Z1205/067

Male maintenance fitter at brickworks b. 06.02.1922 SIDE A (00 mins)Childhood at Wootton Pillinge (later became the village of Stewartby). Father, farm labourer & horse keeper for Mr. Cooke, who owned Rausberry Manor Farm, which covered a large area later bought up by London Brick Company for clay extraction and brick production. (05 mins)Arable & dairy farming. Schoolboy experience of working on the farm in holidays, plus delivery boy for post office stores. Remembers Coronation Pit being dug and life before creation of Stewartby village. (10 mins)Boggy area around their family cottage. Numerous scented orchids. Skylarks and Peewits. Riding the farm horses. Sir Malcolm Stewart only car owner, with chauffer. (15 mins)Attended Wootton School. 6 mile return walk to school. (London Brick Co. ran bus for under 8 yrs.) Father active Methodist lay preacher. All attended Primitive Methodist chapel ("tin tabernacle") in village no Anglican church). (20 mins)Village musicians provided music in chapel. Earlier religious services said to have been held in Grandma's house before chapel built. Sir Malcolm Stewart built a church building in his Stewartby village and insisted on it being a United (non-denominational) Church with a minister paid for by London Brick Company. Father taught musical instruments to village youth. Grandmother was local midwife and layer-out of the dead. Lived to 102 years. (25 mins)Tractors taking over from horses for ploughing. Laying off labourers as mechanisation spread on farms. Christmas memories. (30 mins)Childhood freedom to road. Stewartby village hall activities, including film shows. Playing the harmonium (foot powered wind organ). (32 mins)End of Side A SIDE B (00 mins)Severe chicken pox as a child. Remembering what is now Stewartby Lake when it was a knot hole, for extraction of clay. Sever winter in 1946. 3 weeks of continuing pumping to clear flooding of pit. (05 mins)Left school Easter 1936. Attended some night classes in Stewartby. Father now had work as labourer in brickworks following sale of Cooke's farm in 1932 to London Brick Co. Father retired aged 70. (10 mins) Got job as tea boy in maintenance department of Stewartby brickworks. Progressed to drilling machine and became semi-skilled fitter. Good training but no official apprenticeship. (15 mins)First wage, £1 a week (1p per hour, less stoppages). Called up to armed forces aged 20 years, in 1942. Away from UK until D-Day. (20 mins)After war, returned to live with parents at School Lane. Returned to brickworks, assisting in modernisation of factory through increasing mechanisation. Worked in development department. Reaction of workers and unions. Internal modifications of machinery. Early gas extraction form landfill sites and use of methane burners. (32 mins)End of Side B INTERVIEW CONTINUES ON 067C2 SIDE A (00 mins)London Brick Company actively introducing mechanisation in 1950s - e.g. handling devices for multiple bricks. Drawing office at Stewartby. Chief Engineer initiating prototype adaptations to brick-handling devices (05 mins)"Strapping" bricks to facilitate loading. Management accommodations with unions to allay fears of possible redundancy (10 mins) Fork-lift truck mechanisation. Production of hollow blocks at Arlesey. (15 mins)London Brick Co. landfill site methane production & utilisation (20 mins)Generating electricity from methane output. Installing kilns in Iranian brickworks. (25 mins)Other foreign brickworks contracts. SIDE B (00 mins)Father's voluntary teaching of brass instruments to local youth. Small band formed to perform locally and in Methodist chapel. Still playing occasionally. (05 mins)Used to be a Phorpres Orpheus Choir. Stewartby Operatic Society still going but with few villagers as members, anymore. Started with Stewartby School. Village had Head Gardener, paid for by London Brick Co. who kept the front gardens in excellent state.Take over by Hanson. Sale of village houses. Redundancies. (15 mins)Retirement activities. (18 mins)End of Side B. END OF INTERVIEW Original interview 110 mins

14 November 2001

From: 1920 To: 2001

item

London Brick Company,
Hanson Building Products

fitter, brickworker, clay, dairy farming, post office employee, skylarks, peewits, Sir Malcolm Stewart Trust, horses, Methodist chapels, preaching, Primitive Methodist, musicians, tractors, ploughing, labourer, Christmas, village halls, midwives, chickenpox, local flooding, Stewartby state schools, apprenticeship, wages/conditions, World War Two, trades unions, gas engineer, mechanical engineer, musical instruments, choir, gardener, unemployed, flowers, Wootton Pillinge, STEWARTBY, Wootton Rousbury Manor, WOOTTON, ARLESEY, Iran