought, well, he weren’t going to put me in there, he just done it to see whether I was willing to go in it. Probably I’d have gone in. But there was pipes, big pipes, with just a little tiny nozzle on, air, compressed air used to blow this stuff through, and, you used to hold them in your arm like that, cause you was like, muffs on like, and every now and again you used to get a kick like, wonder what it was. I wondered whatever it was, and I kept looking round to see my old mate, he was looking at me, and he was a-grinning and that, and all of sudden that give you a kick again, and it used to throw an electric shock out on it, although that was partly rubber and that.
But, you used to get a kick out on it, anyway. Of course they laughed when I told them about it, cause they’d had the same thing happen you see. So I say, not really, but I stuck it because I thought I would have my own back on him, cause he thought he was going to get rid of me, cause one of the other mana-. under-managers, he took me up ahead of the job, he said ‘That ain’t my doing, Bill, you should go up there’, cause I used to be floating worker you see, wherever they wanted somebody, I used to have to go and do it, and I used to do it, you know, what I mean, I used to work in with the men, I knew how the job went, and that, so I knew just how to throw the window about or, that, do the different … So, he was one of these under-managers, you know, if you need help somewhere up in the factory, he used to shout, you know ‘Bill’, put his hand up, ‘come up this way.’ Down there [laugh]. So he was the one, he said ‘I don’t like [???] you should go up there.’ I said ‘I know [???]’.
Q: So what, who was he, this chap who … who was he, this bloke that didn’t like you?
Mr J: Mr Andrews was the one I didn’t like. (Q: I see.) And Mr Jarrett was the one what what I got on all right with, cause I used to do me [???]. And anyway, I, I [???] in the job and that, and then that happened, so, when I handed the certificate to him, I said ‘You hate me and I hate you’ I told my manager. Which was true, that was true, and he knew it. But he just thought he’d try and break me, at not doing what he wanted me to do. Cause he was an old army officer. And I thought, well, I mean, if I hadn’t have done the job, and refused in there, well, I could have got the sack, and I went and done the job, and that didn’t suit me, and other people got out on it, and not only that, these masks what we put on, they used to hang up in the cubicle, well there used to be a night shift, so you didn’t know whether they would pick your helmet up or not, you see, and, if you had your own helmet and locked it up in there, you just, you was breathing whatever they’d got, and that, you see. If you’d have told them they’d have said ‘Oh, we add disinfectant every day.’ But that ain’t the point.
Q: So when you went back again, when you went back again, how did you get on then?
Mr J: Oh, well, I told you, he tried to put me on, and then of course I went on putting fittings on windows, putting the handles and thingummies on, for a time, and [???] tap[?] make sure they were straight and that, and then they had another idea of a sliding, you know, when you open a window, that slid along, and they had a special bar put on them, and that was metal, so they put a brass, pedal[?] machine they called it, this fellow used to put the brass on, fix it onto the window, and that used to have a press, presser, pushing it on. And you used to hold it there while he was doing it, and then you used to take them away and pack them down on the, cause they used to be on a platform, cause he was down below, you see, to be near the part what was to be done, and I used to drop mine[?] on the floor. And being galvanised, the old man had to come along, Mr Small come along, he said ‘Don’t put them on the floor like that.’ So I thought right.
