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Burnbanks project

Interview with Walter Twigg

3rd December 2004

CW:	OK, would you like to say your name please.
WT:	I'm Walter Twigg
CW:	And when and where were you born?
WT:	Number 5 Burnbanks.
CW:	And what year was that?
WT:	1936
CW:	OK
WT:	Left there to go to Drybarrows when I was about six and a half years old and from there I very often used to go back to Burnbanks to play with the kids. We'd walk down to school, into Bampton, all the time we were there actually, when we got there - apart from playing truant... we never had bikes.
CW:	What's your earliest memory of Burnbanks, as a village? Because it would have been 1936 onwards, it would have been...
WT:	It was fairly busy then, very busy yes. I can remember all the workmen coming out of a night time.
CW:	From the dam?
WT:	From the dam, yes.
CW:	Covered in concrete were they?
WT:	A lot of them was, yes. We seemed to be always in mischief, that seemed to be a regular occurrence for me and the boys - me and Tom, my twin brother and another lad called Alan Malpass. There was a policeman, PC Ostle, I think they called him, he just seemed to have a downer on us and didn't leave us alone - but we had fun.
CW:	What sort of things did you get up to?
WT:	Well things that, I'd think was pretty nasty now if I'd see kids do it - you know just really playing tricks on people. One thing I can remember, one of my dad's friends, Mr Ted Thompson, he had an allotment and he spent all morning planting cabbage and us three lads - me, my twin brother and Alan Malpass - sat on the bank and watched him and when he went for his tea, we went to the allotment and turned everyone of his cabbages upside down, replanted them upside down and he was not a happy man about that, I think that got us a good little leathering from our fathers. But they were the type of tricks we used to do. I've seen Alan Malpass once or twice years and years later but I don't know where he is at now.
CW:	Anything else you can remember about what you used to get up to?
WT:	We used to do a lot of walking and ratching about in the little wood right across from the village between there and the new road up to Haweswater. We seemed to spend hours and hours and hours just climbing young trees, young saplings and just losing ourselves for hours at an end.
CW:	So a good place to be a child.
WT:	Absolutely. And then we'd have a bit walk up by the lake.
CW:	Did you go in the lake swimming?
WT:	No. But used to fish, when we went to Drybarrows and we used to catch perch, a lot of them really.
CW:	OK, so we were talking about what you got up to as a boy; it sounded like there were a lot of pranks and things.
WT:	Yes, coming back from after school, many times we'd walk right up by Burnbanks and then back up the fell again, the long way round, which was quite a long way round.
CW:	That's to go to Drybarrow?
WT:	Yes, and we'd probably play football for an hour before we went home? very late when we got home. The whole of Bampton village seemed to be on the football field.
CW:	This was just where you turn into Burnbanks now?
WT:	No, not that one there was one by Bampton School, where there is a play area now.
CW:	So you'd stop of there for a game of football?
WT:	Oh aye yes, probably spend a couple of hours playing football.
CW:	And then back to Burnbanks?
WT:	Back up to Burnbanks and then back up the hill again.
CW:	So you obviously knew a lot of people in the village.
WT:	Oh yes, yes there was George Brunskill and all those boys from Naddle Farm, there was Geoff Hindmarch, Sylvia's husband?
CW:	Geoff was his brother wasn't he. It was George?
WT:	Yes sorry it was George, George and Geoff: Geoff was the older one yes. I don't know much about Geoff - I think he must be about Bill's age, I think.
CW:	I believe there was a piano teacher nearby, is that right?
WT:	Yes, Mrs Pugh.
CW:	But you didn't have lessons?
WT:	No no, I believe she was interested in adopting me actually, I think she took a fancy to me when I was a little 'un, but my father wouldn't wear that at all.
CW:	Did you have other brothers and sisters. You mentioned yourself and Tom, who was your twin?
WT:	Yes, we were twins - we were the last ones out of five.
CW:	Who else was there?
