The History of the Northolme Estate 1939 – 1979

Steven Marshall

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of

BA (Hons) History

Supervision: Dr S. A. Caunce

HY3990

April 2014

Dedicated to

Helen Plummer

1941 - 2014

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the following people for their help in compiling this dissertation:

Dr Stephen Caunce, History Department, University of Central Lancashire, for his unwavering support and guidance; Earby and District Historical Society, for unlimited access to their archives; Bob Abel, Wendy Faulkner, Margaret Brown, Ken Ranson, Peter Dawson, Margaret Greenwood and Stephanie Carter. For their interviews, Helen Plummer, Brian Plummer, Roger Pickup, Patrick Murphy, Peter Stuttard, Ernest Newton and Robert Anderson, for their contributions great and small.

To Christine Hession for her endless support, encouragement and ability to proof-read, you truly have been a rock.

Finally to all the people of the Northolme Estate who played a major role in providing a history worthy of recording.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS, PICTURES AND MAPS 5

INTRODUCTION 6

EARBY AND ITS GROWTH 12

SHADOW FACTORIES IN THE EARBY AREA 15

A WORK FORCE ON THE MOVE 17

BUILDING THE RANCH 19

AFTER THE WAR 25

NORTHOLME ESTATE, A COMMUNITY CENTRED 33

CONCLUSION 37

APPENDIX 41

BIBLIOGRAPHY 44

Illustrations, pictures and maps

1 Google Road Map 2012 7

2 Old OS map of Earby. Map ref. HOSM44247 before 1939 9

3 OS Map of the Northolme Estate 1973 10

4 Taken from the 1974 town booklet * 11

5 Essential War Workers of Grove Mill, Earby * 18

6 Grade II Listed Phoenix prefabs in Wake Green Road, Birmingham 19

7 Airoh designed prefab and brochure 19

8 Construction drawings of prefabs, Peter Dawson and * 21

9 Earlsdon Ave from Warwick Drive 22

10 Prefabs (evening) on Warwick Drive (the Tops) 22

11 Northolme under construction. 22

12 69 Kenilworth Drive 22

13 Northolme from the South 22

14 The Garden on Churchill Ave 22

15 Northolme estate (1945) showing 168 prefabricated homes 23

16 The Arcon Five Standard 1945 Prefab Layout was based upon the Phoenix prefab Earby http://www.codnor.info/Needham_street.php 24

17 Original community building shown with extension on the front 33

18 Prefabricated Community Centre, Warwick Drive, late 1980s 36

19 Brick Built Centre on what was Churchill Ave, 2014 36

20 Map of the Ranch, 2014 36

*by Kind Permission of Earby and District Historical Society Archives

The History of the Northholme Estate 1939-1979

さEvery community needs an idea of itself in order to survive, a clear self-image that makes it possible to tell the difference between itself and other communitiesざ.1

INTRODUCTION

In 1941, the devastation of Coventry and other industrial centres by the German Luftwaffe, led to shado fatoies akig stategiall ipotat ites eig set up i appaetl safe aeas around the country. Rover tank production and Rolls Royce aircraft production, together with warehousing for vital supplies, were secretly located in the small Yorkshire/Lancashire border industrial town of Earby. This is the focus of this dissertation. Amongst other things, these factories led to the influx of a workforce from Coventry and the Midlands unlike anything seen in the area before, including many female workers making their contributions to the war effort. The dissertation will examine the effects that the arrival of the manufacture of armaments had on life in this town then and in ensuing decades and on its economic growth. The localised basis will provide a very tight focus, and allow great attention to detail, while taking into consideration the general historical context.2

The focus of the dissertation is the Northolme Estate, colloquiall ko as The ‘ah, which was created to house the outsides, o offcomeduns as the ee geeall ko in typical Yorkshire fashion. This paper will explore how the estate became a permanent part of Earby life, but has somehow retained its semi-detached status to the present day. This allows the dissertation to address a number of social issues that arose on this estate and exist to the present day. Most incomers left but some decided to stay; their reasons for staying, and for coming in the first place, will be investigated. The Northolme is particularly significant as one of

1 Rodney Castleden, The Element Encyclopedia of the Celts, Harper Collins 2012 London p xi 2 British shadow factories were a plan developed by the British Government to implement additional manufacturing capacity for the British aircraft industry, in the build-up to World War II. 6

the first prefabricated estates built in England and the views of tenants on such housing, then and subsequently, will also be examined.3

It will consider the historical reasons behind the estates construction which has played a pivotal role in the overall rate of Earbys growth in comparison to the growth rate of neighbouring

Earby

Fig 1 Google Road Map 2012

3 Developed by the Air Ministry under the internal project name of the Shadow Scheme, the project was created by Sir Kingsley Wood and headed by Herbert Austin.

towns such as Colne, Nelson and Burnley. It will attempt to link both the history of the area and the effects of governmental changes made during the war years of 1939-45.

Earby is a small town of 6,116 people (2014), (4,625 in 1938). Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire until 1974, it is now within the Borough of Pendle, Lancashire. Earby was an Urban District, however it is now classed as a small town, part of a very complex urban rural system within the mostly rural West Craven Area of Pendle. It is approximately five miles north of Colne, seven miles south-west of Skipton, and eleven miles north-east of Burnley. The parish had a population of 4,348 recorded in the 2001 census.4 On the south-eastern edge of the town, on a connecting road between the A56 and the B6383, one mile from the small village of Salterforth, lies a small housing development of semi-prefabricated Spooner-built council houses built in the mid 1950s - this housing estate, named by developers The Northolme Estate, is ool ko as The Ranch.5

Little has been written about this particular subject even though there have been papers based around prefabricated housing, shadow factories and the contributions of a female workforce.

It is hoped that The Histo of Nothole Estate, Earby 1939 – , ill provide some significant conclusions about prefabricated housing, social cohesion and social migration. This dissertation will consider differing aspects of Bitais pre-war housing and works policies; the decisions to incorporate prefabricated buildings as part of the pre-war rebuilding strategies; the effects on insular communities; and the social and cultural interactions as a consequence of housing policies adopted, with direct implications on the Northolme Estate. The following sources are therefore of some importance: Professor Peter Malpass has done much work on

4 "Parish headcount". Lancashire County Council. Retrieved 2009-01-10. 5 Post-war temporary prefabricated (prefab) houses were the major part of the delivery plan envisaged in March 1944 by wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill and legally outlined in the Housing (Temporary Accommodation) Act 1944, to address the United Kingdom's post–World War II housing shortage.

British Housing Policies from the 1940s to the present day which will be considered within the dissertation.

