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The Knocker-Up
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David Summerville writes from Poulton Le Fylde with some information about the knocker up.
Hi Maggie,
I enclose this copy of my mother's recollections of the "knocker-up" --- it would be (circa) 1920 when she was eight years old and is an extract from her childhood recollections written for her grandchild (my daughter) in 1984
" My dad was always up early, on a Saturday, he had to be, he owned a cycle shop on Patricroft Bridge near to a public house called "The Packet" and all his customers used to call and collect their bicycles early in the morning for use at weekend. I used to get up and make him a cup of tea despite the early hour, never complained -- didn't dare to !!
That was at weekend, on weekdays, I was always woken by Tommy the "knockerupman" as we children called him. He used to carry a long cane with stiff wires attached to the end like a fan, rattling the cane and wires against the bedroom window, and usually shouting or whistling until he got a reply from the people inside. I used to lie awake listening to him progressing down the road tapping on all the windows of the mill workers and sometimes heard them grumbling and arguing through the walls of my bedroom about having to get up!!
After a few minutes, I would hear the clatter of clogs on the pavement as the workforce trudged their way to different jobs, but mainly to the mill. Occasionally I would hear some of the younger men throwing stones into the Bridgewater canal which was just across the road from the shop. They were having a bit of fun I suppose before the hard work that faced them in the mill.
We children used to tease Tommy sometimes, he would call at each house midweek and ask for the small payment that each household would make for his "tapping" services. We would ask him to buy us sweets from the corner shop with all his pennies !!
My mum used to make him a cup of tea and they would sit in the shop surrounded by all the cycle repair equipment whilst I would listen to them talking about their "good old days. One story I remember is of him telling mother how he remembers being taken to a far off land as a child with his parents on a ship that had sails !! To my young mind that could have been anywhere in the world, but most likely it was to America. I was in my twenties when I heard that Tommy had died, a little piece of Lancashire went with him. "
The pictures shows a ceramic figurine, which David has modelled on the old Salford / Eccles road night-watchman, I remember this character in the early 60's when in my early teens, (my parents had a confectioners shop in Eccles.) he was an old soldier and usually wore his medals from the first world war. Endless cups of tea from his kettle on his brazier and stories that I wished I had remembered now, but gone forever.
KNOCKER-UP AND LAMPLIGHTER FIGURINE PICTURES SOON
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