Below is some of the transcripts the artist has created their work from:
106 DR ALLEN WALKABOUT
00:00:20:00 JG: Oh dear, I’ve got a, I’ve just got a tickle from … make sure I’m
not. Do you want to come here? Can I just take my walking stick out of the way.
Otherwise it makes me. Here, is that ok?
I:
Yeah, If you can try and ignore me if that’s all right.
JG:
Talking too much. Now Dr Allen, here’s your father.
00:01:00:00 AA: Now that’s interesting. What …
JG:
Well we would have bought some things from Ingles wouldn’t we?
AA:
I don’t know then. I thought in my father’s time it was one company.
JG:
It was Ingle-Parsons for a long time wasn’t it.
AA:
Travelling expenses.
JG:
That’s it. Here’s your father.
AA:
Yes. Travelling expenses.
JG:
Here we are.
AA:
8 pound.
JG:
8 pound.
AA:
That’s for a week’s work. He did quite well didn’t he.
JG:
He got ten pounds sometimes. 1939.
AA:
1939. Yes.
JG:
Yes.
AA:
Is there anything earlier than that?
JG:
I don’t know. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been, this is just one of the ledgers
that we kept and there’s lots of other ledgers but I don’t think there’d be a
cash book. I mean this is pretty good 1939 is pretty wonderful I think to have
kept. We didn’t sling things out did we really. But there’s one where he’s
00:02:00:00 got £10 and then there’s the other side where Horace has
put that he’s had to return £2 70 because he obviously didn’t spend it all. I’m
looking for the £2 70 that he had to return.
AA:
There’s another one there. What’s that?
JG:
No that’s just. No that’s, oh yes 8 pound. But here, on this side, is where you
returned the money. That’s what you paid out. That’s what you put back into the
company. And your father had to pay £2 70 back. But I thought they must have
been very generous with him, because in those days £10 expenses would have been
a lot of money wouldn’t it, in 1939.
AA:
Well it was a bit.
JG:
In 1939.
AA:
Yes. He was running a car then too.
JG:
Yes, well, it doesn’t say what the expenses, I mean we don’t know what the
expenses were do we. And I mean did he stay away at night, did he travel far?
00:03:00:00 AA: Oh yes, he went at 7 o clock on a Monday morning and came back 6
o clock on a Friday evening.
JG:
Oh so he was away every week?
AA:
Every, and then one month in three, or at least every third month, he’d have a
month in Ireland.
JG:
Oh yes, because we did a terrific trade in Ireland. But George did some of the
travelling didn’t he in Scotland.
AA:
I think he did Scotland.
JG:
He did definitely.
AA:
I think George was a liability because he drank.
JG:
Well he couldn’t have been that much of a liability, because he, you know, he
ran, he was here running Newmans wasn’t he. Because Horace didn’t run Newman
Brothers.
AA:
We thought he did.
JG:
Mr Horace didn’t.
AA:
I thought he did.
JG:
He was very good on figures.
AA:
How far does this go on?
JG:
I don’t know. I never looked. 48.
AA:
48 yes.
00:04:00:00 JG: But you said, you were saying he was gone in when?
AA:
45.
JG:
45. Well that was just a little while after George died. Here we are, 46. Excuse
me coughing.
AA:
Good writing.
JG:
This was Horace’s writing. Excuse me. 45, here we are. 45.
AA:
Did they produce resin handles here in the factory?
JG:
Plastic ones no. We haven’t got the room or the …
AA:
What went on at the back of the polishing shop. There was a lot of grinding
equipment.
00:05:00:00 Dr Anthony Allen Walking
around Newmans
00:05:16:00 I2: Ok thank you very much. So this is the front door?
AA:
Yes, this hasn’t altered at all.
00:05:50:00 AA: This is all different.
I2:
So where is this?
AA:
It’s all completely different. It wasn’t like this. It’s this new building
that’s done it. The letters were written by hand, they were recorded in a great
big leather tome, which was opened, it had semi-absorbent paper. They gave it a
quick damp, put the letter in, closed the book and screwed a press down and
that gave a record of the letter. That’s how the filing system …
I2:
So what do you make of this room?
AA:
It wasn’t anything like this. This is all new. The office actually was here.
I:
If you want to pause at all, can you just say so.
00:07:00:00 AA: And you see the storeroom was downstairs. This is much later.
It’s not brass.
I2:
It’s not brass.
AA:
No. And I don’t really recognise the designs. We’re talking about a
breastplate. That was a large piece of tooled steel which you probably took a
couple of months to sculpt and then it made a dye that would stamp out the
breastplate. But these are much more modern designs, they are different.
I2:
What kind of designs did your father deal with?