Fig 2 Old OS map of Earby before 1939. Map ref. HOSM44247

The History of Prefabricated Housing by Brenda Vale, looks in some detail at the architectural plans of post-war prefabricated housing policies adopted, which in turn give depth to the policies adopted by the British government in post-wa Bitai ad the oset of the Ne Jeusale perception to housing shortages immediately after the cessation of the Second World War. i

The dissertation will also consider in some detail the type of war-time production that was going on at the shadow factories secretly located in and around Earby with Rover Tank production and Rolls Royce aircraft production; and the influx of a female workforce to the area and the contributions they made to the war effort. Penny Summerfield gives a great insight into the mobilisation of young, single women during the early periods of the Second World War. They were taken from their loved ones in cities such as Barnsley, Doncaster and Sheffield, to a rural area, to share rooms and accommodation with complete strangers, while carrying out essential

war work.6 G. Bead Woods ook, Yorkshire Villages, gives an insight into the small village or town mentality of the populations of small rural communities in Yorkshire and the growth or lack of growth, of such villages.

Fig 3 OS Map of the Northolme Estate 1973

Earby was originally one of these villages. While the village of Earby has now grown into a small town, its overall social mentality seems to have become stagnant and failed to grow at the same rate as the towns physical boundaries. This gives some substance to the concept of Offcumden and the levels of discrimination that can often be directed at strangers from unknown places. It is still not uncommon to walk into a busy and rowdy pub in Earby to be met with complete silence and suspicious eyes.

6 Earby War Workers, Mrs. Williams, Cae Heald // Ea Ahies, Ms. Willias epeiees of eig a foed migrant worker during the Second World War.

The dissertation will consider the social changes and overriding effects on both the local community and on the people effectively drafted into this area from an inner city environment and how these changes, to such diversely opposing communities, have given rise to a possible unique form of discrimination, that has had a ripple effect upon the town for over seventy years, predominantly during the 1970s and 80s.

It is this discrimination and its historical context that will be the main focus of the dissertation, supported by the works of Norman Fairclough, C.E.M Joad, J Black and also Secord and Blakas ok on social psychology, with some insights into social cohesion. Earby and The Ranch are very distinctive, in that during the period of the Second World War, significant events were taking place within this small Yorkshire town that would subsequently have a greater impact on the social changes within the town and the nation for many years to follow.

Population since 1911

1911 Census … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … 6,032 1921 Census … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … 6,024 1931 Census … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … 5,522 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 4,625 ‘egista Geeals Estimate … … … … … … … … … 4,991 1951 Census … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … 5,348 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,210 1961 Census … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … 5,152 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,150 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,130 ‘egista Geeals Estimate … … … … … … … … … 5,110 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,100 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,030 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,010 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,010 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 5,010 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 4,990 1971 Census … … … … … … … … … … … … ... … … 4,816 ‘egista Geeals Estiate … … … … … … … … … 4,820

Fig 4 Taken from the 1974 town booklet By Kind Permission of Earby & District Historical Society 11

EARBY AND ITS GROWTH

Artifacts have been found, including hand tools and arrowheads in the fields near the Northolme Estate. The Earby area has been inhabited continuously since the Bronze Age and many Bronze Age.

However the greatest impacts upon the local community were the Danish and Norwegian Vikings. Earby is on the border between the two differing Norse invaders: Norwegian Vikings who invaded from the west after travelling around the north of Scotland and settling in the Wirral and the Danes, invading from the North Sea, via Jorvik which is now York. The town gets its name from its Viking heritage, as does the estate. The ae Noth Hole is thought to be of Norwegian origin, meaning the North Farmstead, or northerly farmstead, which gives some weight to the theory that the Vikings who settled in the Wirral and the Isle of Man were the area administrators, rather than the Danes from York who are believed to have administered the nearby towns of Skipton and Ingleton.

From this point very little seems to have happened until the emergence of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the Yorkshire and Lancashire cotton trades. Some large and small towns in the north of England developed and expanded in the 19th century following the Industrial Revolution; with the textile industry leading the way. The industrialisation of textiles spawned many other industries, such as engineering, chemicals, canals and railways which were developed to support the new textile factories. Earby also benefited from these advances in textile production and was not that dissimilar to the nearby town of Colne. Until 1770, Colne had apparently been a village of about 250 yards in any direction. A good deal of handloom weaving was going on and, stimulated by its long tradition as a market centre, Colne became sufficiently popular as a centre for the merchandising of woollens, and later cotton. There followed an influx of newcomers, largely from Craven and the West Riding of Yorkshire, as the 12

increase in wage-earning potential brought the poorer paid agricultural workers into the ever- growing urban areas; Earby at this time was no exception.7

Earby had been a sleepy backwater, reliant on farming augmented by cottage spinning and handloom weaving of wool. A sudden change, bringing a mix of entrepreneurial mill owners like the Bracewell family who were local land owners, builders and the influx of agricultural workers in search of better wages, increased the population and the size of the village, into a small town growing in many ways at the same rate as its neighbouring towns. In just two years, between 1907 and 1909, Earbys population had increased by 1,7808.

The first attempt at factory textile production is seen at the end of the 18th into the 19th centuries and stemmed from the demise of corn-milling in the area. The building of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal made it cheaper to bring flour in from areas of the country where it could be produced more economically; it also allowed building materials to be moved quickly and cheaply, influencing industrial growth.

The major development in Earby was the building of its first purpose-built textile mill by Christopher Bracewell in 1840, called the New Shed. The Bracewells expanded and some ten years later, Christopher Bracewell built Victoria Mill as a spinning and weaving factory.

The Bracewells were considered to be very hard task masters and Christopher Bracewell Junior, better known as the Master, virtually controlled Earby for a large part of the 19th century. The ol a to esape this fails control was to leave town and find work elsewhere and this is what people did. Many men would rise early and walk to Colne or Nelson for the better wages than be content with the low wages Bracewell paid, however the very poor did not always have the option because of mounting debts to the mill owners. This was not an uncommon occurrence considering the towns isolation from the main transport routes (which impacted on the cost of cotton production).

7 Spencer, Wilfred.M Ed (1968) Colne Parish Church Burial Register 1790-1812. Sankeys Pub, Nelson. 8 Carter, S. (2013). A brief history. In: E&DHS The Clatter of Clogs. Earby: Earby and District Historical Society. 13

By this time the railway had reached Earby, making it even easier to bring in building materials, such as slate and bricks and also raw cotton and conversely, take finished goods away. The population of Earby began to grow with the availailit of eploet at the Big Mill. Towards the 19th century the cotton industry locally went into overdrive, with new mills springing up.

Again, Earby was no exception and within a couple of decades Grove Mill, Albion Mill, Spring Mill, Brook Shed and an extension to Victoria Mill were built. The influx of people to work in these mills led to a building boom. Most of the terraced houses at the western side of the town were built. By 1907 there were seven mills running almost 7,000 looms; by 1914 there were sixteen cotton manufacturers in Earby; almost 9,000 looms. Earby had become a busy little self- contained town with textiles dominating not only industrial life but every aspect of social and daily life. Families such as the Bracewells and the introduction of steam powered factories, had transformed Earby from an agriculture subsistence village into a thriving industrial urban town. By the beginning of the 19th century, Earby had its own deep-seated community of working class weavers and cotton workers, many from rural communities.

