Me dad let me have a months holiday after I left school. Then he said "Have you thought about a job?"

"No."

"Would you like to be a bricklayer?"

"Aye."

"You’ll start in the morning then."

That was a Saturday, the first week in September 1927.

The first job I went to was Willow Park Hotel. You learned the trade by watching how the men did it. At first I helped the labourer's and scaffolder's, then I did backing up, that’s bobbing bricks in the cavity on a 14" wall.

"Come on, get this centre in" they’d say to me.

The first proper course I did were a split course. Me dad set me off on that. The first course on top of this concrete floor had to be split to bring it level, you’d cut right round with your brick hammer and split brick in half. Dad didn’t come and say "I’ll split course and then you can trowel", no, he said "Right, you’ll do it - only way to learn."

Of course, I finished up with more rubble than bricks at the end but I did it.

I were apprentice for seven years, out of me time at twenty-one. I started on nine shillings a week and me last year I was on two pounds. In bad weather the men were sent home but there were always jobs for apprentices back at the yard. There’d be a lot of damaged bricks and stonework, we’d nap that up, and make a pile of aggregate for concrete. We’d screen the lime ready for mortar, throwing it through a screen like a big sieve so lime and sand were properly mixed. All the lime craps fell to the bottom, and they were kept for spreading under floors to keep vegetation down. Nothing got thrown away. Old bricks would be cleaned off with a scutch, a two pointed brick hammer, and used again, even bricks from middens. Sometimes we’d make mastic for windows or saw firewood up for the boss, there were plenty of old planks and cross beams about. We’d make big piles of logs for Christmas for me dad and Mr. Brown.

Brown and Lodge builders started in 1919, me dad bought the business from Gundhill’s in Ropergate, they were solicitors as well as builders. The first job Brown and Lodge did was new houses on Willow Park, one of the early council estates in Pontefract. Lots of firms worked on that, a section on the plan was allocated to each contractor. It was all small firms in those days, you’d tender for jobs even for single houses. Builders, joiners, slaters and tilers, plasterers, plumbers electricians – they were all separate firms and they’d all tender separately. There were no big contractors. Barber and Heseltine were the first to employ other trades. People didn’t always take the lowest tender.

"How much is Brown and Lodge?"

"Fifteen pound more."

"Go on then, I’ll have Brown and Lodge."

We’d follow one another on a job. Dad would say "we'll be ready for floor tomorrow" and a joiner would come with a horse and dray with timber on. On a big job the architect would notify other trades, for instance, when we were ready for the pan the joiners would come and do that. They’d measure up two days earlier and then put on the pan, a 4½" by 3" timber wall plate resting on the inside brick wall, ready for the roof. The roof spars would be bird-mouthed onto the pan. It was called a bird-mouth because they fitted with a little notch just like an open beak. As soon as the pan was on the builders could finish the gable ends and chimneys.

We never seemed to be held up following one another. And it didn’t used to take them as long to finish job, it’s a fact. When Brown and Lodge did the Municipal Offices they pulled houses down, cleared the site and had the new Offices built in fifteen months. That included the Terazza floor people and the heating engineers. It was supposed to be done in a twelve month but terrible rain held it up.

We did a lot of repair work; pointing fireplaces, renewing fire-backs, re-slating roofs, drain repairs. (drains were always a bricklayers job then) - nowadays everyone sends for a plumber, I don’t know why. I remember one time I loaded a handcart up with enough bricks, lime, slate and firebricks and set off from Southgate at ten past eight, went up King Street, replaced two fire-backs and was back in the yard at ten past ten. Father said "Where’ve you been? You ought to have been back long since."

We used lime for mortar from Fryston lime quarries. Usually we mixed it on site. You’d have a big heap of sand, break the lime rock up with an hammer to fist size, throw water on top and then cover top with sand, piling it over just like a meat and potato pie. Before you left you’d see steam coming off it with the chemical reaction and when you come next morning it’d be lime, just powdered lime.

