Hugh was born into the Roman Catholic Church and confirmed as Hugh Anthony McArdle Butler.
He grew up at 84 Queen Street, Whitehaven, Cumberland (as it was then known). In 1995, I interviewed him about his life and this is what he told me:
Transcript of reminiscence from my father – Hugh McArdle Butler
taken about 1995.
The house (84 Queen Street) had gas lighting until after
WWII and no bathroom. It had three
storeys, and the toilet was up the steps in the garden. You’d go out the back and up the steps and it
was at the far end of the garden. For a bath we’d use the public baths, as in
Japan, Turkey, etc., in Duke Street. You’d pay for the public bath and they’d
fill it up with hot water and give you the towels and that; you could have as
long as you’d like. They’re individual bathrooms, so there’s no difference
between going into your own bathroom and these ones. There’d probably still be
houses in Whitehaven that don’t have baths in them.
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| Approximate location of 84 Queen Street, Whitehaven today |
Parlour was on your left as you came in – that was alright.
We kept the good pieces in there – the settee and the chair. Now that, by the
way, Mum used to make a bit of money by iring it out at election time to the
political parties. Sometimes it would be the Labour Party, it would all depend
if it was the council elections, district elections, what it was. They would
come in and sit down at the table, and they would be there all day with their
lists of people and there would be somebody in the election place, usually the
school, and as people went in and got ticked off, the runners would send a
report back and they would mark them off. And those who hadn’t voted, they
would be sent for with a car and organised – it wasn’t compulsory to vote.
Q. The Grand Hotel, do you remember that burning down? That
was about 1940.
A. 1940. No, I was in the Army then.
I went to Quay Street Infant’s School (Key). Then I went to
St Begh’s School. On Coach Road. And at
eleven I won a scholarship and I went to the Whitehaven County Secondary
School, which is in the heart of Whitehaven. St Begh’s was Catholic. Yeah, Quay Street was the infants’ Catholic, St Begh’s was what do you call it? Primary
Catholic. And then secondary school was Protestant really, but the Catholics
were allowed not to take religious instruction.
Q. What church did you go to?
A. St. Begh’s Catholic Church at the school, out on the
Coach Road.
Then I matriculated, and got my school certificate of
matriculation then I passed the United Kingdom Civil Service Entrance
examination. And then I went down to Whitehall, and I was in the job in
Whitehall until January, 1939.
In April, 1939 all this talk was on about conscription and
so I joined the Territorials when I was 17. I went to join the Balham Fusiliers
but they wouldn’t have me because I was too young. Then I was told they were
recruiting for the London Irish at the Duke of York’s headquarters and I went
up there and they grabbed me as they grabbed everybody else. So I finished up
in the second battalion of the London Irish Rifles, which is an affiliate of the
Royal Ulster Rifles, and that lasted me all through the War and I came out of
the War in 1946.
I was mobilised, I was still 17, I was mobilised two days
before the War started. Three days.
Q. So after the War (WWII), you didn’t come back to Whitehaven?
A. I had three months’ leave after the war, then I was
posted down to the same government department down to Rhyll in Wales. Then I
was promoted to Executive Officer and transferred to the Head Office in London.
That was alright. Then from there, somebody got posted to the atomic place, the
nuclear place at Sellafield and they didn’t want to go, and somebody knew I
lived up there and would I like to go? So I went up there about 1947/48. I went
up there for about ten months, then they decided to send me out to Iran as an
accountant to build the new consulate general as there was trouble brewing in
Iran.
When I was at Sellafields, I lived at home, at 84 Queen
Street. Yeah, we used to get a double-decker bus, all of us, it used to take us
to Sellafield and take us home at night. From the Railway station.
Q. So it was just you and your mother living there?
A. No, my crippled brother, Arthur and … no just us three.
Three storey house, no bathroom, and the toilet was up the steps in the garden.
You’d go out the back and up the steps and it was at the far end of the garden.
