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Built for Survival


BARWICK-IN-ELMET IN THE 1930s

Barwicker No 30 July 1993


Barwick in the 1930s was a vastly different place from what it is today and many of the characters of that time would not fit into the life of the present-day village. At a meeting of the Barwick-in-Elmet Historical Society when a slide of an enlarged street map of the village was shown, the Chairman suggested that Barwick had been planned. It was meant to be the way that it was; it had not just happened. He was right. It was planned the way it was for a very good reason and that reason was survival, survival in adversity. Just like those in ancient days who looked out over the palisades on Wendel Hill, so those who built Barwick had survival in mind. A lot of the Barwick that was built around this plan has disappeared.

In the 1930s there were none of the new housing developments that took place after World War Two. There were some new houses built in the village mainly by Will1am Hartley and J T Kirk. There were also quite a lot of property repairs but there were few 'House for Sale' notices. Barwick in the 1930s was a close-knit community. Many families were related by marriage so that one had to be careful what one said for fear of causing offence.

People and families seemed to live in certain areas of the village for long periods of time, for many years. Some of these areas are no longer as they were in the village in the 1930s and the pattern of life has changed. Whilst the village was one family community living together as a group with its own group culture (other villages had their own group culture), Barwick was divided into two areas known as the 'Top End' and the 'Bottom End' and they did not mix. The dividing line was Carrfield Lane.

I will quote a few words from the Bible, from 'Ecclesiastes or the Preacher, Son of David, King in Jerusalem':

"Two are better than one: because they have good reward for their labour.
For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth: for he hath not another to help him up.
Again, if two lie together then they have heat; but how can one be warm alone?"

I feel sure that the early builders understood this philosophy perfectly and put into reality that which has lasted to our day.

Barwick in the 1930s was divided into little yards, what we should now call courtyards but at that time we called them back- yards. There were rows of two, three or four houses facing the street whether it was Main Street, Aberford Lane, Potterton Lane or the Boyle. There might be two more houses at the ends set at right angles to the street. The backs of the houses on the street and the fronts of the houses at right angles opened onto the yard. There was access into the yard for a horse and cart. Here each house would have a coal house and a privy (an earth closet) and ash pit (sometimes one privy shared by the families). All these were grouped around the common yard. Also there would be what we called at that time a 'set-pot', a cauldron set in brickwork which could be fired with coal, rubbish or anything that would burn. It was for the common use of the people who lived in the yard. There would also be a mangle with large wooden rollers.

In summer time, it was a work yard for the adults and a play yard for the children when they came home from school. It was the place where in the winter they killed the pigs and salted down the bacon. Each house usually had a Yorkshire range, a big clumsy black cast-iron range which would hold nearly two buckets of coal. At one side was the oven for cooking and baking and at the other side was a built-in cast iron boiler. There was always a supply of hot water. It was a 'well fit-up' arrangement. The pantry or cellar was quite a big room and went below ground level by means of a couple of steps. There would be a big stone slab where bacon and ham could be salted down. "'hen it had been dried it was hung up in the living room from hooks in the ceiling and it was often not long before you started using it. The offal that accrued from the pig killing was shared out amongst the people in the yard and when the others killed a pig it was shared back again. They had none of the freezers and fridges of today to store it, so it was shared out.

Monday seemed to be the main wash day and everything was damp and steamy. With all the set pots full of boiling clothes. there was a permanent rainbow over Barwick. All the women of each 1ittle yard would join together and make light work of washday. They helped one another. If one lady did not feel well enough it was done for her. Each would do a certain job. one with the peggy stick in a tub, another with a ribbed rubbing board, still another doing the rinse. Then clothes lines would be strung across the yard and the clean clothes would be hung out to dry. When you came home from school as a child, things seemed all upset. There was washing about the house. Things felt damp. The dinner at night was a make-shift affair with cold meat from Sunday. It was awful. There is a saying 'Washday Blues'. However by Tuesday things were back to normal.

In addition to these little yards there was also some land where often there were pig sties and room to keep a few hens or a goat. One could have a bit of garden with a little greenhouse. In Main Street the yards and gardens stretched to the Back Lane (Elmwood Lane). On the other side of the lane there was a paddock where a horse or cow could be kept and this was the pattern all over Barwick. It was planned that way 50 that people were in close contact and could help each other more easily in times of need.

So it was that Barwick was built on this plan of four or five houses built round a courtyard, with necessary outbuildings to support everyday life. If one of the wives in this tiny unit fell ill or was in childbirth there was all the help she needed on the doorstep and so it was throughout the village. It was a very intelligent and civilised way for a village community to live. Today motorcars, telephones, freezers and television have made the system obsolete.