Concrete for footings and floors, that was mixed by hand too. You’d have eight barrows of sharp sand and gravel to two bags of cement, two men to turn it and one to throw water on. For suspended floors it’d be six barrows of sand and gravel, not eight, it’d have to be stronger. Diamond mesh were put in for reinforcing. Before 1900 they’d use anything for reinforcing, I’ve come across metal bedheads! Our firm got a mixer in 1929 when we were working on the extension to Pontefract Workhouse. It was petrol driven, a Lister engine, maybe two horsepower, you’d to keep going with a tin to top up water jacket. That were the only mixer we ever had till me dad packed up.

If I were out on a job and it rained we’d got into the cabin and stop to see if rain weren’t going to pack up that day. Rained off time weren’t paid, soon as you walked off scaffold into cabin your pay ceased. Many a time we’d stick it out to four o’clock or long as we dare, wet through, you’d see rain dripping off your cap. Then someone would say "I’ve had enough, Time to pack up now." There was a stove in the cabin in winter and it’d be lit about half past eleven to warm our bottles and flasks, flasks were coming in by time I started in 1927.

The cabin was also the tool shed. It wasn’t put there for men’s benefit, it was put to keep tolls safe and cement dry. The key’d be left under a stone for first one to open up in morning. I remember one time Tom Connor were left to lock up and he though to himself "They’ll not know where to find key" so he chalked a big arrow and a message KEY UNDER CORNER!. He were a case. If he was telling you about someone working outside who got right filthy, he’d always say "And there he was as black as the ace of hearts!" When he came to retire he sent off to Ireland for his birth certificate and found out he should have retired three years earlier.

In really bad weather you’d be sent home. They’d try and find you inside work if they could but sometimes the whole firm would be on the dole. In the Depression in the thirties we’d get two or three enquiries a day "Owt going? Any chance of a start?" Brown and Lodge were lucky because we did the Municipal Offices at that time. We could employ specialists but all the rest of the workmen had to come from the dole lists for that contract.

The scaffolding was all wooden in those days but you could put it up as quick as you can with tubular today. The labourer's did the poles and they’d have the ledgers, the horizontal poles, ready and then brickies would give a hand on lifting. You’d be walling up and someone would say "Don’t forget, put log-holes on this course." You’d have to leave a brick out of the wall for the log-hole. Then as you took scaffolding on you’d to fill the log-hole with a putlog, a piece of scaffold timber.

If they were kidding one of lads up, someone would climb up a scaffold pole, 28 feet high, especially when we’d only got us first lift so scaffold was only about 4 foot off ground, and put the lads jacket over the scaffold pole through the arms. It’d take the lad all his time to get up top of pole but he couldn’t get the jacket off without a lot of help from someone else. There’s always tricks like that. Snap bags would be nailed to the floor or lads would be sent to fetch a sky hook.

The men weren’t superstitious, we never used to think of ladders. Me dad used to tell me how he was walking along Ropergate with Mr Smith, the architect, and they came to a ladder.

"Are you superstitious, Mr Smith?" asked father

"No" said Mr Smith, "but I never walk under ladders." And he nipped round onto the causeway.

Sometimes we’d put a flag up when we topped out. On two occasions it paid off. We got ten shillings off Mr Fozzard of Knottingley and at Houndhill Lane, Mr Cook sent a pound to be divided among us all. Some people would put a stone with the date or initials on for a bit of fun but that were dying out at my time. Mr Fozzard though,, he put a bottle with the current Pontefract and Castleford Express and some coins in it under a corner of the foundation. He was a milkman and I heard later that his boss sacked him saying "If you can afford to build your own house you must be twisting me."

Not many people owned their houses, mostly they were built to rent. In 1938 a cheap two block house, semi-detached they’d call it now, would be about £380. Single houses would be up to £600. I remember people coming to me dad "I’d really like one of your houses, Mr Lodge. But I can’t afford deposit."

