| Description | Originally deposited as a CD-ROM.
Contains recordings of Ernest Leckonby, an unknown man and George Welburn, son of 'Ponds' Welburn who was a dewpond maker of the Yorkshire Wolds, describing their lives in East Yorkshire early to late 20th century. The last recording is of Mr Bond who was in the Merchant Navy. Recorded by Chris Solomon, presumed, of Pocklington School.
Timing:
Ernest Leckonby
(00:15) Ernest Henry Leckonby states that he has lived in the East Riding all his life.
(00:28) He was born in Huntington near York in 1890.
(00:52) His father was the foreman of a gang of road constructors.
(01:03) Once a fortnight his father rode around on his bicycle to pay his men.
(01:12) Mr Leckonby had seen his father breaking stones at the roadside. The stones for road making used to come up the River Foss on barges at one time.
(01:44) The roads were made of crushed stone at that time as there was no tarmac.
(01:56) Mr Leckonby went to school at Elvington as his father had a job as a sanitary inspector there. He also attended school at Fulford and Dunnington. He left school aged around 15 years. His secondary school in York was [Price Street School].
(02:49) After school he was apprenticed to Daniel Long, a joiner and wheelwright in Dunnington.
(04:10) Mr Leckonby describes the methods they used to make a wheel. They also made carts.
(09:30) Mr Leckonby should have been apprenticed for 6 years but his master died and he took over the remaining work. He worked at making coffins for a while.
(12:56) When Mr Leckonby's brother came back from serving in Mesopotamia during the First World War, he worked in a shop which had been a chicory kiln.
(13:32) After the First World War Mr Leckonby went into the building trade at Elvington.
(13:57) Mr Leckonby describes some of his brother's experiences in Mesopotamia and speaks of when his brother died many years later.
(15:50) Initially Mr Leckonby did not build many houses but when he got to the New Model Village they had about 150 men working there. The idea for the 'Village' came from Joseph Rowntree. He wanted to provide his workers with decent homes with three rooms up and down and a useful garden. Rowntrees had their own pension scheme.
(18:18) The 'Model Village' houses were owned by the Village Trust and rented out.
(18:31) Mr Leckonby was in 'digs' in the Village for some of the time he worked there. He was earning about 30 shillings a week by working for the Village Trust.
(19:50) After this he went to a business at Newton upon Derwent where he started up on his own, painting and decorating new houses.
(21:12) The first motor vehicle he ever saw was a bus, an uncovered conveyance that collected Rowntree's workers in York and took them to New Earswick. The passengers sat sideways on to the engine. This was during the 1920s.
(22:43) Mr Leckonby taught his father to ride a bicycle, on a very primitive bicycle when his father first got his job as a road surveyor.
(23:42) Mr Leckonby has hardly ever been out of the East Riding area although he has been to Lee in Lancashire on holiday.
An unknown gentleman
(24:27) He left school in 1914, just before he was 13, on the last Friday in July. The First World War started on 4 Aug and this affected farms as many men were called up for the Waggoners Reserve.
(25:17) He was hired on a farm in 1914 for £11 for the year. On leaving school he had been given the 'Fest Fastening Penny', which was five shillings that bound him to his contract with the [farm] master.
(25:47) He had to get up at 5.00am as they had 8 horses at [Lewises] in Gembling and two [boys] to do the horses before breakfast at 6.00am. They worked until 6.00pm or longer depending on the time of year.
(26:46) He describes the various tasks he performed on the farm.
(26:37) After 3 years he moved to Manor Farm at Gembling. In 1915 they were given an hour off on a Saturday, they finished work at 5.00pm and by 1918 they were working a half day on Saturdays. The working hours gradually improved after this.
(28:25) Living conditions and food were good in the master's house but on bigger farms you got [ironing board] men and conditions were sometimes bad.
(29:07) He moved on to Ruston Parva from Beeford Grange in 1920. The wages and food were good here.
(29:27) In 1921 he moved over the road to [Burdesses]. Scholars used to go out with wagons although this had been stopped during the First World War. The horses and wagons were decorated and photographs were taken. The 'scholar-taking' was a big day and also involved scholars from Kilham. They went to places like Bridlington. He also describes decorating the horses for the Driffield Show.
(31:38) They had the first tractor in the East Riding. This was a Ford and took a long time to start. There were also threshing machines, and these were almost all steam engines, which were moved around by horses. Gradually the tractors took over and then combine harvesters were introduced.
(33:32) In 1933 he went to work for the East Riding County Council. There was high unemployment and he got 8 pence farthing per hour with less hours in winter. By 1937 this had risen to 10 pence per hour.
