The Skelmersdale I knew from 1906 by Joe Yates

The Skemerdale I knew from 1906

by Joe Yates (1896-1981)

Reproduced with kind permission by his daughters Yvonne (Bonnie) and Pearl.

Supplied by Peter Molyneux.

Skelmersdale used to be a very busy coal mining district. About three thousand men and boys were employed in the coal industry and even girls and women used to be employed on the surface sorting slag from the coal on the conveyor belts that took the coal to the wagons or railway trucks. The industry employed lots of men from outside the district, from Upholland, Rainford, Appley Bridge, Dalton, Westhead and Ormskirk, in fact from all the neighbouring districts workers came to the mines in Skelmersdale.

There was no bus service in those days and people either had to walk the distance or bike it.. If you owned an old fashioned motorbike (many of which used to conk out every other day) you were regarded as well off. At 5am to 6am every working day you’d hear the clackity-clack and the clonkity-clonk of the miners clogs as the day shift went to work and the night shift returned to their homes. The night shift usually worked from 9pm to 5am. The day shift used to start at 6am, and the rules were that you must collect your lamp ten minutes before the hour of starting if you worked below ground. At that time the lamp department was expected to close for that shift, and if you arrived later than that you could about turn, go home and lose a day’s pay.

Everyone who worked below was expected to be there before 6am. From then the cages would be moving at great speed bringing full tubs of coal up and taking empty tubs down the shafts. With the exception of a short lunch break it was ding-dong for the rest of the shift. Between two and three thousand tons of coal, each working day, would be conveyed from Glenburn, White Moss, Blaguegate and other collieries along the various mineral railways by colliery engines to Skelmersdale Station. From there it was dispatched to various parts of the country. Yes, Skelmersdale was a very busy area indeed. You could not look in any direction, north, south, east or west, without seeing tall smoking chimneys and headgear’s with their pulleys spinning around, the chuff-chuff of the great winding engines as they moved the cages up and down the mine shafts.

Also, you’d see towering slag heaps near each colliery. If you look at old plans of Skelmersdale they are dotted with mine shafts. I’d say that, at some time or other, some forty shafts must have been sunk in the District. Skilled men called ‘Sinkers’ were employed in the task of sinking these shafts, and with only old-fashioned equipment of the day these men had skill and ‘guts’, they were well paid but dangers were many.

Coal was cheap in those days, miners could buy it from the pit head at 5d (about 2 new pence!) per hundredweight. They were allowed one load of coal per month per household. The coal carter with his horse-drawn cart, would charge the miner about 2/- (shilling) for delivering about 25 hundredweight of coal to his home if in the district. If you didn’t work in the mines you could have it delivered to your home for 1/-3d (1 shilling and 3 pence – about 6 new pence) per hundredweight bag. During slumps in the trade in summer it was a common sight to see hundreds and hundreds of tons of coal stacked around the colliery sidings waiting for better times and the increased demand for more coal in winter.

Many of the elderly miners were heavy drinkers and spent most of their leisure hours in the many public houses in the district. There were about 27 of these (see the ‘Pubs’ book for more details of some of these – Editor) and in those days they were open practically all hours of the day. Quite a number of miners after a hard day’s work in the mines would call at the nearest pub on their way home to quench their thirst, some would down a quick pint and get home for a wash and change. It was no uncommon thing to go into the pub’s sanded Tap Room and find black-faced miners downing their pints hours after on what was termed “On the slate”. Behind the bar the Landlord of the pub used to jot down either in a book or on a piece of slate, the number of pints that each miner had during the week ‘on strap’ (without paying). On pay day which used to be friday, he would call at the pub and settle up with the Landlord or Landlady for the week’s booze, then start off another week with a clean slate. Many times they would go over the limit and couldn’t pay which meant whispering over the counter asking the Landlord for another week’s grace.

Beer then was only 2d (about 1 new penny!) a pint, you’ll say “That’s very cheap”. good fresh eggs from the many farms were 1/- a dozen. Milk straight from the farm came to your door twice a day for 2d a pint. Potatoes were 1/-6d a hundredweight bag. A large loaf was 2d or 3d. Large meat and potato pies cost 2d each. Ice cream, the real stuff, made locally with eggs and cream was 1/2d (halfpenny) and 1d a glass. Lots and lots of other everyday items which you needed were also very cheap.

But of course, men’s wages were low and most people, especially those with large families, had to work the full week to exist. There were no National Health benefits or free Doctors like there is today, Miners used to agree to have 6d a week stopped from their wages to have the services of a Doctor. If off work they would be entitled to 5/- for men and 2/-6d for boys a week. On the whole miners were very good-hearted people, there was hardly a week passed but what you’d see, near the pay-office, a miners red and white spotted handkerchief spread out with a lump of coal at each corner. Everyone would know that it meant that some unfortunate miner was sick, injured or had died, not many men or boys would pass that handkerchief without putting a few coppers on it or what they could spare.

