Schofields across the road with their trip and pigswill used to send out worse smells than us but we got blamed for everything. Everyone knew where skinyards were. It were a terrible hard job, eight hours PT we’d call it. You’d change your pants and vest at dinnertime, even in winter they’d be soaked through with sweat. We had miners come to us wouldn’t stick it. My father had been in pit but he used to say he’d never done a more exacting job than pulling. He worked at C.W.S. till he was 66. I worked at side of him and he were 65 afore I could lick him.

It helped if you’d a long back. Pulling would change your shape, mind. I were six stone twelve when I started and it brought me out. When I went for me army medical in 1943 the Sergeant couldn’t believe me chest measurement against me waist, had to run tape round again to make sure. If you went for a suit at Burton’s you’d to get the chest measure out of proportion, you couldn’t buy off the peg.

My family were all in skinyards. My grandfather Zachariah, me father James, Uncle Dick, brother James and Jabez, cousin Jack – we all worked there. You’d be brought up to it to stick it. It were a good wage in comparison with a miner or railman. We’d be on 38 shillings for a 48-hour week at a time when Jabez was only on 26 for farm work. You could earn the same as a bank manager.

We paid tax, had to take it ourselves to Storr and Hey, accountants in Baxtergate. When I started at 14 I should have been on 10 shilling but with me father being a good worker I was put on 18.

The year after I started we got the new system. We’d make up the depilatory in a big tank – 21/2cwt hydrated lime, 110lbs sodium sulphide and 55 gallons of water. That were enough to paint 400 skins. They’d be stood for twenty-four hours and pulled next day. We’d have socks up our arms, then protective gloves on top as the acid was corrosive. If any got through a hole, even just a thornprick in the wool, you’d have blood all over you. It were three flights of stairs and across the yard to the gents for clean water to wash the acid off.

Blood poisoning, everybody was off with that. You’d have a hot linseed poultice on it and I mean hot. You’d run to front door and back with the heat when your mum put it on. It did the job though. If you fell in a soak, there were only a brick width between them when I started, they were reluctant to let you come home, they’d want you to work that day out.

Under the old rock lime system they’d pulled with their bare hands. Stockholm tar was the only protection. Dad never undid his braces, he had to pull them over his shoulders without undoing them, he’d got such holes in his hands.

Dad was the ‘Tom’ man, he were in charge. Not officially like, but between us. We’d been pulling for three-quarters of an hour, say, he’d put a skin on the board, get down the left shank and then shout "Tom!" and we’d all take ten minutes bacca time. No one dared get another skin after he’d shouted. When he thought time were up he was off out of boghut and back to it. One minute he were there with his coat turned up, smoking his Woodbines, and next he were gone, catching three or four of us without gloves on, so’s he’d get a head start. He’d some constitution, me Dad, no-one could keep up with him. He kept a stoup going on stove at home, pig’s trotters, sheep’s head, everything went into it. He’d take some of the broth in his bottle to work every day. He’d be in bed by eight o’clock every night.

We were a tough lot of workers, had to be. I remember Dr. Burnett sent down once to see someone. He said "I don’t know how you do it." Alfie Barrett was epileptic and sometimes had fits on the beam. Bill used to step off the beam and catch him in his arms till fit were over.

Tommy had a duck hand. I used to wonder how he got hold of big armfuls of skins but it never bothered him, he were a fantastic worker. Initiation, we had that. I wouldn’t like to tell you what went off.

Manchester, Beeston and Newcastle, the bulk of our skins came from those three markets. We had a wagon go up to Newcastle every day for 7-8,000 skins and 4-5 tons of fat and offal. The skins from the markets arrived ready classed and sorted. Local ones came in fresh. You’d class the pelt, give it a grade, then drop it, get hold of the tail and estimate how much wool were on it. You weren’t far out with your experience. It were a skilled job; there were 40 different grades of wool. You booked it all out and the office worked out what would be paid for it.

Pulling was paid on piecework. Prices varied through the year from new season lambs to sheep in full wool in February. Shearlings would be sevenpence halfpenny the dozen, by 1st October price’d be tenpence a dozen, 1st December a shilling a dozen and by 1st February one and twopence halfpenny. We’d get all types of sheepskins: First Leicester, Second Leicester, Light Grey Haslock, Welsh (very hairy that), Greybelly, Whitebelly. We’d got goatskins too and occasionally a couple of deerskins from the Cheviots mixed among the Newcastle delivery. When you got the hair off a deerskin it’s fly over into your wool, a right nuisance, so we’d just dump them. We got sheepskins from all over the world: Arabias, Nigerias, South Africas, Argentina, Sudanese, that was pelt only, they’d no wool as it’s a hot country. Often the ones that had come a distance we’d find weevils eating them when we’d sloughed them. Foreign skins were mostly stoved and steamed - the wool was more valuable than the pelt so you didn’t want depilatory on the wool.

Dad would agree a price for anything unusual. We had dogskins, bales and bales of them stacked, you could tell what breed they were. There’s a lot of grease in a dogskin, it’s not a good pelt but they got sent for the fancy leather trade. Angora rabbits, we did them too, picking them with fingers on our knees. I remember we even had a load of wallabies once!

Any tails and pieces wouldn’t be thrown away. We’d look at the doddins, sheeps tails with all clagging on, and say "There’s brass in that there muck." They’d be put in a big tank and treated with enzymes which digested all the skin and fat. Then you washed the wool, spread it out over a net and all the tail bones fell out.