I knew I was near the packers’ bay, so I went and got some wood and [???] [???]. [laugh]. So anyway, we worked on shifts on that for a time. And then there was a time, there was two of us, we had some big racks, you know, with all the different types of windows on. And they’d got them higgledy piggledy if you know what I mean, so they’d got [???] they didn’t know what to do with them, they was going to Ireland, cause they’d got a place out in Ireland, factory. And they was going there, but they wanted, they had to give him a job cause his parents were well in the firm, I suppose they were shareholders and that. And he used to have to get, go up, cause of the rack, you know, and we put, we had to change all these racks, with bolt and spanner and that, other fellow and myself, we put them together, put the smallest window right on the top, and the next smallest window, underneath, and so forth, so the biggest windows were on the front[?]. So we had that for a time, the two of us. And he was, [probably the manager] he was down there all the time, our whole time he was down there looking up there, so you couldn’t stop to talk and that. So, he used to have five minutes break, so he used to go and get a cup of tea then, so we had that break time. (Q: Yes, oh dear.) So then, where else did I go. Oh, the, I got put up the galvanising, they had big, a crane, what had a whole rail like that with arms on, where they used to hang the windows on, and they were dropped in the acid tanks, through the crane. Well they used to get all …, acid on them and that, and this cradle, like, what used to carry the windows, that used to go through the different tanks, there used to be acid, hot water, cold water, and then the flux tank, and then course they used to go in hot air, [???] oven. Well, when they were finished the other side, they used to go up, right[?] in[?] the roof, and down again for the chap to fill up again, you see. Well, they wanted somebody cleaning them, so they give me the job of cleaning them and that. So anyway I used to do that, clean them, and one day, the foreman come up and said ‘Mr Small wants to know if you’d manage the telephone’, you see, because they used to have the telephone there, and course the foreman wasn’t always there, he was [???] part of the factory, and course the manager, like, what was over the galvanising, the other manager, the works manager, used to phone to want to know where he was, so that, so I wouldn’t take it on, I said ‘No, I don’t want that job.’ [laugh] So anyway …
Q: Why didn’t you want it?
Mr J: Oh, I didn’t want to start talking to Mr Small, because he was Scotch, and I should never understand what he said half the time, so I didn’t take it. So, I’d have still had to do my work just the same (Q: I see, as well, yes.) [???] you’d pick up to see what was, who was who and what was what. So anyway, after a time they put me on the acid tanks, you know.
I went in the middle acid tanks, cause there used to be a rail, come along, and the chap used to push it onto hoists, hoists used to go down and into the tank, and then they used to have a rail on the tank, so they pushed along to the other end of the tanks, and then you had another hoist pick them up to take them. And you used to have rods, poles, to push them along onto the next hoist, and that used to be three[?] very different loads of metal window, as well as being the hot water, like, and then the cold water, and the other in the flux, you see. So that’s how you was. Of course you’d got a button[?] where your hoists were and that. And I stuck that for quite a while, and then what happened. Something, so I went out into the factory again. That was all right there, it was good money what was earning, but that was day and night shift, and …we used to smell this old acid. They used to give us overalls, and we used to take them off, we had a locker to put them in and that, and clogs, we used to have clogs on. And I used to have a mask over my nose and that. And ..
Q: You quite liked that, did you?
Mr J: Yes, but if you got hot and sweaty, that always smart on your face, and if you rubbed it with your handkerchief and that, it made it worse. [laugh] Terrific stuff. I had one pal fall in there and he died. (Q: I remember [probably Don Upson].) And anyway, I didn’t like the other side, cause I could have gone the other side, the galvanising side of it, that didn’t appeal to me that, cause sometimes if they happened to wet, the windows, not dried off properly, then they used to go into the tank, well of course that used to splutter the spelter about, you’d get a piece on you, that stick, you couldn’t brush it off, cause you burnt your hand off. [laugh] So anyway I got out of that, and somebody wanted me somewhere else, so I went somewhere else and that, and I was working in the shop one day, and they started a new idea for the conveyor belt, cause all the windows and that, you had inners and outers, and they, one man put the outer on, another one put the vents in, and then they had two chaps on each, so I suppose, one, two, three, four, outside[?] tables [???]. And these men used to take them off, hang them up, and push them along, and there was two chaps the other side used to look at them, and inspect them and final them, if they wanted, if they didn’t fit properly and that, they used to make sure they fitted properly and whether they were air tight and water tight, they done all that, and then they were put another belt, and put up and put on stowages[?] and that, [???] truck used to come along and take them outside and stack them. And anyway, I was working in the main shop one day, and the foreman come up to me, and said ‘Mr, Mr Joslin, Mr Small wishes to go and help Mr Keeble’.
So of course Mr Keeble was sorting the windows out to put on the conveyor belt, you see, cause we had windows all round us and you had a programme to say where they’d got to go, and what type they were, and how many there was on the programme, and, so of course he was trying to sort them out. And that’s how I used to help him, you see, so after a while they promoted him, give him the foreman’s job, that’s looking after the conveyor belt and that, and I was put in charge of what he’d done. That’s where I ended up.
Q: So when about, I was going to say, how far have you got now, in time. So that was when you were quite a bit older, by the time that happened?