Soon after the First World War, came the end of what was considered to be the Golden Age of Cotton; workers had gone off to fight in the trenches overseas; markets were lost, never to be recovered completely; the population of Earby began to fall as workers and their families moved away in search of better eploet. Despite attepts at diesifiatio, oe oe Eas textile companies closed down.9 Earby began to fall behind its neighbouring towns, such as Colne and Nelson; like its close neighbour Barnoldswick, its growth began to stagnate. This area, where the Pennine moors run into Craven sheep grazing country, while there seemed to be an abundance of water, was proving to be deficient for further industrial growth and the industrial terrain, its isolation and the lack of transport routes, effectively cut it away from the access enjoyed by the larger Lancashire towns.

9 Carter, S. (2013). A brief history. In: E&DHS The Clatter of Clogs. Earby: Earby and District Historical Society. 1-10. 14

SHADOW FACTORIES IN THE EARBY AREA

In 1941, with the devastation of Coventry and the emergence of shado fatoies10 making strategically important items being set up in apparently safe areas, Rover tank production and Rolls Royce aircraft production were secretly located in and around Earby. Among other things, this led to the influx of a workforce unlike anything seen in the area before, including many female workers making their contributions to the war effort.

By 1941, the Lend-Lease agreement reached with America eased the burden on Britains economy and the need to earn foreign currency through exports. The major contribution of the cotton industry to the war effort was through it contracting and subsequently releasing labour to fill the ranks of the armed forces and provide premises for the storage of munitions.11

Surplus mills were mothballed and productive capacity was reduced by 30-40%, enabling mills to become available for a variety of uses, but mainly as storage. This happened to Spring Mill and Grove Mill in Earby and others in many areas in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Earby was certainly not out of reach of the German Luftwaffe, in fact it would have been on, or very near, the flight path for raids on Manchester, Liverpool or even Bradford. It was believed however that Lancashire cotton and Yorkshire woollen towns, would not be subject to the same aerial bombardments that such cities as Manchester and Liverpool had to endure;12 that a rural location could provide some safety against any large scale aerial attack and would hopefully result in less collateral damage.

10 A shadow factory was a term given to dispersed manufacturing sites in times of war to reduce the risk of disruption due to enemy air-raids and often with the dual purpose of increasing manufacturing capacity. The shadow factories as the name implies, were replicas of the original factory, manufacturing the same products. Before World War Two, Britain had built many shadow factories. 11 Fowler (2003) p185. Pilkington (1947) p 82-83. And Dupree (1987) pp 2-4, 21, 47-49. Dupree,M.(ed) (1987), Lancashire and Whitehall: the diary of Sir Raymond Street,Vol1 1931-1939 and Vol 2 1939-1957. Manchester: Manchester University Press. pp2- 4, 21, 47-47. 12 Fowler (2003) p185. Pilkington (1947) p 82-83. And Dupree (1987) pp 2-4, 21, 47-49. Singleton (1947) p 84. 15

Many industrial premises were requisitioned during the war for the war effort – Earby had several mills and four were requisitioned. Spring Mill as a tobacco warehouse, part of Victoria Mill was used to store shell cases and Grove Mill and Sough Bridge Mill were placed in the hands of the Rover Company. The mill at Carleton-in-Craven was also requisitioned, as was Bankfield Mill in Barnoldswick, later to become the Rolls Royce factory.

Because of internal problems, (see Appendix note 1) production at Grove Mill at least was switched to making components for tank manufacture. A tank was brought to Earby to show the employees the finished article. Local historian Peter Dawson remembers the occasion well, the caterpillar tracks of the tank caused considerable damage to the pavements in Earby.

A WORK FORCE ON THE MOVE

Relocating a factory also meant relocating the work force and these people would need housing. At the start of the war there were many empty houses in Earby and the surrounding district, as many textile workers had left the area in search of work elsewhere. In January 1941, a Register of available local accommodation was drawn up and by March 1941 the local Billeting Officer reported that it was proposed to billet 1,500 transferred workers within the Earby District, expected in the early May. Meetings took place between the council clerk and surveyor with representatives of the Rover Company and the Air Ministry.

The Air Ministry proposed to requisition land at the top of Salterforth Lane for the purpose of erecting hutments to house employees of the Rover Company. The council approved the temporary erection of the proposed hutments for the period of the emergency. There is little evidence to substantiate the make of prefabricated housing that was used on the Northolme site, however extensive research has reduced it to just a small number of possibilities, one being the Unity Structure which was from a construction company based in Rickmansworth.13 Using a common single storey-level precast reinforced concrete panels, they produced various updated versions of their bungalow with twin-storey house variations. The Phoenix, designed by Laing and built by themselves as well as with partners McAlpine and Henry Boot, looked much like an AIROH14. Davies indicates that the AIROH house was designed to make use of spare capacity in the aircraft industry and was made in five factories scattered around the country. He further states it was that rare thing in the history of prefabricated houses: a truly mass-produced product, with a central front door, but was far less aesthetically pleasing.15 A two bedroom in- situ pre-formed design with steel frame, asbestos clad walls and an innovative roof of tubular steel poles with steel panels attached, the Phoenix prefabs cost £1,200, each constructed on site; the specially insulated version designed for use on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides cost

13 Rickmansworth is a small town in south-west Hertfordshire, England, situated approximately 20 miles (32 km) northwest of central London; this is in keeping with Peter Dawsons explanation of Pollards Construction being a London based company. 14 AIROH stands for Aircraft Industries Research Organisation on Housing 15 Davis, Colin. (2005) The prefabricated home, Reaktion Books Ltd London: pp197.

£2,000. In November 1941 Earby Urban District Council agreed to undertake on behalf of the Ministry of Aircraft Production, the management of the 176 married quarters in the process of erection. With official complaints coming from the local landowners and farmers, Earby had over three hundred workers billeted on a voluntary basis and saturation point had almost been reached according to records obtained from the Lancashire County Archives. Some four hundred evacuated children were also billeted with families in the area and compulsory accommodation plans would be put into operation if no more voluntary billets were forthcoming by February 1942. Fourteen married quarters had been completed and a considerable number were expected before the end of March. By then almost 568 persons, all transferred war workers, had been billeted in Earby creating the need to implement rapid housing.

In 1945 the Craven Herald reported a bid to get a reduction in rent and the Northolme Tenants Association threatened a rent strike. At a meeting chaired by Mr John OToole, it as esoled to withhold rent payments until a settlement with the Ministry of Supply and Aircraft Production was obtained. They gained a reduction of four shillings a week and the rent was reduced from twelve shillings to eight shillings.16 It was this type of solidarity that forged the cohesive nature of the Northolme community.

Fig 5 Essential War Workers of Grove Mill Earby By Kind Permission of Earby and District Historical Society Archives

16 "Shadow Scheme: Morris Motors Ltd". National Archives. Retrieved 2010-11-20. 18

BUILDING OF THE RANCH

Fig 6 Below now Grade II listed Phoenix prefabs in Wake Green Road, Birmingham

Fig 7 Airoh floor plan similar to the Phoenix prefab

The Ministry of Supply decided that temporary accommodation would be needed in Earby in the form of an estate of prefabricated houses. A total of one hundred and sixty eight prefabricated semi-detached bungalows were built, for a population of around five hundred adults and children. The Community Centre would probably have been built last, once the houses had been finished.

