Memories of Working in the Brickfields

From the mid nineteenth century for about 100 years many local men were employed in the Otterham or Lower Halstow brickfields including the late Cliff Wanstall before he became a well known and long serving Upchurch village postmaster during the early 1950s.

“I worked in the Lower Halstow brickfields for about five years during the 1930s. My father had worked there as a moulder and setter and I used to travel to London in one of the brickfield trucks and helped the driver unload. I also ran errands in the brickfield during the school holidays. My first full time job as a ‘crowder’ was physically hard. I had to push a barrow full of bricks along a rail then load the contents on to a lorry. I also worked as a ‘flatty’ making bricks by hand in the brick shed.

Memories of Upchurch.

Men usually worked  full time in the brickfield and women worked there as barrow loaders during the summer months but sometimes workers were laid off during winter because of wet weather which made brick making difficult. Work usually began at 6 a.m. and finished at 5 p.m. with a one hour lunch break. Workers were paid on a peace work basis per thousand bricks. Unfortunately, if rain came after working hours a whistle sounded and workers had to return to the field to cover the bricks, even late at night. Work was physically hard but relations between workers were good.

Local Upchurch men I remember working in the Lower Halstow brickfield included Bert Smitherman and Wally Edmonds from The Street and Bert and Ashley Edmonds from Twinney but there were others.

Safety precautions were quite good but several times I remember watching an inexperienced worker running downhill with his wheelbarrow too quickly only to let go when losing control causing the barrow and its contents to tip over on the ground. However, the older workers looked after the younger ones and advised them. Work was difficult to obtain during the 1930s depression so the brickfields allowed a regular income and many men worked there for the whole of their working lives.

After the war I worked at the Otterham Brickfield for two years and my first job was in the chalk pit just off Canterbury Lane. Work in the main brickfield area was easier than at Lower Halstow because you didn’t have to run so far with the bricks. We also had to provide our own transport and many of the workers cycled to work and some took a bottle of cold tea to drink. I got laid off for a month after I crashed my bike into the back of a lorry at the bottom of Windmill Hill on my way to work and got injured but I soon recovered and returned to my job.

The greatest benefit of working for ‘Eastwoods’ at the Otterham brickfield was that if you were a member of a gang that produced one million bricks the company would provide each man with a new pair of boots. The work was very hard but I enjoyed it and worked there until the late 1940s.”

David Wood, who was born and raised in Upchurch, is able to write from personal experience about many people and aspects of the village and of changes that have taken place over the years making ‘Memories of Upchurch’ a very readable book and a detailed historical study of the village.

David Wood's book ‘Memories of Upchurch’ is available direct from David on:  david3702001@yahoo.co.uk  price £12 + p+p £2.

David Wood

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