AA:
They weren’t quite so, that’s a bit more modern. They were a bit simpler.
00:07:55:00 I: Come through here because there’s quite a lot more stock through
here.
I2:
Everything’s labelled isn’t it and boxed, like they said.
AA:
It must have gone on for some years after the war, really. That’s a brass
handle, you can see the difference.
I:
Say that again.
AA:
That’s a brass handle you can see the difference, feel the weight. These are so
called ornaments. They are trumpery things, we had solid brass ones. They are
screwed on top of the coffin to decorate it and to hang wreaths on. I
00:09:00:00 never saw anything like that. That’s a proper ornament,
that’s a bit better. In the main they produced handles, brass plates and
ornaments. None of this fancy work. I don’t know where that came from; there
must have been something else here later.
I2:
So tell me what your dad actually did here? What did he do? Because he must
have dealt with selling these?
AA:
He sold them, but he also had quite a hand in running the business because
latterly they weren’t frightfully competent. That’s a brass handle, well it
looks as if it ought to be. That’s a much later design, I don’t remember
anything like that. That’s much more like it. The handles were cast in brass
and then for the middle trade they had iron handles that were plated to look
00:10:00:00 like brass, and for the lower end, particularly to be sold in
Ireland, they were iron handles that were japanned. At the back over there,
there was what was called the japan shed and they were hung on wires and went
in and they came out sort of semi-shiny black kind of enamel. Such was the
death rate in Ireland, that my father often sold, more than once, on one
journey, over a gross sets of children’s furniture which shows you what life
was like.
I2:
So when do you think you first came to this factory? How old were you?
AA:
I suppose I was six or seven when I first came. That would be about 1929/30
something like that.
I2:
And what were your first impressions?
00:11:00:00 AA: Well it was an exciting place, particularly the foundry. I mean
that was a fantastic firework factory. That’s a fairly typical one.
I2:
Yes, you described it to me on the phone as a firework factory. Lots of …
I:
Hang on a second. The foundry was out there wasn’t it?
AA:
There, behind this new building.
I:
If we go up to this window can you explain to me where the foundry was and what
it was like?
AA:
The plating shop was down there and presumable it’s still there. And behind
that was the foundry which wasn’t very big. There was a walkway, about that
wide. The patterns in wood were made, Old Mr Ray made them, in there. They were
put into what were called core boxes, that was a box about
00:12:00:00 that size, which opened. It had casting sand in it, all nicely
smooth. The wooden patterns were put in and then taken out. Well the box was
shut and then opened again so there was a replica in sand, perfect. Then they
ran, with a little stick or something, they ran little channels up to the
opening. The core boxes were closed, they were leaned against the walkway. And
there was a furnace going. As far as I recollect it had two, I can’t think of
the word now, two great pots about that diameter, about that high, full of
molten brass. And while it was molten it would be sparking and smoke going up.
Two chaps would come along, very tough guys, with leather aprons; I don’t think
they had a mask. They had a big pair of tongs, which they clamped the pot,
lifted it
00:13:00:00 out, went onto the walkway and then tipped it into each
core box. And that was the exciting part because smoke and flame and sparks, it
was great fun when I was little. Then the boxes were allowed to cool and they
were broken open and all the rough castings taken out and taken down there to
the barrels where they were rattled and rattled and rattled all day, with water
running over them. And then they came upstairs here to the polishing shop where
there were about six rather buxom ladies, very wrapped up, all in linen. The
polishing wheels were about that sort of diameter of laminated linen and they’d
hold the piece here, and lean on the wheel and keep turning it and polishing it
and they’d get a good finish on it in the end.
I2:
You said you had a good relationship with some of the women in the
00:14:00:00 factory. It was mostly women here wasn’t it?
AA:
I don’t think I had a relationship with them. I was too young!
I2:
No I don’t mean that but I mean they obviously liked having a young boy …
AA:
They liked somebody going round I think, watching what they were doing. I had a
much better relationship with old Mr Ray because he fascinated me. He was
making the moulds, he was making this, sculpting steel really, tooled steel,
which is terribly hard. I liked him.
I2:
What did you make of the Newman brothers, themselves?
AA:
Well I said, with retrospect, one of them looked like Dr Crippin, he ran the
office. And George, I think was a drunk. Old man Newman had more or less
retired in the thirties. We had something to do with George’s daughter. I
remember being taken to the Cotswolds in her old motor car once but I haven’t
much recollection really.
00:15:00:00 I2: What did your father …
I:
Sorry, that sort of stuff we’ll do in the interview, let’s try and get, if we
walk through.
AA:
Where do we go now?
I:
Well let’s, are you ok?