Peter Dawson recalls his memories from 1941 and his involvement in the building of the Northolme Estate. The following transcript is taken from an interview with Peter Dawson.

I was still at school when a start was made on what is now the Northolme Estate. Its official name was Earby Camp and all documentation, eg delivery notes were addressed accordingly; to others it was nicknamed The Holy City.

We used to go up Salterforth Lane to watch the huge earth-moving machines leveling the ground which became Warwick Drive. On part of the site there was a large depression which the earth-movers were filling by scraping soil off the higher ground into the hollow. We had never seen the likes of those enormous earth-movers which were towed by large track-laying tractors fitted with a bulldozer blade. I had no idea that I would be working there when I left school. In those days you normally finished school at the age of 14 and on the Friday we left, all the boys were told to report to the Labour Exchange in Earby. The following Monday we were given a ‘Green Card’ with a number and told to

report to the building site office at 7.30am. The firm given the contract to build the prefabs was Pollards, a London based company. At that time, anybody of working age was subject to the ‘Essential Working Order’. Under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act. The Minister of Labour, Ernest Bevin, had complete control over the labour force and the allocation of manpower. We had no choice in the matter. Each of the men and boys working on the site was given a lead disc with a number stamped on it. At the end of the working day (5.30pm) the disc was handed in and this was used as proof of your attendance at work. A time-keeper was employed instead of a clocking-on machine We worked on Saturday mornings to make up our 48-hour working week. For this, the wage was 30/- (£1.50p) for a 14 year old boy.

The whole site was like a scene from the Western Front of World War I. There were duck boards to walk on, but if you slipped off, you were knee deep in mud. I was told to report to the concrete gang; I would be wheeling barrow loads of concrete. They were very heavy and difficult to manoeuvre over the rough, soft ground the prefabs were built on. The concrete rafts were 60ft x 30ft and 6 inches deep and the concrete gang were on bonus work. They had to lay one of these bases a day. Once the concrete was set, the joiners and bricklayers moved on to start the construction of the house. I was later moved from that job to asbestos cutting.

Flat sheets made from asbestos-reinforced cement were delivered to the site in 8ft by 4ft sections, a quarter of an inch thick. The usual size sheets used in the construction were 8ft by 2ft (called standard sheets) which meant that the delivered sheets had to be cut into two equal pieces. The sheets were cut into sets sufficient for a pair of semi-detached prefabs and the ‘Heavy Gang’ moved a complete set onto a base ready for construction to begin. All the cutting was done outside, in all weathers. We made a shelter out of waste timber and old plywood. Tools used for the cutting were curved blades made from old files, these were bent to shape and hardened and made very sharp. The sheets were not cut all the way through but sufficiently deep to enable them to be snapped into two pieces; the edges produced were quite rough and had to be trimmed using a rasp to take off the rough edges.

No one was provided with any protective wear, not even a pair of gloves and our hands got very sore, probably due to the lime in the asbestos/cement mix. Some of the timbers used were treated on site with preservative. The lengths of wood were immersed in long metal tanks which were filled with a green rot- proofing liquid which I think was called Solignum, very much like today’s Cuprinol. This was delivered in 45 gallon drums. One of the big jobs which had to be done was the installation of all the services; water supply, gas, electricity, surface water drains and the biggest job, the laying of sewer pipes. 20

Fig 8 By Kind Permission of Peter Dawson and Earby and District Historical Society Archives

The main sewer ran down Salterforth Road, it had to be deep and it was stepped down. A mechanical digger was used to do most of the excavation and this ran down each side of the trench. The depth of the trench meant that the ground was unstable so the sides had to be shored up with timber. One day a man was working in the bottom of the trench when the timber supports gave way and he was buried alive as the sides collapsed inwards. It took a while for his work colleagues to dig him out and to get him to hospital in Colne. However it was too late, he died from his injuries.

When the houses were finished the internal floors were coated with Trinidad Lake Asphalt giving the bare floors a very black and shiny appearance and providing a damp proof layer. A porch was built over the door of each house which was inevitably used for storing prams, they were called ‘pram sheds’. In those days prams were quite large and would have taken up a lot of room inside the house. The porch also provided shelter, being on the top of a hill the houses were quite exposed to the elements. Skilled workers were very hard to find in the building trade as many had been called up into the forces and skilled men like joiners had to be brought out of retirement.

Fig 9 Earlsdon Ave from Warwick Drive Fig 10 Prefabs on Warwick Drive (the Tops)

Fig 11 Northolme under construction. Fig 12 69 Kenilworth Drive

Fig 13 Northolme from the South. Fig 14 The Garden on Churchill Ave

By Kind Permission of Earby and District Historical Society Archives

Every Tuesday I went with a man to Colne taking very large sacks to Riddihough’s sawmill, we went to fill the sacks with sawdust which was used as insulation material in the cavity of the prefab walls. I used to treat this as a day out and in winter months it felt warm in the sawmill.

Most of the roads on the estate were named after places in the Midlands where many of the workers came from. With names such as, Warwick Drive (City in Warwickshire); Mosley Avenue (suburb of Birmingham 2 miles south of city centre); Earlsdon Avenue (a district of Coventry); on the opposite side (South) of Salterforth Road were Kenilworth Drive (a town 9 km southwest of Coventry), Tyseley Grove (a district in the southern half of Birmingham), Chesford Avenue (Chesford Bridge is between Leamington Spa and Kenilworth). In my opinion the site for the estate was chosen to be handy for the shadow factories in Earby, Sough (Rover Co.) and Barnoldswick (Rolls Royce). In fact they would be within walking distance. Later on, some of the prefabs were used to house single women brought in from the Barnsley and Wombwell mining area of South Yorkshire. These houses were used as hostels and each house accommodated several girls, some were on Churchill Avenue and some on Earlsdon Avenue.

Peter Dawson

Fig 15 Northolme estate (1945) showing 168 prefabricated homes

Fig 16 The Arcon Five Standard 1945 Prefab. This Layout was based upon the Phoenix Prefab as built in 1941 on the Northolme Estate, Earby http://www.codnor.info/Needham_street.php

AFTER THE WAR

During the Second World War almost four million British homes had been destroyed or damaged and afterwards there was a major boom in council house construction.17 The bomb damage from the war only worsened the condition of Britain's housing stock, which was in poor condition before its outbreak. Before the war, many social housing projects were built, however the bomb damage meant that much greater progress had to be made with slum clearance projects. In cities like London, Coventry and Kingston-upon-Hull, which received particularly heavy bombing, the redevelopment schemes were often larger and more radical.

In the immediate post-war years and well into the 1950s, council house provision (See Appendix Note 2) was shaped by the New Towns Act 1946 and the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, of the 1945–51 Labour government. At the same time, this government introduced housing legislation that removed explicit references to housing for the working classes and introduced the oept of geeal eeds construction (ie that council housing should aim to fill the needs for a wide range of society). In particular, Aneurin Bevan, the Minister for Health and Housing, promoted a vision of new estates where "the working man, the doctor and the clergyman will live in close proximity to each other".

