About 30 years ago, I was out tatting (Collecting old rags and scrap)
why? what would you do with rags?
There used to be yards where you could sell old rags and woolens. You sold them by weight. The rag yards would only buy dry rags, because they weigh about 10 times heavier when they're wet.
One of my jobs as a little boy, was to help the women with the rags. First I would unload them by throwing them off the lorry into a big pile on the floor. I used to get told off all the time for stopping to search the pockets of likely looking items for overlooked coppers.
When all the rags were on the floor, we would set to and sort them into separate piles. I will list them here, cheapest first, according to value.
Man made fibres, coloured cotton, white cotton, coloured woollen, white woollen.
At this time, synthetic "Woollens" were just being introduced, and the people who bought your woolens used to check very carefully to see that you hadn't mixed any in with your proper woollens. We soon realised that if the man that did the checking didn't find any synthetics in your load, his boss would suspect that he wasn't doing his job properly, and to counter this he would pull out a few items of real wool. So we started deliberately adding a few synthetics for him to pull out.
Once all the rags were sorted and the women had examined everything to see if there was anything that any of us could wear, (We weren't at all embarrassed about this and would proudly say "Like my new trousers, I got em out of the rags") We would set about bagging them up. Of course, we didn't have proper bags. Back then most bags were made from hessian and were valuable in there own right, and you almost never saw a plastic bag, so we had to be inventive.
What we used to do was get a woman's ankle length coat, (These were put aside for the purpose) turn it upside down, and unpick the lining along the bottom hem. then you could open it up into a good sized bag shape. Once the "Bag" was filled with rags or woollens, we would use old nylon stockings to lace the hem back up. The finished article looked like a huge football with sleeves.
Finally, we would pile all these bales together and cover them with a tarpaulin. If you were a small boy, under the tarp amongst the rags became a den, a fort, or a private place to go and cry. Sometimes it became a bouncy castle, but not often, I've had many a good hiding for "Bustin the rags"
I remember when we used to weigh our rags in at Tommy Elvin's yard at Wath on Derne. The rags were put into a huge hydraulic bailing press and squashed into bales weighing about a ton each. Then they were stored in a vast shed. I would sometimes run amok in the rag shed. The rag man "Alf" was too old and slow to catch me, so I used to taunt him and then lead him a merry dance through the bales.
One day however, he hid behind a bail and grabbed me as I ran past. "Now I've got you, you little bastard" He said with an evil glint in his eye. "You're going in the bailing press, You'll never be seen again"
Of course, even I knew that he wouldn't but me in the bailing press, But he did. He pushed me inside onto a pie of rags, threw a few more rags on top of me, closed the big iron gate, and pressed the green button that started the motor.
I was terrified. I screamed for him to stop it, but he said he couldn't stop it once it had been started. I knew I was going to die.
He stopped it with plenty of time to spare and lifted me out. I was a quivering blubbering mess. I ran back to my dads lorry, jumped inside and closed the doors, rubbing my face with the inside of my jersey so that my dad (Who was in the metal shed selling the non-ferrous metals) wouldn't know I'd been crying when he came back.
I realise now that my dad, and everyone else already knew what had happened. It was of course, a put up job, designed to teach me a lesson. When my dad came back to the lorry I had just about managed to get my emotions under control, but when I looked in the wing mirror, my face was still red and streaky.
I followed my dad into the Little room where the great man himself, Tommy Elvin sat behind a desk. This was where you got paid. Tommy always did the paying personally. you would hand him a scrap of paper with all the weights written on it. Brass 3st 4lb. lead 6st 2lb, rags 7 cwt etc, and he would tot it all up using a pencil and a ready reckoner. Then he would open the desk draw, not a safe or a strongbox, just the desk draw and it would be filled with more money than I could imagine, all stacked neatly. £10 notes, Big Blue £5 notes, £1 notes, 10 bob notes. and then the silver, the brass threepenny bits, and the coppers.
Tommy counted out my dad's money and passed it to him along with the paper with the reckoning on. Then, before he closed the draw, he looked at me. His hand hovered over the coppers, and then over the threepenny bits, finally he grabbed a half crown and flipped it towards me, I caught it quickly.
"What does tha say?" He asked. "Er, can I have one of those 10 bob notes to wrap it up in?" I replied hopefully. "Tha can bugger off" He said. "Unless tha wants t' go back in't rag press!"
I didn't answer, I was already out the door and halfway down the street.
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