AT the February meeting of Whitefield and District Women's Luncheon Club, Mr Jack Sunderland delighted his audience with humorous tales of his working life "Shuttling around Lancashire".

From 1954 to 1971, he had been connected with the firm William Holt & Sons of Whitworth, who were the only manufacturers of both shuttles and pickers. He was sure that most of his audience would know a shuttle, but what was a picker?

Shuttles were usually made of cornel or boxwood for cotton weaving - different ones for different types of cloth. Persimmon wood was used for shuttles for heavier woollen cloths. The shuttles were treated with linseed oil and it was not unknown for the odd cricket bat or crown green bowl to get into the oil along with the shuttles!

Pickers were pieces of buffalo hide from Asia, cut, folded and steeped in tanks of sperm whale oil for up to three years to toughen the hide. The pickers, on picking sticks, stopped the shuttle's travel at each side of the loom and, if correctly fitted, allowed the shuttle to go evenly back and forth without banging too much.

Mr Sunderland spoke particularly of the relationship between employer and employees in the old days. When he first started work as "assistant secretary manager" - in fact a "gopher" - 84-year-old Mr Frank Holt was the boss, and his 50-year-old son William ran the works.

Frank Holt was a liberal councillor in Whitworth and donated the civic leaders' chain-of-office, which is still in use in the township. Frank died in 1954 and William became the boss.

To illustrate the paternal way employees were treated, Mr Sunderland described an occasion when he couldn't afford to have a hole in his shoe mended and, after a visit to Keighley, commented to his superior, Mr Ashworth, that his feet had got wet. The following day Mr Holt gave him £2.10 shillings which was more than enough to get a new pair of shoes.

On another occasion, in 1960, when Mr Ashworth was ill, Mr Sunderland had to undertake a complete stocktake by himself. He was disappointed not to get a bonus in his pay packet for his efforts. However, what he did receive was Mr Holt's personal cheque for three times his normal salary - and he didn't have to pay tax on it!

To demonstrate how loyal cotton firms could be to one particular product, Mr Sunderland told of two picker brand names. Holt's usual brand was "Spagnum", like the moss, but they had taken over another firm whose brand name had been "Dig Dag".

One particular mill had always bought Dig Dag pickers before and, when supplied with Spagnum pickers, they complained they were nothing like as good. They were sent Spagnum pickers for their next order but they were labelled Dig Dag pickers and the customers were satisfied they had got the better product.

Mr Sunderland commented on the rather biblical nature of some old firms' names, such as Hezekiah Fletchers of Silsden, and mentioned that many traded at Manchester's Royal Exchange and showed their pillar number at the Exchange on their headed paper.

Regular meetings of manufacturers were held at the Moorcock Inn on Waddington Fell, to fix prices of shuttles and pickers. When times were slack, the old firms didn't immediately lay-off the employees, they would find them work re-painting machinery or moving it around.

Holt's traded worldwide but during the 50s and 60s cotton declined. Other markets were sought and this brought connection with the Yorkshire woollen trade. Between 1964 and 1971 Holt's gradually lost 110 customers due to the decline of cotton. Joshua Hoyle's of Whitworth once housed 1,000 looms.

The reign of King Cotton was coming to an end; so too the reign of the mill owners and their family of workers.

B. HORROCKS