Many homes were typically semi-detached or in small terraces. A three-bedroom semi- detached council house was typically built on a square grid seven yards (21 feet (6.4 m)) on the side, with a maximum density of no more than 12 houses per acre (30 houses per hectare; around 337 m² or 403 sq. yd. per house), meaning that most houses had generous space around them. For many working-class people, this housing model provided their first experience of private indoor toilets, private bathrooms and hot running water. For tenants in England and Wales, it also usually provided the first experience of private garden space (usually front and

17 "United Kingdom" Section VII (History), J1 (World War II and Its Aftermath), J2 (Postwar Britain), MSN Encarta Online Encyclopedia, 2006. Archived 2009-10-31.

rear). The quality of these houses, and in particular the existence of small gardens in England and Wales, compared very favourably with social housing being built in Europe in this period.18

Towards the end of the 1950s the Conservative government began to re-direct the building pogae ak fo geeal eeds towards inner-city slum clearance. At the same time the rising influence of modernist architecture, the development of new construction techniques, such as system-building (a form of prefabrication), and a growing desire by many towns and cities to retain population (and thus prestige) within their own boundaries (rathe tha epot people to Ne Tos ad out of ouda peripheral estates) similar to the Northolme estate but on a larger scale, led to this model being abandoned in Britain's inner-city areas. The use of system-building methods, while essentially a speedy construction alternative, was later seen as possibly being a short-sighted, false economy, as many of the later houses are in a poor state of repair or already demolished. On many estates, older council houses, with their largely superior build quality, have outlived them.

Council tenants also faced problems of mobility, finding it hard to move from one property to another as their families grew or shrank, or to seek work. Despite the building, there was a constant demand for housig, ad aitig lists are maintained, with preference being given to those in greatest need. Malpass concluded that some evidence and reasons for a new interpretation of the housing-welfare state relationship in Britain. The main points were, first, that established ideas about housing and the post-war welfare state needed to be modified to take account of the evidence that housing was not just different from the other services, it was shaped by different forces.

Were these different forces evident at the time or did they manifest themselves in other forms based around the issues of relocating dispossessed workers; had the new post-war government

18 R. Burdett, T. Travers, D. Czischke, P. Rode and B. Moser, Density and Urban Neighbourhoods in London: Summary Report (Enterprise LSE Cities, 2004), pp. 13-14.

forgotten its responsibility to the thousands of workers lost in the rural backwaters; had the victory of 1945 whitewashed over the social issues that the war had given impetus to.

“In 1945 at the end of World War II, my dad was de-mobbed from the Royal Navy, he had been an aero-engine fitter on aircraft carriers. Shortly afterwards he got a job at Rolls-Royce in Barnoldswick and so, in April 1946, when I was six months old, we moved from Ashton-under-Lyne, near Manchester, to live in Earby. We lived firstly at 22 Warwick Drive with my aunt and uncles, who like my dad, had got jobs at Rolls-Royce, then we moved into a prefab at 16 Chesford Avenue on The Ranch.

The prefabs were constructed from asbestos sheeting with a corrugated roof, and were very basic; they had an asphalted floor, a black-leaded range in the kitchen and a small fireplace in the living room. My initial memory is of it being so cold. There were three bedrooms and a separate toilet and bathroom which for the times was quite posh. Each prefab had a large amount of garden on all three sides and many people grew their own vegetables.

Times were hard and nobody had very much money, so the house was very basically furnished. I can still visualise in the living room a table, peg rug, two chairs and a sideboard on which dad had a fish tank. Parents were strict in those days but we were given a lot more freedom than today’s parents would do. My bedroom consisted of a bed and a wicker basket in which I kept my worldly goods, clothes, toys and my treasured books.

A memory that still makes me laugh to this day was the whole school sat in the hall listening to a commentary on the radio about the eclipse of the sun. The internet tells me this was on Wednesday, the 30th June 1954.

One of my jobs was to go on my bogie and get a sack of coke from Victoria Mill, which used to stand across from what is now the bus station. Going there was a wonderful trip, going down the steep hill on my bogie and quite often crashing into the hedge that surrounded the field in front of North Holme farm. The trip back was quite different though. With a heavy bag of coke loaded onto the bogie and having to pull it up the very steep hill, it would take me ages.

When I was twelve I got a paper round with the newsagent which was part of the small buildings next to Doug Hornby’s barbers’ shop by the old railway crossing. The round included Kelbrook and Sough so I had to do it 27

on my bike and every Friday I was paid my wage of two shillings and sixpence.

There were no TV or computers in those days, all entertainment was self made, we would play out in the streets as late as we were allowed, the street lights would enable us to stay out and continue playing until the dreaded cry “time to come in now”. The games we played were endless: Marbles, Relieve “O”, kick-the-can, carts/bogies, hopscotch, telephones made from tin cans and string, etc.

My brother Les and I had a tent and we would go camping by the beck side in the fields at the back of the estate by the railway bridge. Not very waterproof, we spent many a wet night in it.

Summer time would be spent playing on the Bristol Tractors football field, two fields down from the estate towards Sough. Football and cricket matches, which could be fifteen or more a-side, were played for hours on end. The Dell, an old stone-quarry in the field at the rear of Kenilworth Drive, next to the railway line, was a favourite place to play hide and seek. Winter was spent sledging in the fields or skating down the ginnel path to the fields.

Being keen on football I first played for Salterforth primary school team against teams from schools in Barnoldswick. I then played for the estate junior team in the local league where games were played on Saturday mornings.” Ken Ranson

The prefab houses were uilt ith a liited life epeta fo the duration of the emergency ie for War time. When the war ended in 1945 it was obvious that it would be a considerable time before the country got back on its feet; soe food atioig didt ed util . The prefabs were therefore kept occupied.

The negotiations to transfer the prefabs were protracted (see Appendix Note 3) and the prefabs were becoming the worse for wear and some were unoccupied, being unfit for use. A Spooner design of timber framed construction was opted for with 2 or 3 bedrooms. In July 1951 – after five years of negotiations with government ministries and various planning authorities, the first sod was cut for the redevelopment of the estate. It was estimated that the building of 150

houses would take three years. It is these building that are now the predominant houses upon the estate today. In just sixteen years the prefabs had been replaced by two-storey semi- prefabricated homes and all that remains of the prefabs is the concrete foundations, scattered beneath and around the new estate. In essence the pre-Arcon Five prefabs had not really been up to the job; while they lived out their fifteen year life, many prefabs from the 1950s still survive today.

