大象传媒

ELSWICK HOPPER CYCLES

PART 3

I soon got into the swing of things and the change made a lot of difference to my outlook on life.
Now at least I had someone to talk to through the day, and it made the time go a lot quicker.

Sometimes at lunchtime we would just sit on a pile of sacks and having eaten lunch would talk about the local football team or what was on at the Cinema, and as often as not the odd crude joke would pop up.

"Oh, her as work in Taddy's,?"
Taddy was the foreman in one of the other departments and the speaker was referring to one of the buxom young wenches that worked there.

"Yea, that's the one," said Fred
"D'yu' reckon she might?" asked Jim
"Oi dunno mate, oi nivver troid" replied Fred
" Well yer is married aint' chu" suggested Jim
"That don't make no never mind" warbled Fred
" Well ah wouldn't chuck me cap at it" said Jim
" Fat lot o' good that'll do yo if'n she just sits on yer cap" grinned Fred
" Wot's wrong wi me cap then?" replied Jim in a huff.

Then the plant Manager appeared and all the patter ceased.
"What's that lad doing here?" snapped the plant Manager, glaring at me as if I were a snail on his dinner plate.
The tall bloke said, "鈥檈's ma new 'elp"
"All right, get on with your work鈥� snapped the ogre, again glaring at me.
I thought, 鈥淪hute , we got us a right one 'ere.鈥�

When the ogre had left I asked the tall bloke, "Who was that then, God?"
The tall bloke and Tich looked at each other for about two seconds, then Tich collapsed on a pile of sacks and the tall bloke bent over and putting his hands on his knees and both were laughing and Tich took out a rag and wiped his eyes.
After that I was one of the lads.

To use the toilets for the reason they were built during working hours was a bit of a hazard.
One of the reasons for this was the fact that it was the focal point for most blokes and there were enough in this department alone to make up a football team who were dodging work or having a sneaky smoke and possibly discussing the new redhead who was almost an exact clone of Betty Grable now employed in the wheel making department.

One day she was taking a short cut through our place of work when Tich spotted her.
Tich was about to hang a bundle of handlebars in a huge wire basket in one of the vats to deposit chrome onto them.

He was so busy watching the rear end of the wench doing a rumba as it cruised round the corner and out of sight that his left long rubber glove that had sunk below the surface began to take in the hot water of the vat.

鈥� Bloody 鈥榚ll!鈥� he squawked, and the tall bloke grinned and warbled, 鈥淭hat鈥檒l teach yer to keep yer mind on yer work鈥�

The blokes would also compare football tickets and cries of, "That's it, ah鈥檓 buyin' no more of these bloody things, y'nivver win owt", and the offending ticket would be thrown into the toilet hole on the wooden bench seat and the round wooden lid replaced.

Smoking was forbidden in the work place because of inflammable materials.
I opened the door to this haven of comfort to those who were in peril from nature.

Well, this was the conclusion I came to because one day when I was sitting reading while obeying the call of nature and a door crashed open and a scuffling of feet as the bloke looked desperately for an empty cubicle.
Having found one there was another crash as the door was slammed shut and the bolt shot home.
A smaller bang as the wooden seat was dropped on to the wooden bench seat.
Then I heard a noise that reminded me of a cow in a paddock, who having lifted her tail, deposited huge green steaming flapjacks onto the grass.

On the spur of the moment I yelled "Ah bet yo feel better nah?"
And a voice quavered " Yea! bur ah 'even't got me bluddy troosers doon yit!"

Sometimes when I went in there to listen to "Handle's Water Music" I had to battle just to get the door open.
There would be so many blokes in there skiving, and the air would be so thick with tobacco smoke that it made ones eyes water and the nose trying to back up and hide under ones cap.
Actually the smoke was a blessing in disguise because without it the dunny would have been vacant most of the day due to the wavy lines rising and seeping past some of the wooden lids.
One bloke on passing suggested to me, 鈥淚f yer goin in theer owd mate mek sure yer 鈥榓s sum chewin鈥� gum in yer gob so the s--t sticks to it then yu kin spit it aht wen yuz leave鈥�
Someone suggested we open a window, while another wit added "That would be like tryin' tu s--t through the eye uv a needle, what we need in 'ere is a big exhaust fan.

