12:10pm Friday 6th August 2010
Shortly after the 1914-18 war, Claude Barton, agent of the far-flung Ingleborough Estate, based on Clapham, developed his joy of tinkering with cars into Barton’s Garage, selling Model T Fords to
local farmers and running a taxi service, between the village and railway station. His taxi was an open-top Vulcan. Dr Bill Mitchell, of Giggleswick, who knew Clapham well from his Dalesman days,
relates garage tales told to him by former villagers, including Bert Cross, who remembered the sale of Essex cars, favoured by Al Capone, the American gangster, and the start of what became a
motorbike craze.
With the First World War over, the Farrers of Ingleborough Hall, Clapham, prepared to spend a while at their London home. They would travel by car – an Austin saloon, driven by Teddy Harrison.
The affairs of the estate were left in the reliable care of Claude Barton, their agent. He asked if – during their absence – he might build a garage. They agreed, for an agent’s car should have protection from the elements.
Returning from London, the Farrers’ lower jaws drooped with astonishment as they beheld, at the edge of the village and beside the Keighley-Kendal road, a new garage that had a length of a hundred feet.
It was not the type of garage they had in mind when their agent mentioned the subject. This one had affinities in size and construction with an aircraft hanger.
Was it a redundant hanger?
I advanced this theory when I ran a Workers’ Educational Association (WEA) local history class in Clapham School. One evening, with the topic of transport under consideration, I projected a slide of the picture that adorns this article.
An old chap I had never met rose creakily to his feet and announced that he was born at Clapham and was visiting the place for a holiday. He told the assembly: “I worked on yon garage.”
There was a dramatic pause. Then, slowly, for maximum effect, he added: “It was all new wood.”
The huge garage was visible from Ingleborough Hall. It marred the view. Mr Farrer insisted that a row of trees should be planted on the opposite side of the road to provide a natural screen.
Mr Barton’s garage plan was intended to provide him with a second source of income at a time when Lloyd George, the Prime Minister, was ranting about the possible nationalisation of the land.
The chosen site was not only handy to the road, it was at the lowest and dampest corner of a field. After especially heavy rain, the inspection pits would flood. When I began work at The Dalesman in the late 1940s, the garage was virtually the only new building in the place. Local men remembered the busy 20s, when garage life could be hectic and the district council was reinforcing the main road with a substance called Tarmacadam.
Mr Barton employed Walter Patterson as a skilled mechanic, paying him £5 a week. Eventually, a new starter, straight from school, earned 5s a week. A mechanic was paid 48s.
Claude Barton had an Armstrong Whitworth, a large open car which was posh to begin with and ended its life as a towing vehicle. Model T Fords were so popular with local farmers the garage had enough spares on hand to have assembled a new vehicle from the bits.
The taxi service with a Vulcan car was roofless, so passengers were exposed to all the winds that blew. One memorable night trip was to collect an ailing Clapham man at Barnsley. The taxi was back in the village at 4am.
The Essex car, a comparatively cheap import from America, was reputedly popular with Al Capone because he might rest a tommy-gun on a window ledge.
A bull-nosed Morris was smaller and more economical than a Ford. The firm’s Garforth van, which was ex-laundry, transported materials to distant parts of the Ingleborough Estate. It was also used for delivering coal and coke from Clapham railway station to big houses in the district.
Bert Cross, who began work at Barton’s Garage in 1925, was at the wheel of the Garforth when shooting parties were transported to the moors in August.
The busy summer weekends were devoted to supplying petrol and attending to breakdowns.
Petrol-pump attendants were provided with deck chairs. There was no pay for overtime. A man was given time off in lieu.
Bert related a tale about one of the hand-operated pumps. The owner of a large car had kept the engine running. The attendant said: “Kindly switch off the engine; you’re gaining on me!”
Breakdowns were mainly caused by electrical faults, as those were the days of high-tension magnetos.
The road through Clapham village was sporty, with two blind bends and a narrow bridge over the beck. Occasionally, a vehicle plunged into the beck from a great height, having failed to negotiate the bend near the New Inn.
I was told about a lorry with a covered back that came to grief in this way. Much of its cargo – tinned food, at a time of rationing – tumbled into the beck. A normally law-abiding village became one of wreckers as the more agile villagers scrambled for the tins. Alas, many labels had been washed away by the rushing water. The only way to discover what was in a tin was to open it.
Bert recalled the start of the motorbike craze. He remembered when a chap called at the garage with a push-bike and asked if he could have some air in the tyres. Another Irishman, arriving on a motorbike, discovered that he and the cyclist were going to farms in the same area.
The motorcyclist offered to give the cyclist a lift, so two men sat on the motorbike, with two attaché cases between them. The pillion passenger held his pedal bike against his back with out-swept hand and arm. The driver let out the clutch. The machine leapt forward. The passenger’s legs shot into the air and he fell backwards with the bike.
Picking themselves up, the Irishmen studied the problem and reached the same conclusion. They settled down on the seats. The passenger held his bike over his shoulder. The motorbike was swaying alarmingly as it left the village. There were attaché cases dangling from the handlebars! Mr Barton had a heavy, coach-built caravan which, in the 1920s, he towed along narrow roads to remote parts of Scotland. He eventually hired out Eccles vans. The charge, depending on a van’s size, ranged between £6 and £9 a week.
During the Second World War, Mr Barton sold his garage to the Lamb family, from whom it passed to ES Hartley, whom I knew as Simmy. The old garage burned down and was replaced with less combustible material.
I bought my first car in Simmy’s day – but not from him. It was a 1939 Ford which had more faults than good qualities. Simmy pronounced it had tappet-rattle, piston-slap and a crack in the chassis.
The driver’s seat was larger and heavier than the others and rested, it turned out, on composite boarding.
During the monsoon season, I was driving in a remote dale when I had a sinking feeling. A hole had appeared in the floor. I looked straight down on to the passing road.
At the nearest town I visited a joiner. The old-time motoring spirit remained. The joiner fitted floorboards – and creosoted them!
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.cravenherald.co.uk/trade_directory/