In 1952, The Craven Herald reported that of the first phase of 50 houses, only twelve had been occupied, a further 16 were under construction, of which ten were nearing completion. Progress had been painfully slow, caused not least by a lack of skilled workmen in the area. (Earby Archives)

Many factors began to affect Earby and the community: the collapse of demand that hit the world cotton industry in 1952-53 ensured the death of the now desolate and derelict mills that dominated Earby.19 While many people within the Earby community were being squeezed by the economic state of the nation and growing unemployment, there was still the need to develop new housing and local people only saw the development of housing in the Northolme area of town. Those offcumdens, who had both money and employment were now benefiting in the form of new purpose-built spacious homes; this perception that outsiders were receiving the best that the government and local councils could give, formed a deeply ingrained prejudice which, while it had always been there in the form of suspicion against outsiders, was now elevated to a new type of discrimination against anyone who lived upon the Estate. Armorides,20 who by this time had acquired Grove Mill, had a ring-fenced agreement with Earby Urban District Council to prioritise and provide homes for its growing work force. This led to a second influx of workers relocating from all over the north of England, Scotland and Ireland. The Northolme was primarily occupied by people from the Midlands, but now this growing community included Irish, Scottish, Northumbrians, Mancunians and Liverpudlians. A deep suspicion permeated every sector of the community, old and young alike; the perception was, if

19 Rose, Mary.B (1996) The Lancashire cotton industry since 1700, Lancashire County Books, p 140. 20 Aoides as duig the ,s the lagest eploe i Ea; based in Grove Mill it produced plastics for the automotive industry and the Ministry of Defence. 29

you live on The Ranch you were not one of us and if you are not one of us, you are not trusted, liked or even tolerated.

This was never more obvious than in the school yard as children from The Ranch were victimised and bullied at Springfield Infant and Alderhill Junior School. However children who attended Salterforth Junior School or St Josephs Roman Catholic School at Barnoldswick, did not encounter this attitude at such an early age, but did fall victim to it once they entered the centre of Earby or left the estate. The result was that during the early 1960s, most of the young children that lived on the Estate banded together and played together in large groups within the confines of the Estate boundaries and few children from Earby ventured further than the old railway crossing. Whenever these two opposing groups met, it invariably meant trouble and fighting. By the mid 1960s there were over one hundred young people of varying ages, between nine and nineteen, living upon The Ranch and gathering together for self preservation whenever they ventured from the Estate to play in the parks and open fields around Earby. This, coupled with the growing mistrust of even the adult residents, ensured the area gained a reputation for troublesome people and feral youngsters across the whole of the local area and as so often proved, epetig toule, auses toule. Throughout the sixties, seventies and early eighties, the Ranch was synonymous with trouble, bad debtors, drunken louts and bad parenting and the only way to rid oneself of this reputation was either to move away or deny your address.

“I was right good at cricket, I could have been professional who knows but I was good, but when I went to join Earby Cricket Club I was told “what you doing here you’re a Rancher, we don’t take Ranchers in this club.” I hated them for that; you don’t knock back kids with talent just because they come from a council estate”. Patrick Murphy

“I hung around with lads from the Ranch, it meant nothing to me where you’re from, hell we lived in a back-to-back behind the old Co-op, you cannot get more rundown than that. I was perceived as a trouble maker because I ran with the kids off the Ranch; even I could not get past the clique attitudes of the cricket club, I ended up playing for Thornton”. Roger Pickup

“We lived on Selbourn Terrace just off Red Lion Street, just over Keb Bridge, it was a dump; damp, wet, cold and prone to flooding every time the beck ran its banks. I had loads of mates when I lived down there but as soon as my mum moved onto the Ranch it was like I had the plague. I was bullied so bad mum moved me from Alderhill to Salterforth school. It was OK for a while but once I joined secondary school and was back in the mix with all the kids from Earby, it all started again; I finished up moving in with my Grandma in Carshalton, Surrey”. Robert Anderson

“My mum moved to Nelson because I could not go out without some kid picking a fight with me. If they did, I didn’t run, I just punched their lights out. Problem was the next thing that happened was the local bobby knocking on the door. It didn’t matter whether I beat up one, two or more, I was always considered to be the protagonist. Mum just got sick of it and moved to Nelson nearer her job”. Peter Stuttart

“My dad captained Earby Football Club for fifteen years, was well known and respected, half the town filled All Saints Church the day of his funeral. He would have turned in his grave if he had known I was turned away from the team for being a Rancher; bloody hell I had played three seasons as a semi-professional, I even played against Leeds United, but I was always considered to be a Rancher and Ranchers were just not good enough for their team”. Steven Marshall

“The youth club was the old community centre, which later became an egg packing station It looked like a ranch house and gave the estate its nickname.” Ken Ranson

“I lived on the Ranch from 1980, until 1998 when I flew the nest. My memories there will never be matched, in particular reference to 'tuthersiders', we competed against the 'otherside'; we played them at football on the front park and we played them at hare and hounds where the entire Ranch was the boundary. They were amazing games, very competitive and often ended in a punch up or a fall out, all forgotten the following day because we were Ranchers”. Glenn Evans 21

21 Taken from the Earby Ranch website and accessed on 2012.8.15 15.38 22 Cohen. Stanley, Folk Deils ad Moal Pai, Chapte oe Deiae ad Moal Pai ‘outledge : Aigdo. p36-41. 23 Feldman. C.J, (2009) We are the Mods (A transitional history of a sub-culture), Peter Lang Publishing: New York pp15

“I moved to the Estate in the nineteen sixties and have now lived here almost fifty years, I am only just starting to feel apart of the town, I suppose it’s because I never lost me Geordie accent, I think they are getting used to me now, Oh but I still get some canny looks from some of the locals, their not keen on us Ranchers are they? Hey but when have I ever cared what people though. If they don’t like it well they know what they can dee.” Helen Plummer

Cohen would suggest that one of the most recurrent types of moral panic in Britain since the Second World War, has been the emergence of youth culture,22 exclusively working-class, cultures associated with violence, Mods, Rockers and Skinheads.23 Feldmans perception was this grew from the eradication of National Service, giving youths more leisure time. While many of the youths on the Ranch associated themselves with all the aforementioned groups, their association with the estate was greater, and one would find Mods, Rockers and Skinheads, even Teddy boys, grouped together in many a skirmish against any non-Ranch protagonist group; while musical tastes and fashion differed, the need for overall self-protection and community identity would always prevail.24

NORTHOLME ESTATE, A COMMUNITY CENTRED

Not everyone was happy to stay in the rural backwaters and, as Malpass indicated previously, many people felt left behind and deserted by the government. Many people returned to their native Midlands, though some decided to stay within the industry now established within the Earby and Barnoldswick area. However some were adamant that this peaceful rural backwater was the last place they wished to be.

Fig 17 Original community centre building shown with extension on the front

The original community centre was a very large semi-prefabricated building, complete with a bar, small stage, snooker tables and one room at the end which was used as a library that would double on Saturdays as a cinema; however the Community Centre did not stay open for long. (See Appendix Note 4)

Paets o Eas Nothole Estate ated the chance to turn a derelict building on the estate into a new community centre and they were prepared to be fully self-supporting with no financial assistance from Pendle Council. (See Appendix Note 5)

The NPA (Northolme Parents Association) was disbanded after the failure to secure a community centre. A later association (the NRA), The Northolme Residents Association were

successful in securing a community centre. The old centre was demolished due to renovation costs and a new prefabricated centre was oe agai eeted upo The ‘ah.

