The local butcher and me...

The following account was recently handed to me...

"The contact that I had with the local butcher; during my formative years, was probably quite small - but it loomed large in my mind for many years. Perhaps the nature and quality of the contact determined the latter - but looking back it is clear that my sensitive nature was a factor.

What follows may not be chronologically exact, but given the nature of the observations offered that is not felt to be a problem, and it should not detract from the value of the account.

Several things happened that were in combination or individually to account for my aversion to butchers for years to come. 

The first was the creation of a new facility to kill animals after action was taken to do away with the nearby 'old abattoir', which involved the demolition of the butchers shop, abattoir and nearby buildings. 

The new facility was located on an allotment or close by one. I had occasion to pass the place many times, and whilst I do not recall seeing or hearing anything untoward, the fact that I knew the purpose of the building was sufficient to make me hasten my step as I approached it and look over my shoulder at it - as it receded into the distance.

The next thing was more intense. The butcher would place the severed head of a newly slaughtered pig into a prominent place within his shop window. 

Presumably this was some kind of advertisement of the availability of fresh meat, but that did not occur to me until a long time afterwards.

What fascinated me was the hole in the pigs forehead where the humane killer had entered the head of the animal - and killed it. 

The butcher was given to showing me the 'gun' that fired the bolt; and explained that he inserted some kind of metal probe into the hole and worked it about to make sure that the animal was indeed dead.

Fascinated I might have been, but I had nightmares about all aspects of it.

The final thing that I will mention was that the butcher was prone to 'butcher' a dead pig in what for me was a horrendous way. He used to hang the corpse - by its back legs - on hooks in the doorframe of the double entrance doorway of his shop - and then - open the abdomen with a knife - to release the wretched contents that fell into a strategically placed bowl. He would then proceed to divide up the corpse and take the pieces into his shop where he could do more detailed work upon them.

If I was unfortunate enough to have to visit the shop - whilst work was in progress on the corpse - I would have to squeeze past it.

I tried to avoid going near the shop when he was at this aspect of his work - but - he became aware of my squeamishness and played on it whenever he could - at least it seemed that way to me."

The Editor

The Big White Pig - and The Man From The Ministry

It is felt that the following items may justifiably be located under a heading of ‘now it can be told’ or perhaps even ‘now it must told’. 

The former of the terms has without doubt been used before; notably in connection with the struggle for independence in an island across the sea from this country, the latter is occasioned by the inevitability of the coming about of the passing of the storyteller, hence it is important that some things are now shared because; to slightly paraphrase, a well established truth is that ‘thou shalt know not in advance the destined day or the hour of thy passing’.

But in the case of the latter it is known that almost everyone associated with these events has already passed over, and so it is felt to be incumbent upon the author to attempt to perpetuate this story now, whilst time still permits.

It is recognised that what follows is a departure from the usual format for entries - in future this style may be used again.

This story mainly involves two men, it had to be men didn’t it, for in those far off days women did not exist in the true sense of the word, and besides that the antics herein documented bear out the belief that only men could be involved in such a scheme!

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During the years of The War a well known large white pig died on an allotment in the village. The pig had become well known because almost all of the households of the village had given their waste vegetables to ‘the man from the pig’ who discreetly collected them on a daily round. To the householders who had contributed to the feeding of the pig the news was not entirely bad, because their action had put them ‘in line for a bit of pork’ as one of them had it - and were that to come about then the ‘bit of pork’ would have made an excellent and eagerly anticipated supplement to the their diet.

It was rumoured that some person - who shall remain unidentified - but who was then disliked by almost everyone except his mother and who would nowadays be regarded as a ‘busybody’ or a ‘jobsworth’, and whose habitual behaviour was such as to make the rumour believable, had told a local Police Constable of the demise of the large white pig, and it was thought that this would be swiftly followed by a visit from a Government approved meat inspector ‘the man from the Ministry’ - as the diet of the entire population was under the direct control of the said Ministry - with the aim of ensuring amongst other things that food hygiene was applied.

So as was required at that time the death was reluctantly reported to the local agent of the appropriate Ministry of the Government and an inspector attended, with the intended aim of determining the cause of death of the unfortunate animal and certifying the corpse to be fit for human consumption. At least that was the shared understanding of the ‘owner’ or ‘keeper’ of the pig and the local butcher, through whose shop it was intended that the various parts of the late pig would be sold, or in other ways, distributed amongst the local community.

