Interviewee: Peter Aldred Interviewer: Rachel Tapp (WYAS) Venue: Peter Aldred s address (see permission form) Date: 26 th March 2012 Length of recording: 38 minutes File name: Aldred_Peter01 There s nothing to do with textiles in Morley now at all. You know, it s all gone. I ve got most stuff up there, hung up and in here [referring to folders in office]. All this is about textiles. I ve a bobbin and shuttles. When was the last textile factory in Morley? I should think nearly 10 years now, the last one would have gone. I mean the textile trade all this is about the textile trade in Morley [referring to folder]. It s all, you know and I ve another one. Where is it? That one. That s all the textile trade from start to finish. That s the they used to buy rags and then they d??? it and bale it up and things like that. Then these would go around and they d have a that s it [having found the right photograph] a rag sale. I know that man and I know that man. They d buy it all, you see, and bring it back and make it into cloth. So, I ve all sorts of different topics, you know, to do with Morley. Were you born in Morley? Yes I was born at Morley Hall. That was the maternity home then. Was it really? I didn t know that. Back in 1933, so that s a long time ago. Did you go to school in Morley? Yes, I went to Morley Grammar School and then I got a job in Leeds in printing. I used to make the plates for printing, colour pictures from. But that s as I say, these are some of them. These are some others that I ve got in. That s it s one that a lady sent me. Do you know where Do you know Tingley Common? Yes. You know the new industrial estate they re a new hotel, Village Hotel?
Yes, I do know where you mean. Well, they had that was the farm there and all that land was rhubarb. Is that the land that you worked on? I didn t actually work but a friend of mine had a rhubarb farm. His father had it, his grandfather had it and he lived they had the Rod s Farm at Morley and they had a type of rhubarb called Rod s Ruby Red and it was more of a pinky flesh coloured than the other green. It was quite nice rhubarb. Yes, look, Tingley rhubarb farm, Tingley Common. Somebody else was telling me about Tingley Common and they mentioned the blacksmiths that was nearby. Well, there was a blacksmiths there. I ve got pictures of it somewhere. We went to photograph him before he retired. The Wesleyan Chapel next to the blacksmiths, it was known as What do they call that chapel? Eh dear, I ll think of it. The man that ran it, who was like the superintendant of that little chapel, it was built as an overflow chapel for this big one, you know, Tingley Chapel here. Well, it got so full and a lot of the people came from that area over there so they built another little chapel and so it was like a mission chapel, if you like. And the man who ran it, ran he worked in the Topcliffe Pit and he installed this piece of equipment. Oh dear. What do they call it? He installed this coal-cutting machine and because he ran this coal-cutting machine, he inherited this name and it got transferred to the chapel. I ll remember it in a minute. At this time, was a lot of the land used for rhubarb? A lot of it was rhubarb, yes. During the war, which I can remember very well, a lot of rhubarb went into making jam. Moorhouses Jam Works was just at the top of Dewsbury Road on Old Lane. I think there s one or two little bits of the building still there and a lot of rhubarb went into bulking up the jam. You know, they d make strawberry jam but there d be a lot of rhubarb went into it. Cause we couldn t get things during the war. But I got friends with this lad. He lived over our back fence and his father, as I say, [had] Brook s Farm, and we used to go
down there as lads helping them to pull rhubarb. The main trade was in forced rhubarb. There was so much of it round here that they had a special train from Wakefield down to London to the wholesale market down there. The same train line that s there today? Oh yes, yes. It was the same train line and it was called the Rhubarb Special but it went down to What do they call the market in London? Spitalfields? Spitalfields is that the one? Because there s that many. They ve moved it now haven t they? It used to be not Spitalfields. Was it Borough Market? No. It was right in the middle of London. It s moved out now into the suburbs. It s somewhere near where they ve built the Olympic [site] but it s still got the same name. I ve forgotten what they call it now. But we used to go down there quite regularly during the wartime. Some people have been telling me a lot of the PoWs were working on the rhubarb farms as a bit of labour. Well, I don t know. I don t know about that. My brother that s my brother [pointing to photograph on desk] he s a print historian. He s three years older than me so he was a bit more involved. He worked, you know, not as a job but he went to these different places, helping out like. He went to this one Brook s Farm and [laughing] we used to go down there pulling rhubarb. You know, you get this big armful of rhubarb and then you take it into the tying shed and then they box it all up. I d only be a teenager so I wasn t working as such but let s just see if I can find another one I was looking for. That s another one of those that s come from Fenton s. She s written on about some of the things, you see. These are all the sheds [referring to image on computer screen]. That s where, you know, in that estate I said, there s a big car sales place isn t there? Well, these sheds would have been about there. There, in the tying shed, you see. They used to put a tying shed and then they d put a rhubarb shed at this side and a rhubarb shed at that side. And they d bring the rhubarb in and plonk it in great big piles and then the people in there would box it up and get it ready to go to market. Taken in winter of 1934, look [reading image caption].
