The early generations of the Pritchard/Cottam family had little opportunity to choose their occupation on leaving school. In most cases after our ancestors had moved out of agriculture it was either mining, mills, hat factories or 'going into service'. Fortunately for the generation that finished school following the second world war the choice had widened considerably. Here are some examples of the experiences 'enjoyed' by a few of our family as they entered the world of work.

My First Job, Denton Co-op

I left Audenshaw Secondary Modern aged 15 in July1956 and gained

my first Job with the help of Mr Harry Bennett one of the teachers who

was also on the management board of Denton Co-op. I started work in

the August at the Central Branch in the Grocery Dept and it was a

whole new world for me. I had been brought up in the Salvation Army

and I suppose lived a very sheltered life, spending all my time either

within the family circle or at the citadel as the church was called.

Now I was spending all my working time with people who had

nothing to do with the Salvation Army and within a few weeks I would

be introduced to their world.

With my first week’s wages I bought a new bike from the clubman who

sold from door to door. It was a Raleigh and of course it had to be red with

drop handle bars. This was the first new bike I had ever had and when it

was delivered three weeks later I rode it to work on the Saturday morning.

We finished work at noon and so it was off to the bike shop to buy some

transfers, which I spent all afternoon fitting on the bike. On the Monday

I again rode it to work, and in the evening following work I had to go and

see the School Careers Officer. Her office was above the Gas showrooms

at Crown Point and leaving the bike chained up outside I climbed the stairs.

I was with her for just ten minutes but when I came out my brand new bike

was gone.

Needless to say I was devastated as I never got it back and because it was

not insured I had to carry on paying for it each week for two years, it cost

a fortune and I have had a great aversion ever since to buying things on HP.

It was to be more than twenty years before I bought another bike.

When I started work things like sugar, tea, currants, sultanas and were all

delivered in bulk. I spent days weighing sugar into one and two pound blue

paper bags. The tea came in what we called Tea chests and these were

always in demand by teenagers who wanted them as basses in the skiffle

groups and people moving house. The butter and lard also came in big packs

and it was a real messy job cutting these into half pound blocks with a wire

andthen using butter spats to make them square before wrapping them in

greaseproof paper.

My favourite was the coffee. The big sacks of beans would be delivered to

the side of the building where we had a chain hoist to take them up to the

second floor. It was hard work for a fifteen year old heaving on that chain,

but once we got them up we had to slit the top of the sack and empty them

into a bin which had a shoot in the bottom which came out on the ground

floor of the shop. The smell of those beans as we ground the coffee will

always stay with me.

In September there was a big day out for all Denton Co-op employees.

The Annual Trip to Blackpool. All the branches were closed for the day

with everyone meeting at the Central branch at eight thirty in the morning

to board the coaches. Now as a fifteen year old who had been brought up

in the Salvation Army this was to be quite a shock. I was pretty naïve

and had never tasted an alcoholic drink. Needless to say I got very drunk

and slept the night in the delivery lorry because I could not go home in that

state.

The mid fifties were exciting times. Rationing had finally come to an end

and food companies and other manufacturers were responded to the freedom

with products designed to attract through packaging and promotions. A new

product was washing powder there was ‘Persil Washes Whiter’, ‘OMO

adds Brightness to Whiteness’, and others for Tide, Dreft, Daz, Fab and Surf.

But we in the co-op also had our own brands and I remember the first

pre-packed margarine arriving. There were three kinds Red Seal, for cooking.

Silver Seal for spreading on bread and Gold Seal, which was the luxury

margarine, supposed to be akin to butter. People had begun to buy fridges

and Birds Eye Fish Fingers arrived in Denton in 1956 along with Shreddies,

Frosted Flakes and Sugar Puffs, and I remember doing a window display

for Kellogg’s Frosties with the Tiger that actually growled.

