The story that I relate begins for me about the year 1900. First
of all let us look at the way in which many men in the village earned their
living. Farm labourers there were in plenty, but the men who had no inclination
for the land found work at the Chawley Brick Works. In those days the Works
(which closed in 1939), were a veritable hive of industry. The men worked long
days from, I believe, about 6 am until 6 pm. During the summer months they
worked until 9 or 10 pm. It was sweated labour indeed as they were paid the
princely sum of 3d an hour. The money worked out at about 14s per week in the
winter. When they worked overtime in the summer it brought them in about £1.
l.,and many a housewife has been heard to remark that if their menfolk could
earn £1 a week all the year round there was no doubt but that they would soon
become millionaires.
The children too in those days played quite a considerable part in helping the
domestic routine as soon as they came out of school. Their first job was to take
father's dinner to Chawley Works. The meal was usually boiled bacon, cabbage and
potatoes. Today it certainly sounds good but in those days it was eaten with
really monotonous regularity. Butcher's meat was only eaten once a week on
Sunday for a special treat. Most housewives cooked two meals a day for the
children and father, at midday and again in the evening when he came home from
work. It was cheaper to live that way as there was always plenty of vegetables
and, of course. always bacon. The food was cooked in a huge iron boiler over the
fire. Cabbage, bacon and potatoes which were put in a net were put altogether in
the pot. Suet puddings were the order of the day, made with any fruit that
happened to be in season, not forgetting the ever-popular 'Spotted Dick'. I have
never seen such huge puddings since I was a girl. They were usually sewn up in a
pudding cloth. Basins were not very popular for the sweet pudding but it was
very much in evidence on Sunday when practically every family sat down to their
weekly treat of beef steak pudding. There was real poverty in those days. Most
of the people were very poor and life was a hard struggle. But on the whole
children all seemed to enjoy good health.
So much for the men. Now what of the womenfolk ? There was quite a number of
women who worked on the land. I think they were paid about 2d an hour. But here
again all women were not adapted for the soil.
There was work which was brought to the village from Oxford. It was brought in a
big van and a pair of horses and the stopping place was the 'Lion Tree'. It was
making men's trousers, chiefly corduroy. It was very thick and heavy material. I
imagine it must have been very hard work. These trousers were lined with
unbleached calico. The linings were cut out but the worker had to actually make
them up complete with buttons and buttonholes. These garments, as I remember,
seemed to have endless buttonholes, no comparison with the men's working apparel
today. As far as I can remember, they were paid 2d for a 'set' of buttons and
button- holes. The finished garment, I think, produced the large sum of 3d.
Most of the women did their needlework on little round bare deal tables on which
was usually an array of threads of all colours and tailor's thimbles without
tops. After the garments were finished they had to be pressed with very hot
irons which had to be heated on a trivet in front of an open fire. The work when
finished was stacked on a Windsor chair to await the arrival of Mr. Slay with
the van and horses. This was quite a day in the village. The work was taken to
the 'Lion Tree'. People who managed to do quite a lot pushed the work down the
road on prams and push-chairs etc. Most of the women put on big clean aprons,
and a very popular type of headware of those days was wearing the menfolk's caps
complete
with hat pin. It was actually on a Thursday that the work was fetched and the
women paid, and you may be sure that there was no more welcome visitor to the
village. I forgot to mention that the firm from Oxford was Hale, whose factory
was in Queen Street, but whose premises have long since been used for other
purposes. The work went on till round about 1912 or perhaps a little later with
the outbreak of the 1914 World War.
(Mrs F. Masters 1990, when she was living with her daughter in Lake Street,
Oxford.)