For a bath, we’d use the public baths, as in Japan, Turkey, etc. Yeah, in Duke
st. There was the swimming baths, and the public baths. You’d pay for the
public bath and they’d fill it up with hot water and give you the towels and
that, you could have as long as you’d like. But since then the baths have been
closed down and re-opened at the top of the hill up from Jim and Mary’s place.
They’ve still got public baths, if you want it.
They’re individual bathrooms, so there’s no difference
between going into your own bathroom and these ones. Yeah, there’d still be
houses in Whitehaven that don’t have baths in them.
My clogs were wooden and leather, until I went to secondary
school when I had to wear shoes.
Now, you could waken up, when the depression was on, I’m
talking about 1933, and you’d be sleeping quite soundly and all of a sudden
you’d hear the noise of the clogs. And it was the miners, walking to Lowca, and
Harrington, to the pits, and you had to get up there early. And they’d get up
at four o’clock in the morning and walk the three mile to be there when the
first shift was coming on in case there were some vacancies. And if there was
novacancy, they’d walk back again. And they did this every morning. Every
morning at four o’clock, we’d hear the tap of the clogs, then the last ones
would fade away. Then as youw ere having your breakfast, seven-thirty, eight,
they’d start drifting back. It was just the way things were.
There were that many pubs, I don’t think dad had a
favourite. I think the pub on Duke Street was handy to Dad, so he probably used
that one a fair bit.
Q. There were that many in your house, did you share a bed,
or share a room?
A. There was Mum and Dad, and my two sisters had moved out,
so there were four boys and the lodger, Hugh Jordan. He had his own bed, but
generally speaking, there were two beds in each room and he was there to sleep
and have a meal at night. Sometimes we slept three in a bed. Mum had a boiler,
and stoked up the fire with coal. Fire started with rolled up newspapers and a
little bit of cardboard, then you’d have to wait half an hour for it to get
warm. Put the clothes in, then the soap, then hang it out on the line – yeah –
T-lines (clotheslines held up by poles) – out the back.
Parlour was on your left as you came in – that was alright.
We kept the good pieces in there – the settee and the chair. Now that, by the
way, Mum used to make a bit of money by hiring it out at election time to the
political parties. Sometimes it would be the Labour Party, it would all depend
if it was the council elections, district elections, what it was. They would
come in and sit down at the table, and they would be there all day with their
lists of people and there would be somebody in the election place, usually the
school, and as people went in and got ticked off, the runners would send a
report back and they would mark them off. And those who hadn’t voted, they
would be sent for with a car and organised – it wasn’t compulsory to vote. If
they found out the Smiths hadn’t voted, and they were traditionally voters for
that party, a couple of cars would go round to the Smiths’ place and take them
to the polls.
Q. Do you remember your dad as always in work?
A. Oh no. Dad wasn’t healthy, he had miners’ disease. He
worked in the stone mines at Cleator, and the stone mine at Cleator Moor. He
worked in the quarries, and he went to America and he worked in the copper
mines in Bisbee, Arizona, which is not too far from Tombstone. My sister’s birth
– she was born in Bisbee, is registered in Tombstone (Sarah). She was born
there and had American citizenship. And she ended up in Los Angeles where all
the McArdles were. He came back, worked in the coal mines, but he was, er..
Q. Emphysema?
A. Probably. Oh it
was half a dozen different things, I think. He used to cough his guts up. He
was a very sick man. He finally died. (1936)
Q. So what did your mother do when he died? There was no
widow’s pension, was there?
A. No. I think the lodger helped, and me elder brother
worked in the pits, so he brought money home. And we didn’t pay rent for the
house, because it was ours. My grandfather was supposed to build it, but with
these things you never get the right story, so that could be completely wrong.
Ed worked in the pits but he didn’t like it, so he got out
and worked on the railway. I think he was still on the railway when he died. He
had a tough life, he never got in the army, he was exempt from military service
as being a miner. He never got out of Whitehaven. Neither did Joseph. No he
wasn’t happy mining. He was one of the first in the rescue teams whenever there
was any explosions.
