Part 4: Early working days - Plumbing with the General
One day old Charles Jackson[1], known to all as “General”, the three
branch hand on the firm, said to me: “Don’t you think it’s about
time you had a change of job? This stockroom and dispensary work
will get you nowhere.” I replied I was quite happy etc. He insisted
that I was a bloody young fool, that I was learning nothing
worthwhile and all the time I did the job as well as I did I should
be kept at it till the end of my time – “and then what will you
do?”
After a while, I plucked up courage to tackle W. Sendall on the
matter. He assumed an air of great disappointment. He thought he
had given me a job of great responsibility because I had merited
it, I was interested and so on (for which by the way he was paying
me 2/6 per week!) However if I wished for a change I should have
one – he would ask Jackson if he would have me as a “mate”. This I
am sure was intended to be a punishment as old General Jackson was
not popular with men or boys, but after a month of hard cussing and
swearing on his part, and I expect a bit of cheek on mine, we got
on fine. I learnt later that he liked me, I certainly got to like
him (In passing, we have two of his great grandchildren working
with our firm now. One a bricklayer, the other Mr Slough’s
secretary).
I had a glorious time with “General”. He was an unusual character,
fairly well read for a workman of his day and liked to talk about
Carlyle when he found I had read him in parts. He was a free
thinker and free speaker full of smutty tales and more or less
obscene jokes. Also he was a Dickens fan, Thackeray he tolerated,
Scott he loathed. His line was principally “jobbing” which entailed
many miles of walking with our respective load of tools and
utensils. Sometimes we could make part of a journey by train and
walk the rest, but it was usually “shanks pony” and we rarely had a
job in town as General could be trusted so we had the jobs too far
away for any supervision. I have often tramped 6, 7 or 8 miles to a
job, say to repair a pump, then walked back unless we managed to
get a lift. Among other things he was an expert bell hanger [using]
the old wire and crank system – he had a supreme contempt for the
new-fangled electric bells, advised me to have nothing to do with
the “passing fad”. Electric lights had not reached us in those
days.
One day at Wimblehurst we were repairing a deep well pump when Mr
Allcard[2], father of
present owner, shouted down the well: “Jackson, come up a minute, I
want you to have a look at our bells, none of them will ring!” (the
firm had just installed electric bells throughout the house).
General, still struggling with the pump suction, shouted, “It’s no
good me looking at the damn things.” Allcard asked, “Don’t you
understand them?” “No I don’t,” said General,” And I don’t want to.
There’s too many bloody little screws to suit me.” That was his
attitude to anything electrical with the result I know nothing of
that side of our affairs to this day.
He did, however, teach me a great deal that was worthwhile e.g. the
necessity of cleanliness in everything pertaining to painting and
decorating, of adequate preparation of surfaces to be painted and
the rudiments of the theory of colour etc. He also taught me how to
make and cement a leaded light, to wipe a plumber’s joint, “boss
up” a corner in sheet lead so as not to leave a hole in the angle,
the effect of gravity in a “flow and return” heating system. I had
a great regard for him and drank in every word of his “obiter
dicta” with avidity. I think I loved his bawdy stories for I
remember many of them even after 60 years. He had no respect of
persons unless they really were respectable; class or station meant
nothing to him. Character, ability and the like, he treated with
both respect and courtesy. The Bible was no more inspired than
Burns or even parts of Reynolds Newspaper or Labourer’s Truth.
Bishops were figures of fun; on the other hand, he had a great
regard for his local parson, though he never, as he put it, “slept
in his meeting house”, or as he would sometimes say “joss
house”.
One day, during a very hot harvest time, General and I walked out
to Ends Place, Warnham, to repair what we were told was a lead jack
pump and therefore on the surface. On arrival we found it was a
brass deep well pump. We had nothing with us to cope with such a
job so had to solemnly walk back to yard. On returning to the job
it was now nearly noon and coking hot. Mr Churchman[3], the squire-farmer, appeared: “Well,
Jackson,” said he, “You look very hot. Have you found a tough job?”
“God above knows,” said General, “what sort of job I have found.
All I’ve done is give it a severe looking at, but I am, as you say,
hot, bloody hot, in fact.” He then explained with some heat his
opinion of people who could not take or give a message properly, so
causing us to have a long and unnecessary journey. “Well,” said Mr
C. “Could you do with a drop of homebrewed beer?” “I could just!”
said General. So in the old boy goes and reappeared with a quart
jug full which General sampled and spat out with an oath. He
wouldn’t let me touch it but poured it down the yard gully. Half an
hour afterwards Mr C. came along again, looked in the jug. “”Ah, I
see you like my home-brewed.” “It’s a bit too strong for me,” said
General, “the boy likes it. It reminds me of when my father made
homemade wine. He liked to get an old brandy cask and put it in
that to give it a flavour. Your beer tastes as though you had kept
it in an old water bath. Still, as I say, the boy likes it, hardy
young devil!” “Well,” said the old gentleman, “I’ll get the boy
some more,” and so he did, another quart. This also went down the
drain, General refusing to let me taste it, assuring me it was rot
gut, not fit to flush a privy with. Again, Mr C. called and, seeing
the jug empty again, eyed me rather seriously, “Jackson,” said he,
“your boy knows what to do with beer.” “He does so. It’s like
tipping it down a drain. Don’t give him any more, sir, or he’ll go
home and wallop his poor old mother!”
Ends Place, Warnham, 1927;
Reproduced with permission from West Sussex Past Pictures, Ref:
PP/WSL/P001159; West Sussex County Council Library Service;
Image credit.
