CRICH PARISH

Crich, Fritchley, Whatstandwell, Bullbridge, Crich Carr, Coddington, Wheatcroft, Wakebridge

Stanley Arthur Bartlett MM

Gunner

Photos courtesy Ruth Barlett

Medal index card
He was awarded the Victory, British War and the Military Medal.

Notes
Stanley Bartlett worked in the warehouse of Lea Mills and he joined the army on 12th November 1915.
Lea Mills records show he was a Signaller with C Coy at H.Q, 223 Brigade. RFA (Royal Field Artillery) BEF France.
According to the Dethick Lea and Holloway Parish magazine he sailed for France in July 1916.

Letter to J.B. Marsden-Smedley

No 608341
K Bty RHA, Hut 7. E Lincs
Bulford Camp, Salisbury
29/9/18
To J B and A S Marsden-Smedley Esq
Dear Sirs
Just a few lines to thank you for the very good parcel I received just over a week ago. I should have thanked you before, but I have been over on leave for a few days & hoped to have been able to thank you personally but I was not so fortunate. I enjoyed the contents of the parcel very much & am very thankful to think that the men who have gone from Lea Mills are still remembered. I walked through the mill while on leave & I thought how nice it would be to be back again & the war over but I hope that time will not be so very far ahead. I am going through another course of my signalling at present & expect to remain in England for a few more months. It is nice to be here in safety after being so long in France & more especially to be able to get home occasionally & I hope to get another leave or two before going out again. I will close wishing the firm the best of luck & again thanking you.
I remain
Yours respectfully
S Bartlett

No 608341 Alld HQ
223 BDE RFA  BEF
30.12.17
Dear Sirs,
Thank you very much for the excellent Christmas present I received a few days ago. The underclothes will come in very useful for the weather of the last three weeks has been bitterly cold, real Xmas weather. We have not had such a jolly Xmas this year as last owing to the fact that we are on the march so could not very well make any preparations but we had about 6 days mail on Xmas Eve so that made things much more cheerful. I am pleased to say we are settled down again now & have fairly good billets so hope to remain here for a time. We have had plenty of snow & frost lately, its better than mud but it makes travelling very difficult, we were delayed several days by it on the march. I cannot say more, so will close again thanking you & wishing you a happy prosperous New Year,
From yours respectfully
S Bartlett
[ABOVE SIGNED ALSO BY S FAIRFAX ?BLAKCHOUGH –POSSIBLY THE C/O OR THE CENSOR???]

No 1093 C Bty
223 Bde RFA
BEF
31.12.16
Dear Sirs,
I am writing this to thank you for the very nice Christmas parcel which I received from you on Dec 28th & also for the parcel of underclothing which I received on the same date. It is very good of you to think of us out here & I greatly appreciate your kindness. Both parcels arrived in good condition & I enjoyed the contents very much. We had a good Christmas here, much better than I had expected having. The Officers gave us a gramaphone entertainment in the evening of Xmas Day & we had all kinds of refreshments etc & altogether enjoyed ourselves very much. We have been out of action for the last month [SIX WORDS BLOCKED OUT HERE] We have had a very good time while we have been out, football & rugby games most afternoons & indoor games for the evenings. We can also get passes to one or two nice towns near so can spend an enjoyable afternoon there sometimes. I will close, thanking you again for the parcels & wishing you both a Happy New Year.
From yours respectfully
S Bartlett

No 1093. C Bty 223rd Bde RFA
BEF
c/o GPO London
6/ 11/ 16
Dear Sir, I received your letter dated 23rd October on 4th Nov. I hope by now you will have received my letter thanking you for the parcel, the contents of which I enjoyed very much & which I must say were very well chosen. I am keeping well & fit & as happy as anyone can be out here I think. I share a dug-out with four others & we are making it quite comfortable. Its allright so long as the wind is the right way otherwise we get smoked out. The weather has been very showery this last day or two but the wind has dried the mud a lot, so it is a little better getting about. When we first came here it was mud everywhere we were almost eating it. I believe I told you in my last letter we were in a very wild spot & I don’t think any of us will be sad to leave. Taking advantage of your kind offer Sir, I could do with some pants as I have none at present & the weather is getting rather cold. An aeroplane came down smash the other day just behind us he had a piece of shrapnel in his engine. Its really maraclous how few are brought down considering the ammunition fired at them the Bosch has no chance with his aeroplanes at all.
Hoping this will find you well,
From yours respectfully
S Bartlett

Lea Mills postcard

Newspaper reports

High Peak News, 27 July 1918
LEA AND HOLLOWAY
The "Gazette" records the Military Medal being awarded 608341 Gunner S.A. Bartlett, R.H.A., of Lea.

Derbyshire Courier 4 May 1918
WOUNDED
Gunner Stanley Bartlett MM

"Memories of the Mill Workers" (www.millthreads.co.uk/about/)

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1 of 3 transcripts for Ruth Bartlett.
Interviewed by Polly Parker on the 17th July 2009.

Interviewer: I’m in Tansley with Ruth Bartlett and I’m going to be talking to her about her father-in-law Stanley Bartlett who used to work at Lea Mills. Do you know when your father-in-law worked at the mills roughly, just to give me a time scale?

Ruth: All his life actually, he didn’t retire until he was seventy only breaking his service for the war years really.

Interviewer: So what year would he…do you know when he was born? Was it the First World War?

Ruth: Yes.

Interviewer: Yes right so that’s quite early ok.

Ruth: He went with his friends – one of the Smedley lads that he grew up with – and they went to Derby when they were only about sixteen sort of thing to sign.