The Northolme Residents Association aim was to increase the quality of life for long-term residents. They wanted to make the estate more attractive to people wishing to buy houses from residents who had taken advantage of the Right to Buy option, to reduce crime, anti-social behavior and the negative perceptions and to increase facilities for the residents and tenants.

When Earby Urban District Council handed over administration to Pendle Borough Council, many viewed this as an equally negative situation. The standing joke being that if one was evicted from Colne or Nelson, then the punishment was being sent to The Ranch, a place with no facilities and limited transportation, away from the hustle and bustle of life in larger towns. This mix of anti-social families, mixed with the offcumdens, increased the perception of negativity. As a result, the Northolme estate was seen as run-down, with high crime and anti- social behavior.

Pendle Council reneged upon their original plan to replace the portacabin centre with a purpose-built centre similar to the centre provided on the Glenroy estate in Colne. This resulted in many of the NRA founding members stepping back from a predominantly council-controlled residents association run by a few elderly pensioners, who in the view of the younger set were unwilling to fight for any rights. This resulted in the land that is now White Leys and Craven Court and also the area once known as The Dip, being sold to developers. This apathy effectively killed the militant attitude of the residents and, to some extent, the community spirit that had been so prevalent since 1943. There are two camps of thought: thee ae the people ho sa I lie o the ‘ah ho eae the ahieeets of the esidets oe the deades, who carry the label with an element of militant pride; and the people who wish not to be associated with the egatie ootatios of the ‘ah ad state We lie i Nothole. Whichever camp one decides to settle into, the history of the estate can never be rewritten. Without the aspirations of both camps, the opportunities of reviving the community spirit will always be a difficult

challenge. The development of the new houses brought with it new people and a new lease of life to a failing social community; more needs to e doe to esue that The ‘ah does not slip back into the old negative perceptions. People who have lived on the estate for many years are still passionate about how life was, also the new residents claim that life is better; the area is safer for children; and the quality of life good. It can be said that the Northolme Residents Association has had a resounding positive influence on the lives of the many residents of the estate; the question on the lips of many natives of The Ranch is, can it last?

The NRA was always seen as a militant group against the local authority, succeeding with campaigns such as dropped kerbs; traffic calming measures and cyclic maintenance schemes; these ensured that not only was the quality of social life enhanced, but also that the housing stock was improved to the national standards for council houses. It was part of the consultation process that has now seen the introduction of the Tenants Contracts and was instrumental in gaining two safe play areas for children. Not only did the NRA look after its own community, its members instigated and formed the (PTF) Pendle Tenants Federation and supported other residents associations in Pendle to gain the same quality of service from Pendle Borough Couil. Its othl eslette The ‘ah ‘ag informed its members of all activities ongoing and throughout Pendle, it supported applications for help with council issues and was instrumental in introducing a monthly Citizens Advice Bureau page, which later became a weekly drop-in service with the local CAB. This became the blue print for other residents associations newsletters, not only in Pendle but further afield, as copies were distributed to family members or ex-residents that lived away.

The Northolme Estate o as it is ette ko The ‘ah as alas see as synonymous with negative connotations. This was perceived to be because it was first occupied by people from city environments thrust into a rural backwater; as today, the two extremes never seem to find a common ground. The influx of offcumdens was met with suspicion and caution. History tells us that strange people from strange places have always been viewed in the same way and so the lael ‘ahe stuk. This i of ulti-diverse city dwellers never really became accepted into 35

the local community. Therefore as a result the Ranch became an insular community. The same community spirit that had survived throughout the war and the past five decades was high and proactive, crime and anti-social behaviour was on the decline; people began to want to live on The Ranch or at least live in the Northolme area of Earby.

Fig 18 Prefabricated Community Centre, Warwick Fig 19 Brick Built Centre on what was Churchill Drive, late 1980s Ave, 2014

Fig 20 The Northolme Estate as it is today (2014) By kind permission of Pendle Borough Council

CONCLUSION

The years 1939 to 1979 were significant in the history of the Northolme estate; its origins as an open meadow, compulsarily purchased by the Air Ministry at a time of national upheaval which angered the local farmer and so angered his neighbours and workers; to all intents and purposes it was the loss of good agricultural land at a time when the government were increasing land use to feed the nation. However national security was paramount and the production of essential war supplies took priority. The introduction of outside workers from Coventry and the Midlands, even female munitions workers from cities in south Yorkshire, only exacerbated the ongoing concern many Earby folks had at that time. Localised doorstep employment was affected to some extent.

Predominately it was the arrival of such city folk with city attitudes that fuelled the discontent of the local small town residents, who in most cases were unreceptive to strangers with city expectations. To the same degree, these city folk with their city life styles, were thrust into a rural backwater with little of the transport and facilities they were used to.

Away from their extended families, and the perpetual bombing raids on our industrial heartland, these accumulated problems and the constant stresses that war time brings, manifested itself into a divided community rather than a supportive and responsive community pulling together for the greater good. While there was seldom any open hostility, other than towards the common enemy, there was an underlying mistrust of people that were not of ones ilk.

When the hostilities ended, many returned to their home cities, some stayed by choice and some by necessity. The prefabricated houses of the Northolme Estate that had proved to be 37

freezing in winter and hot in summer, slowly began to deteriorate and proved wholly inadequate for the growing families that lived there. The introduction in 1952 of the overall plan to replace the asbestos-cement hutments with purpose-built semi-prefabricated two-storey Spooner housing was great news for the tenants who would be re-housed as each new set of council houses were completed. This however did not sit well with the locals who had also suffered alongside these offcumdens, with similar stresses, concerns and losses, only to find that the priority for this new housing was to go to the people that were already resident upon the Estate; while this would seem to be the logical progression in times of hardship, logical thought can often be misplaced.

This misplaced logic fuelled the mistrust and the insular conditions between the born and bred locals and the introduced offcumdens. The Ranch was seen as a rough place with rough people; the introduction of prioritised workers from Newcastle, Scotland and Ireland in the 1960s perpetuated the belief that everyone on the estate was bad, rough and not to be trusted. The ae ‘ahe eae snonymous with criminality, anti-social behaviour, women of ill- repute or less than respectful morals and wild feral children.

To some extent this was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. The discrimination young children experienced in the school yard ensured that the majority of youngsters banded together and therefore were often seen as a gang of kids or thugs; dependent upon the age of the group, and like most children who will often push barriers, mischief and unacceptable behaviour was not uncommon.

The interviews carried out showed predominantly the frustration youngsters felt. While the words of Mr Ranson did not indicate any form of discrimination or prejudice just after the War and the experiences of Mr Dawson were only of the construction, the people interviewed that were born in the mid-fifties and early-sixties, show that by that time, a deep-seated resentment toads Ranchers was ever present. This in turn was reflected back towards the people of Earby by the youth of the Ranch.

From 1939 to the end of the war in 1945, life on the Ranch was taken up with work and the job of surviving and winning the war; everyone was in the same boat and too busy to take general dislikes and discrimination to heart. However the end of hostilities and National Service brought about a different attitude. Aeui Beas concept that "the working man, the doctor and the clergyman will live in close proximity to each other" had for most of the working class in Ea failed to ateialize ad Cohes suggestion for moral panic and the emergence of a youth culture of working-class feral gangs, was prevalent within the boundaries of such a small town.