We had no television or radio, miners made their own sport, bowling, pidgeon flying, shooting, cricket and football. There were quite a few junior clubs in the district, and of course there was the old Skem United, still going stronger than ever today. Practically every weekend there would be a dance held in the Co-op Hall or the old Market Hall, often in aid of a charity, admission was 6d from 7pm to 11.45pm. Every year the New Years Ball was held in the old Market Hall, it was an event looked forward to very much by the young miners and factory lasses, dancing was from 7pm to 6am and admission was 1/-6d. The old hall used to be packed like a sardine tin but dancers didn’ mind having their toes trodden on, they would very likely tread upon someone elses. Yes you got your money’s worth of fun.

Every now and then a travelling cinema (with silent pictures) would visit the town. Sometimes a travelling theatre would stay a whole week performing a different play every other night. Play’s like “Maria Martin and the murder in the Red Barn”, “The Demon of White Moss” etc, they were screams. So, you can picture the Skelmersdale of old, not much money flying about but lots of fun.

The very long miner’s strikes in 1921 and 1926 crippled the coal industry in Skelmersdale, especially the 1921 strike which lasted about 6 months. The miners leaders made very foolish mistakes for they called the strikes in the summer and each was very warm. There was no demand by the people for coal and industries using coal had stockpiled it in readiness. The most foolish mistake was in preventing safety and maintenance men from working, and also winders. Only managers, undermanagers and clerks were allowed past the pickets. Most pits in the area were handicapped by water, especially the Glenburn mine, in normal working pumps ran for a full 24 hours to keep the water out of the deep workings. You may imagine the effect of this long strike, in those days there was no Government help like there is today and Colliery owners had to bear the brunt of losses themselves. The few men, bosses, clerks and the like not on strike could not cope with the impossible task of preventing all the seams from flooding, so they concentrated on saving the top seams and the deeper seams flooded, lots of roof caved in and it was far too costly to open them up again.
When the strike was over there were a great number of miners thrown out of work and many left the area with their families to work in the Yorkshire coalfields, others started in the St Helens and Huyton areas, travelling to and from by special buses.

The second long strike in 1926 really put the damper on things. One by one the mines were worked out and closed down, Glenburn in 1923, White Moss in 1929, Blaguegate in 1933, Bickerstaffe in 1936 being the last of the major collieries to close. There were a number of small concerns called ‘Day-eyes’ (collieries you could walk down from the surface) that carried on for a couple of years but they too, one by one, closed down. The towering slag heaps that once were so common thirty to forty years ago – few remain. Those that do have been landscaped and covered in grass and lovely trees. Thousands and thousands of tons of slag were trucked out of Skelmersdale to make new roads up and down the country.

Apart from the coal mines Skelmersdale was blessed with lovely countryside and farmland. Each season of the year saw a different hue to the fields, beautiful trees and hedgerows added to the beauty. There were green pastures with their herds of cattle, the ploughing and the sowing in spring. The ploughman’s lovely strong horses, talking to them in ‘horsey’ language, “Geeup”, “Back”, “Whoa” and so on, saucing them whenever they put a foot wrong. They took a great pride in their ploughing and loved to see the furrows as straight as a gun barrel the whole length of the field. The scent of blossom from trees and hedgerows, the waving corn, the endless sweet songs from thrushes, blackbirds and many other songbirds whose nests were much respected by children than they are today. Quite a few cockoo’s used to find their way to old Skelmersdale every year and remain with us during nesting time. How nice it used to be on summer mornings to ba awakened by the call of a real cuckoo.

Lots of game used to abound in Skelmersdale, hares, rabbits, partridges, pheasants etc. Skelmersdale was then between Lord Lathom’s estate on one side and that of Lord Derby on the other. Game used to pass between the two and I, with many other miners, have enjoyed quite a few from each estate. I must confess, I can’t tell the difference between those of Lord Derby and Lord Lathom’s. They were all very tasty, especially the cock pheasants – they were super! All the farms in Skem had lovely orchards where they grew delicious apples and pears etc. When they were ripe children would visit the farms and for a 1d (1 old penny) the farmer or his wife would give them enough to fill all their pockets. You could buy fresh eggs for a 1d each, real eggs that had a taste you don’t get in those from battery fed birds nowadays.

Many farms churned their own butter. Buttermilk!, they’d fill you a big can for 1/2d (halfpenny). As children we used to love to visit the farms after school, watching them milking the cows, feeding the horses after a hard day in the fields, brushing them and bedding them down with clean straw for the night. Sometimes we’d go into the farmhouse with flagged rubbing stones and sanded floor, oak beamed ceiling and flitches of bacon and hams hanging from them. Homely people, chatting round a nice log fire, talking about crops and their work for the next day. They seldom left their farms for they too, in those days, had to work very hard for an existence. All the farms were owned by one of the Lords to whom they had to pay their rent.

There was real beauty in old Skelmersdale. The whole countryside was blessed with a network of lovely public footpaths from where you could enjoy God’s fresh air. For years now there has not been any Councillor interested enough in trying to keep them open. They are more interested in their cars. Today we haven’t got a footpath left that you dare travel upon without your wellington boots. All the lovely fields have gone, never to return. Their place has been taken over by ugly concrete mixers and bulldozers – leaving us with just memories.