Open Writing

Yorkshire Lad byTom Hellawell - "Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn," cries Professor Higgins in "My Fair Lady.''

As village lads in Earlsheaton during the 1930s we could have added a few more 'dams‚ to that list. True, they would have been of a different nature.

Rather than being words of annoyance and frustration, our 'dams‚ created for us a sense of pleasant anticipation, signifying adventure, discovery and a thrilling whiff of danger.

They were the dams of local mills, 'reservoys‚ of water awaiting conversion into steam, power to drive the machinery throughout textile factories.

But in our pre-adolescent days such technicalities were of no interest. We wanted watter for watter‚s sake. To us such expanses were reservoirs of pleasure, possessed with a magic which drew us like a magnet.

Water always seems to be an attraction, especially to young boys, provided it has no combination with soap. Soap detracts. It turns a potential delight into one of suffering.

To us young ones it didn‚t matter that the water sources were polluted and bestrewn with debris, natural and man-made. Rats, dead or alive, the carcasses of drowned cats and dogs. All such added interest, becoming subjects worthy of inspection.

Did you know the skins of dogs which have been drowned are nigh on impossible to penetrate with a sheath knife? Well they were for us. No
matter how hard we threw the knife, it still bounced off the bloated cadaver.

The best way we could find of operating on the corpse was to heave it down a nearby dried well-shaft and then drop heavy stones on it. Trouble then was, because the shaft was so deep and the stones so large, when they struck, the
target was out of sight. Still, we found the squelchy thud quite satisfying.

One mill dam was passed daily on our way to and from school. It meant climbing a perimeter wall, but that was an everyday exercise anyway. Such walls were meant to be climbed by inquisitive schoolboys.

That the top of that particular wall was Œprotected‚ with pieces of broken bottles and heavy glazing fragments set into blue lime was no deterrent against the lure of the water to be viewed. Indeed, we derived much pleasure whilst perched delicately atop the wall in dislodging the glass debris and throwing them into the dam. We found it fascinating to sit in that way and watch rust- impregnated water travel along two sides of the dam in an iron channel and deliver itself into the ochred expanse.

The water was hot which was a bonus, an added thrill. "Cor, what if yer fell in thear kid, yud be boiled alive."

"Hey, gi' oer shuvin. Ast tell yer mam weear yer been. Then yu'll be i' bother."

Blackmail juvenile style.

The furthest we safaried in search of open water was about two miles distant. That dam held one other attraction besides its expanse and apparent unfathomable depth. A railway girder bridge spanned one end of the dam, suspended some twenty or thirty feet above the surface of the water.

'Macho' was a word unknown to us in those times. 'Idiot' and 'claht eead' we did know, and we watched such types scale the stone bridge supports then, assured of an attentive audience, they would either launch themselves into the air or plummet into the dark water below, often accompanied by a yell meant to represent the cry of Tarzan. But that always failed.

I never swam there but, judging by the chattering teeth, quivering legs, goose pimples and streaming noses, it was probably chilly.

The unhurried meanderings of us young boys in our inquisitive searchings for adventure would, on occasion, drift us to where water could be found at Sands Mill. Today it would probably be termed an industrial complex. Sixty-five years ago it was T'Paper Mill, T'Carbonising 'Oil, T‚Skin 'Oil. Technical phraseology varies through time.

The Paper Mill was built athwart t'goit or t'cut fed by the River Calder providing power for the mill via waterwheels. Two of these could be viewed through a narrow iron-barred aperture, and an eerie sight it was too. To watch the wooden paddles emerging from the blackness below never failed to send shivers down our young spines. Unfortunately, as we thought, there wasn't the thrill of witnessing dead bodies coming up on the blades since a double set of grills bridging the goit prevented this.

The carboniser's was a choking establishment. Hydrochloric acid gas was used, and its fumes went straight for one's throat, followed by nose and eyes. Yet we cheerfully suffered so we might rummage through piles of cotton dust searching for brass buttons, buckles and badges from army uniforms.

T' Skin 'Oil was a fell mongering establishment -- removal of wool from the pelts of slaughtered sheep by the use of slaked lime. And it was there the dam was situated. The purpose of the water was to soften sheep skins prior to lime application. Consequently the water retained a watery blood colour since that is what it contained, sheep‚s blood, plus the odd sheep shank along with tufts of wool. These completed the bathing 'amenities'. No Lilos or rubber ducks, but the water was quite warm and on summer evenings proved an attraction for young swimmers.

This was the 1930s. Money was in short supply, not always being available for swimming bath charges.

Close by this 'pleasure area‚ the Low Fields were situated. These accommodated a football ground. The playing fields of Eaton, arena for the
notorious Earlsheaton Shirt Rippers, whose clubhouse, changing area and bathing facilities was a ten foot by ten foot room in a defunct carbonising 'oil.

To witness 22 mud-bespattered footballers, each trying to bathe in one of two zinc baths, then to dry and dress themselves was an unforgettable scene. The irony in that jovial camaraderie was that with World War Two just over the horizon those unemployed youths would soon be fighting for their country, and for many that would be their last occupation.

But on to the next dam site. That one lay at Sands End Mill, a notorious pool of water which struck fear into our young hearts.

The best description of its design would be 'po‚ shaped'. The stones around the edge were large and smoothly rounded, so there was no means of gaining a
grip from within. Below the water line the walls curved away, preventing anyone in the water from gaining a foothold. The whole was of a cauldron
design denying anyone the means of leaving the water. Those intent on suicide proved the point.

Half a mile further along, and a very different picture presented itself. Preston's dam was some distance from the mill which may have been the reason for us not being chased away. Ample stocks of fish, frogs and newts were added attractions, providing us young ones with hours of pleasure in attempts of capturing such prizes.

There were other water holes. T' old dam at the lower end of t' park, Clay Ponds over Hanging Heaton Fields, just as squelchy as the name suggests.

Unpolluted water on open sites was almost unknown. One rare source was a spring, origin unknown, but the product was clear and sweet, sufficiently so to allow the growth of watercress and fresh water prawns. Needless to say, we gathered both.

Yet for all the expanses of water there were around and about, no one ever
accidentally drowned. Unfenced, unprotected, unguarded acres of wetness and no one to my knowledge suffered more than an occasional ducking. We daren't
drown. Our mothers would have killed us!