The Ranch therefore was often seen as the diseased part of a rundown, stagnant town with its mix of Irish, Geordie and Scottish kids; the virus amongst the good clean folk of this idyllic rural Shangri-la. While this was a vision obviously seen through the rose-coloured glasses of small minded and blinkered folk, it was sufficient to take a hold and fester. Curtis perception of one in three men under thirty having a criminal record was not wasted in the demographics of the Estate. As Roger Pickup states on page thirty, running with the kids from The Ranch tarred them with the same brush. It was easy to identify Ranch kids, they were seen as the great unwashed, and they looked and sounded different. In fact, many were accused of trouble just because there were no identifiable youths amongst the group; therefore logic meant that it must be kids from The Ranch.

By the mid seventies, residents upon the estate began to see the pattern that was emerging; long-term residents were now getting drawn into the new anti-social groups that were being sent from Nelson and Colne by Pendle Housing. At this point, what was an informal support mechanism changed into a more formal and political movement, with the aim of cleaning up the estate. This was in effect, the birth of the now established Northolme Residents Association.

For a brief period, the deep-rooted sense of community cohesion began to rise and bring together the community spirit that had seen the tenants and the country through the war years. The Northolme Estate, Earby is in many ways no different from any other council estate in the country, it is undoubtedly the people that make the community and it is the community that

enhances the area. As Castleden so eloquently puts it Every community needs an idea of itself in order to survive, a clear self-image that makes it possible to tell the difference between itself and other communities. The Northolme Estate has a history full of interest and intrigue; it is multi-faceted and multi-cultural with a multitude of people that have moulded The Ranch into an identity that is recognizable to most communities within close proximity. The Ranch is the community that set itself a challenge as far back as the s and has successfully maintained a blatant difference between itself and the neighboring communities. Throughout the 1990s The Ranch set the standard for community cohesion within the Pendle district and still leads the way in maintaining its pride in both its origins and its relationship with the local population of Earby. The Ranch is no a itegal pat of Eas history and identity and while most people will struggle to direct anyone to locations in Earby such as Aspen Lane or Southfield Terrace everyone knows the areas and street names on the Ranch, Kenilworth, Warwick, Morsley, and Earlsdon still stand out as prominently as the old concept of offcumdens ever did. While differing accents are now commonplace the people of the Ranch are now accepted members of the greater Earby community and bring richness to the cultural diversity that makes up the population of a small semi-urban rural town.

APPENDIX

Appendix Note 1

Muh of ‘oes a aufatuig apait as diverted to aircraft production. The Rover Copa as aaded a otat to deelop ad aufatue “i Fak Whittles e jet engine design. In 1941 Rover set up a new laboratory for Whittle's team along with a production line at their unused Barnoldswick factory, but by late 1941 it was obvious that the arrangement between Whittle and Rover was not working. Whittle was frustrated by Rover's inability to deliver production-quality parts, as well as with their attitude of engineering superiority and became increasingly outspoken about the problems. The trouble between Rover and Whittle eae a puli seet ad late i ‘oe ad ‘olls ‘oe did a ehage deal. ‘oe decided to trade the jet factory at Barnoldswick for Rolls-Royce's tank engine factory in Nottingham.

Appendix Note 2

A council house, otherwise known as a local authority house, normally part of a council estate, is a form of public or social housing. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well- built homes on secure tenancies at reasonable rents to primarily working-class people. Council house development began in the late 19th century and peaked in the mid-20th century, at which tie ouil housig iluded a lage suua ouil estates.25

Since 1979, the role of council housing has been reduced by the introduction of Right to Buy legislation, and a change of emphasis to the development of new social housing by housing associations. Nonetheless, a substantial part of the UK population still lives in council housing. In aout % of UK households lied i soial housig. Appoiatel % of the outs social housing stock is owned by local authorities (of which 15% is managed on a day-to-day basis by arm's length management organisations, rather than the authority and 45% by housing associations).26

25 Hollow, Matthew (2011). "Suburban Ideals on England's Interwar Council Estates". Retrieved 2012-12-29.

26 Jump up Cowan, David (2009), "Trust, Distrust and Betrayal", MLR 72 (2): 157–181 41

Appendix Note 3

Negotiations for transfer of the estate from the Ministry of Works to the Earby UDC were started in 1947 and it was not until 1950 that they were concluded. In a House of Commons debate of 19th July 1950, the local MP, Mr George Drayson, asked the Minister of Works – if he will give the date when he expects to transfer the Northolme estate to the Earby Urban District Couil.

Mr Richard Stokes (The Minister) replied – Negotiatios fo the sale of the Nothole estate to the Earby Urban District Council are not yet complete, but I hope it will be possible for the estate to e tasfeed to the ouil i Noee of this ea. Ea Ahies)

By April 1950 the Council resolved that the prefabs be demolished and because of the need to complete the project quickly, o-traditional-tpe delligs ould e eeted ad that a complete survey of the estate be carried out to ascertain bedroom requirements for the tenants to decide which type of dwelling would be appropriate.

Appendix Note 4

An advert in the Craven Herald dated October 1952 states in describing the Northolme Community Centre, it was Oe the ete of soial atiit ...

The building lay empty, apart from the library, for some while until a group of youngsters helped by a man called Walter (Wally) Thornton ‘did it up’ in 1957; cleaned and painted it and started a Youth club; mothers would take it in turn to supervise. The youth club attracted youths from the town and also Barnoldswick. There were generic club facilities until it closed in about 1960. In 1961 Dalesfarm Eggs Ltd took over the lease for use as an egg packing station. It was at this time the extension of a loading bay to the front of the building was built. After the egg packing station closed, Pendle Borough council used it as a paper baling unit. Ken Ranson

Appendix Note 5

Mees of Nothole Paets Assoiatio NPA et to Tuesdas eetig of the Development Services Committee (DSC) where it was then decided that the plans sub- committee hold a site meeting with parents at the former egg packing station which is now owned by the council.

The Association wants to pay rent and transform the building, currently used by the council for storing vehicles, into its own community centre that will incorporate a youth club and mothers and toddlers group. Each member of the Association is prepared to offer their own skills and among the group is a plumber, a joiner and an electrician. The Association was formed primarily to arrange a Christmas party for the children on the estate and around 40 families are involved. Already around £200 had been raised in the past few weeks but members realise that a lot more money will be needed. In a letter asking local councillors for support, secretary, Mrs Sue Dwyer, said that the estate was rather isolated from the rest of Earby. The Association plans to run a mothers and toddlers group from within the building and a youth club on alternate nights to the established one in Earby. Also the centre would be aailale fo othe futios as the aea euies she sas. Barnoldswick and Earby Times, 4th Dec 1981

Wartime planning for post-war housing in Britain: the Whitehall debate 1941-45 the journal Planning Perspectives Vol 18.Issue 2 2003 by Peter Malpass. 2 Brenda Vale. Prefabs A history of the UK temporary housing program, Pub Chapman and Hall 1995.

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