I m not right clever with a computer. I ll see if we can find some others. That s one of that s Tingley roundabout [referring to image on computer screen]. That s all rhubarb there. Do you know the White Bear [pub]? Yes, I do. That they re talking about pulling down now? Are they pulling it down? Well, it s closed. I think it s closed in the last week, few weeks. McDonalds want to buy it. Oh, do they? And make it a drive through burger bar or whatever it is. But that was the size of the old roundabout [referring to image on computer screen] and that s all rhubarb there, look, round the back. So where would the White Bear be on there? There. No, that s it there, look. Right, ok. That s it. So, if you re going towards Morley on the A650? That s going up to Morley. That s going up to Morley and this is Dewsbury Road. No it isn t. Wait a minute. This is Bradford Road. That s going down to Leeds, that one. That s going up to Morley and that s, that s the old Dewsbury Road going up there, look. And that s the pub on the corner. Well, what they did, they when they put the new roundabout in, the road went from it starts there and goes right round there and that, they blocked that end off. Just see what else there is. Oh, that s, that s all rhubarb down there [referring to image on computer screen]. This is Baghill Lower Green. That s from the corner here [on Westerton Road]. If you go down there and that field, that s coming down that road there. We re just here somewhere and it comes round and then down on that hill and that was all rhubarb then. There was rhubarb everywhere when I was a kid, you know. Was it something most people were employed in? It was the main trade?
No, it wasn t the main trade but textiles, I think, was the main. But there was a lot of rhubarb-growing. There was a lot of quarrying. You see, when they put Morley tunnel through in 1845, I think, 1846 somewhere about there. I ve got on there [on the computer]. They found they were boring the tunnel through beautiful stone and, so, most of the quarries in Morley are either side of where the tunnel went. So, they started quarrying for stone and that, and then so I ve got a file of quarrying up there. Yeah, but that s just another rhubarb field like. I ll have a look what else I ve got. And with the farms, how much land on average did they have? Well, say they had ten acres, well say it was rhubarb. So they d take about half of it and put it in the forcing shed in the winter and then they took another third, another piece, and they chop all that up into roots so out of one root, they might make four new roots. And they plant those out and then they stay in the ground for three years and the other bit is the roots that s growing on and, you know, for the next year. So, they ve got to keep them as I say, now, cause the size of the roots, they got absolutely enormous. There d be roots that size and, you know, trying to lift them with a fork. It was blooming hard work. And that s one of the reasons why the farmers don t want to do it because it s hard work and they ve got to do all this rootlifting in the middle of winter, in the hardest part of winter. They reckon when you get your first frost on the rhubarb then that s the time to lift them. So they lift in November/December and putting it into sheds and then January, they re getting the first rhubarb. But a friend I used to know, I went down. He had a rhubarb farm but he was only in a very small way so he just had one rhubarb shed. It was just after the war and he didn t have heating in this shed. So, during the war, we used to drop supplies to people from aeroplanes and parachutes in these big cylinders, long, and he d managed to get hold of loads of these tubes and so he joined them all together. So, his boiler was in a hole at this end and the chimney, he put all these pipes on the chimney and it ran the full length of his rhubarb shed and then came out at the end of the chimney, see. Well, the rhubarb got it grew very, very fast by the boiler and near this chimney and, as it went down the shed, it was slower and slower and slower and slower. So, he had a continuity of rhubarb. You know, this came first and they followed on with It was a bit primitive. But this is what they did, you know, after the way. They
had a hard time getting back into going after the war was over a very bad time. Let s have a look at what else we ve got. Are there any rhubarb farms still left today? There are some just down Wakefield-way. Ooh, what do they call them? My brother could tell me. But I don t think there s any in Morley. Alan Appleyard, just up there, I think he s still got the shed but he ll just use it like a garage. He does farming for other people, you know. He has two or three big tractors and he goes round doing the planting and things for others that can t afford the equipment and other things. What have I got? What s that one now? We ve done that, that, that. What s that one? That was, that s the old pit and these are all rhubarb fields here, look [referring to image on computer screen]. That s the garage at the crossroads and that was the pit. Why did they all close down, all the rhubarb farms and the sheds? Well, Brook s Farm, which was Rod s Farm, the land was owned by the lord of the manor Dartmouth, Lord Dartmouth. Morley Corporation wanted this land to build a housing estate on so the lord of the manor sold them the land but the bit where the sheds were and they used to grow tomatoes they had a big greenhouse they didn t sell that. So he finished up with the sheds and no land to support them. So he went into he first went into keeping chickens and the boiler it was a screw-field for coal through the night and it stopped and the chickens got cold and they all died. And then he tried again and something happened again. And then he decided to go into mushroom-growing but he couldn t make a right go of it and so he finished up. He went driving a bus. But I think a lot of them it was very hard work and the young ones didn t want to take it on and the popularity of rhubarb declined a bit. I think it has picked up a bit in recent years and that one that s still going down there is it Carlton? I think it s somewhere that s just down there, is still going in a big way. It s such an expensive thing to heat up the sheds cause the sheds were just they were low. Where are we? Well, you can see like in the one, a low roof [referring to image on compute screen inside a rhubarb shed]. They were just boarded and felted so they d no insulation. So all the heat went straight up through the roof. I ve said many a time what they ought