Interviewer: Sign up?

Ruth: Yeah. [Shows photograph]. That’s the one that he went with who got killed, George.

Interviewer: Oh yes, yes.

Ruth: They were best friends and they were the same age.

Interviewer: Was he.

Ruth: Although one of them was a wee bit younger and he lied about his age to get in, I’m not sure which one it was whether it was George or Stanley.

Interviewer: So they went on…

Ruth: Went on their bikes to Derby, yeah they did, they biked it to Derby to sign up, from Lea.

Interviewer: That’s quite a way.

Ruth: They’d be used to it wouldn’t they?

Interviewer: I suppose they would actually, they probably biked everywhere because it was the only independence really I suppose that they had.

Ruth: In one of the letters that I’ve got here – I don’t know which one it is because there’s loads of them – it said how sad he was to receive a letter from home to say that his friend had got killed.

Interviewer: Yes.

Ruth: Also in one of the letters quite a…he’s sat on a bunker – he was in the trenches you see, he laid the lines for the telephones and he got the military medal for going out into the field and you know, under sort fire I suppose – and he’s sat on this bunker writing this letter knee deep in water and mud you know it’s all round them. You know if you’d got loads of time they are really interesting to go through.

Interviewer: I’d like to another day, I would like to, I’ll perhaps have to come back.

Ruth: Yeah. So I think George’s father paid for my father-in-law to go to Bradford University to learn all about yarns and things and he worked then in the spinning department as manager all his life really. Loads of people now I meet and they all sort of say “oh I remember him he was a really fair person” you know, even friends they all had to tow the line and he treated everybody the same you know.

Interviewer: So he was one of the managers?

Ruth: Yeah in spinning, yeah.

Interviewer: So he must have known every process really?

Ruth: Yeah I think as a young man he started at the bottom but it was mainly the war that he was in.

Interviewer: Did he work from Smedleys presumably before the war; he must have done mustn’t he?

Ruth: Yes, yeah he perhaps…

Interviewer: I wonder if there might be something that dates it?

Ruth: Well there’s some from when he was at university, some certificates somewhere and they were photographs weren’t they. There, twenty-eighth October nineteen twenty one…he would be going to Bradford after the…you know.

Interviewer: That’s great isn’t it?

Ruth: Hum I suppose that would be the only area to go to Bradford, Leeds because it was all…

Interviewer: Yeah, they must have thought he had something about him to pick him out to do that.

Ruth: Yeah well because his father was the gardener and everything at Lea Green.

Interviewer: Ah, oh really.

Ruth: So they were brought up together you know these lads.

Interviewer: Do you know his father’s name?

Ruth: Yes Arthur Bartlett. Yeah, that’s another it says ‘We John Smedley Limited of Lea Mills near Matlock hereby certify that signaller Stanley Arthur Bartlett was in our employment as a warehouse man for August the fourth, nineteen fourteen.’

Interviewer: Oh fantastic.

Ruth: He saved everything absolutely everything.

Interviewer: Wonderful gosh that’s fantastic. He must have been a real collector.

Ruth: Yes.

Interviewer: Unusual isn’t it to save everything?

Ruth: Oh yeah and all those letters, I suppose when his mother died he…

Interviewer: Yes she’d probably have them.

Ruth: She’d keep them wouldn’t she?

Interviewer: I wonder how old he was then?

Ruth: I’ll have his birth certificate somewhere you know but…

Interviewer: It helps to pin-point sometimes.

Ruth: Yes, yes.

Interviewer: So he actually lived in Lea Mills did he with his family?

Ruth: The old man Smedley?

Interviewer: No sorry Stanley? You’re father-in-law?

Ruth: He lived at one point in Mill House and then he…when I first knew them they lived at Holt House in Lea.

Interviewer: Did they?

Ruth: The whole family and they’ve got five sons.

Interviewer: So he wouldn’t have been far away from the factory so he probably could have walked, I’m trying to imagine.

Ruth: Oh no he used to walk through the wood to work.

Interviewer: Did he? Trying to imagine his journey…

Ruth: Yeah it was just down through Church Wood and then he’d cut down the fields through what is now the football pitch at Smedleys down there. This is when it all started, this was a letter to Arthur Bartlett, they came from…he lived in Crookham in Somerset and that’s the original letter when it all started… and it continues on the back. That’s Stanley’s father he’s referring to.

Interviewer: How did Mr Smedley, how did the Marsden family know?

Ruth: I think they must have had some connection with the people in Somerset who’d recommended him.

Interviewer: The Employers? [Reads letter]. ‘Please say if you can take charge of the stove and glass’ is it?

Ruth: Oh it’ll be the greenhouses because…

Interviewer: Oh yes …also to attend to the kitchen garden. ’

Ruth: Yeah because he was a fantastic gardener.

Interviewer: So this is Stanley isn’t it?

Ruth: This is Arthur.

Interviewer: I beg your pardon, its Arthur, Stanley’s father.

Ruth: These are some of the old pictures look of the glass house at Lea Green, nineteen thirty two, this is what he used to do and he was one of them that instigated the – look at the orchids, they’re ornate. Look that was the glass house that he had to care for at Lea Green, hum, yeah.

Interviewer: Gosh.

Ruth: Beautiful aren’t they?

Interviewer: Amazing.

Ruth: Hum yeah.

Interviewer: Well it must have been a god send to him to sort of…quite a big move in those times.

Ruth: Oh it would be wouldn’t it to come up?

Interviewer: To actually up root, ‘cause he would have left his family wouldn’t he?

Ruth: He did and his girlfriend Hannah.