All these packaged goods meant that it was time for change and the first

Self Service stores were being introduced. Denton Co-op’s first self service

was its Hyde Road branch. I was sent along to help. We closed the doors

on Saturday having served the last customers over the old mahogany counter

and by following Saturday we were ready for the grand opening of

Denton’s first Supermarket with its gleaming shelves filled with brightly

packaged goods. There was a opening ceremony and lots of offers such

as money-off coupons worth 3d or 4d which were given with soap powders

and also with ‘Lux Liquid’ and ‘Fabulous Pink Camay’.

In January 1957 I was transferred to the Reddish Branch which was also to

be come self-service. We still had a provisions counter and I looked after

that boning the bacon and serving the customers from large round cheeses

that we cut as needed. In the February Munich happened and the next day

we did not have a single customer in the shop until the middle of the afternoon.

The whole of Manchester and the surrounding towns were in mourning.

But football also brought joy to one of our regular customers when she won the

football pools. I think it was around £75,000 and she stated that it would not

change her life. And it did not seem too as she still came in each day for her

bits and pieces and her husband who was a crane driver on British Rail carried

on working and even complained one week that he had been left off the

Sunday working list.

Towards the end of 1957 I was moved again to the Hyde road branch, this

was the beginning of the end for my occupation with Denton Co-op. I was

working with a manager who I did not like and within a few weeks I was taking

time off work to find a new job and I finally left around November.

GEORGE PRITCHARD

BECOMING A RAILWAYMAN

When it came time to leave Poplar Street Secondary Modern School, Easter 1951, I decided, much against the wishes of my Father and Mother, that I would like to earn a living as a ‘railwayman’. After I had convinced Mam and Dad that I wouldn’t be satisfied with any other occupation they approached Harry Hollinshead, a Salvation Army friend who was also the Station Master’s Clerk at Guide Bridge. Harry arranged for me to have an interview with Mr Ingham the Stationmaster during the week before leaving school. He said that he was willing to take me on as a Probationer Train Register Boy in Fairfield Signal Box. When he asked me when I could start I said the following week and he told me to report to the signalman in Fairfield signal box at 9.00am on the following Monday. He had not realised that it was Easter Monday and that Train Register Boys did not work on Bank Holidays. Consequently when I reported to the signalman he sent me home after speaking on the telephone to a duty clerk. The following morning the same signalman, George Taylor, told me that the first thing I should do was write a letter, which he dictated, claiming a days pay and a day in lieu, for reporting for duty on the Easter Monday. He told me to complete the letter with the words ‘Your Obedient Servant’ and my signature. Some days afterwards I received a letter which informed me that I would be paid for the Monday and granted the day in lieu. I was taught how to do my duties by a Relief T.R. Boy which consisted of entering train details in the Train Register Book, answering the telephone and relaying the messages to the signalman. The first step was to learn the 24 hour clock which was something we hadn’t learned at school. At the time the signal boxes on the Manchester - Sheffield line were very busy boxes and hundreds of trains and locomotives were dealt with on each shift. Unlike most of the other ‘boxes’ Fairfield did not have a ‘T.R. Boy’ on the night shift consequently I worked two shifts in the signal box, 6-00am until 2-00pm and 2-00pm until 10-00pm. To get there for the early shift my Dad used to call me at 5.00am after he had made a pot of strong tea and I caught the 5.30am number 29 workman’s bus from Guide Bridge to Fairfield Wells. It was just a short five minute walk from there to the station where the signal box was on the end of the platform. My first task after I signed the Train Register Book (T.R Boy T. Pritchard on duty 6-00am) was to light the fire in the Platelayers Cabin which was next to the signal box. The previous days ashes had to be removed and wood, coal and paraffin had been left by the platelaying gang for the fire. After lighting the fire I filled the large cast iron kettle with water so that it would be boiling when they arrived for their 7.00am start. There were two other regular signalmen at Fairfield besides George Taylor, they were Harry Nicholls and Syd Morris. Because I only worked two shifts and they worked three it meant that I worked with each of them for two consecutive weeks. Both George and Harry were elderly chaps and were rather strict and serious but Syd was just the opposite, he was nicknamed ‘Crackers’ and known by that title by all the railway community. He lived up to his nickname and an eight hour shift with him was an experience to be remembered. When the regular signalmen were on a ‘rest day’ or on holiday or ill, their place was taken by Relief Signalmen and I looked forward to these occasions because the ‘relief men’ were usually much better to work with. As well as the normal T.R. Boy duties we had ‘domestic’ tasks to carry out. Window cleaning (and there were many), mopping and polishing the linoleum floor and cleaning the brasses. The window cleaning was done on early turn, the brasses on late turn and the floor every Friday morning. We also chopped firewood, carried up buckets of coal from the coal bunker, emptied the ashes and swept up and dusted at the end of every shift. The worst task of all though was emptying and cleaning the elsanol chemical toilet, which was done every Friday on the late shift. On the late shift the signalmen had an unofficial changeover time of 9.30pm so that they could get to the pub for a pint before closing time which in those days was 10.00pm. It was also of benefit to me because all of the signalmen who had just signed on duty allowed me to finish early so that I could catch the 9.40pm stopping train home to Guide Bridge.