"Well I’ll lend you forty pound and you can pay me back at ten bob a week."

He did that for several people and he didn’t charge interest. It meant he got the house sold.

A tradesman bought his own tools. Labourers were issued with a shovel by the firm. As soon as a man came me dad would say "Give him a shovel and get started." I didn’t get any special preference because I was one of the sons, I bought me own tools. On our firm me dad always sent brick hammers and chisels to the blacksmiths for sharpening at twopence per tool. Joe Clayton, her were the best blacksmith in Pontefract. I don’t know how these lads manage today, buy a new brick hammer and they’re rubbish. Ours would last and last. When they wore down too short we’d take it to blacksmith and ask "Will you lay me a piece on?"

There were no safety regulations, everybody pleased themselves how they did anything. We’d no safety rails or ‘owt like that. I remember being sent to mastic round the clock face on the tower of Wilkinson’s liquorice factory. There were two windows underneath the clock so I cantilevered a plank out of each window and managed to get a plank across then two to work from. If there’d been building inspectors they’d have gone mad! Mrs Kirkdale opposite daren’t look out of her window, she couldn’t bear to see me up there. When I finished I found I couldn’t get the cross plank back in. I had to get somebody to tie a rope from the tope end and we swung it in.

There were accidents. Len Dukes, an apprentice, fell off going up a ladder as he didn’t know they’d changed it for a shorter one. I was off eighteen months with a broken foot and wrist after falling twenty-foot from a pointing job when scaffold gave way. The plank I was on fell and hit me on the head so I had concussion too. You’d get sick benefit from your Lloyd George.

All the men would carry bricks on their heads to leave their hands free. Caps used to wear a hole in the middle. You’d make a circular pad by rolling your wife’s lisle stockings round a bottle to give a bit of shape, then put that in your cap. Some liked a little pad and some liked a real thick one with three or four stockings. All the labourers round here did that, it was special up north. Then you’d put your board on top of your cap, just a bit of floorboard it’d be with the corners rounded off with sandpaper. You’d get seven bricks on the board, common bricks stacked three and three with one across top other way; best bricks stacked four and two, on edge with face uppermost, and then one across. You’d always protest best bricks, common bricks would be put nearest the ligger and best bricks further away so they didn’t get splashed with mortar. When you were throwing bricks up you’d always throw facing bricks face up so you could see the face was undamaged. That were time and motion before time and motion were thought of.

Mortar was carried same way on a board about 21 inches by fourteen. We’d like our mortar soft, how they managed to carry it without it slipping off I don’t know. They could walk and climb that smooth. I could easy put ten bricks on me head and carry them but I couldn’t balance them for long, I had to keep hold with me hands mostly. Figs Firth, he could balance ten or twelve bricks on if he was in a hurry. He could even carry a bucket with a shovel in it on his head, just like a circus act. He'’ do it just for devilment. Or he'’ put seven bricks on his head, one on top of another, and go up ladder on his knees. Figs were a Knottingley man, he got honoured by the Queen somehow, but I don’t think it were for his acrobatics.

They were skilled men in those days. I don’t know how lads manage today, modern brick’s is rubbish. Old bricks had a frog for mortar to go in, it gives a better key. Modern ones with holes in centre, they’re horrible flaming things. You can’t split them length-wise. I used to be able to split a three-inch brick into three pieces length-wise, you couldn’t do that with modern bricks. You can see on an old building where you get cracks the crack is stepped down through the mortar. On a new one, cracks are vertical, the bricks themselves give way, they’re not as strongly made.

The only thing I’d have liked to have had a bit earlier is them new concrete pumps. They came in just at the end of my time. We’d to shift all concrete for floors by hand. Now they park mixer and pump outside and you can stand three floors up with concrete pouring out of the tub, it fair whips it up!

Don Lodge