Another gruff voice suggested we knock the end walls down so the breeze could blow straight through unhindered off the river Humber.
This idea was knocked back because it was suggested that on a hot day and when the wind was coming from the North we got the smell from Grimsby fish docks.
Another added " Why don't we just go into the field next to the factory and dig holes in the ground"
But someone else parried, " Then yu'd need a team of three every time some b----r needed a crap, one tu dig 't 'ole, one to crap in it and another tu fill it in and tamp it doon. "

I was in the place one day, standing there washing down the lime, when who should walk in but the Manager.
Where just a moment before the place had been like Widdycomb Fair, it now emptied like magic.
All that was left were trails of smoke from discarded cigarette butts lying on the floor and lots of skid marks where someone had been stood.
I listened to the patter of feet as the escapees of the crap house retreated back to their labours, each hoping the Manager would not be able to remember their faces.

I gazed at the white washed wall as I became aware the Manager was now standing beside me.
And he stared at the wall as he assisted me in washing down the wall.
Now I did not believe what they had been telling me about people in high places not having to use toilets
Kings, Queens, Managers and Foremen were like us and had the same bodily functions, and did not deposit little oblong eggs wrapped up in cellophane paper like Muttall's Mintoes that were collected by the Chamber Maid the next morning from the carpet at the foot of the bed where they had been pushed out of the bed by restless feet during the early hours of the morning.
Some people even suggested this happened because it was Natures way of preventing the little eggs from hatching and trying to crawl back from whence they came.

Should I leave or finish what I was doing, I felt threatened, and the sudden thought occurred to me that this bloke could be one of those hatched eggs and now fully grown.

Then he spoke while inspecting the wall in front of him, "How long have you worked here young man?" he rasped.
"About a week" I warbled.
"Sir" he glared.
"Yes Sir" I said, and it confirmed my suspicions, he was one!
I wondered if someone suddenly stuck him with a hat pin would he go off , "BANG" and burst, leaving behind only a foul smell and a bit of rubber on the floor.
"Well, don't let me catch you in here skiving, got it?" he barked
"Yes, I mean no Sir" and I was out of there so fast I wet my leg.

Saturday was always the day everything shut down in our department and we emptied the vats.
I would get into the now empty vats and with a spade I would fill a bucket with what looked like grey mud and hand it over to the tall bloke who in turn emptied it into a wheel barrow.
Once the wheelbarrow was full I had to wheel it outside and dump it onto a heap the size of which indicated that a lot of lads before me had done likewise.

There must have been years and years of barrow tippings out there.
And with my imagination, having seen the silent film "The Red Shadow" I saw all these heaps as the desert and imagined if I keep walking would I come to an Arab village.
But when the tall bloke poked his head out of the door and yelled, 鈥淐ome on, we ain鈥檛 gor all day!鈥� I came back to earth and tipped the barrow and came back in, and I got the brush to sweep out the ovens.

A bicycle frame has two tiny holes in the V piece that holds the back wheel.
These are pegged with what look like little toothpicks, to keep out the water.
Once the frames have been dipped they are stacked in a huge oven heated by steam and this dries them out.
On Saturdays the steam to the ovens is turned off and the ovens cleaned.

This particular Saturday as I was about to go and sweep out the ovens the tall bloke stopped me and said, "The doors to No 2 oven are closed, leave 'em closed and whatever you do don't turn on the steam".
I said "O.K." but I was puzzled.
Armed with my brush I began sweeping out No1 oven, and I could hear someone giggling nearby.
I listened and it sounded like there was someone in the oven next door.
I pretended not to notice but I knew something was afoot, well if she was lucky it might be.
I was nearly right because about half an hour later as the tall bloke and I were sitting on the sacks having a snack, who should stroll through from the oven area but Tich with a grin like a Cheshire cat on his face.

The tall bloke had a smile on his face as he asked "Did you fix it then" and Tich replied, "Yea, but it will need another course of lookin' at next week, and they both exchanged meaning glances.

Then a girl with a mop of ginger hair came in and she was pre-occupied combing her hair and painting her mouth with lipstick, having done that she wriggled a bit as she pulled down on her dress.
I thought how stupid could one get, sitting in an oven with the door locked, it was obvious to me that they had got in and the tall bloke had put the catch on outside.

It could have happened, someone could have turned on the steam and they both would have been cooked like turkeys, the oven doors were so thick no one would have heard cries for help.
A tragic accident could have been the outcome of a sex prank.

Anyone arriving late for work at six a.m. prompt were locked out till eight a.m. and of course if one was late too many times then that one was the first to be laid off if orders became scarce and the work force cut back.