Interviewer: My gosh! Did she come up?

Ruth: Yes she did and they got married you see and…because they’d have a house, I think it was Mill House that they had which is that beautiful one down as you go from Lea towards Riber on the right hand side, an absolute fabulous house and they lived there.

Interviewer: Is it can I have a look at it? So he was a Somerset lad really?

Ruth: Yeah originally from Somerset yeah.

Interviewer: They obviously only went by recommendation?

Ruth: They must have done because they wouldn’t come up and have interviews and all, you know like it is today would they, I don’t know?

Interviewer: ‘What wage should you require?’

Ruth: Ha, ha, ha.

Interviewer: How lovely!

Ruth: When they got married they had Stanley and a daughter and the daughter she was a school teacher, she did sewing that sort of thing, you know what I mean and it’s funny because I’ve got an old fire screen that she did upstairs. Then she went to Staley Bridge and that’s where she met her husband and got married and she was a school teacher. It’s a shame because… [Looks at photograph] that’s Aunty Alice who we always called her; I didn’t know her because she’d died but my daughter’s a textile teacher.

Interviewer: It’s interesting how it comes through.

Ruth: Yes isn’t it…because she’s got a little girl who’s three now and she called her Alice.

Interviewer: Oh that’s nice, very nice. Eighteen ninety gosh!

Ruth: You can’t believe it can you now we’re two thousand.

Interviewer: No.

Ruth: It’d be…honestly I can’t even read it, Basil Marsden, Smedley that’s…

Interviewer: So he started as a warehouseman?

Ruth: Yes.

Interviewer: That’s impressive, so he probably was about fourteen I would think.

Ruth: He probably would be wouldn’t he and they’d start him off in that sort of thing?

Interviewer: Just in anything?

Ruth: Yes, yeah and he just stayed there. This is one from nineteen eighteen asking him if he wants his job back, I suppose and that would be when he’d start going to college wouldn’t it after that.

Interviewer: I wonder if he went to the war straight away as it…I suppose it doesn’t necessarily follow does it?

Ruth: No I seem to remember Salisbury Plains had something to do with it but whether they went down there for training before they went out.

Interviewer: Maybe hum. I suppose you never knew Arthur did you?

Ruth: No I didn’t.

Interviewer: Had he died?

Ruth: He’d died. That is a picture of him there as he was as an older man and that’s Uncle Reg that Aunty Alice married and that’s the entrance to the driveway where he lived, a cottage at the bottom at that time which my daughter’s bought now, she lives in it.

Interviewer: Does she?

Ruth: It was coming up for sale and she’s says “I’ve got to have that house” you know, ‘cause most of my furniture came from there like this table…and of course through here I’m having an extension, that’s why I’m in such a mess. On the landing is his grandfather clock and there’s all sorts. Well most of my things came from up there.

Interviewer: Oh yes, rather nice isn’t it?

Ruth: Yes it is it is nice.

Interviewer: How old was he when he died? Do you know?

Ruth: I think he was about eighty nine something like that yes he was elderly.

Interviewer: Do you know what he did in the war?

Ruth: What Stanley did in the war? I say he was something to do with signals and these are his medals. I think that’s a long service police medal but he was in the Sherwood Forester’s I think it’s called and he was in signals or his job was going out laying telephone wires and things like that. There the old ribbons that…

Interviewer: That’s the Crimean War?

Ruth: Now that’s from the Crimea that one it was a relative it was one…

Interviewer: Lieutenant Somerville?

Ruth: War and Victory, yeah that’s me father-in-law, can’t believe all this can you?

Interviewer: Look at this, that’s fantastic, but also that you’ve sort of kept it. So that’s his medal box isn’t it?

Ruth: Yeah they just kept it like that. I don’t know what that was, it looks like it had a medal in, but he was in the special police as well for many years which I think one of those medals with all the bars on are for.

Interviewer: Gosh, so going after the war, actually going back to that must have taken some re-adjustment I would think.

Ruth: Yes after being out in trenches, can you imagine it? It would be terrible wouldn’t it?

Interviewer: Would he have gone back home, to his family home initially?

Ruth: Yes he would, he’d have gone back to Mill House, that’s where he would have gone to. Somewhere I’ve got pictures of him sort of relaxing on a big sun bed in his army uniform you know sort of thing on, because this house was very grand and [shows pictures] that’s another look at one of the plans right there. This is Alice; my daughter’s done this book up.

Interviewer: Has she really?

Ruth: She did it for my husband… that erm that’s where she was, you know very proud of her husband’s family. So she’d be on there somewhere but…that’s her there.

Interviewer: That’s Alice?

Ruth: Stanley’s sister yeah. That’s her and if that’s his…what do you call it, dress jacket, but he was only a small man.

Interviewer: Was he? [Ruth gets piece of clothing out of tissues paper]. Oh my god. Was that First World War? Yeah that’s in good condition isn’t it?

Ruth: That was his…feel it though?

Interviewer: Can you imagine wearing that? Somebody else referred to this actually in the Second World War one of the people who…and he was saying because they were at Smedleys all the yarns were so fine it almost made it worse. Having to…

Ruth: Yeah that was his dress uniform or something. Look inside there it’s as new isn’t it? It is really.

Interviewer: You would never think! It’s in amazing condition.

Ruth: I wonder what that is? Oh it’s where the belt would go round wouldn’t it? Yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah it’s a bit serious isn’t it?

Ruth: It is isn’t it?

Interviewer: How lovely this is brilliant.

Ruth: I know its amazing isn’t it!