Sometimes when one of the Porters on the station was off for some reason or other I was asked to take their place. Because this was an adult job I was paid half the difference between my own rate of pay and the Porters rate which meant quite an increase in my pay packet. On the late turn after 8.00pm, because the lady Booking Clerk finished at that time, the Porter was responsible for the Booking Office and issued tickets to passengers, so I had to learn to do that as well as the other station duties.

To compensate for the rather tedious cleaning duties there were many enjoyable aspects to being a T.R. Boy. Although Harry and George stuck rigidly to tea and sandwiches at mealtimes, ‘Crackers’ and many of the ‘relief men’ enjoyed a cooked meal, which had to be taken whilst still working the signal box. So we had eggs, bacon, sausages, tomatoes, beans, cheese on toast etc. My first cookery lessons were in Fairfield signal box. ‘Crackers’ was very fond of kippers and on both early and late turns he would send me down to the fishmongers in Fairfield Wells. I think he particularly enjoyed them because he knew that Harry Nicholls who took over from him at the end of his shift had a ‘cleaning fetish’ and hated the smell of the kippers and the thought that the levers and bells had been touched by fingers covered with kipper juices! I was also sent out on hot summer afternoons for ice cream and dandelion and burdock as a special treat. Because we were constantly exchanging messages and information on the internal telephone system with other T.R. Boys there was a great deal of practical joking and ribbing between both the lads and the signalmen and although we were very busy running trains we also had a great deal of fun.

There wasn’t a train to take me to Guide Bridge at the end of the early shift but there was always the prospect of a ride on a ‘light engine’ (locomotive) or on a goods train, either on the engine or in the ‘brake’ with the guard. I particularly enjoyed the ride on the footplate of a light engine even though it was only a matter of a five or ten minute ride. One abiding memory from the time was a very foggy morning when I missed my 5.30am bus to Fairfield Wells because I had lingered at home a few minutes too long. I was worried that I would be late for my shift and started to walk but realised that if I stayed on the road I would still be late. I decided to go down on to the railway line near Groby Road in Audenshaw and walk on the sleeper ends. There was a signal gantry just there and the signals were in the off position for all of the four tracks. Foolishly instead of getting off the tracks I carried on walking along the up fast line even though I could hear the sound of a locomotive getting nearer and nearer. Suddenly I saw something come out of the fog immediately in front of me and leapt to one side just in time. I came very close to being killed and never mentioned the experience either to the signalmen or my Mam and Dad.