(34:45) In 1938 he got about £2 from the Council which was as good as £4 in 1950.
Mr Welburn
(01:06) Mr Welburn was paid ten shillings a week when he started working on farms.
(01:35) There was no National Insurance so the men used to club together to get some benefit when they were off sick.
(02:03) The men were paid at the end of the year but sometimes got 'subs' of half and crown or two shillings from the farmer.
(02:31) Some of the farms Mr Welburn worked on were 400 or 500 acres and one was 1,100 acres.
(02:58) The farms grew mainly corn. They used horses as there were no tractors.
(03:35) The farm hands lived on the farm and ate well.
(03:56) The horses were mainly Clydesdale and Shire Horses, and one or two Punch horses.
(04:27) In those days they used to plough the field in one direction and then cross-plough. This was called [quartering] and was a technique used to break up the soil.
(05:13) When he was a lad there was just a narrow road from York to Bridlington and a man called [Jordan], a contractor, widened the road. Some of the roads were surfaced with chalk.
(06:06) Mr Welburn remembers the first cars.
(07:02) Before the advent of cars, farmers used horses and traps to get around.
(07:28) Mr Welburn tells us about his teachers at school. He left when he was 14 years old to work at making ponds.
(08:38) He describes how his father worked from 'light till dark'.
(10:02) Mr Welburn describes burning lime which was used to improve the soil.
(11:04) Mr Welburn's father told him that their family had been making ponds for generations. He describes some of the methods of making ponds.
(13:13) He describes how he attended chapel as a child and talks about a preacher called Bullock. His father was sometimes very religious. Mr Welburn goes on to describe how hard his grandfather and great uncle used to work.
(15:41) Sometimes his father did not break for lunch but ate his food as he worked. In those days they never had holidays.
(17:50) For recreation they sometimes had a cricket match in the summer. These were held in the evening.
(18:25) Mr Welburn describes his brother's experiences in the First World War. His brother survived unhurt apart from being wounded but even then he remained on duty. He describes his brother's experiences with a pickpocket while serving with the Artillery Regiment in Germany.
(21:41) Nearly all the young men in his village volunteered to serve in the First World War.
(23:23) He describes the changes before the Second World War, such as the first aeroplane he saw and early buses and cars.
(24:26) Mr Welburn describes the big shoots on some of the country estates.
(25:01) At one time he did a little poaching and he complains about the lack of rabbits now.
Mr Bond
(25:07) Mr Bond was twenty in 1907 when he joined the Merchant Navy. He worked on a tug boat called the 'Winchester'.
(26:37) He had been to sea as a child with his father.
(26:40) At that time conditions such as the working hours were very bad.
(27:11) After this he went on a ship called the ['Glenbrook'], a coaster. He was second engineer. They went from Hull to Guernsey and on to St Petersburg in Russia.
(28:57) Someone stole his pay so he stayed home for a while and then went on a ship called the ['Garton']. This went from Hull to Alexandria, then down the Black Sea to one of the Romanian ports.
(29:54) He was on a mail boat when the First World War started. They were taking men to build the Panama Canal.
(30:32) On Aug 4 they went to New York. Most of the crew were Royal Navy Reserve and they were taken off the ship [for war service]. This left them with a very sketchy crew and when they arrived in Jamaica they recruited some new firemen there.
(33:26) After this he was sent to a hospital ship running between Calais and Southampton. This was during the First World War. Then they worked in Scarpa Flow for the Navy.
(34:31) Mr Bond came home and got his chief's ticket. After this he went on one of the [Shire] boats to the River Plate and then on to Belfast.
(34:45) He came home and got married, a few days later he went to sea for 11 months. After this he tried to stop going away on long voyages.
(35:56) His next job was to re-insulate a frozen meat ship. Then he took some jobs on small ships.
(36:47) When he was on holiday with his wife in Cardiff he came across the Marine Engineers' Association building. He went in and they offered him a job which lasted 26 years.
(39:39) At the start of the Second World War he was bound for Monte Carlo with a cargo of coal. They had to get an escort from Gibraltar and they came home via Africa. Many of the ships in this convoy were blown up.
(41:08) When one of his ships reached Cardiff it had a gun mounted on it but when they reached London the gun was taken off for use against enemy planes. Not long after this the ship was shelled by a submarine operating from the surface of the sea.
(42:33) While the surviving crew were in lifeboats an Italian ship picked them up (before Italy joined the War). The Italian ship was going to Newcastle and took the survivors home to England.
(44:14) His next ship was sunk on its first voyage even though it was in the middle of the convoy.
Public access copy available on Preservica: https://eastriding.access.preservica.com/
(Search 'DDPS/473') |