One day we were busy as usual dipping and drying when I saw the big workshop near ours was being perused by a couple of well dressed blokes with tape measures and notebooks.
They went away and a couple of days later some workmen came in and began tearing up the floor.
Speculation was rife, it was going to be an indoor dog track, and no, it was going to be a small cinema for the blokes who had caught up on their work so they could go in and relax.
Soon some more blokes came in and laid a new concrete floor, but there were metal angles sticking up out of the concrete so obviously something big was going to be built.
About a month later it was all finished and we watched with awe as old Bill was shown how to work this new monster.
Old Bill was an ex WW1 Vet and he had white hair and a huge white moustache, and was a dead ringer for one of Napoleon鈥檚 old guard.

Bill had been pouring enamel over bicycle frames by hand, a slow and laborious job.
Then they would be put into a stove and when the stove was full the big double doors would be closed and a bar put across.
Then the steam would be turned on and the frames would be baked until the enamel was so hard it became brittle like a one millimetre thick porcelain skin.

But now we watched with open mouths as a noise not unlike a jet engine starting up and the hooks in rows began to move forward toward the front of the machine.
If you have ever seen the tracks on a tank as it goes into action in wartime, well this machine was a bit like that except the tank stayed put and the earth moved under it.
It was a huge oblong shape and it had a track that stretched right across with hooks hanging down to hang bicycle frames on.
So Old Bill would stand at the far end of it, and as a row of hooks slowly advanced toward him he would grab frames, dip them into a huge bin full of enamel and fill up the hooks.
By the time he had filled that row of hooks the next lot would present itself to be filled.
Meanwhile all the filled hooks would convey all the now enamelled and dripping frames up into the top of the huge oblong where they were baked in the very hot air generated by gas jets.

A frame would be dipped at one end.
At the other end about forty minutes later a bloke would remove the now fully baked, enamelled frames and stack them on a trolley ready to be transported to the next stage.

If old Bill got a call of nature he would have to call someone to take over his job because the machine could not be stopped and started indiscriminately.

When started in the morning a wait of about half an hour was needed so the temperature in the top ensured the frames got baked properly.
The tall bloke said "They can keep that bloody job, who wants to be a slave to a soddin' machine?"

Then one day a bloke came into the workshop and we were having lunch, sitting on the sacks and chatting.
"Anybody wan' a ticket?" he warbled.
"Wot's 'e floggin'?" I asked the tall bloke.
"Aw, yu don' wan' any o' they things" he said, "Waste o' money".
They were little pink or sometimes lime green tickets folded over and crimped on three edges.
Having bought one or some, one would tear off the crimped bits and open the ticket and if you had the name of the horse that won the next race at some meeting then you could win as much as fifty pounds.
Or a small amount and with a bit of luck you could break even.
Fortunately I never got into the habit, my philosophy was "Why work all week to give it to someone else.
One day I was busy checking a frame for dents due to clumsy handling by some of the workers, when I saw a girl pushing a trolley with frames on it.
She pushed it to where old Bill could snap up the frames to dip.
Then she took hold of an empty trolley and pushed it through the door and the door closed.
Then I found myself watching the door hoping to catch sight of her again.
When it was time to go home everyone would congregate at the roll up door waiting for it to open.
And who should be about three feet away but the girl of the trolley, she was gorgeous.
Then I remembered the girls of Top Hoppers and my ardour was cooled, no I was not about to make a fool of myself again.
But for the next couple of months I was on cloud nine, thinking one day we may bump into each other and click, then nature would take over and do the rest.
But it never happened, I did not even know her name, all I could find out was she had moved here with her family from somewhere near Sheffield.
I was moved from that shed a few months later and was deposited in the frame lining dept.
If one looked at an Elswick Hopper bicycle one would find the more expensive ones had transfers stuck on them, they were also lined with gold paint, usually on all the tube work one could find double fine gold lines running up and down the tube to decorate it.
A bicycle finished thus was a joy to the eye indeed.

I was instructed in this art and while I was practicing to get perfection whilst doing other things I got bored with the whole thing.
I missed the happy atmosphere of the dipping shed and perhaps the chance to meet the girl of my dreams.
I thought I would put myself out of my misery and go away from Hoppers altogether.
I gave a week's notice and left, I was fifteen.

T.O.B. Born 23rd May 1921 Barton-on-Humber Lincolnshire.

End

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