Against expectation ‘the man from the Ministry’ - he whose job it was to determine and then declare the cause of death - said that the animal had probably died of such causes that it would be unacceptable for the meat of the said pig to enter the food chain! 

This caused great distress to those connected with disposal of the animal - and to the wider community who had been eagerly anticipating the supplement to their meagre ‘war-time’ diet, that would doubtless become available when the famed pig eventually died and was shared.

Much heated discussion was occasioned by the declaration of ‘the Inspector’, but he insisted that his decision was final - and that the corpse should be buried. And - to make certain that his wishes were carried out - he remained until the disposal site had been chosen, the pig was placed in the necessarily large hole, and the ground restored to the pre-pig state. Only then - did he feel that his duties had been discharged. He went on his way, but those initially concerned with disposal of the pig carcass were far from satisfied, the outcome was not what they had expected.

The discussion between them went on for some hours and continued in the local pub until closing time, when the men went home.

The the erstwhile ‘keeper of the pig’ had by now been determined as the ‘owner’, he and the local butcher were not at the pub that evening and everyone believed that to because they were so upset at the developments of the day - after all they had lost a large investment - it was only reasonable to expect that they were privately ‘drowning their sorrows’, probably at the butchers fine house.

Next morning ‘everyone’ was curious by the ‘spread by word of mouth’ news that ‘in response to the disappointment of the local community’ the butcher and the owner of the pig had gone to great lengths to obtain a supply of a complete pig to replace the one destroyed on the instructions of ‘the man from the Ministry’. In fact it was was said, they had risked the black-out that very night to obtain the animal from a farm some distance away, so concerned were they at the plight of the locals. The ‘word of mouth’ measure was a well established practice within the village - for anything that should be kept within the community - ‘after all’ it was argued ‘the village was just like a big family’ with everyone ‘against the world’ at certain times. Some things just had to be kept private. That ‘deniability’ was integral to the practice was overlooked by those who chose to think about the matter. Perhaps needless to say, the ‘jobsworth’ who had initiated the crisis was not to receive the ‘word of mouth’ message! 

In truth the owner of the pig and the butcher had between them, colluded and under cover of darkness and on the pretext of drowning their sorrows, sneaked to the pig burial site [which they had ‘chosen’ - and manipulated the meat inspector into accepting - knowing even at the point that the corpse was lowered into the grave that they intended the disinterment], dug up the corpse, butchered it on site into moveable pieces and taken it into ‘safe’ allotment buildings from where it could be taken into the butchers shop as soon as possible - fortunately it was winter so the meat would not ‘go-off’ so quickly as it would at other times of year, and restored the burial site to ‘near enough’ it’s former state - bearing in mind that few had seen the site as it was so new.

The two men kept their secret until the very last bit of pig had been sold - then the story ‘leaked out’. That leakage was a deliberate bid for notoriety on the part of one of the men, who shall remain anonymous. Let us just say that ‘it was true to form for him to do that sort of thing’.

After the story leaked out, there was the usual amount of sniffiness from those regrettable few who would be expected to display such behaviour, but on the whole 

 everyone worth bothering about agreed that ‘nobody had been hurt by the pig meat’ - and of course no-one knew if the story was true - or just a figment of the imagination of a well-known local braggart.

Apart from the deliberate leakage - which only happened on a single occasion - neither of the men involved would ever agree that the story was true.

Unfortunate animals

WARNING - THIS ENTRY CONTAINS MATERIAL THAT IS GRAPHIC AND MAY BE OFFENSIVE TO SOME PEOPLE. 

DO NOT READ ONWARDS IF YOU ARE OF A SENSITIVE NATURE.

Perhaps it goes without saying that in days long gone people were more cruel to animals than they are today. Some would say that it was always inevitable as people were not so considerate then as they are now. Those same people might observe that life in general was more brutal.

WW1 caused innumerable deaths and injuries to horses. Around the same time events such as polar exploration also led to the traumatic deaths of animals, mainly horses. Just where did the average person gain experience of such traumatic events, what made them able to be involved in such activities. Perhaps in everyday life, which was such as to involve exposure to various things that now would be unthinkable.

The prime source for what follows was a lady born in 1921, and raised in Dodworth Bottom.

She said a number of things but here are the main ones. Her words have been paraphrased.

Shocking as it may be to those of modern sensibilities, the following needs to be shared. Amongst the things of note are that the animals were slaughtered in the midst of the community, meaning that inevitably many more people were aware of or part of the process - than is common today. Children were permitted to witness what is now done ‘out-of-site’ and earshot in almost all cases.