Interviewer: Gosh this is so rough isn’t it, I supposed they’d have, obviously have something…I suppose it would have to be lined wouldn’t it?

Ruth: Well yeah, what would they wear under it, a vest and that’s be it wouldn’t it? Yeah so that may be the same one.

Interviewer: He wasn’t very big was he, actually if you look across the back its very narrow, goodness!

Ruth: Then again if he was only a young lad sort of thing he’d not be…

Interviewer: He’d probably have a bit more growing sort of thing to do.

Ruth: Yeah. It’s lovely though isn’t it?

Interviewer: Isn’t it, it is. It is hardly…you can tell it’s the dress jacket though can’t you, ceremonial?

Ruth: Yes you can, yes.

Interviewer: So I’m just wondering about his home life, before sort of…obviously he must have…if his father was the gardener.

Ruth: He spent most of his time at Lea Green I think with George and George had a sister, I’ve forgotten her name and he used to tell me, he said – because she was very much the lady from the manor you know – and he said – I can remember him telling me this – we used to go down the wood, down Swine Park it’s called and they used to go tickling trout and doing down there and he said she used to lift her dress up, tuck it in her knickers, you know.

Interviewer: Is this George’s sister?

Ruth: Yeah this would be…she married one… You known John McClean that you’ve met?

Interviewer: Yes I did meet him.

Ruth: Well it’s his mother that you know that…

Interviewer: They must have had the freedom of the village?

Ruth: Oh they would and all the fruit out of the…you know and peaches growing all on the walls he used to tell us and there’s a picture somewhere of his father with one of the big old baskets picking pears. Yeah they had…I suppose they had a better life than most of the other kids in the village really because of being involved with family like that.

Interviewer: Yes.

2 of 3 transcripts for Ruth Bartlett.
Interviewed by Polly Parker on the 17th July 2009.

Ruth: There’s a few photographs of the Mill, but there’s some Christmas cards, one of them, stuck down I think. That was…here, that’s a picture of his mother. And she looks…

Interviewer: Gosh!

Ruth: Doesn’t she look it?

Interviewer: Is that Hannah?

Ruth: Yes.

Interviewer: Gosh!

Ruth: Yeah.

Interviewer: She looks a formidable woman.

Ruth: And that…that looks like a death in the paper. And that’s the cottage where…

Interviewer: Sixty four when she died.

Ruth: Nineteen sixty four.

Interviewer: No she was sixty four.

Ruth: Oh sixty four, she wasn’t that old then was she?

Interviewer: She wasn’t very old was she no?

Ruth: No.

Interviewer: And is that Stanley?

Ruth: Stanley, yeah.

Interviewer: She must have been very tiny then.

Ruth: Yeah that’s probably where he got it from.

Ruth: That’s the cottage my daughter lives in, you know that one we were looking at there…he’s stood there.

Interviewer: Yes.
Ruth: David my husband and his brother – some of his brothers – they used to go down to his house every Saturday for lunch and he used to…in the old oven he used to cook. That’s…

Interviewer: Stanley.

Ruth: She’s made a good job of the book hasn’t she really?

Interviewer: That is fantastic, that is really lovely, he’s a handsome man actually isn’t he?

Ruth: Hum, yes, well his sons were as well.

Interviewer: Quite dark, quite dark.. erm colouring.

Ruth: Yes they are, and he used to have in the side oven a casserole or whatever in it, but always hard boiled eggs dropped in it. Shells off you know.

Interviewer: Really?

Ruth: Hard boiled eggs and dropped in it. ‘Cause they used to be falling out over the eggs. I don’t know what they had with it.

Interviewer: This is erm…

Ruth: He used to do that.

Interviewer: He used to put the eggs in the casserole?

Ruth: Yeah and…

Interviewer: And the children fell out?

Ruth: No when…his grandchildren used to go down on a Saturday…

Interviewer: Oh right.

Ruth: He’d retired you see then, and they used to go down on a Saturday for their lunch. I don’t know what they had with this, probably mash potato or something.

Interviewer: Apart from the letters, the conditions at, the working conditions and how things were at work you probably don’t have much recollection of that do you really?

Ruth: No.

Interviewer: Because obviously you wouldn’t…

Ruth: No, no. I know he went to Switzerland a few times to buy new machinery – Stanley did for them – new…you know for the spinning it would be.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Ruth: ‘Cause that was in my time I remember him going.

Interviewer: Do you?

Ruth: I’d probably just be going out with David then. So it’s a good few years.

Interviewer: It sounds as though he had an interesting working life though?

Ruth: Oh yeah I’m sure he did, yeah, yes I’m sure he did yeah. That’s a picture of Mill House where they used to live.

Interviewer: Oh yes.

Ruth: But there’s some…I’ve got some fabulous pictures somewhere of it, you know where they are all sat around. That’s at Dethick. It was a beautiful…

Interviewer: So that was Stanley’s home?

Ruth: Yes when he came back.

Interviewer: When he came after the war?

Ruth: Yes, yeah. It belonged to Smedleys you see, so…

Interviewer: Quite a few stayed.

Ruth: All the village really did.

Interviewer: Yes.

Ruth: That’s Lea Green you see, and that’s Arthur with Dianna McClean her name was, but her name was Marsden-Smedley yeah.

Interviewer: Yes.

Ruth: Now they dressed fabulous didn’t they? Wasn’t it beautiful, tennis courts all…yeah? But the Christmas cards…

Interviewer: It’s that Arthur?

Ruth: That’s…yes and that’s the old man Smedley, don’t know who the little man is. Don’t know that one.

Interviewer: Gosh what a fabulous estate for him to work on.

