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| A Young Quarryman's Life |
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| Source: Various (please see
Site Credits) |
Click any picture to enlarge
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| 4 man team with hand crane |
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"Boy", or
"Bertie" Male, call him whichever you will, was born in about
1916 to a Portland quarrying family. As a young schoolboy of
ten he started to help in the quarries and at 14 he joined his
father's gang - full time. In 1939 he joined the Royal Navy
and was present at D-Day as First Lieutenant of a British landing
craft, ferrying Americans from Portland to "Bloody" Omaha beach. |
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| Most quarrymen's sons,
from about the age of ten, served an early apprenticeship delivering
blunt tools from the quarry by 'go cart' to the blacksmith's
shop, and so my routine would be to walk to school, from home
- Moorfield Road, to what is now Royal Manor School and, at
dinner time, run down the back lane of Channel View and if the
Station Master was not around vault the railway fence, and run
across the lines to Tom Collins' blacksmith's shop. There I
would find my 'go cart' filled with yesterday's now-sharpened
tools. I would pull the load to the top of Straits and traverse
the whole length of Wakeham sitting in the cart among the kivels
and twybils, then the short pull to the quarry at Perryfield
House where I would find a new batch of blunt tools and start
the long pull with a heavily loaded cart back up Wakeham to
Moorfield Road. It would now be 12.30am and a hasty dinner with
the family would allow me time to finally deliver my load to
the blacksmith at Park Road, and on to school with enough time
left to play football in the school yard before the lessons
of the afternoon began. This would be my daily routine every
school day while-as the quarrymen say they were "Bout Stone".
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| Our unwritten contract with the
owners of the land was first to remove all that height of overburden,
known locally as 'rubble', which could vary in height and content
from the soil to heavy clay, intermixed with a slatt tier .
Mostly gangs of eight men were kept as a kind of unskilled labour
force for this task, but quarry gangs, usually just three men
and a boy, working with the old hand crane, often removed this
glutinous, back breaking, pick axe and shovel mass, by themselves.
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| Blasting to remove the cap |
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| The Portland Quarries |
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Months of this toil in winter weather, with chapped hands
and boots made doubly heavy with clay, was exhausting and
we were only kept going by the knowledge that the next tier
below - the Cap, would be, if not easier labour, at least
be cleaner. The Cap offered the first solid tier of stone-like
material. This stood some twelve feet high in general terms
and the content of the task in hand would be in the region
of perhaps some 2,000 cubic yards. Cap is a very dense material,
much harder than the stone below it, and it had no marketable
use in the days before the war, and so explosives were used
- not enough to shatter it, just to break it into pieces for
the crane to remove and place either as filling for the bank
upon which the crane would next be moved, or as far out of
reach as the crane would plumb.
Prior to the advent of the compressed air driller
(about 1930) these holes into which explosives were placed,
would be drilled by a gang of three men, the one sat holding
the drill upright, while the other two, each with an eighteen
pound sledge struck in rhythmic sequence. At each blow the
drill was lifted and turned so that a circular hole was forthcoming.
Water was added and when the mixture of the cap chippings
formed a heavy sludge in the hole, the striking ceased and
the drill was removed for the hole to be cleaned of the sludge.
Of all the labour intensive jobs in the quarry this was by
far the most monotonous and exhausting, hour after hour of
it, each keeping in perfect time. The concentration required,
for day after day of this strenuous work, was enormous, especially
when it could take a whole day's labour to 'knock down a twelve
foot hole' and over the task a dozen or so holes might- be
required
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| A base bed hole |
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| Lifting a block from its bed |
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| Splitting a block vertically |
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| Having started work
at seven am we worked non stop, except for swigs of cold unsweetened
tea until ten am; then we took a 'lunch' break. In bad weather
we retired to a little tarred hut, but in fine weather we sat
in the sunshine with our hunk of bread, a largish portion of
cheese and perhaps an apple or a raw onion, always washed down
with the tea from a quart flagon. Light-hearted banter, or what
the 'Blues' did or did not do at Grove Corner made up most of
the talk, but on the days that rain stopped our working, we
again retired to the little hut and here, with all hands smoking
the strong black plug tobacco called 'Battle Axe', the hut,
with the door shut, became filled with the most poisonous smoke
in no time. Battle Axe, from its tightly compressed plug, had
first to be chipped off into a calloused hand, then rubbed into
a friable filling for the pipe, or the 'Shag' cigarette tobacco
rolled with great skill into a thin 'fag', so thin in fact that
there seemed very little tobacco in them so that, when lit,
the flame leapt along almost half its length. Being too young
to smoke I used to watch, with great anticipation, hoping to
see the smoker's moustache singed by the leaping flame |
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| Lifting a block ready to place hoisting
chain around |
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| Squaring up |
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| Loading a train |
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| Thus we toiled daily
for months on end dressing these odd shaped blocks of stone
into their various rectangular shapes which, on completion,
were stacked neatly within the radius of the plumb of the crane,
all now awaiting the acceptance of the Marker. His acceptance
would be followed by a visit from the Selector whose job it
was to fit the customer's dimensions into the eight ton loads
that would be transported away in due time. With his 'paint
pot Boy' each stone was subjected to his scrutiny, and upon
acceptance, a small painted dot would be placed in the comer.
If a blue dot then it would be transported by rail to the awaiting
customer, if a red dot then off it went to Castletown to take
passage by sea. |
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| Loading a boat |
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Usually within the
next day or so a traction engine would arrive in the quarry
with its two trucks; each would carry away some eight tons of
block already selected, this having to be loaded by the old
hand crane method. We would be paid nine pence per ton (old
money), so for the sixteen tons hoisted by hand on to the waiting
trucks we would earn 12 shillings. Against each days tonnage
accepted by the Marker, each member of the gang 'subbed' £2-
10 shillings per week,- then, on the last Friday of the month,
we were 'squared up' and this balance of money to come was always
referred to as 'Gaffer Pay.' On these occasions all outstanding
debts were paid, the Blacksmith's bill for sharpening the daily
quota of Kivels and Twybils and, if any used, then the much
larger bill for explosives. The Blacksmith's bill usually warranted
a 3d discount and there was possibly 6d from the explosives.
Now, at the end of such a month, we boys were well in funds
and in the evening of "Gaffer Pay' we would home in on Smith's
supper bar, and there sit with a plate of fish and chips, 2d
of fish and 2d of chips washed down with a 3d bottle of Vimto,
and behave as if this was the most expensive meal to be found
anywhere. |
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