The mammoth task of rebuilding after World War II
WITH the end of fighting in 1945, the people of Britain faced a task that was arguably more daunting than gaining total victory in the Second World War. The country now had to rebuild itself and its economy and the people of the Black Country, both those that had served in the armed forces and those that had worked tirelessly on the home front, had to dust themselves off and put their shoulder to wheel once
more.
The scale of the task is illustrated by a book produced by Refractories Advisory Committee, the trade body created to guide the industry through World War II. The book, rather clumsily entitled Refractories: The Achievements of an Industry and its Contribution to Post-war Britain, celebrates the marvellous work of the war years and looks ahead to the mighty task of rebuilding a peace-time economy.
A copy of the book has been loaned to the Bugle by David Cookson of Amblecote. It was presented to his grandfather, Sid Cookson who, after he was demobbed at the end of the First World War, returned home and went to work for the Brierley Hill fire brick and refractory manufacturers E.J. and J. Pearson Limited.
Virtually every industry in Britain relied on refractories to some degree and the book has several pages outlining the many things that will be wanted in post-war Britain and how refractories will be needed to make them.
The book defines refractories as: “the materials of which furnaces are made, and without them not one ounce of steel or brass, not a sheet
of glass, bag of cement, cup or saucer could be made.”
As well as the items outlined on the pages reproduced here, post-war Britain needed 12 million tons of shipping in four years, and equipment for power stations, the food industry, chemicals, textiles, plastics and agriculture. None of it could be made without refractories and the centre of that vital industry was here in the Black Country.
FROM T.H. Gough’s Black Country Stories Third Volume, first published in
May 1936.
A navvy working on some excavations was the unfortunate possessor of an exceptionally large protuberant nose. “There’s a fly on yer nose,” said a fellow workman in close proximity. “Well, knock it off then,” was the reply. “You’m nearer to it that I am.”
Calling at a cheap outfitter’s shop, a customer said he wanted a warm waistcoat for the winter. He tried one on, and found it went round him nearly twice. The price was four and sixpence. Another waistcoat was produced, and that one fitted his somewhat meagre figure to a nicety. “An ’ow much is that un?” he asked.
“Same price as the other,” replied the assistant.
“Same price as the other? Why, that’s ridiculous,” said the man. “Why, it ay above ’auf the size, an’ yo waent four and six for it. Wrap the big un up. I ay goin’ to be ’ad like that.”
A woman called at the Birmingham market at the livestock stall and enquired if they could supply her with a hundred mice, some black beetles and a few thousand fleas, as she and her husband wanted to leave their house as they had found it.
Cuckoo
Two men were arguing as to what it meant when one heard the cuckoo for the first time before anyone else. One said it meant good luck for the rest of the year, and the other that it meant something else, and so on. They appealed to a fellow workman some distance away for his view of the matter.
“It means as yo’ ay deaf,” he shouted back.