Ruth: Wouldn’t it be.

Interviewer: As a gardener.

Ruth: Absolutely, yeah. There they are. That would be the gardens you see at Lea Green.

Interviewer: Quite a big task really, big responsibility.

Ruth: Yeah, Yeah. I don’t know if anybody had offered you to look at all those, its something to do with the archives at Lea Mills and its Andrew Marsden-Smedley, his childhood at Lea Green. Have you seen it?

Interviewer: No, I haven’t.

Ruth: I’ll get you a copy before you go.

Interviewer: Gosh that would be interesting.

Ruth: Yeah, it’s all about when he was a child and he used to go to Lea Green and it mentions…

Interviewer: It is some of the early experiences and life?

Ruth: It’s fascinating to read it, you know when they used to go there. I think that’s two boys that David’s mum and dad had, evacuees.

Interviewer: Yes, oh yes.

Ruth: That’s John McCleans mother.

3 of 3 transcripts for Ruth Bartlett.
Interviewed by Polly Parker on the 17th July 2009.

Ruth: Ha ha, friends shall we say you know ha, ha.

Interviewer: Fans! Did you really? Ah how….

Ruth: It was after he’d died you know ‘cause David said “Look at this” you know.

Interviewer: Was he shocked or was it amusing?

Ruth: No it just amused us really you know and there were these letters from these ladies saying…so there must have been a bit of something.

Interviewer: Well I’m sure also he’d be quite a respected man.

Ruth: Oh yeah.

Interviewer: So I suspect that…

Ruth: Yes he would.

Interviewer: How old was he when he died? Was he elderly?

Ruth: He was well in his eighties I think. Perhaps about eighty six or something like that, again middle eighties. ‘Cause when I got married to David he said “Well you’ve gone and done it now, I don’t know what you’re going to make of him.”

Interviewer: Did he?

Ruth: Oh yeah he was very stickly you know. And after David’s mother died I went to live over there with them you know and of course he was coming in from the mill, about five o’clock he used to come home and then he’d always want a cup of tea straight away and then he’d get changed and then…

Interviewer: Lord of the Manner.

Ruth: Yeah and he’d never sit at the table to have a meal, always wanted it in the arm chair on a tray and err ha, ha. I don’t know what he was like at the mill really with them. He’d be “what have you tried to hide under this?” You know.

Interviewer: Was he a bit sort of formidable, were you scared of him?

Ruth: I was a bit, yeah I was. I mean he loved rice pudding and he used to think I made wonderful rice pudding. What I used to do – I was this scared of him – I used to get tinned rice pudding in, scrape the label off the tin and burn it, rinse the tin out before I put it in the dustbin and then put it in a dish and put it in the oven with some nutmeg on, ha ha. And he used to think it was lovely, probably Ambrosia, he was a bit terrifying, but really a good person, he’d never see anybody stuck at all.

Interviewer: No, no, no.

Ruth: Not at all.

Interviewer: But quite difficult coming into the family?

Ruth: It was really.

Interviewer: Just imagine as a young girl.

Ruth: David had been married before and he’d got a little boy Martin and ‘cause he’d gone back home – this was before I met him – and Stanley and Gerty – David’s mum – were bringing this little boy up you see and she…we’d just got married, just got married and his mum died, she had a thrombosis in her leg and it just killed her you know, she was only about fifty nine something like that, sixty. So I got suddenly this little boy and me being an only one it was eh ever so…

Interviewer: How old were you?

Ruth: Twenty one something like that and of course David had got a younger brother Andrew who was at home so I had to suddenly to look after him and the old man, you know. Oh it wasn’t good.

Interviewer: That must have been very, very tough, goodness.

Ruth: It’s a good job me mother brought me up to be bit domesticated.

Interviewer: Were you from that area, from Lea?

Ruth: I lived here; I was born in this cottage.

Interviewer: Oh were you.

Ruth: This was my mum and dad’s house and I was the only one you see so I lived at Lea with Dave.

Interviewer: Oh gosh I can’t imagine how you’d as a twenty one year old girl…

Ruth: Coped with that.

Interviewer: How old was the little boy?

Ruth: He was four, five probably just starting school and I was pregnant and just one daughter was born and then stupid thing – well not stupid because they’re lovely children – there’s only a year and three weeks between my next one so I got…and David’s brothers, three brothers had got a garage on the premises and they did paint spraying and car repairs so they were always in the house making tea it was…you know totally alien to what I’d been used to just mum and dad here.

Interviewer: Yeah, yeah of course.

Ruth: Absolutely.

Interviewer: Yes because actually as an only child it’s quite quiet isn’t it? It’s a quiet sort of environment.

Ruth: Well Martin turned out brilliant the little lad.

Interviewer: Did he, what happened to his mother? Why did he not live there with her or was she…?

Ruth: She didn’t want him, she left him with a neighbour when she left David and he was only about three.

Interviewer: Gosh that actually says a lot for Stanley you know in those days.

Ruth: Yes and it was a good grounding for Martin because he was really good, really good with him, but you know with my step-sons I never had any problems with them at all and he’s fifty now yeah, he lives in Nottingham.

Interviewer: Fascinating really isn’t it?

Ruth: Yeah he’s lovely absolutely; I’ve only got to ring him if I want anything and he comes over and you know and the girls absolutely love him. He were great at Christmas when you’d got two little girls wanting batteries putting into things we’d say “Go to Martin, go to Martin” you know because he was that bit older than them, two weeks older than…five or six years older.

Interviewer: So really when Hannah, it was Hannah wasn’t it? No, Stanley’s wife died, Hannah?