WT:	Brian was the next one, he died: John was the next, he died and Frankie lives at Wigton, still lives at Wigton and then half brother Bill here.
CW:	So Frankie was the oldest of you lot?
WT:	Yes, He wasn't born in Burnbanks, he was actually born in Great Broughton. When the works closed down for a couple of years, mother and father went back to where he used to live. That must have been before they got Number 5; and that was where their first son was born in Great Broughton. Then the job opened up again and they came back and they must have got this house.
CW:	What did your father do? What was his trade?
WT:	A labourer, I think he used to work what they'd call a blondin, like a big wire from one side of the valley to the other, just with a swing thing carrying concrete along the? working from one side to the other, and mix concrete in it and tip it. I don't know whether it went from one side or to the middle and back, I don't know which way but it's a word I've never heard of since - a blondin: and that was just like a wire rope from one side to the other.
CW:	And it was his job to operate?
WT:	He was just sitting in there operating that and apart from that he was just an ordinary labourer.
CW:	And did he go in and spread the concrete?
WT:	No, no that would be other people's job.
CW:	So all the jobs were?
WT:	Allocated yes, he did work on the new road building the walls; I know he built. He was labouring for the man who built the three tier garage up at Haweswater Hotel, it's still there actually. Apart from that I don't know his other jobs. Oh he used to walk up the fells reading rain gauges, that was maybe two days a week he'd be doing that job.
CW:	And what happened to that information? Do you know - that was just to see how much water was coming?
WT:	Yes, all directions of the lake.
CW:	Nice job if you like being out on the hills.
WT:	Yes I think my father loved it - because it would have been an all day job, any weather like.
CW:	What was your father's name?
WT:	Bill, Bill Twigg.
CW:	And what about your mother?
WT:	Jessie.
CW:	Jessie Twigg and what was her maiden name do you know?
WT:	She was Rawlings when she came up there.
CW:	Oh of course Bill's name?
WT:	And before that she was Hawkins. I was going to say something then and I forgot.
CW:	Sorry ? you were talking about your father's job, the rain gauges and going up on the hills.
WT:	Oh it'd be a wet job many times but they had to be read like. He'd be on top of Walla Crag and then on the other side but there was no doubt he'd have loved that job. He was always a man with dogs anyway.
CW:	Can you remember going out on the hills?
WT:	Oh I can, yes... fox hunting, that was me. I loved it.
CW:	Oh right, was there a local hunt?
WT:	Yes, I would say a couple of times I can remember very vividly - when we'd loose the hounds up out of the Bullwagon at Naddlegate, I'd be with Joe Weir, the huntsmen, right from there right till he'd finish up at Bampton Jerry at night and then I'd walk back to Drybarrows but I could keep up with Joe Weir all day long.
CW:	How old would you have been then? This would've have been later?
WT:	Oh yes, much later, early teens I think. Twelve, thirteen, I would think, fourteen, but I loved it. I could be with him all day long. He used to let the hounds out the wagon about nine o'clock. That did, Joe would finish up in the Bampton Jerry, meeting all the other blokes and I'd just wander away home, probably jealous that I couldn't get in there.
CW:	Do you know why it was called the Jerry?
WT:	As far as I know there were three around there, they were all Jerrys. They couldn't sell spirits, apparently it was all just draught beer and bottled beer. There was Bampton Jerry, Helton Jerry and there was another one, I don't know where it was at. I can't think of where the other one? but I think there were three of them around that area but apparently they couldn't sell spirits.
CW:	And there was a bit of drinking that went on at Burnbanks as well?
WT:	There'd be quite a lot aye, but I was never among that.
CW:	You were too young?
WT:	But I don't think my father went to that very much at all, he wasn't that way inclined. Whenever he had a drink it was just a couple of bottles of beer and that was his lot.
CW:	At home or?.?
WT:	Yes, he wouldn't, unless there was someone there visiting us, he wouldn't even have a couple of beers like. He wasn't a big drinker at all.