Mr J: Oh yes, I was married and … No, no, I wasn’t married when I first put on. I got married while I was on there.
Q: Oh right, so you did that for a long time, then?
Mr J: 1928 I got married, 19, (Q: So you did that, I can see it up there, it says 1952.) That’s right, yes, that’s right. (Q: Is it ’52 or ’62? ’52.) ’52, that’s it.
Q: So you were already, so you did that last job for quite a number of years, did you?
Mr J: Yes, that was my last job.
Q: You did that for quite a long time?
Mr J: Oh yes. Yes I done that for quite a while.
Q: So which Mr Keeble was it? (Mr J: Alf Keeble, he used to live …) In my house. (Q: Oh, is that where you live?) Yes. [Blanfred, Chalks Road.]
Mr J: Have they still got that door on your back door, metal door? (Q: No.) Oh, you’ve taken it out. I helped him to put that in there. (Q: Oh, did you really?) But that had to have new, cause I don’t think they could open in, you see. (Q: No. I remember it.) I don’t know, that might have done, but I think he had it out. Well, his wife didn’t think much of it anyway.
Q: No, we got a porch put on at the back. There’s a little porch on the back now, and a wooden door. But I can remember it, yes. Oh so you must have been doing that quite a long time, that job, then?
Mr J: Yes, well, he was lost to know what to do and that, so, he asked me to go and help him, cause we was working on nights together you see.
Q: So how long did you do that job altogether, do you think?
Mr J: I don’t know. (Q: Ten years? More?) Yes, might be about that.
Q: Yes, roughly, yes. So you were telling me, you didn’t, going back to getting married, you said you didn’t expect to get married? How did that happen?
Mr J: No, I was a lonesome, and my brother and his wife and her father and that, they used to take me out with them, because her father was a nice old boy, he never liked to see me out of it. So anyway, my wife, had a daughter before I was married, and my sister had a son, and they both lived at Cressing, and they were about the same age, these daughter and son, and they used to walk around Cressing, pushing a pram, and course they met up with each other, talking to each other, and course when they got older, her daughter and my nephew got together, you see, they were like courting, you see, and his dad used to have a nice piece of ground, and he used to have chickens and pigs on it, and he used to sell these eggs you see, and they went to the market and all, and course, Kath, she was living at Braintree then, and so she cycled to Witham, Braintree to Cressing like, pick eggs up every week.
So Irene and Jack decided, ‘Can’t we get Cecil’, over there on a Wednesday, you see. So they told me I’d got to go over on a Wednesday to see my sister, you see. So when I got over there, course, Kath was there, you see, so we got talking to each other, and that’s how we met. (Q: Right.) So we got, in the end we got married. We stayed in Manor Road for a little while, and I lost my mum. She was ill when we got married. And so, that was good, thing to come, having Kath there, like, she helped looking after Mum while we done nights, you see. Then we lost here, and course, Kath had a nervous breakdown, and I’d got to do something about it, cause the doctor come and said, got to get away from Manor Road, and I kept thinking and that, and I thought well, I’d never been in a Council house, myself, and I thought, I knew Adams and Mortimers, you remember Adams and Mortimer ? [White Horse Lane] (Q: Yes, I do, yes.) Well Mr Lee, he used to be in the Scouts, with us, so I went to see him and asked him if he could build me a bungalow. He said ‘Well, where do you want it?’ I thought, well, if I have it here, my dad is on there on his own, up there, I could just pop up now and again to see whether he’s all right, you see. So I asked them if they could build me this bungalow, so he said ‘I don’t see why not.’ So I bought the piece of ground, and asked them if they could build a bungalow, it cost me, got as much money[???], and, got to borrow it, you know, pay for it. Of course, that’s how I come to get the bungalow, it’s all my own now, that was a wonderful thought after we’d paid the last instalment. I said to Kath, I said ‘Do you know, that’s all our own now. Everything.’ [???] That was a lovely thought, lovely thought.
Q: Yes. So when did you move here, about? When was it built, about? Was that after your mum died? (Mr J: Was about, no.) Well, you were married in 1952. You were married in 1952, is that right, so you stayed at Manor Road for a little bit, didn’t you?