In the 1930s you could look out onto Main Street and you would not see anyone; it would be quiet and tranquil. There was nothing to spoil it. When you looked out there were no cars, just a few horse drawn carts. There were plenty of horse and other droppings in the street. If you saw people walking along with their heads down, it was not because they were melancholy or in trouble, they were just looking where they were going.

Tony Shinn in the yard behind his old home
'No.l, The Cross Hill' (now known as The Cross).
If you went into one of the yards at the back it was a beehive. There was everything going on that was needed to maintain life in the 1930s. Everybody was busy. When the men folk came home at night after working on the land or in the mines, there were many things for them to do. They would repair their bicycles and punctured tyres ready for work next morning. They might toy about with an old motorbike. They sawed firewood ready for winter. They might try to make a hut of some kind. There was always plenty going on. They would be mending childrens' boots using a piece of leather belting from a farmer or a piece of rubber from a bicycle tyre. It was a busy place. In winter, jobs were brought indoors. Bikes were mended on the hearth rug. If the family had a pig there would be a pan or bucket of small potatoes, cabbage leaves, turnip peelings or other waste set on a bar above the fire being boiled for use as pig food. The smell was indescribable but it didn't matter as everyone was doing it. The bacon and ham hung up from the ceiling was marinated in the juices from the pan, which enhanced its flavour.

There were two men in Barwick who cut hair in their houses in their spare time. One was Willlam Mouncey but I have had mine cut many times by Billy Markham in Main Street. The men waiting would talk over the affairs of people in the village but they had to be careful. In Barwick in the 1930s most people were related. Travel was not easy and people found their husbands and wives in the village. The families did not move around much, they lived in the same houses for years. Barwick was a huge family. If a stranger opened his mouth too wide he was in trouble. At that time Barwick had two football teams. I remember Edwin Moore, a contemporary of mine, telling me of a conversation he had with a man from Fairburn, who told him that they dreaded playing in Barwick. If anyone was involved in a punch-up with a Barwick player, he finished up with about six of the team onto him as they were all related.

Barwick at that time was self sufficient in many ways. It was able to feed itself. There were a dozen or more farms in the village of one size or another. Along the Garforth Road before Occupation Lane on the right hand side there were allotments called 'the half acres'. There were a number of men with perhaps a light horse and cart farming these plots.

Barwick in the 1930s had tradesmen who could furnish the requirements of the farmers and others in the village. It had two wheelwrights' shops; Henry Pullan and Son on Potterton Lane and Ben Dickinson on Main Street, later taken over by George Toml1nson. They could do all that the farms required in the way of putting up and renovating wooden buildings. There were two blacksmiths; William Collett on Main Street and Harold Evans who had a smithy in Aberford Road, behind the William IV public house. A few years later he moved into the yard of Tommy Kirk the builder in Potterton Lane. During the war, when supplies were difficult to come by, he ran a pig club from the yard. Members could register and receive each month a ration of foodstuffs for pigs and poultry. The wheelwrights were undertakers as well as their other work and another undertaker was Harry Bramley, the joiner from Main Street.

Some of the womenfolk baked a few loaves of bread and tea- cakes and sold them from home. There was a tailor's shop run by Fred Wright, a bespoke tailor, in Main Street near where 'Poppy' is now. He made womens' clothes and mens' suits to measure. There was a general provision shop run by Fred Lumb, of an old Barwick: family, where Lady Greenfingers is now. In the yard at the back of the shop there were outbuildings and Fred Lumb used one of them as a storehouse. I remember seeing in there rolls of bacon and corn of various types, including Indian corn, used for animal feed. Barwick was self-sufficient and people did not have to go out for what they required. Until the beginning of the 1930s the only way out was by horse and cart until Jack Mouncey started to run a little bus to Leeds. Prior to that we had to walk to Scholes station down Rakehill Road or Workhouse Lane as we called it then.

There was no resident doctor or permanent surgery but three doctors served the people of Barwick at that time. Dr Knowles of Garforth had a surgery at Bill Collett's, the blacksmith in Main Street and Dr Miller came twice a week to the Black Swan. Also Dr Young from Garforth had a surgery where the late Mrs Burke lived at the corner of Carrfield Lane and Main Street.

In addition, Barwick had its own resident nurse, Jessie Bywater. She was a wonderful person and very proficient in her work - she must have been as she lived to be 97. Her husband William lived to be 96. For 5s.0d a year, you could join the Nursing Association and if you were ill, Nurse Bywater would attend you free of any further charge.

There were two women in Barwick who acted as midwives and the same two women were capable of laying out the dead. They were Mrs Joe Poulter, who lived next door to the fish shop in the Boyle, and my grandmother, Annie Wilson, who lived on Potterton Lane, near the churchyard gate, in a cottage that has since been pulled down.