CW:	Do you remember, before you moved from Burnbanks, do you remember what was there?
WT:	I think there were quite a few empty houses then.
CW:	People were moving away?
WT:	Yes, people were moving away quite rapidly actually.
CW:	There was a big shop?
WT:	There'd still be the shop there. I don't think the dancehall would be there then - I think that would have gone. I don't even think there was a gate on the bottom of the village; there used to be a big gate and that is where the policeman, Mr Ostle used to catch us swinging on the gate.
CW:	Ah. Whereabouts was that?
WT:	Just going in the village, yes.
CW:	Was it shut then?
WT:	Very often shut, yes. Just between Gatefoot, was it Gatefoot - no Naddle Gate they were just before you go into the village, there was a big long?
CW:	That's right because there are gateposts there.
WT:	Yes. But we would swing on them and get chased. The other boys up there - there was the Crabtrees' lads, they were good friends of ours.
CW:	That was quite a big family?
WT:	Yes a very big family - then there was Bill Fleming - he had two or three sisters I think. Then the Jewells - I can't remember the Jewells very much they must have been a wee bit older than me.
CW:	But you remember Mrs Jewell, do you?
WT:	Yes I can remember my mother talking about her. She would have been one of the people, you see there were always women in our house - always full of women chattering - I suppose we would have just got kicked out anyway. But the tea was always on.
CW:	There were quite a few of you in the house?
WT:	Yes there were - there were five. Because Bill stopped with our Granny up at Shap.
CW:	Can you remember anything about your house?
WT:	I can't. I don't know how many bedrooms there was, even. No I don't.
CW:	But you must have probably shared a bedroom maybe?
WT:	Oh most likely, most likely - there'd probably be four of us. I know we always had a dog - a little terrier. But I just can't remember about how the house was laid out. I've been back and tried to take a photograph but the last time, it was absolutely covered over with briars and young trees. What a mess it was.
CW:	A bit sad really.
WT:	For a lot of years after - I think it would be after we left actually - it was made into the works office, they used it as the works office. I think we'd be the last family in the actually, so it would be an office from about 1946, then it just got grown o'er. It was horrible to see actually. I think there's still one of the Crabtrees that live there yet.
CW:	Do you remember anything about the arrangements for cooking and the washing, anything like that?
WT:	No, no.
CW:	There would have been a range.
WT:	Yes, there must have been. And I can't remember it no. No doubt I'd've heard mother talking about it but no, I can't visualise it at all. And there was a big powerhouse away further up the village that we all seemed to congregate round there like as a meeting place.
CW:	Do you remember your mother? Not Bill's mother but yours. Earlier on? Did mother die?
WT:	No, she died 5 year ago.
CW:	Right, so they separated.
WT:	Yeah. She were 95 when she died, just about 5 year ago. She could remember things about Burnbanks but she couldn't remember what had happened there before. She asked somebody, she'd rattle the name off just like that - it was magic the way they done that. Oh she loved it, she loved Burnbanks. But? she come down with her mother with one of the big lodging houses, actually lost her husband, Bill's dad. I think she just absolutely loved down at Burnbanks. And apart from that well? I'm getting very very bad on the memory.
CW:	What made your family move then to Drybarrows? That would have been, let's see, 1942?
WT:	Aye, '42, '43. I think father just wanted to get out. He didn't mix with these lads that liked their drink every night. I think he just got a chance of this house through working on the Corporation 'cause it'd belonged to the Corporation and I think he just fancied it, being way up there like. And none of us had bikes - we needed, late on before we left. There'd be shared jobs, about 2 bikes between the whole family. I remember one bike we had was with a big carrier frame on the front and that would carry everything from Bampton within that, groceries, apart from? There was a grocery maybe once a month there we used to go James and John Graham from Penrith if we could get anywhere near.
CW:	That came into Burnbanks did it?
WT:	No, he used to come up to Drybarrows
CW:	Oh did it? Quite a haul getting up there.