to have done is build the rhubarb shed and then, on top of it, build a greenhouse so s that the heat you re putting into there will come through for early plants. But, you know, nobody seems to Let s see what else I ve got. That s another in the sheds [referring to image on computer screen]. Now I think we ve had that one. That s that one, isn t it? So, we ll keep going. Can t recognise that one. Oh, that s the gas works again when they were building the motorway and all these had been rhubarb fields [referring to image on computer screen]. You can just see rhubarb there, along that piece. But all this that s when they were building the M62, when it was the gas works. What sort of date would that be when they were building the motorway? [Pause] I ll tell you in a minute. It would have been 70s wouldn t it? I ll find it for you. I ll just see what else there is on this. I don t know how they ve got mixed up. We ve done that, that, that, that, that. That one s that s where sometimes they had gangs of people, you know, who used to come in a bus from away and pull green top rhubarb straight out of the field, you see. This is Morley over here [inaudible] I thought the Town Hall was on there [inaudible] But you can see look at the mill chimneys. All these were mill chimneys, there [referring to image of landscape of Morley on computer screen].
There s lots of them. There were forty-four mills in Morley. Really? They re all [reading from list in folder] Adelaide, Albert, Albion, Alexander. I think there were forty-four of them so there was a lot of mills. That s one of the mills [referring back to image of landscape of Morley on computer screen]. That s the bottom of Topcliffe Lane and that s looking over towards Morley. And these [referring to image of rhubarb on computer screen], they used to just go and bundle it up in big bundles and a lot of this would have gone into making jam. You know, cause it s got a lot of pectin helps set the jam and things like that and it bulks out the jam if they haven t got enough fruit. I don t know what else we ve got. I was doing the same one as that one and that s why they re I think that s one [referring to image on computer screen]. That s the same one as that one where they re doing the motorway but that s before they started the motorway and all that, of course, was rhubarb. Those are rhubarb sheds, look low roof and great long things like that. And they used to drive in and take the roofs off, inside the shed like, so they d only to lift them from there. They made beds and leave a little, right narrow pathway and another big bed, then another big bed and then all they had to do was water, keep them well-watered. They just shoot up like rhubarb. It sounds like hard work. Oh, physically, hard work, it was. You ve heard of Beryl Burton? Yes. Well, Beryl Burton used to go to a little farm. My brother used to go to same and help them cause he did a lot of sport in his time. Beryl Burton helped a friend of hers called Nim Carline and he had a little rhubarb farm and so she used to go helping pulling rhubarb. My brother went the same time. But you can see, I mean it was all there was loads of rhubarb in Morley. That s another one of the that s the gas works [referring to image on computer screen] and, as I say, this is probably that same field all great big That s just where the car place is on that estate there. That s just where that is.
Is it Carcraft they call it? Is it Carcraft? I think it is, yeah. But that s just where that was [referring to image on computer screen]. I can remember, as a lad Tingley Common would have been just up here, like, on the top and there was a car coming down Tingley Common. It would have been just after the war and the back wheel of this car came off and it went straight down the rhubarb field, like that. Just ran straight down the rhubarb field. We ll just see what else we ve got then I ll pull some more out for you. Oh, that s one we ve just had, isn t it? I think so. Oh, my brain is not functioning [inaudible] These I don t know if they re any help to you. [Reading caption from image on computer screen] Howley Park Quarry Farm a map showing its land and its use in 1965. And look, there s two big lumps there, which were rhubarb. I see. But it just gives you some idea of the land. I ve got a photograph of that farm, a rhubarb shed of that farm. A lot of them, you see, they went onto other things like fattening turkeys up and they d use these rhubarb sheds. They put a big wire netting fence up over the door and they just used them for fattening turkeys up and things like that. They had to find alternative uses for the [sheds]. Oh, of course. This is Topcliffe Farm [referring to image of Topcliffe Farm on computer screen].
Now, barley, look, and there s rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb. So, there s quite a bit of rhubarb growing. I think, does it say 65 on that? I think so. Yeah. It s David that did those [Peter s son]. No, I think that s the end.