Ruth: Oh Gerty, Stanley’s Gerty yeah she died it was oh it was…

Interviewer: That must have been quite traumatic for the little boy really, she would have been his sort of mother?

Ruth: Yes that’s right. I wasn’t going to have him you see because she was bringing him up, his mum had dumped him and then for suddenly for his grandmother to be taken away. The church…I don’t think we told him that she’d died for ages and the funeral coincided with playtime at school so the headmaster moved playtime on so he didn’t see us when he was out playing at the school you know.

Interviewer: Oh! He wouldn’t have been allowed to go presumably to the funeral in those days, perhaps they wouldn’t, children wouldn’t have been allowed would they?

Ruth: No, no.

Interviewer: It’s quite tragic that, isn’t it?

Ruth: It is isn’t it, isn’t it funny how things pan out?

Interviewer: But incredible for…goodness me it must have seemed like long days I would think for you at that stage. Had you recently been married?

Ruth: Yes, yeah.

Interviewer: An introduction ha, ha.

Ruth: As I say me mum was a brilliant cook, she used to go into all different shows; she ended up judging at ploughing matches and things. You know she was really…I’ve got loads of cups that she won you know, so I was quite good a basic things you know as it would be then and I used to bake. I used to bake most days and these lads would come in from the garage and put the kettle on and there’d be cakes cooling and when you went back there’d be about three left you know.

Interviewer: Goodness me, gosh.

Ruth: Then eventually I ended up working at mill.

Interviewer: Interesting isn’t it, sort of followed the family in a way.

Ruth: Yes, yes.

Interviewer: You worked there for how long?

Ruth: Thirty year in reception and switchboard.

Interviewer: Because your experiences are equally, you know, obviously important as the…because it’s not often that we can go back so far, so that’s really interesting, but for you also.

Ruth: My grandfather he worked at the mill all his life, he was a mechanic in the knitting department.

Interviewer: Oh what was his name?

Ruth: Samuel Atkin and he was about ninety when he died, he worked all his life, he lived in Tansley here. My parents were farmers and that so they didn’t go into that.

Interviewer: That was your grandfather did you say?

Ruth: Yes Sam Atkins.

Interviewer: Have you got any photographs of him?

Ruth: Do you know I may have upstairs but nothing much because my Aunty Joyce – my dad’s sister – she had everything that belonged to him you know so…and she’s died so you know really…

Interviewer: Did you say you were there for thirty years?

Ruth: The reason I went there it was, you know, the girls were getting school age and they went down to walk to school on their own and back again in those days and err there was a job came up on the switchboard and it was sort of eight thirty to four thirty so it just fit in with the children. By the time they’d walked home I was at home you know.

Interviewer: Perfect.

Ruth: Then you just, well I got stuck in a rut that sort of thing.

Interviewer: How did you find the…you know the company and the working sort of situation with other people? Was it reasonably..?

Ruth: What at the mill?

Interviewer: Yes.

Ruth: Yes it was good, yeah it were always – not now – but doing more pranks and it was a good jolly time when I worked there it really was.

Interviewer: What year would you have started Ruth? Just round about.

Ruth: The year…let’s see…about forty year ago, well I’ve been left six years.

Interviewer: So it would be about nineteen sixty would it be? Something round then?

Ruth: Yeah it would be about there and I loved it every minute of it, it was really good.

Interviewer: Can you remember any of the things you used to get up to?

Ruth: Well I can remember – I think I told them when we were doing the interview – in those days when you answer the telephone you’d got to be…oh they would only have somebody that was GPO trained and I’ve worked on the telephone exchange you see when I was younger at Matlock.

Interviewer: Hum, hum.

Ruth: You always had to ask who it was calling when they asked to speak to Mr Such a body, you know, and you had to go through and announce them, you couldn’t just bang them through like it is today more casual and it was one Friday afternoon and this man came on you see and he wanted to speak to somebody in the sales or whatever and I said “Of course who is it speaking?” And he said “It’s Mr Wisdom.” So I said “Mr Wisdom from where?” You know because you needed more than that of course and he said “From the Isle of Wight” or the Isle of Man, “Norman Wisdom” he said and it was Norman Wisdom and apparently he sent in a photograph of himself in a Smedleys sweater and he’s stood at the bottom of a staircase. I don’t know who ended up with this photograph and the garment was so long because he was tiny.

Interviewer: Because he was little wasn’t he?

Ruth: The cuffs of the sleeves were down here you know and it was just… well ridiculous. I think it was a red ‘V’ necked one he’d got, so whether he wanted it for golfing yeah.

Interviewer: So perhaps he’d phoned up the sales department to see if he could send them a…or to complain that it was too big?

Ruth: To complain that it was too big, yeah that’s right. Yeah that’s probably what it was yeah.

Interviewer: Fascinating ha, ha, ha. Did you have many friends there, were they a nice crowd?

Ruth: Yes they were and I’m still friends with quite a few of them that still work there and people that have left and we still meet up.

Interviewer: Do you?

Ruth: Yes we do the…I don’t know, friends that you make now, I mean nothing wrong with them but they seemed like the real true friends.

Interviewer: Yes you’d have a history together I suppose.

Ruth: Yes I think that’s probably it.

Interviewer: Yes that’s really nice actually. So how often do you meet, when do you meet at Christmas or..?

Ruth: Oh more than that yes there’s a crowd, well crowd, there’s five or six of us meet up and we go for a meal perhaps every couple or three months.

Interviewer: That’s really nice fantastic.