General as a boy had worked in the stables at St. Leonards Forest
in Colonel Aldridge’s day[4]. He was also a dumpy, bow legged,
jockey-like chap, most unlike the conventional plumber in
appearance. How or why he left the stables and managed to be
apprenticed to a well-known London Firm (Patman and Fotheringham of
Bloomsbury) I never learnt. He never lost his love of horses and
horsey men, providing they could sit a horse properly. He knew all
the local horse dealers and copers[5]. Among the latter was old Elias Lovegrove
of whom he told me many a tale. E.g. “Li” was selling a cob to Dr
Bostock[6], a local worthy
in many ways outside his profession. When the deal was over the
Doctor said, “Now look here, Lovegrove, I’ve got your horse, you’ve
got my money, tell me, has the animal any vices?” “Holl a bit, sir,
not a touch of vice in him I do assure you.” “Well, if there is
anything you might tell me, it might save my neck.” “Well sir, I
will say this of ‘im, there be two things you’ll find out sooner or
later, not vices, oh no! One yer might say is a fault, t’other a
misfortune.” “Ah, I thought as much. Now what is his fault?” “Well
sir, I’ll tell you the truth. If you turns him out, he’s a hell of
a job to catch again.” “Well, I’ll forgive him his fault, but
what’s his misfortune?” “He can’t help it, poor beast, but when you
have caught him, he’s but damn little use, but as I say sir, he
can’t help that can he?”
General had another friend, a neighbour who lived near him in
Roffey[7], one Henry
Coe[8], a local preacher
for the Primitive Methodists, a staunch teetotaller, always wearing
a little bit of dirty blue ribbon in the buttonhole of his lapel.
His main business, beyond a little horse dealing, was that of a
fence for poachers. Incidentally, he had a game license, that is a
license to deal in game, which the police and the fraternity of
game preserving magistrates tried to prevent him renewing. They did
refuse to grant it one year. Dear old Henry Coe came the simple
innocent countryman and pleaded in vain: “Don’t take an honest
man’s living away etc.” But they were obdurate so Henry went home
and dictated a several page letter to the Commissioners of the
Inland Revenue, and sent a similar one to the Prince of Wales, whom
he once met at Goodwood. Henry was no scholar, but he got a
neighbour’s child, a girl of 10, to do the necessary. The effect
was magical; in a week Henry had his license to deal in game and
held it to the end of his days. And yet, truth to tell, all his
dealing were illicit or at least suspicious.
Primitive Methodist Chapel, Roffey,
c. 1927; Reproduced with permission from West Sussex Past Pictures,
Ref: PP/WSL/PC006155; West Sussex County Council Library Service;
Image credit.
He had a fleet of ramshackle old light vans and a collection of the
sorriest looking horse flesh into these old vans with broken
harness tied together with bits of string or bootlace. His staff
was all the ne’er do wells in the neighbourhood who could or would
drive a horse. And, driving a horse to Henry Coe simply meant
sitting behind it and flogging the poor beast. All Coe’s old vans
travelled at about the rate of a fire engine. It was strongly
hinted that Henry organised night poaching on a grand scale but he
was never brought to book for it. What is certain is that his old
vans were running about half of the night, and would return in the
small hours of the morning laden with pheasants, partridges, hares,
rabbits etc. After a bail for man or beast and a checking of the
spoil, off would go a van load to Brighton Market, or Redhill, even
Croydon, sometimes calling at a market on the return journey, say
Steyning for instance, where Henry Coe would attend hoping to buy a
few diseased pigs or sheep. He would be a ready buyer for rubbish,
holding that poor class pigs, or even sheep of any age, made first
class pork sausages. He drew the line at horse flesh but would
quote Scripture to justify making human food from anything with a
cloven hoof, a clear sense of reading into a specification what he
intended to find. Had he read the instructions on the matter in
Numbers without prejudice, he might have found pigs, whether
diseased or whole, were barred!
The last time I saw Henry Coe with Jackson, the latter said,
“Henry, your hoss is a damn disgrace! Look at its ribs. Why don’t
you give him more to eat?” “Friend Jackson,” said Coe, “All my
hosses has plenty to eat, I do assure you. What’s the matter is
they don’t have time to eat it!” Henry died full of years,
respected in life, regretted in death. At his funeral, a Primitive
[Methodist] Minister referred to him as one of God’s saints who
never did not man harm; he didn’t mention his crocks of horses!
- [1] By 1891 Charles
Jackson was 53, plumber, widower, living with his daughter in Star
Rd. Horsham. (1891 English Census).
- [2] Edward Allcard was
a retired stockbroker, aged about 70, living at Wimblehurst with
his wife, unmarried daughter and at least four household servants
(1891 English Census).
- [3] William Churchman,
born about 1823, owned Ends Place, Warnham, to the northwest of
Horsham (1881 English Census).
- [4] In 1871 Colonel
John Aldridge succeeded his father Robert to a large estate in St.
Leonard’s Forest.
- [5] An unscrupulous
horse dealer.
- [6] Edward Bostock ,
born about 1843, was a GP living with his wife and children at 7
North Street, Horsham (1881 English Census).
- [7] Roffey is a
neighbourhood of Horsham, in the Horsham District of West Sussex,
England. With Littlehaven it constitutes part of the northern
suburb of the town, 1.8 miles (2.8km) northeast of the town
centre.
- [8] The English
Censuses of 1861-1901 show Henry as a farmer, living at Leach Pool
Farm (some 50 acres), Roffey, in what is now North Horsham.
Share this
page (third party services may set cookies)