The site of the slaughter-house is now beneath the playground in Dodworth Bottom. 

They came into Dodworth Bottom [the cattle] from somewhere beyond Pilley Hill, if I ever knew more than that then I have forgotten. The slaughter house was in the centre of the buildings, in fact it was beneath the butchers shop - the frontage of which was on the road that ran through the centre of the community - the road from where Pilley Hill ends and then goes towards Snowhill - in fact the road still runs in exactly the same place. When the butchers shop was there it had an engraved window to allow light in. The slaughter house was sort of in the cellar. The entrance to the slaughter house was from South Street, it was a stone cobbled slope down to a small yard. 

The animals were usually cows. When they got to the top of the hill [Pilley Hill] , they smelled the slaughter house and seemed to know that it was a danger to them. In response they called out, they bellowed loudly and resisted being led down the hill. Usually gangs of men appeared and and pulled on ropes attached to the cow to force it down the hill and down the slope into the slaughter house. Once there it would be killed, and the butcher would dress the corpse.

In about 1950 a cow escaped the slaughter house and in a noisy panic ran towards Silver Street where it entered a house close to the top of the street. The house was a typical terraced home and had two rooms on the ground floor. The terrified creature trampled all before it within the house as it tried to escape. Unverified reports at the time said that it opened its bowels inside the house.

People ran about not knowing what to do, they made a lot of noise that further frightened the critter. Children were taken from the scene and put indoors.

Eventually the men with ropes came and put them around the animals neck. These they used to persuade the animal to leave the house. They were probably led by the butcher who seemed to know about these things.

Once an animal had been led or dragged against its will into the slaughter house a set procedure was followed in all cases. As often as not nobody stopped us kids from watching what happened - they were all either too busy or seemed to take pleasure from watching our reactions. Those involved were all men, it seemed to be regarded as a masculine thing to do - to be involved in the killing. We knew that it was cruel, but after seeing it a few times, it seemed less so, and we gradually got used to it. But I will never get the sound of the animals from my mind as they bellowed in distress.

There was an iron ring set in the floor of the yard or the cellar itself. One of the ropes that had been used to drag the animal was put through the ring, and pulled tight. Sometimes a gang of men were used to pull on the rope until the animal’s head was on the ground.

Then the ‘pole-axing’ took place. A pole-axing hammer was used. It was like a sledge hammer with a thin end, which was driven into the animals head. The ‘slaughter man’ made a mighty blow, lifting the pole-axe above his head and bringing it down with great force. It often took just a single blow. He was swift and accurate and the beast died quickly.

Addendum:

From a different source the following comment was obtained. As above, paraphrasing has taken place, and a sensitivity filter has been applied.

It was said that, occasionally the men in the Miner’s Inn public house close by, would become involved in the slaughtering. Money, betting and drink may have been involved, certainly some party would have had to compensate the slaughterer for his lack of work. On the occasions when this happened, the men in the pub were said to be the worse for drink and would attend the slaughter house in a gang. The designated one would take charge of the pole-axe and the pole-axing. Not being as skilled as the regular slaughter-man the pole-axe would sometime miss its intended spot and was known to end up in the animal’s eye.

Just when this inhumane practice ended is not at present known by the author.

Typically, when first encountered, pit ponies involved in underground coal mining would appear to have a benign manner. Regrettably, occasions arose in which they became involved in serious accident’s.

In the Yorkshire Mining Museum is a device for ending the life of pit ponies when they were unfortunate enough to suffer serious and irreversible injuries in mining accidents. It worked in a similar way to the pole-axe in that it drove a metal tube or bolt into the brain of the unfortunate animal, but in this case the chances of accidental suffering were minimised by the use of a kind of helmet and a guide for the bolt. It was said that the regular handler of the animal would be the one to administer the fatal blow.

As above, just when the practice ceased is not known.

It was said to me that in pre-WW2 days, the cleaning of a chimney in the case of typical terraced house, commonly involved mis-use of an animal, in this case a bird. In these cases a man with a cockerel would climb onto a house roof, and identify the chimney to be ‘swept’.

A man would take the unfortunate cockerel and tie its lower legs together with something like an old clothes-line. Then he would invert and insert the live bird into the chimney and lower it until it reached the bottom of the chimney where it would be retrieved by another man. During its passage down the chimney the bird would of course panic and flap its wings in a vain bid to gain control and mitigation of some kind. In its distress the bird would clean the chimney. Fortunately the said practice had ceased by the end of WW2. 

The Editor