Ruth: There’s another lady I meet and we go and have coffee in the garden centre and whilst I was there, the mill dam there, they decided that they had to put a new sprinkling system in – the waters used from the mill dam to drive the sprinkler system if there’s a fire or anything – and of course during the mill fortnight which is…well they break up about a week I believe, they drain the mill dam out, clear it all out you see so that it’s up and running again when they start back. It was terrific down there for frogs and toads, so I used to do the toad crossing down there and organise a gang of them and we used to go down at going dusk and take them across the road, because they were always getting splattered and that, but the thing was that when they started to drain the dam it was at a time when the tadpoles weren’t quite big enough to get out so the stocks were depleting all the time. So I used to do that for Derbyshire Wildlife that was.

Interviewer: Did you, oh shame they couldn’t have left it a bit longer but I suppose they had to do it during the holidays.

Ruth: They had to do it during the fortnight but they did build a little pond further back so I could take them in there instead of the dam.

Interviewer: Did they do that every year then, drain it?

Ruth: Yeah, yeah it will be drained again I would think soon.

Interviewer: Do they still do that, they still keep the..?

Ruth: I don’t think anybody does now, I think it would be dried up since I’ve left there, I don’t think they’d be bothered and its such a shame because you know…kids we used to go down and grown ups would go armed with buckets and things and we did that for several years.

Interviewer: The actual dam, there on the top, has a lot of ducks and…was that always the case?

Ruth: Yes yeah it’s lovely that pond isn’t it?

Interviewer: It’s beautiful and that feeds, does that go into feeding?

Ruth: It used to feed the mill I suppose but it goes into a brook, over flows into a brook and goes into the Derwent.

Interviewer: So when you were working there you must have been…because the water obviously around with the river and the dam it was obviously hugely important to the success of what they did?

Ruth: Well yes, that’s why they built them there didn’t they?

Interviewer: It’s also from working inside the mill and then coming outside, when I went there the water and kind of environment really hit me.

Ruth: Yes.

Interviewer: I wonder, were you aware of, do you think people were aware of it, or did they take it for granted?

Ruth: They perhaps took it for granted but I think some wouldn’t because I used to stand ages in the boardroom in a morning and you could see the kingfishers all there and that, beautiful, and what’s the other one…dippers down in the brook, I think there you could see all that, it was lovely really.

Interviewer: It’s a bit of a sanctuary isn’t it? Did you every get swans nesting or anything?

Ruth: Well as you go into the main reception up the steps there and at the bottom there used to be a gents toilet there and at the top at the right over the gents toilets there was the ladies toilets and as you looked out of the window there was like…I don’t know it was all sort of built round and every year a swallow used to come and nest there, every year so I don’t know if it still does. It never used to bother and we used to open the toilet, you’d be sat there on the loo and you could just see it there.

Interviewer: You could see it. Gosh yeah!

Ruth: Yeah it was lovely a lot of wildlife down there.

Interviewer: Oh yes I can imagine that, well it’s also it’s a…

Ruth: You see the waters there isn’t it?

Interviewer: Very yeah, it’s got a rare…because obviously it’s very different there to somewhere like Masson Mill or the mill at Belper you know, they’re completely different environment really I think, it does have a special feel about it I think.

Ruth: It does its lovely it really is.

Interviewer: So were you living…when you worked there were you living here or at Lea?

Ruth: I lived at Lea, yes because when I got married I lived there all my married life, forty odd years at Lea.

Interviewer: So you would just walk, obviously walk home would you?

Ruth: No I did ride down.

Interviewer: On your bike?

Ruth: No a car. I’d got a car yeah. To get home…by the time the kids had walked home from school I could be up there you see.

Interviewer: Very handy so nearby.

Ruth: It was and then you get used to that and you just stayed.

Interviewer: Can you remember what some of the products they used to make? I suppose you weren’t really involved in that side of things were you?

Ruth: Not really but you got the chance to buy them you know, because my friend, well she’s dead now, she…they didn’t have a factory shop as such but she used to have a room where all the seconds went and then every now and again they’d have a sort of like of factory sale for each department – at lunchtime only of course. She was very good if you got the occasional cashmere coming through and she used to ring me and she’d say “I’ve got some cashmere’s it’s such and such a colour” and she used to put it under the counter for me you know, for nothing.

Interviewer: That’s nice.

Ruth: There was a big American market for twin-sets.

Interviewer: Yes because they were very fashionable.

Ruth: Yes twin-sets and pearls and they’d always like have a long zip down the back of the sweater and it was for the American ladies, all the puffed up hair, so they could get it over this hairstyle.

Interviewer: Interesting!

Ruth: Yeah.

Interviewer: Did you have many visitors coming to the factory, presumably..?

Ruth: Yeah because they would come straight up to…

Interviewer: Did they have sales office there, I’m thinking in the early days when you weren’t there?

Ruth: Vivien Westwood used to come and she used to come on a pushbike – not all the way from London – she’d just turn up on the train with a pushbike and then she’d get off at Cromford – presumably change in Derby and get off at Cromford – and she used to come on a bike.

Interviewer: Did she?

Ruth: Yeah I remember her in plimsolls and ankle socks.

Interviewer: Did she come to work with the…did she…?

Ruth: Yes because we did designs for her.

Interviewer: Did you? Interesting.

Ruth: So she would come and work with the design department for the day and the she’d pedal back and catch the train back, ha, ha.

Interviewer: That would have been presumably in the sixties when she was in her sort of hay day as it were.

Ruth: All the buttons had got to have the crown on you know because she had the coronation on.

Interviewer: She used to have that didn’t she yeah?

Ruth: If ever you got chance to get one of her seconds you know because some of them wouldn’t allow them to be sold.