WT:	But the last 2 fields, he couldn't get up there, so it was all to carry. But apart from? any shopping, we used get down in Bampton Grange.
CW:	What was it like when you moved to Drybarrows? What was there?
WT:	Nothing. Absolutely nothing, apart from cattle, sheep.
CW:	What was the house like?
WT:	The house, it hadn't altered much, and yet there's quite a few things, when I keep going back now, that I can't remember then. But the only thing that does stick in my mind in the window, on the top of the stairs, was a German helmet. Now, why that were there, I don't know. But it were there. I think Father got shot o' that very very fast. It was the only thing that I could really remember about that house when we moved, apart from having to look for firewood and that.
CW:	Because it was quite different from Burnbanks.
WT:	Oh yes, absolutely yes.
CW:	No electricity?
WT:	No electricity, nor any water, no. No there wasn't.
CW:	Did you have coal?
WT:	Yes, yes coal delivered. And then about a couple of years after we moved in, he got permission to knock a corner wall out to put a window in which made it a lot lighter in the living room.
CW:	What did you have for lighting?
WT:	Just an Aladdin lamp, candles in an Aladdin lamp and maybe one of them old farm lamps for knocking about in?
CW:	Paraffin?
WT:	yes. I can remember him knocking it out - he knocked the wall down - and then the Corporation came and built the window into the frame, but the walls were about 3 foot thick - massive: we thought we were never going to get through it. I can remember that. And it's still like that today.
CW:	So your father, after you moved, was still going back to Burnbanks?
WT:	Working. Yes, morning and night he'd be there yet.
CW:	How did he get there, just down across the fields?
WT:	No, down the fell, down the fell, yeah. He'd do that right until we left in '52. '51 or '52. Then he got a job at Askham because things were going very quiet down in the job. He got a job at Lowther, so he went to Askham.
CW:	The whole family moved?
WT:	Yes, yes. I'd already gone then. I dunno where Brian was. Frank'd be hired at Kirby Stephen I think. And John'd be in the army. I'm not sure where Brian was. I don't know. That's got me. I think he'd been there. But, Thomas'd be there. But I went to Winder Hall, as soon as I left school actually, the weekend after I left school. The kept us on from our birthday which was in October, but they kept us on until the Christmas breaking up time. As soon as - I was away.
CW:	No regrets then?
WT:	No, no. Yeah yeah.
CW:	So you went off to do farm work?
WT:	Yeah, I'd do about probably 10, 12 years on farm. Then I went to plant hire, and I've done that ever since.
CW:	What can you remember about going to school? When you were there, not truanting!
WT:	Most of the time we were playing truant, me twin brother and me. Tom just couldn't, he just didn't... no interest whatsoever. We'd been stuck in the back of the classroom.
CW:	You said he had hearing problems?
WT:	Oh yes, yes he did.
CW:	But no one would believe him?
WT:	They wouldn't believe me. I knew. When you're playing about with somebody, you know they're not acting. Mother and Father thought he was just being lazy. School teachers, Douglas Thornton the headmaster, and the other teachers just thought he was interested in? but the lad couldn't hear. So we played truant most of the days.
CW:	What did you do then?
WT:	Sit up trees, and do anything to put the time in.
CW:	Was no one out looking for you?
WT:	No, no. There were not such as that. No, no. I remember once we asked the postman what time it was, and he told us a bloomin' great lie and we were about an hour in front of ourselves when we got home and she? And we'd help the farmer at Littlewater farm - threshing, things like that. And we just loved it.
CW:	Do you remember anything about the dam? By the time you moved, it was finished when you moved up to Drybarrows. Do you remember seeing it?
WT:	No, I can't remember it being finished off or anything. I don t know why, because it was filling up fast, even when we used to go down fishing. It'd be finished off then, and waiting for the fill up. They expected it to take a long time to fill up, but it didn't - a couple of years and it was? Like there was a lot of snow then, I think that helped it, with all the snow coming in. It certainly filled up a lot faster than what they thought. But apart from fishing, that's? I never even seen anybody on a boat on that lake. I know my father used to sometimes watch them coming down, pulling trees down, used to roll them down before the road was likely open. So I don't know whether?