Mr J: Yes, well it wasn’t long after that. (Q: It wasn’t? Oh well.) To come here. Cause we didn’t think we were going to get any children, then of course we had Celia come along.
Q: Oh you have a daughter, that’s nice, yes, good. So is she still about?
Mr J: Yes, she was married, she’s been married seventeen years, but her husband, like, he had two brothers, like, and they both lived in Australia. Well, the youngest brother come over the other year, and he brought his family with him, he’d got four children. Well, they went about together, and Celia got to like them, you know, my daughter, and she wanted her husband to have children, but he didn’t want children, so they split up. So she’s living on her own, round the Jack and Jenny, where all them new houses are being built. (Q: I know, yes. ) Surprising there, that don’t look the same place. (Q: No, it doesn’t, does it.) There used to be a lane there, that used to be a courting way[?]. (Q: Which, by the Jack and Jenny, was it? [maybe opposite]) Yes, you used to, you could walk right along there, you know, and there was just, one or two houses, but not many, I mean the old people’s bungalows and weren’t there and that, it were all field.
[chat about daughter, Celia Barden[?] not noted]
Q: And what was your mum’s name before she married?
Mr J: My mum? (Q: Yes.) Kent
Q: Kent. So, in case I come across them, what was her first name?
Mr J: Jessie Frances, it was.
Q: Jessie Frances. And your father?
Mr J: Just William, I think.
Q: Just William, yes. Cause, were you called both Cecil and Bill? You said at the factory they called you Bill, did they? At the factory, did they call you Bill?
Mr J: Yes, they called me Bill Joslin [laugh].
Q: How confusing. So how do you reckon, going back to Crittall’s, how do you reckon, did you enjoy it? Sounds as if you had a bit of a hard time.
Mr J: Well, there was, oh dear, to do some of the jobs … (Q: Quite, yes.) I was working on what they called the shearing, you held your [???] up like that, and put it through to the tool, and you put your foot on the pedal, and course that cleared all the weld off. (Q: I see, yes.) And I was miles away one day, I weren’t in Crittall’s at all [laugh], and I didn’t put it in right, so that come round, and give me a hit right on the head. (Q: Hit you on the head?) I looked round to see whether anybody was looking, cause sometimes, there’s always somebody out to catch your eye, cause that’d tickle them, if they’d have seen me. So, I weren’t on them jobs long. When I was on them, they were boring, you see, there was some jobs, I loved casemaking, we used to make big cases, to put windows in and that, course that come under my dad, you know.
Q: So where was your dad, was that his part, in the woodshop?
Mr J: Yes, he was the packers’ foreman. (Q: Oh, the packers?) Yes, when he was at Braintree, he, they never made their own cases, they bought cases in, so when they got to pack[?] a case and that, they had to go out in the yard and pick a case what they thought might suit the thing. And when of course, when we come to Witham, they decided to make their own cases, you see. (Q: Yes.) And he used to have to work out what sizes they might, the size of the window, and you’ve got to allow for other parts. Oh yes.
Q: Sounds like, all sounds very hard work. You hard to work pretty hard all the time, didn’t you?
Mr J: Yes. That manager what I was telling you about, he used to stand up the top of the shop, where they were finalling, he’d stand up there all day, every time, from half past seven to half past five at night. He used to have a break, he used to have a coffee break in the morning, and coffee break in the afternoon, and that. And he’d go back, he’d only just go down there for a cup of tea or whatever he had, was poured out for him, so I reckon that must have been cold when he drunk it. And he was back out before … hardly the bell went. (Q: Just looking at you?) Yes, he’s standing there, watching these fellows work.
Some of them they got, they used to swing the hammer like that so they lost their hammer, like, so that went [???] down. Course they used to get the sack. (Q: Really.) You was on the go the whole time, once you were there.
Q: When you first started, would that be in the Depression? (Mr J: Oh, that was lovely, in the wood shop.) In the wood shop, yes?
Mr J: They used to start, stop now and again, to sharpen the cutters and that, so we used to get a break. But we used to have, we called them blowers, but that was a suction pipe, used to suck all the shavings and that up, and we used to sweep from the floor, like, put it up there.
Q: So the wood was for the surrounds, was it? The wood was for the surrounds?