During my time at Fairfield I met a Relief Signalman called Jimmy Tattersall who became a really good friend. He persuaded me to play cricket for the local railway side and later on to play for the football team. He rode a motor cycle and took me as pillion passenger to the games and we had some great times together. After about six months I applied for a vacancy for a Rest Day Relief T.R. Boy at Guide Bridge and got the job. It meant that I covered the rest days of the lads in three other signal boxes as well as Fairfield. It increased my pay packet and also meant that I worked with many different signalmen. Along with some of the other lads I did correspondence courses on ‘rules and regulations’ which the District Signalmen’s Inspector, Wilf Boardman ran. This prepared us for the day in the future when we would become signalmen ourselves. When I was seventeen the position of District Relief T.R. Boy at Guide Bridge was advertised, I applied for it and got the job. This meant that I worked in all seven of the signal boxes between Manchester London Road and Hyde Junction where T.R. Boys were employed, covering holidays, sickness and vacancies. On the odd occasion when I wasn’t required to cover a job in any of the signal boxes, I worked in the Station Masters Office on Guide Bridge station where Harry Hollinshead was the Office Clerk. He treated me very well and I had a nice easy time, starting late and finishing early. On the summer Bank Holidays I was given the opportunity to work on Belle Vue station collecting tickets from the many thousands of visitors that arrived on the Special trains. We were paid half the adult rate plus time and a half and a day in lieu. Early in December 1954 I left life in the signal box behind and became one of the many thousands of British lads doing ‘National Service’ in the armed forces.

TREVOR PRITCHARD

WORKING FOR BARCLAYS BANK

On the 4 October 1949 I started working at Barclays Bank 12 Piccadilly, Manchester. I was thrilled to leave childhood behind and become a young lady of business. This was how I saw it and my self esteem rocketed when I found I was addressed as ‘Miss Pritchard’ at all times. The low status of a schoolgirl was a thing of the past, even being a junior clerk and general coffee maker and buyer of cakes for the rest of the staff did not abuse me of my new confidence. The staff was predominantly male, there were two other girls and one older woman secretary to the manager and a dreadful power in the land. Apart from the dragon secretary, all the staff was very kind to me and I was extremely happy. In fact, a generally very pleasant atmosphere prevailed. There was an aged (to me) man, feeble with a red veined sniffing nose who had worked for the The Union Bank of Manchester before it was taken over by Barclays, drifting round the office not able to understand the many new ( to him) systems. There was a tolerance of him that one could not imagine today.

The day started for me with the preparation of the public areas. Customers were treated almost reverentially and the areas they were to use had to be pristine. So every day I would change the blotters putting in new sheets of pink blotting paper in each one. The inkwells, which were heavy solid ones, were emptied and refilled and all the pen nibs were checked. The biro was not in general use then, in fact I remember Marion being bought a very expensive one for her birthday to help her with her shorthand.

We sat on high stools at sloping benches. I had responsibility for entering the customers’ transactions in a huge ledger and copying out statements in an immaculate hand. My customers were all those whose surnames began A to K. I also answered the telephone and my voice often used to intrigue customers who would ask the cashiers to point me out when they came in. I think my voice would have been considered sexy now but how they described it I don’t know! I should think my appearance failed to live up to their expectations. Another of my tasks was to sort the presented cheques into the named banks and they were then posted to the Head Office. The exceptions to this were the local ones which we sorted into a folder called ‘Walks’ and then Surprise! Surprise! We walked round the city delivering them. This was great fun and I got to know all the quick short cuts through the meat, fish, and vegetable markets. I liked to go early in the morning but at the end of a hot summer day the stench from the rotting produce was hard to take. An added bonus to this job was meeting other juniors and indulging in some mild flirtations.

In each branch the £5, £1, and ten shilling notes which were too soiled for further use, were collected up into bundles of 500 and when there was a small attaché case full, they had to be taken to the Bank of England in Spring Gardens Manchester. Mr. Oldham a small, delicate man would attach a belt round his waist down through his sleeve and attach it to the case. It was duly locked on him. Then with me as his escort would walk across Piccadilly and down into Spring Gardens to have it unlocked at the Bank. Never for a moment did I sense any danger in this operation.