AA:
Yes I’m fine, no I’m all right.
I:
If we walk through this way I’m just waiting to see if there’s anything you
recognise.
AA:
There was nothing like this stock that I remember, not this much. I wonder if
some of this was made at Ingles. I rather think it might have been. I don’t
remember anything quite as ornate; that’s much more typical of the 1930s, yes.
These are the thin sheets of brass in the drop stamps. Yes that’s
00:16:00:00 much more like the sort of thing, but that’s
not brass. I don’t think this white metal existed then. I rather think this is
where Mr Ray used to work. I think so here.
I:
Which is now the assembly room I think.
AA:
Well it’s the polishing shop.
I:
Behind it.
AA:
Ah, well he worked here. It looks as if some other sort of, some other sort
00:17:00:00 of work went on here. The great big wheels have gone, they
were that wide. They went on there and they were about that size in diameter
and they were that wide and they were laminated linen and the girls used to
sort of lean on them. But obviously since my time there’s been a lot of
different use in the factory. Right.
I:
Bear with me for one second. Sorry.
AA:
That’s the sort of thing, they were much bigger diameter than that. No, I
think…
I:
So what, tell us about, is this the room where that you knew …
00:18:00:00 AA: This is where the polishing went on, and those I presume are the
original, they’re the original, I thought there were more, yes, there’s four,
five, four of them, yes that’s about right. Yes I thought there were six but
there’s four. But there’s a wheel each side, so that could have been eight
women.
I:
And what were those women like?
AA:
They were completely enshrouded, they usually had rather large bosoms so they’d
got something to lean on the wheel. But
the place was nowhere near as dirty as this. It really wasn’t, it was quite, as
I recollect, it was much cleaner than this altogether, and none of this junk
lying around. A bit ashamed of it really.
I:
Ok, I just need to …
00:19:00:00 AA: I can see that little old man sitting there. But it’s obvious
that there was some other use put, there was some other manufacturing going on
here. We never made crucifixes.
I2:
There’s a catalogue here. I don’t know how old it is. Your dad dealt with
catalogues, obviously with his selling didn’t he.
AA:
Yes, these are the things. Yes, I remember all these.
I2:
Shall we start at the beginning.
AA:
It was opened in 1882 and my father was here in about 1905 probably.
00:20:00:00 But this is the sort of thing, these were solid brass, as it says.
If they were die cast they were brought in I think.
I2:
And you said he was like a traveller so he travelled to the people he sold to.
AA:
Mostly to undertakers and often in the country builders did undertaking. He
called on a lot of builders. They made coffins and they did undertaking.
I:
Sorry explain that to me again. What you just said please, explain it to me again.
AA:
That he travelled to sell the products to undertakers but also to quite a lot
of builders in the country. In smaller places a builder would often be the
00:21:00:00 undertaker. There’s still one in Stratford now.
Interesting.
I2:
So your father must have had a good reputation?
AA:
I think he probably did.
I2:
Very much a family business wasn’t it?
AA:
It was indeed. They didn’t, they did make crucifixes yes. Big ones. I think
they were bigger than that. They didn’t make coffins here at all. He had a
coffin factory at Evesham when he was with Ingle-Parsons. And shrouds weren’t
made here either. They were made by a family named Dewsbury. It was a lady who
had I think four or five daughters who used to make shrouds. Very beautiful. I
have a photograph of my cousin Myfanwy when she was about two and a half in a
very pretty dress that my aunt had made up from a silk shroud. We’ve got it
hanging up at home now.
00:21:55:00 …. the whole lot. But he came back, they kept his job for him. And
when he came back, he was in Ireland, all through the troubles, in 1921-22. On
one occasion he got arrested. He was in St Andrew’s Hotel in Dublin. And the
door opened very quietly and he woke up and he saw someone come round the door
with a candle and a revolver and they said “Get up! You’re a bloody English
spy.” They took him downstairs in the cellar and he said, “I’m not. I’m a
commercial traveller. I’ve got my samples here” And they said, “Come off it,
they’ve got ammunition in.” And they fetched in one of these cases and opened
it and there was a huge crucifix on the top. Of course they were all Catholics
so it made a difference. In the catalogue it mentions die cast, but I never
remember, they must have had them, but I never remember them. These are die cast
handles. Well …
00:23:00:00 I: So I mean just, how does it feel being back here?
AA:
Well it’s a bit disappointing really because it all looks so tatty. And you
know stuff thrown all over the place. It was never like this, it was really
quite tidy and clean, and it looked businesslike. This doesn’t.
I2:
And when was the last time you were here?
00:23:29:00 AA: Must have been 38, 37 or 38 I suppose. I was in the war from
1939.
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