Historical Memories

‘I were always up there [the reccy] in the evening, when I weren’t on the allotment, I just loved the game’ [cricket]

‘If they were going to set brussels for the winter most of the men would throw them in the ditch for a week…’

Arthur was born in Stoney Stanton, a quarry village, in 1918. His mother had six children but two children died in infancy. He had two sisters and one brother.

His mother worked at Howe’s hosiery factory on a winding machine, until the factory was burnt down. His father couldn’t afford to send him to Wyggeston Boys school. He played football and cricket and remembers the weather in late September/October as being ‘most beautiful’. He enjoyed travelling on the horse and dray into Hinckley, he also rode on the bakers cart and the fruiters van was a novelty. His father worked in the pits – local quarries – and he often came home from work with wounds to his head. They were all well-fed, his father had two allotments which Arthur helped him with. His maternal grandmother lived in Castle Street, Hinckley, Richardson’s butchers (at the time of interview), now a sweet shop. There was an entry next to the house and next to this was Ginn’s where they sold the famous ‘Black Knobs’ – it was a stripey black and white sweet. He received 6d off his aunt Laura in Sapcote for delivering her milk and she’d say ‘2d to spend, 2d to give away and 2d to put on your plate on a Sunday.

His father worked at two stone quarries – the one in the centre of Stoney Stanton and Earl Shilton quarry, Mill Lane. It was a hard life. In the winter there was no work in the quarry and the quarry men would have to go in Hinckley to draw their dole money. They would have to clear the road between Stoney Stanton and Hinckley of snow so that the horse and drays could get through. The family never went short of food and his father would pick grapes from the greenhouse to take to Hinckley Hospital and he would also give produce away to poorer families. During the summer months it was Arthur’s job to take his father’s dinner to him at Earl Shilton quarry, it was a mile there and a mile back to school and they would both sit under a hedge to eat their meals. His father would go straight to his allotments after work and Arthur would take his tea for him and then they would both work on the allotments until 9 o’clock at night. On a Saturday straight from work his dad went to Stoney Stanton club and at 2 o’clock he and his friend would walk up Hinckley Road (family home) and his first words were ‘Are they up?’ It was a major hobby at the time – pigeon racing – ‘there were some famous pigeon lofts in Stoney Stanton’. The pigeons would be taken to Elmesthorpe station and sent to the place where they would race back home from. In March Arthur and his dad sowed parsnip seeds and because the seeds were so light they would blow away in the wind and in order to protect them Arthur’s dad would hold his coat over Arthur while he sowed the seeds. Before setting the brussel plants for the winter they would be thrown in a ditch for a week, this helped them to grow.

‘I were mad on cricket’ and when he was 14 Arthur was asked by Mr Knight to play for Stoney Stanton cricket team because they were a man short. They played against Sapcote, Arthur was the ‘last man’ and the team needed 16 runs and Arthur and Mr Hewitt got the 16 runs between them. Mr Hewitt told him to forget what they told him in the pavilion ‘you are on the reccy now…I’ve seen you on the reccy’. The team, because he was only 14 didn’t think he would be any good but he made eight runs and the captain said ‘we’d better get him out’. His dad was treated to numerous pints that night at the club! Arthur loved the game and because of his ‘heroic’ match the school had organized for them to play on Friday afternoon but none of the teachers turned up and Arthur had permission to unlock the pavilion and get the kit out and play a game. The boys all got the cane on the Monday. Mr Knight told the headmaster that he should have had the cane instead of the boys. Mr Knight worked at the quarries but he had a better job, Arthur thinks he was a set maker.

Arthur remembers when they finished the pit in the centre of the village, he had been elderberrying at the edge of the quarry, a week later the bush had disappeared inside the quarry. The quarry had extended from the club - the little office is still present, this is where the men received the tins with their wages - over the reccy and towards the Bulls Head, now it’s all filled in. Arthur and his friends used to sell Hot Cross buns to the chaps at Stoney Cove quarry. One end of the quarry is very shallow, the other end very deep and there is another 80ft sump. It’s now used by diving clubs and there have been quite a few deaths over the years.

The containers that Arthur took his dad’s dinner in kept the meal hot and usually included potatoes and beans. It was good nourishment for the middle of the day. As well as the allotments they also had a long garden – half of it has now been built on. The field where they played cricket was accessed from their back garden – ‘it was so lovely and now there are houses on it’. There is a new recreation area. As boys they used to play on the tips which are now under the MI and that’s why ‘they have to keep repairing it – that was the rubbish they couldn’t sell’. Arthur thinks there were four tips and they ran for 120 yds – ‘you could just about bike down them, ‘mackle’ an old bike together…absolutely crazy. There used to be a tunnel from the village centre quarry to the crusher that crushed the stone. The railway line at Stoney Cove extended to the main Elmesthorpe to Croft line. Arthur remembers horse and carts – four or five pulled through the village to the crushers or the set makers, ‘they were sort-of in a convoy. Stoney Stanton once an industrial village, now very quiet. There were explosions in the quarries at midday – ‘we’d be at school and hear the stones on the roof’. The quarry manager had a big house and there were also a lot of council houses in the village along with rows of private houses owned by certain men. Arthur and his family lived in a two-up-two-down terrace house on Hinckley Road with the wash house across the yard. Before he could go and play football on a Saturday he had to clean all the knives, forks and spoons with Vim – he hated this job.

Arthur’s brother and older sister went into the shoeing and his younger sister worked in the hosiery at Nicholls and Wileman ‘and I was all over the place’. His mother worked at Howe’s hosiery factory on the winding machine and Arthur remembers going to see her after school. As a youngster of eight or nine it was quite safe to go for long walks although there were ‘always tales about the odd man who weren’t very nice’. He remembers the winding machines in Howe’s factory – the fabric was being wound back onto wooden cones to be re-used. Arthur seemed to think the factory produced men’s wool socks, similar to what was being knitted at Toons. Arthur’s mother got him a job at Eatough’s slipper factory in Earl Shilton, he hated the job – he was there a week and left and got himself a job at Toon’s hosiery factory, just down the road. He was there for about a year until he fell out with his boss, Carey Toon – ‘he clipped my ear so I clipped his ear and knocked his bowler hat flying.’ Carey Toon, according to Athur was the head of the firm, Stanley Toon on the mechanical side and Ronald Toon was a magistrate. He remembers Carey Toon coming to work in a Sunbeam car, a very big car, and the chauffeur would take it from him at the gate. I used to think ‘one day I’ll have a car.’

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