Mr J: Yes. Yes, that’s right. There were fills[?], jambs and [???].
Q: So were you there in the 1930s when they were short of work? In the 1930s about, didn’t they have to sack a lot of people? Were you there then?
Mr J: Oh yes. Every year. There were some chaps, they were kept on the dole till the next summer, to draw them to come and do the job, cause they’d been there before. There was one fellow, even at Christmas time, he was kept on one Christmas, he said, ‘Do you know, this is the first Christmas I’ve had [???], now he was a young fellow, and I thought, how lovely, I thought, he’d been able to buy his children a present and that. And not long after the Christmas he got the sack again. So I mean, you didn’t know, how to work in the end. Of course I was lucky, you see, I was just a, well I wasn’t very old at times, I was a young man, about twenties, and that, you see, but of course when you got older you earned money.
Q: So you didn’t have to, they kept you on all the time, did they?
Mr J: Yes, I was lucky, one of the ones that kept on all the time. I never lost, well I did one day, there was, I think that was during the War, through the bombing and that, and I think they were smashed, the roofing and that, where we were working. And something went wrong, so they put a lot of the men on the dole. And course there was another old foreman, he didn’t think much of me. He hated me really. So the manager, the under-manager what I didn’t like, he wanted to keep me there, he didn’t want me to go up on the dole, you see. So anyway, I went up on the dole, you see, because he never picked me, [???] he picked the men what he thought would do, this one. So anyway, it weren’t long after, next day I [???] in the factory to him, I said, this under-manager didn’t think I should be up there. But no, he’d put me anywhere, cause, I’ve been on all the jobs, I’ve even swept the floor up, in the factory. And I’ve swept the snow up outside, because we used to have trucks come in the yard, and they used to go round, to go to the, put the steel in the bay and that, and they used to have a tractor, and a man with them to hook the trucks on, to tow, to the, [???]. Cause they used to have a shunting engine come in the morning, and in the afternoon, to take the trucks away.
And, course there was snow and that, and this old tractor used to keep slipping and that. He was a wicked man, he used to swear and [???]. This old tractor wouldn’t do, he’d kick it and call it everything he’d think of. And so he told them [???], so the yard foreman, cause he had a yard foreman, like, the yard foreman had got me, well Andrews told him, he said ‘Oh, put him out with snow’. There was one day I was sweeping the snow away. And Mr Small come round, he was quite pleased, cause I done a good job. Yes.
Q: So who was the tractor driver, then?
Mr J: Butler, Bill Butler.
Q: Yes. So he’d got a bad temper, had he? So why, you keep saying …
Mr J: He went funny in the end. (Q: Did he, yes.) He went, his brain. (Q: Ah.) He’d got a quiet little old man with him, he used to be in the Navy, this little man, and he was ever so quiet, like, and he used to walk away when he was, he got that temper. And of course actually, I can understand him really, because he’d got to get them trucks, so, the train had to have them, the engine couldn’t wait all that long, that’d only got a certain time to pull them out and push them round the yard.
Q: Cause you keep saying so and so didn’t like you. Do you think, why do you think that was, that they didn’t like you? When you say these various people didn’t like you, why do you think that was.
Mr J: Oh, I don’t know.
Q: Were you an awkward chap, then? Did you stick up for yourself, is what I’m saying?
Mr J: Well, yes, I stuck to the under-manager, because, I mean, he didn’t tell me what my trouble was, why he didn’t like me, you see, but I only surmised that, thinking that were through that manager, didn’t like what I was doing. Anyway I give myself a nasty cut. Well, that time of day, you only had the lodge keeper used to have to bandage your hand and that, at that time. And, I had a nasty old cut and that, and I thought, well, I ain’t going to do that no more, push them through so quick. [???] And of course, he’d had more than he wanted, anyway, drink.
Q: So it was just the sort of chap he was, really?
Mr J: Yes, my surmising, that’s what it was, I’m almost certain it was, really. I reckon he got onto the other manager saying ‘You want to get on and your[?] men doing the job properly. Well I could have done it, I mean, I done it, I done it. And of course they said ‘Oh, oh, oh, don’t work so hard,’ Because they wanted to have a certain pace they used to … So of course, anyway I weren’t on it long. I was on different jobs.