In the spring of the following year I was sent to the Bank School in Wimbledon to learn about the history of banking and some accounting. We stayed with Bank employees and in our spare time saw something of London. I had my first cigarette (luckily I hated it) and went to the Hammersmith Palais. It was all very adventurous for a Salvation Army girl but it failed to corrupt me! I returned home and hoped that Mam was none the wiser.

I did well at the bank school and came out top of the group. Not long afterwards we were visited by inspectors. They would often arrive without any prior warning to scrutinise the Bank’s activities, always dressed in pinstripe trousers and bowler hatted and very much the London representatives. This distinctive (in Manchester) dress of theirs very often served to warn branches of their coming because if they were seen arriving at the station a message would go round all the branches like wild fire. When they arrived at the branch they asked to meet me and congratulated me on my results at the school. They explained that I could have a good future in the Bank but as I was not a boy they advised me to take shorthand and typing course and become a secretary. I was appalled and disillusioned (obviously naïve not to have realised that there were no senior women doing actual banking ). My friend, Margaret Hickman, was already a cashier with the Trustee Savings Bank and the last thing I wanted to be was a secretary so my days with Barclays Bank were numbered.

At lunch times I would meet up with my friends Betty Warren who worked for The District Bank or Muriel Mottershead who worked for a Jewish Tailor. Her work place was below ground level and she could watch people’s legs as they walked past. She sewed parts of the bespoke suits by hand and she always complained how hard it was on the fingers. She didn’t stay in the job long!! . We would go to Lyons Corner House. The salad Bar was very reasonable and we loved it. If we were not in funds we would just go to Kardomah for a ‘Coffee Dash’ and eat sandwiches. We would also sometimes plan visits on a Saturday to the cinema or theatre. I remember the thrill of seeing Oklahoma in grey Manchester. It was pure joy. We also went to see Mario Lanza in The Great Caruso and were bowled over. My bank manager at the time had heard Caruso and thought Mario was a good imitation but nowhere near as good as the real thing.

In spite of all this I was never a city person and yearned for the country so I asked for a transfer to a country branch. My manager was disgusted with me but he still put it through and I was duly sent to Glossop Branch which I loved. It was a small branch with three male members of staff and myself. It was much more interesting because we got to know all the customers very well and became involved in the life of the little town. I loved the journey there each day – through Mottram Cutting with many country views, much preferred to the city ones. My boss was very idiosyncratic and a bit of a maverick when assessing bank charges. He would often take from the rich and give to the poor and of course no one was ever the wiser. What Head office made of him I don’t know but we loved him and so did Glossop. His chief clerk was a quiet little man who blossomed at the Annual Dinner in Manchester when he would put on a wonderful show of mimicry. His son is Peter Goodwright who no doubt inherited

his talent from his father.

Arthur Mends had an account there and the Manager was very impressed with him because he had been in the Marines! I was amazed how well he treated him and of course he was one of the ones who benefited from the flexible charging. In 1952 I left the bank to go to the Salvation Army Training College in London.

Margaret White

Working as a ‘Butcher Boy’ at Fred Briggs Butchers

When I worked at Fred Briggs butchers I used to go to get a big sack of sawdust from the Guide Bridge wagon works. This was in the rail yard off Guide Lane. All the machinery was belt driven off a shaft which ran down the middle to the building, and I loved to listen to the slap of the belts as they went around the drive wheels. This was a place that smelled of a mixture of wood shavings and oil and in the winter they had a big pot bellied stove which got red hot. I suppose it has long been closed.

The sawdust was used on the floor and for cleaning the big chopping blocks in the shop and I would scrub these with lots of soap and water and rinse them off. Then sawdust was spread on them and left overnight. Next morning my first job was to scrape the blocks with a steel brush. It was a great satisfaction to get them snowy white by the time the first customer came through the door. I don't think Health and Safety would approve today. Mind you the sides of beef were delivered on a Monday and would hang in the shop for three days without refrigeration before we cut and boned them.