Q. Do you remember any of the explosions?
A. Er, you’d just lie in bed, then all of a sudden, every
church bell rings, no matter what time of day or night it is, and the fire
station puts its siren on and it doesn’t stop. Nobody can sleep – the whole
place is wide awake. The whole community shares the horror. Then you hear
everyone rushing down to get to the pits. Then word comes back to the streets ‘So-and-so’s
gone. So-and-so’s gone. So-and-so’s com out.’ I remember Wellington Pit the
last time, and Edward was in that, and that’s when he decided to get himself in
the railway. The 1947 one. He got out before that one. You live on borrowed
time. Hugh Jordan, yeah, he was a miner. A quiet fella. Had his pipe, drank
occasionally. He got married and went to Cleator Moor. He had a daughter.
Q. Were you named after him?
A. I don’t know?
Q. Can you remember a time when he wasn’t there?
A. When I came back after the War he wasn’t there, but when
I was little he was part of the family. The last I heard his daughter was quite
clever.
Linoleum throughout the house. No carpets, rugs, take them
out and beat them. We always had gas lighting. Whitehaven was one of the first places
in England to have gas street lighting (1877) because that was put in by the Earl
of Lonsdale, from the pits, so why not use it? There was a meter in the parlour
you put your pennies in, a penny at a time for an hour’s gas. You could put six
pennies in and that would keep you going for a couple of days. After the war I
got a young fellow who was an electrician and put the electricity right through
the house. Mum lived there for another 15-16 years after the war, but never got
a bathroom. She bathed once a week. We did have a big bath-tub, you’d put the
kettles on the fire, put one boiling kettle in, the other and that was it. And
you’d bath in the washing up water – just ladle that into the bath from the back
kitchen. This was the room off the kitchen, then the yard, then the steps up to
the garden. That’s what the miners used to do when they come in from work,
there wasn’t any showers in the mines until 1938. The miners always came in
dirty and had to have a bath in front of the fire. It wasn’t exactly a hip
bath, it was a special bath, have a wash and change their clothes.
I can’t remember a winter it didn’t snow. At night time it’s
be all quiet and in the morning you’d hear thud! Because the snow would lay six
inches deep on the roofs and as people lit their fires in the morning and the
chimneys heated up, it would melt the snow and it would avalanche off the roof
and onto the street. You wouldn’t hear anybody walking around because of the
snow on the street. And you’d lie in bed and know it had been snowing before
you even looked out.
What we used to do, because we lived at the top of the hill,
it was plenty dangerous because of the horses and carts bringing things around,
we used to get buckets of water and throw them down the street, and that would
cause ice and we used to get big pieces of cardboard and slide down the whole
street, right into the level, Duke Street. And this made it difficult for the
horses and carts coming up the street, you see.
They didn’t throw salt on the ice. They couldn’t afford
salt, the Council.
St. James’ at the top of Queen Street is St. James’ Anglican
Church. Coach Road is Corkickle. Kells is on top of the hill. You come up Queen
St, we’re up here, and Arrowthwaite and Kells is up here.
St. Beghs and St. Bee’s is the same thing. In Gaelic, the
letter preceding the ‘h’ is silent, like McGrath is McGra. They kept saying St
Begh’s to differentiate from the catholic school and church in town and the
town and private school of St. Bee’s. The town is down the valley, three miles.
No, I don’t remember the town being in flood, but I remember
the waves breaking over the piers and that. On the beach, on a summer’s day,
you would have 500-600 people and you would have people swimming in the water,
but not these days.
Yep, everybody went picking for coal. Everybody did that.
There were no coal concessions for the miners. That’s where I went – St Patrick
and St Gregory’s school in Quay Street. The Whitehaven County Secondary School
built in 1908. Went to mass every Sunday, both parents were Catholic.