Barwick was well provided with medical and other services. If a community can feed itself, bring its children into the world, nourish them, educate them and in times of grief can cope with the dead, you have a civilised society.

Most children went to the Barwick School on Aberford Road. It started at 9.00 am and went on until 12 noon, when there was an hour for lunch. Afternoon school was from 1.00 to 3.30 pm.

Children came from the outlying farms at Potterton, Kiddal Lane and Laverack. When the weather was wet the teachers took off the childrens' clothes and dried them. They were looked after. Some would bring sandwiches and the teachers would make them tea. There were four teachers: Mr Gilbert Ashworth, the headmaster, Miss Shillito, who taught the infants, Miss Kitson, who took standards 1 and 2, and Miss Grimshaw, standards 3, 4 and 5. Mr Ashworth took standards 6, 7 and 8. For the village children, there was no travelling. After school you could go into one of the yards and play to your heart's content. When I see the schoolchildren get off the bus today, sometimes in the evening, I think that they must have spent much of the day travelling there and back. We did not need to go out of the village for anything we required. I think that says a lot for the facilities in Barwick.

Round Barwick, in addition to the farms many people had allotments especially if they did not have a garden at their house. They could grow food there and keep hens and a pig. On Chapel Lane the school had two allotments divided into small plots. I think it was for 2s.6d. a year that you could have one of these plots and grow whatever you wanted. The school would provide the seeds and tools. In the summertime we went from school on two afternoons a week to these gardens and were taught how to grow crops. At the same time the girls would be taught sewing and simple dressmaking.

Whilst we were at school, each year at Christmas we had a party and there was a present for every child. The party and the presents were given by Gwendoline who was the youngest daughter of J P Sowry, of Jowitt and Sowry the printers. The Methodist chapel had a Sunday school with classes on Sunday morning and afternoon. There were also classes during the week that the children could attend, partly religious and partly entertainment. They also had a party at Christmas for the children of the Sunday school.

There was one man in the village above all others who I must mention and he was called Richard Murray. From his appearance he could have been a bank manager. He was always immaculately dressed with black suit, bowler hat, spats, white gloves and a cane. He looked like the perfect country squire. Yet he was a melancholy man. He would occasionally come down to the Gascoigne Arms, play a few games of dominoes and then go home. He lived with Mark Hobson and his housekeeper Miss Chadwick for many years.

Barwick had many characters at that time. Some of them have been described in 'The Barwicker' so far and others will be in the future. With their eccentric behaviour and speech they were a source of great amusement in the village. But it must not be thought that in Barwick life was a huge comedy. There was laughter but there was also tragedy and grief. You have only to look at the war memorial with its names of the men who died in their youth serving their country in two world wars to see that there was grief in abundance.

A headstone in the churchyard reads:
In loving memory of
MADELINE
Wife of Richard Hurray,
who died September 4th. 1906 aged 26 years
'Until the Day Dawns'
.
Also of RICHARD HURRAY
who died January 4th. 1938 aged 62 years

Richard Hurray's wife died when he was 30 and he lived alone for 32 years. Mark Hobson and Miss Chadwick were the ones who picked him up in his hour of need. Barwick had its share of comedy and laughter but this was tempered by tragedy, grief and tears.

I would like you to imagine the scene from No.1, The Cross Hill where I lived as a child with my parents. It faced south and had beautiful sunshine. It looked out along Main Street. When you looked out you could see what was exceptional about Barwick. Surely no other Village has had such a history. From the front door or window of the house it was all there to see. Barwick was the capital of Elmet.(see footnote) It had its ancient earthworks. To the right you could see the Hall Tower Hill and the Wesleyan Chapel. In front was the maypole, a pagan symbol, and the cross, a Christian symbol, now with its war memorial. And to the left was the church.

The area round the maypole and the cross was the meeting place, the forum where business, peoples' affairs and everything connected with village life were discussed. In the evening the men came out after their evening meal and stood in groups round the maypole or at the Gascoigne Arms corner. It was a wonderful place and environment for a schoolboy to be brought up in. After a few years' apprenticeship there, you were fit to go anywhere and you could hold your own wherever you went.

The way Barwick was set out for survival and the many signs of its long history make it possibly unique in the country. I consider that I was privileged to have lived in the village at that particular time and there is no other place where I would rather live.

Tony Shinn


Footnote:

Tony Shinn asserts in this article that Barwick was the capital of Elmet. This was the view held by villagers until the Historical Society began to show that it could not be substantiated piece of legend. It may have arisen from the belief that as earthworks in Barwick were the largest in Elmet and it thus "must" have been the capital of the "Kingdom" of Elmet. This assumption is based on two different periods of history. The earthworks date from the Iron Age and the "Kingdom" of Elmet was post-Roman.


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