Another Monday Job was making the sausages and black puddings. Once all the orders had been delivered I would ride the butcher’s bike down to the slaughterhouse, which was in Dukinfield. I had a half size milk churn which would be filled with blood for the puddings and it was quite hard to stay upright with the blood sloshing around in the churn. One winter’s day when returning to the shop, I got a puncture in Trafalgar Square and because the cobbles were wet the bike went from under me and there was blood everywhere with me lying in the middle. One woman went into hysterics and I had to jump up quick to show her I was OK and Ronnie and Ann who had taken over the shop from Fred Briggs got the shock of their lives when I arrived back in the back of a lorry with the bike and still covered in blood. Ann had to go and warn Mam before I went home, and she was not very pleased when she saw the state of my clothes.

The black puddings consisted of pork fat put through a large hole mincer to get the lumps of fat you could see in the finished pudding. Warm pigs blood, rolled oats

and seasoning. Every butcher has a secret mixed of herbs and Ronnie had bought the secret with the shop from Fred Briggs. When he worked for Fred he had never been allowed to see the herbs being mixed before he bought the shop and likewise neither was I. All the mixing of the blood, meat, oatmeal and herbs was done by hand and then the mixture was put into the sausage making machine which was hand cranked. Pigs intestines which were brought salted from a salesman who visited the shop were soaked for about an hour and then filled with the mixture. We used sheep’s intestines for the sausage and the beef were the only ones to have colouring which was cochineal added. I remember us making tomato sausages for the first time and they sold really well, however lamb sausages never took off.

We also made our own dripping and lard. The dripping was made with beef fat which was minced and then put into a gas boiler just like Mam used to do the washing in. The boiler would be in the back yard and the fat would be rendered down and then put into galvanised buckets through a strainer to cool. These would be left out in the yard until they had cooled and were needed. We would then bring them into the back room and turn the solid dripping out on to the block and scrape any soot or dirt off the top cut it up and put it into the shop to be sold. Lard was made with pig fat in the same way but would not set solid so it would be kept in stainless steel bowls and served to the customer from those.

We made our own cooked meats with corned beef being the only thing being brought in. I loved the roast pork which was cooked in Ann’s kitchen stove whilst the boiled ham was cooked on the top. Once the pork was cooked the faggots would go in to cook. Ron came up with the idea of selling meat filled muffins which were freshly made by Bleakley’s the bakers across the road. Lots of the railwaymen would get a bag of chips from the South Street chippy then come and get a filled muffin to go with them for their lunch. Now that was food!

I used to love to deliver the meat orders on my bike. We had one woman who always had a split sheep’s head on a Wednesday. Her husband loved his sheep brains on toast and she would use the rest with some neck of lamb for mutton stew. She always insisted on having the eyes taken out before delivery as that way it was only a piece of meat. Another of my customers loved ox tail and insisted that I try a cup of her soup every week. I hated it and will never eat it now. Yet another had sweetbreads every week, which would also be served on toast. She asked me one week which part of the animal they came from and I told her I did not know, as I was too shy to say that they were sheep’s testicles.

One of my mates mother worked at the canteen at John Hill’s biscuit works. He asked me to call in one day as she was thinking of changing their butcher. I got the order and it was the biggest one Ron had and made a big difference to the shop trade as workers started to leave orders in the canteen for their meat. Sometimes it would take me ages to sort all the orders out and I would be treated to hot chocolate and dripping on toast whilst I did it. It’s no wonder I got fat!

One of our rivals was the Denton Co-op butcher on Guide Lane. I used to try and time my delivery round so that I would be passing this shop about 11am. That’s when the meat pies arrived from the bake house at Crown Point. These are still the best meat pies I have ever tasted.

George Pritchard.

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