CW:	That's to take down the trees that were going to be below the water?
WT:	Yeah, yeah, likely yeah. They'd pull them down, roll them now in front of them which must have been quite hard work. And there was a boat house across there. I think it's still there actually, part of it. I think the boat house is still there, yeah, on the east side. And apart from that, the Haweswater Hotel was going then.
CW:	Did you used to get dignitaries from Manchester?
WT:	Oh yes, aye. They'd come up in car-loads. But in Burnbanks itself, we'd hardly ever see 'em. Maybe the paper man, Sunday morning, pop up with a lot of papers for the shop. Apart from that, we'd never see a car. And the bus, it'd be about maybe three times a week.
CW:	That would be the bus to Penrith would it?
WT:	To Penrith, yeah. It'd be Ernie Harness' bus.
CW:	Sorry, who was that?
WT:	Ernie Harness'. And the seats would be them wooden lath things. Oh - they were hard to sit in. They were terrible to sit on, time you got to Penrith.
CW:	There used to be outings. Do you remember any of those? I've heard other people say?
WT:	Yes, there probably would be, but I can't remember much about them. I don't know whether me father and mother went. They wouldn't get a baby sitter, likely.
CW:	You'd have to take the kids with you?
WT:	Well, we didn't go then!
CW:	Were the roads quite good?
WT:	No. They were tarmac, but they were very very narrow. Yeah, it'd be tarmac, right, right down to Penrith, yeah. I know in the snow, it took months and months and months to dig it out one winter, from Burnbanks to Penrith.
CW:	Good for kids though, I suppose?
WT:	Oh aye, Oh yes, we could never see the walls, walk right over the top of them. It was magic. Up at Drybarrows in 1947 we never got to school for quite a long while. And I remember the farmer giving us a big long stick. Stand on top the drift, poke, and poke down to see where we could dig sheep out. Some of them was alive, but very very few of them, very very few. You know, you could feel them when you were pressing - that there was a sheep under. That was sad that because there was thousands died. But we never got to school for weeks and weeks which was great!
CW:	Did your family go to church or chapel?
WT:	Yes, chapel.
CW:	At Bomby?
WT:	At Bomby yes. And also. What did they call the vicar? He got Tom and I in the choir. He said "You don't have to sing." He said, "I know you can't sing but it just make the numbers up."
CW:	Bill said about the Reverend McCormack. Was it that one?
WT:	No, it was the one after him. Ruddick. 'Peg-leg' we used to call him, 'cause he had a wooden leg! He said, "You don't have to sing, because I know you can't sing, neither of you, but just make the numbers up." These surpluses. It wasn't the best times. Mother said, "Make sure you get there." We did, we always got there. Quite late on, when we got confirmed at Penrith at the big church in Penrith. I've lost the name of that church now.
CW:	St Andrews?
WT:	St Andrews, yes. Yes there were quite a lot of people who got confirmed there that day. It must have been just every few years. Actually, we could've been christened at Mardale actually. Mother had us booked in, into Bampton. This is something I can remember Mother telling us. They opened the church for one Sunday, quite a few years after it had been finished, just before the army come in to blow it, and they had a service. I think there'd be the younger end of the Crabtrees, they'd be christened there. And I think me and Tom should've been, but Mother wouldn't change us because she had us booked in at Bampton.
CW:	That's a shame, you could have been a bit of history.
WT:	But she wouldn't change her mind, she had us booked in at Bampton. They did open it for one day. And there were quite a few christenings. Because there were three sets of twins in our age: Tom and myself? I am forgetting the names of the other two.
CW:	All at Burnbanks?
WT:	Yes, very much.
CW:	You were actually born at home presumably?
WT:	Oh yes.
CW:	Twins at home, these days that's?