Interviewer: No well they control it don’t they?

Ruth: Yeah but sometimes we did you know but yeah.

Interviewer: Fascinating! What did you make of her because…do you know what people in the factory made of her? She must have worked with the design team?

Ruth: She worked with them yeah.

Interviewer: She would be quite different from her..?

Ruth: And Paul Smith he started whilst I was there, coming in you know. I mean Derek who worked for Paul Smith he used to come to the mill quite a lot and he looked like a tramp! You know when he walked in you’d think god who the hell are you, you know.

Interviewer: Hum.

Ruth: So brilliant designer.

Interviewer: You knew their work?

Ruth: Yeah that’s right but also…oh what was her name? One of the news readers on the BBC? She was having an affair with one of the Red Arrows pilots.

Interviewer: Is that a long time ago?

Ruth: Yes, yeah.

Interviewer: I don’t know?

Ruth: I know but I can’t think of her name now, I can see her face and it was all very hush hush because the Red Arrows used to come quite a lot to the mill because we did the vests.

Interviewer: Yes, right the flying vests.

Ruth: Very fine…of course one of them came over one day and brought her with him and you know went round the mill ha, ha you know that was all sort of…

Interviewer: I didn’t realise that the company were working with quite high quality design teams apart from their own labels. I thought it was all…

Ruth: Yes that’s right, they used to come over from America, Hiltons from America used to come and work with them.

Interviewer: So there were two aspects sort of to the company wasn’t there?

Ruth: Yes there was really, the Smedley label and…

Interviewer: Do they still do that or is it more…because they have such a clear brand themselves now, maybe they’ve just kept it to Smedley? Interesting.

Ruth: I think they do still have people coming in because Jackie my friend works in the design department now and she’s in Germany at the moment but I think they still do, Margaret Howell you know?

Interviewer: Oh yes well that’s very…she does beautiful knitwear.

Ruth: Yeah it’s probably Smedleys you see with her own label on.

Interviewer: I suppose it makes sense actually, ‘cause there aren’t many…well I can’t think of any knitwear manufactures now who have such incredible quality and it’s fine…

Ruth: Its lovely isn’t it? Beautiful.

Interviewer: I mean that history of development really shows. Top quality.

Ruth: Yeah there’s…in Swine Park there – that wood where I used to walk my dog when I lived there – you could hear them, see them, you know woodpeckers as well.

Interviewer: Was it very noisy, can you…obviously again you weren’t in the factory itself but you must have gone through from time to time?

Ruth: Oh yes I did.

Interviewer: Where you aware of that?

Ruth: In the spinning and that but that was noisy, you couldn’t really hear you know, you’d after go right up to somebody. I mean to be working in that all day, but I mean now they don’t, you know they’ve got ear plugs in.

Interviewer: Was it dirty, I mean there must have been fluff and I mean in…

Ruth: Yes I was always conscious of walking through on the boards because they were oily.

Interviewer: Yes that’s something that a lot of people have said. Was there a lot of oil?

Ruth: Yeah and I used to think if there was a fire set out here it would like a tinder box, it would just go up wouldn’t it. The old machines rattling away with the knitting and that, all the fluff and that, you could imagine a little boy coming from under the machine having to clear the fluff out, you know.

Interviewer: Well that must have been a regular, regular sort of…were they quite young the people who did the fluff, sort of looked after the fluff?

Ruth: I don’t know that’s perhaps the…

Interviewer: That would be before…that was when probably Stanley…

Ruth: That would lead them into the job probably.

Interviewer: I was going round the museum at Masson and you’re really conscious of all the fluff underneath.

Ruth: Yes, yes, but it was the oil that I use to think of. I wore high heels going to work and that sort of thing but yeah.

Interviewer: You wouldn’t think they’d be able to keep the yarn so clean, that’s what always amazes me with all the oil around.

Ruth: All oiled up that’s true yeah.

Interviewer: I suppose the mechanics…it must have been a constant…because the machines are so intricate aren’t they?

Ruth: Yes they are especially the old knitting machines. I mean the new modern ones they are totally different aren’t they, it was all cogs and things before.

Interviewer: Did your father-in-law ever talk about any disputes or was there any accidents or incidents in the factory when he was…that you can remember?

Ruth: I can’t remember, no I can’t remember. There’s some of the old machines. [Looking at photographs].

Interviewer: Hum.

Ruth: All the girls.

Interviewer: Gosh that looks like the Duke of Windsor.

Ruth: I was just looking for one of there.

CENSUS INFORMATION

1901: Manor House Farm, Dethick

Forename	Surname	Relationship	Age	Occupation	Where born
Arthur	Bartlett	Head	36	Gardener, domestic	Hardington Mandeville, Somerset
Hannah	Bartlett	wife	37		Exbridge, Devonshire
Alice	Bartlett	daughter	8		Lea
Arthur S	Bartlett	son	4		Lea
William	Walton	servant	21	Stockman on farm	Willoughby, Lincs

RG13 piece 3235 folio 52 page 10

1911: Mill House, Lea

Forename	Surname	Relationship	Age	Occupation	Where born
Arthur	Bartlett	Head	45	Estate Steward	Hardington Mandeville, Somerset
Hannah	Bartlett	wife	47		Exbridge, Devonshire
Alice	Bartlett	daughter	18	Pupil teacher	Dethick, Lea & Holloway
Stanley Arthur	Bartlett	son	14	Packing warehouseman hosiery mill	Dethick, Lea & Holloway

RG14PN21012 RG78PN1253 RD436 SD6 ED10 SN74

 

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