Wool was packed by treading, two of you trampling it down. The old manager used to come at nine when you’d been on since seven, two gangs packing. He’d stand and watch with his hands behind his back, never spoke a word till twelve o’clock buzzer went. Sometimes he’d lift the corner of the sheet with his foot and spill all wool out as if to say this isn’t packed tight.

The Washbeck supplied all our water needs. The soaks area next the beck, that was called Egypt. The biggest soak, we called that the North Sea. I remember skins frozen solid in lime in the North Sea, couldn’t get at them for six or eight weeks. We had a steam pump and an electric pump, we’d let the beck flood over into our soaks and pump out of them. Only time you couldn’t use it were when Washbeck flooded and the water got mudded up. When houses were built there in the 1930s, we sank a bore, just opposite Tates Lane, to pump water up to the yard.

We’d our own works Fire Brigade, won a lot of prizes in competitions. Dad was in it. I’ve still got the buttons from his fireman’s jacket with the C.W.S. motto on "Labor and Wait". We used to say "We’ve laboured and laboured and we’re still waiting!" We’d get small fires from spontaneous combustion in the wool. The worst fire was in 1921. I’d be nine then. The sky were full of sparks, local brigade and work’s brigade were there. Twelve of us kids helped on Billy Howton’s farm damping down the hay with wet sacks. Whole stacks would have gone up otherwise. Everyone was frightened the benzine tank at the top end where the bones were cooked would go up but it didn’t. After the fire the pullers and materials were diverted to Birkenhead. Dad found he couldn’t afford to pay his board there and keep the family at home so he came back after three weeks and started work on the construction of the new skinyards.

The Booths was an area on its own then, quite separate from the town. Miss Garlick, she had a shop at bottom of the Booths. While the fire was on she did all the sandwiches and tea for the men. Then there was Tasty Wilson, he came round hawking fruit. Jacky Pease had the shop next to Miss Garlick’s. He was a dumpy little fellow, five foot two inch high and nearly that across. When he went to get you a stone of flour he’d trudge over from the barrel on one side of shop to the scales on the other, spilling it all the way. Happen he’d have to go three or four time. Some of the cottages in the area were just hovels really. Mattresses on floor, hens pecking round, no daylight in at all, they had to have candles lit all day.

It were a crafty game were wool job. It was allowed to have seven-and-a-half percent moisture in wool. If we found there wasn’t that in we used to get watering cans going. I’ve seen two lads work all day on an eight-hour shift, just carrying water. Our wagon once took a load of wool to a big buyer in Bradford and it were all sent back, said it were too wet. We opened it all up, wet it again, sent it off, and they took it!

You’d to supply your own boots and an apron, linseed type. A bonemeal sack cut up the middle and fastened with string made a pair of trousers and in winter we’d have leggings out of reject pelts. The Inspector would come round and make us take boots off to see if they were wet. First few times I had to dash to get hidded as he also came to see if anyone were under sixteen years. You could help but get the depilatory on your shirts. That were a terrible job for the wives; they had to soak them and scrape them to get it off, it smelt awful.

At the top end the bones were cooked for grease and glue and then ground for bonemeal. The bulk of the ground bone went to C.W.S. Longton Potteries for china and the rest went for animal feeds and fertilisers. The horns were left stacked for months and then cooked and ground up for hoof and hornmeal. They’d get everything to deal with at top end. I’ve seen elephant feet come in from Manchester Zoo! During the war there was a shipload of pork and bacon that had been bombed at Liverpool and condemned. I looked up from pulling and saw a side of pork going past the window! I can see it now. I tell you, there was more of that pork taken out of works than kept, condemned or not. I didn’t have any; once anything’d gone up there that were enough for me. I didn’t fancy it.

I remember on V.E. day I had to walk round top end. There were whole carcase’s of fresh beef condemned for TB, you could see the TB blebs. It’s got green dye on it to stop people eating it.

There were a lot of wild cats at top end to keep mice out. Down bottom end we domesticated a few. We’d plenty of rats too. Every so often we’d newt off the pound and go after them with short ratting sticks. I remember nine of us killing above a hundred rats at one time. They were beautiful clean skins, all different colours.

The Sports Club got started in 1928, we teamed up with C.W.S. Ferrybridge Potteries for football, cricket and table tennis. We had our annual social at Wordsworth’s and our first dinner dance at the Crescent in 1931. We joined the C.W.S national football club and beat Hull. Then we were drawn against Shilbottle and they beat us 13 – nil. We played Don Wilson at Hull, he’d had a good trial for Leeds United. He wasn’t a C.W.S worker so we played him as Jack Sherburn!

We didn’t get a weeks holiday till 1942. When I got married I’d to stand holiday meself. We did a lot of overtime; basic week were 48 hours, but we’d often do 60 to 65. I worked there from 1926 to 1977. I estimate I’ve handled about five million sheepskins over the year; sometimes we’d do three thousand shearlings in a day.

All them years I only enjoyed the last three. The rest you were striving and hoping to put your own ideas in practice. Well, last three years I had me chance. I altered piecework for a start, it creates jealousy. We were only allowed to do so many skins per hour, the pace slowed down and we got a better product altogether.

When I retired I saw the top man at Manchester and had lunch with him. I got £150, that’s all I got, and I’d done 51 years.

Zacharia Crashley