WT:	?quite something, yes. I think Brian and John, they'd be born at Burnbanks as well.
CW:	Do you remember the doctor or nurse?
WT:	The doctor then would be Dr Prentice I think. But later on, after that, when we were starting to get old, I can remember Dr Judson from Shap.
CW:	Used to come once a week?
WT:	Yes, once whatever. I think the doctor in that time would be Dr Prentice.
CW:	And did they live somewhere else and just come in to do a clinic?
WT:	I think Dr Prentice used to live opposite the little house that was brought down stone-by-stone out of Mardale. It was the school yeah, yeah. I think he used to live there, this Dr Prentice, before the Satterthwaites. That was a nice family as well. Kathleen and... they were school friends of ours.
CW:	The doctor's children?
WT:	No, no. Different people. I don't know if they were born there or not. I don't think they were actually. But they were all Bampton school people.
CW:	Did you mix a lot with the kids from Bampton?
WT:	Oh yes, aye.
CW:	There wasn't any "ooh, we're not talking to them?"
WT:	No, no, no. There were none of that, no. Not even later on, just before we finished. Another little croft school finished, Roughill, And them kids come down. There was no battling like there is now. They were just accepted in.
CW:	There was a little school at Rosgill as well.
WT:	Yeah. I don't think they come down to Bampton, like. They might have. I don't think so.
CW:	They might have gone to Shap.
WT:	Yes, they might have gone to Shap. But the Roughill ones come down to Bampton. Roughfield it is actually.
CW:	Joyce Martin said that she remembered going to school in a converted ambulance. She said there was a school transport?
WT:	Oh aye. Probably, yes. I can't remember that 'un then. But there probably would be yes. We might have been at Drybarrows then.
CW:	So you'd still be walking down?
WT:	That's right, we'd just go? aye, yeah. It was nearly two miles, it'd be about a mile and three-quarters I think from Drybarrows down there.
CW:	Do you remember much about school - when you were there. You'd be there until 14?
WT:	There'd be 2 days a week, 2 afternoons a week, there would be gardening anyway, like. Oh yes, we had an allotment just beside the football field, so we'd be in there.
CW:	What happened to the vegetables that you grew?
WT:	I don't know. I don't know what happened to them. Tom and I used to get a sixpence for doing the headmaster's weeding.
CW:	In school time?
WT:	No, after school. That'd put another hour in for us until we got home.
CW:	Do you remember any of the other teachers?
WT:	Dougie Thornton, he was the headteacher, yeah. Then there was one under him - I did know his name. Blimey - I was thinking about him the other day - I've lost the name. Then there was another headmaster come, just before we finished, was Ainsworth, John Ainsworth. [John Aynsley].
CW:	Ainsworth?
WT:	Yeah, yeah.
CW:	There were evacuees at one point? From Barrow?
WT:	Yes, there was some evacuees. I don't know where they were from? but there were quite a few - quite a few - evacuees coming to school. But where they were living then, I don't know.
CW:	Do you remember learning much at school?
WT:	Nothing, no. We didn't do percentages. Some of them likely would. But I can never even remember learning percentages or anything like that, it just seemed to be reading, writing and arithmetic - whatever he could get out of us. I can't ever remember doing anything fancy. And John, he was left handed. That was something else that was wrong. John was the only left-handed one in our family. The headmaster Dougie Thornton made him write with right hand, which was totally wrong. It finished up: he couldn't write at all!
CW:	Went back to using his left hand?
WT:	He always did, yeah. But he couldn't use his left hand at school, which they wouldn't get away with nowadays. They wouldn't let them use their left hand. It's silly really.
CW:	Did you play football?
WT:	Oh aye, football, def, yeah.
CW:	So the school playing field was down the road, wasn't it, where it is today.
WT:	Yeah, yeah. The girls there, they'd be playing shinty.
CW:	Shinty?
WT:	Yeah. And we'd be on football, aye.
CW:	Do you remember what you did in break times, lunch times. Did you play any other games outside?
