Biography, Autobiography, Old Steve of Scarborough, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom

1. So I became an Apprentice Cabinet Maker to one of the highest-class house furnishers in Bradford. My mother was pleased as the firm was considered to be one of only two that boasted a quality of product second to none.

2. I found the place in an area of Bradford I had never visited before and did not even know existed and ended up with a daily journey, by bus, of six miles and then a walk of nearly half a mile, in all weathers, on top of that. I could have gone by bus in to the town centre of Bradford and then got a second bus to the outskirts but that took time and was expensive. So on a wage of two pounds and ten shillings a week (£2-50) and where my mother took half and I paid my bus fares and bought my own dinners and paid my other expenses out of the other half there was little left, but I managed.

3. The 'Old Man', the senior member of the family business, who took me on and with whom I signed my articles of apprenticeship, was a strange old 'coot' and I never got on with him and even at sixteen was scared of him. After having told me that I would be apprenticed to the firm for seven years and be expected to take and get, my City and Guilds qualification in Cabinet Making, Furniture Design and Manufacture, Theoretical and Practical, during that time and which could be achieved in five years if one regularly attended the local Technical Collage three nights a week. City and Guilds meant something, in those days and where the Technical Collage was, is now Bradford University. A far cry from something I heard recently where a young fellow told me he had attended a collage one day a week for six weeks and had obtained a City of Guilds in House Wiring (Domestic Electrical) and was now a qualified electrician and was looking for a job that would pay in excess of ten pounds per hour. At least I went for five years and can claim, tongue in cheek, that I went to Bradford University. Many years later I took an exam at Leeds University so by the same token can I claim that I went to Leeds University also? If so then I also want to add Hull University and Grimsby and Huddersfield Polytechnics and several others that I don't want to bore you with, where I took courses, some quite intensive, and sat and passed exams.

4. But on the subject of money, I also paid my own bus fares to and from Technical College, three nights a week, out of my half of my wages. One of the skilled men I was apprenticed to, Dennis, kindly gave me a Drawing Board and a set of Drawing Instruments and it is only recently when my circumstances changed dramatically that I had to part with them, so much did that gesture of kindness mean. He was a kind man and had infinite patience with me and genuinely cared that I should learn my craft. As for my tools, the 'Old Man' delegated his son, also an elderly person to me, to take me into town and purchase a tool kit. When he asked me if I had any money I had no option but to tell the truth and say no and that hurt. When he enquired if I could get any, before have any hassle at home, I again said no. The firm loaned me twelve pounds for which I got a basic tool kit and had to pay it back at the rate of two shillings and sixpence (12 1/2p) per week, deducted out of my wages. There was nothing left for anything else after that and so my mother, reluctantly, agreed to have the twelve and a half pence deducted from her share and my father begrudgingly and very much to my surprise, threw in five pounds to spend on additional tools. After that he never showed interest in my progress at work or at college, yet he and my mother readily accepted anything that I made and took home and my mother was particularly proud to boast that she had hand made furniture and there was hell on when I started making it for my future wife. We still have most of ours; I wonder what happened to the rest?

5. One of the first things I was shown and instructed on, was how to make a toolbox and to this day, some fifty years on, I still have that same toolbox and most of my original tools.

6. My early apprenticeship was good. I was, of course, the dog's body and ran all the errands and was sent out on the delivery van and to help lay carpets and hang curtains. It got me into some of the finest houses in and around Bradford and I think I can still tell you how to get a Grand Piano up a staircase without scratching it.

There were three other apprentices, an Upholsterer, a French Polisher and a Carpet Layer and we all got on well. Having started out rather shy and saying little, the people I worked with built my confidence and going into all the private houses and having to communicate with those people and seeing for myself just how the other half lived certainly opened my eyes and made me realise that what I had amounted to very little, although I never became over ambitious or materially orientated.

7. I was expected and did, work overtime for no extra pay and was a regular attendee at college and although I didn't find it easy I stuck doggedly at it, as I have most things in my life, and it all eventually fell into place. The 'Old Man', when he retired, said he had had many apprentices yet believed that by the time I was finished I would be one of the best. I hope he was not just being patronising for it meant a lot to me at the time.

8. Anyhow, as with much of my life, things didn't work out. The Old Man retired and his son and grandson took over the business and they had plans and designs on expanding the showrooms and retail side of the business and let the manufacturing side decline. For the first time in the long history of the firm they introduced credit trading. Most of the tradesmen left and they transferred a Carpet Fitter, a French Polisher and a Curtain Maker to the showroom section. Most of the large workshops and machine shops were split up and rented out to other trades. The French Polisher apprentice was found a job elsewhere and his articles transferred. One upholsterer kept on his own apprentice and for doing so was allowed to rent a section of the workshops at a vastly reduced rent. The foreman, for similar terms, agreed to take me and so a small workshop was created at the end of the machine shop on the ground floor. Most of our work still came from the 'old firm' and therefore quality and standards were maintained. The foreman, who was now the 'Boss', was very good to me. He was a good, kind generous man and it hit me hard when he died tragically, years later, in a car accident. He showed me an affection that I had never known and we remained good friends for many years and he was a superb craftsman and I hope I can say that between us we built and repaired some beautiful furniture along with hand carved coffins that today would cost many thousands of pounds and there are quite a few public buildings and churches where our work can still be seen.

9. At this time National Service was still on the go and everyone, fit enough, had to give, at age eighteen, three years in the armed service for King and Country and shortly after for Queen and Country. Articled apprentices, however, after much form filling in were allowed deferment. This was supposed to have a two-pronged effect. It allowed apprentices to become skilled, with only their 'improver' to finish and it made available to the services skilled men, which was a bit of a laugh, as I found out later, when I realised that the policy of the armed services was to train everyone their way and therefore once in, you were allocated to and trained for something entirely different. Anyhow I was deferred until the nearest intake to my twenty-first birthday and that happened to fall at exactly twenty and a half. So off I went with still two years improver to complete and my finals for my City and Guilds still to be taken. The good thing about it was that while on deferment they reduced the length of time for National Service down from three years to two. At that time I think I was earning around seven pounds a week and my mother was still taking half. That was to be the last, in terms of wages, she ever saw from me.

10. I should say that before reporting for my National Service I had continued with my running, cut off my finger and thumb and got one hundred and forty pounds compensation for it, had taken up Ballroom Dancing, independently of my parents, learnt and became a Cinema Projectionist in my spare time, had many girl friends, went climbing and camping and had met the girl who would become my wife and who still claims I married her for her mothers money and never got over the fact that she had none. While my younger sister claims that she married me because she was frightened of being 'left on the shelf.' But large sections of my private life I shall, from now on, either miss-out or skirt round for I feel it would be grossly unfair and an imposition on their privacy to include or name people with whom I either still am or have been closely associated with. No doubt some wouldn't mind while others might, so the best policy is to play safe and not name any. I am sure everyone will understand. But despite that there is one person worthy of a mention. On the Friday that I finished at work to go do my National Service my 'Boss's' mother, a frail old lady, walked some considerable distance to come in and give me two shillings (10p) and a bar of Kit-Kat and make me promise to look after myself. A few years later when I found out she had passed away I went and in my own time, made, for that dear lady, the finest coffin I have ever made and to the undertakers annoyance would not let him take it away until I had finished all the decoration. I had made coffins where cost and expense meant nothing and that lady deserved all that and more and I tried to give it her. I was sorry she was not there to see it.

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