WT:	I can't even remember playing in yard because there was nothing level in the yard - it's all on a slope anyway, like, so you wouldn't be able to play.
CW:	And there would have been a lot of kids.
WT:	Yeah there was. But you wouldn't be able to play a ball game in them. I've no idea what we did in the play times at all, rainy days or anything.
CW:	The school wasn't the most important thing in your life, was it?
WT:	No, it wasn't, no. He used to make us walk round - that was lovely that, walking right round Gatefoot, Grange, back in - I loved that. I could walk all day, me, when I was young, but I couldn't run. Now, the school's sports day, they had to run to Knipe Scar. Well, I've never ever done that. I've never ever done it. I'd rather just sit and wait until they came back, then join them coming back. It's only this last four or five years that I've got up on top of Knipe Scar actually, Dave and myself. But up at school, I never did get there. And that was quite a run, over the river and straight up.
CW:	Yes, it's steep.
WT:	Yes. I don't know that Tom'd do it, but I certainly didn't do it. Most of all them Malpaths and all them there, they'd all do it. No, I'm not doing that - I'll wait until come back. But I could, I could walk all day as well, but I just didn't go up there. Strange really, little things like that you can remember, eh?
CW:	Do you remember anything about war time?
WT:	No. Oh them bloomin' gas masks, I remember them.
CW:	Did you have to take them to school?
WT:	Oh aye.
CW:	Well, wherever you went, I suppose?
WT:	Tom and I was the only one that had them bloomin' mickey mouse ones and I used to hate everybody laughing their heads off at me and Tom with these mickey mouse bloomin' gas masks.
CW:	Were they different from the others?
WT:	'Course they were. It was terrible! I could've screamed! Blimey. Everybody else had a proper one. Where the heck we got them from, I don't know. We had to wear them anyway. He must have got them in a jumble sale, cheap somewhere, me father. They were terrible. Me mother, up till a few years ago, she used to still laugh about that. And Bill through there laughs as well.
CW:	I wonder why they're so different then?
WT:	I don't know. I don't know, but it was embarrassing.
CW:	Someone picking on you.
WT:	Aye. Maybe PC Ostle - as a joke. But, oh yeah, we had to take them to school.
CW:	Did you have drills, you know, what to do if there was.
WT:	I can't remember, probably would, but I can't remember. I certainly can't remember it like.
CW:	By then you would have still been fairly young.
WT:	Oh yeah.
CW:	Is there anything else we've left off? I think that's probably most things. Can you think of anything else?
WT:	No, not really no.
CW:	Before you moved away, did you go to Shap for anything?
WT:	No. Probably once a fortnight, father'd walk us up to where Bill lived, up to Granny... just for a Sunday meal or something. It was a lot of walking.
CW:	That's a reasonable walk.
WT:	It was always walking.
CW:	People must've been very fit in those days.
WT:	Well, they'd know nothing else.
CW:	No junk food and lots of exercise.
WT:	No. Exactly, yeah.
CW:	A lot healthier than today.
WT:	That'd be about once a fortnight that little jaunt out.
CW:	OK. Just one other thing: what do you think about Burnbanks now? I'm sure you've been back for a look.
WT:	I haven't seen them starting on the new ones.
CW:	It's probably better to leave it until the weather's a bit better.
WT:	Mmm. It'll be certainly a difference. They'll be a difference.
CW:	Nice to think that the place is going to carry on.
WT:	Well, I hope so, though I think it's going to be very expensive, like.
CW:	Yes maybe, we'll have to wait and see. When I seen the plans and seen what they're going to be in the paper, I thought it a bit steep actually. I don't know what rent Father'd've paid, but it certainly wouldn't be anything like 500 pound a calendar month. Maybe 5 shillings a week or something.
CW:	Yes. Well his wages wouldn't exactly have been?
WT:	Oh no, exactly yeah.
CW:	OK, thanks very much.

Interviewer: Caz Walker