Every year, around this time, the asphalt surface of the school playground would be buried under a huge pile of coke. It was like lumps of gray cindery coal, but without much weight. Gradually, it disappeared into the school boiler room.
The coke was a by-product of the corporation gasworks, which manufactured coal gas supplied to our houses through a network of pipes. We had gas cookers, and gas taps beside the fireplace to which you could connect a free-standing gas fire through a rubber tube. I ran the Bunsen burner for my home chemistry set in the same way. Outside, there were gas lamps along the street, and a man with a long pole came to turn them on and off each evening and morning. My dad could remember the pre-electric days when houses had gas mantles for internal lighting.
Gas was produced by heating coal in the absence of air, with coke, tar, and chemicals as by-products. Coke burned hotter and cleaner than coal and could be used as fuel in specialized boilers. It was also used in industrial processes, but was no good for the home fireplace.
Dad’s Arthur Mee Encyclopedia (1927) has a series of pictures and diagrams showing how coal gas was made and the amount of plant and machinery needed. Here are the first three.
The
corporation gasworks were near the docks where they were supplied by canal with coal from the Yorkshire coal fields.
In other towns, coal trains ran through the streets to the gasworks. The infrastructure was extensive: heavy engineering, railway lines, underground
pipes. You could live in Gas Works Street, work at the gasworks, drink and be entertained at the Gas Club, and go on gasworks outings. Some of the structures are still around.
That, for me, describes 1950s Britain (and earlier): asphalt playgrounds, school boiler rooms, gas lights, gas works, coal trains pulled by steam engines, and coke before it had any other meanings. I have no idea why it came to me in the middle of the night.
It became obsolete when we changed over to North Sea Gas in the early 1970s. Millions of household appliances had to be converted to burn natural rather than coal gas. The gas storage tanks at the gas works continued in use for many years, until condemned as unnecessary. Many have since been dismantled. We have hardly any gas storage in Britain now; just a few days’ supply, as compared with a few months’ supply in Germany.
I found my love by the gasworks croft
Dreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old town, dirty old town
I heard a siren from the docks
Saw a train set the night on fire
Smelled the spring on the smoky wind
Dirty old town, dirty old town
Clouds are floating across the sky
Cats are prowling upon their beat
Spring’s a girl in the streets at night
Dirty old town, dirty old town
I’m going to make a good sharp axe
Shining steel tempered in the fire
We'll chop you down like an old dead tree
Dirty old town, dirty old town
https://musescore.com/user/5060416/scores/4832062
People often think the song was written about Dublin but it was really Salford.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, but it easily could be my home town too. The Dubliners did not do the song many favours, and the Pogues version is shite. The Youtube link is to a fairly authentic version. Quite clever the way he bends the time signature.
DeleteI'm trying to figure out why this is considered a love song to a place. It sounds quite charming in the beginning, but then it seems to turn a bit jaded and tawdry, and in the end, he's ready to chop it down. Enlighten me oh wise one(s)?
ReplyDeleteSometimes strange details come to me in the night. Once I dreamt of the way the old green shades would rattle on their roller in the face of an oncoming storm. Our papers would fly from our desks, and we would laugh, and the teacher would go around shutting the windows as the sky grew dark.
Kids today will never know that. Their windows don't open.
I would have thought it was about love in Salford rather than love of Salford.
DeleteI seem to remember we had sacks of coke for our fire at home as it was cheaper than coal, but I could be wrong. It was a long time ago.
ReplyDeleteI also remember the huge gas holders that we called gasometers that were in most towns around us. After seeing the Quatermass horror classic that featured one, they always gave me the creeps after that.
I might be wrong about coke, but I didn't think you could use it in the home fire because it was too difficult to light, but maybe it could be mixed in with coal. Yes, we called the tanks gasometers, too - I suppose their height indicated how much gas was in them. I read somewhere that there were around 4,000 gas works in the UK.
DeleteThe gas pipe at the side of the fire was used for what was called a gas poker. You turned on the gas, lit it with a long spill ( tightly rolled newspaper or bought as thin strips of coloured wood) and pushed it into the coal or coke to get it lit. Once lit in this way coke could be used on an ordinary fire
DeleteA friend had a gas poker like that. We used the shovel and newspaper method to get the fire going. But we only had coal. What were the benefits of coke?
DeleteEvocative of times past. Of course in the middle of the East Riding there were no gas pipes so our heating came entirely from coal and later domestic coke which was rather different from industrial coke. Coke fires had glass doors on them which you kept shut until the coke was raging. It seemed to last longer than coal and created a more intense heat with far less waste.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that your dreams were invaded with thoughts of gas for Freudian reasons but discretion is the better part of valour so I will not venture further along that dark and verdant avenue.
That is informative about coke and the special burners needed. I thought you were going to say that in the depths of the rural East Riding you heated your homes by burning cow clap. Was there no gas works in Hornsea?
DeleteI believe there were gasworks in Hornsea but the supply never reached inland villages.
DeleteI first encountered that song through Roger Whittaker's recording of it. I was a big fan of his in the 1980s. Alas, I guess he just died a couple of months ago. We should all whistle a tribute to his memory.
ReplyDeleteI hadn't heard that he had died recently. He could certainly whistle, and some of his songs were great. What I didn't like about him was the impression he gave that he thought himself so good. Maybe he was but a bit of modesty might have helped.
DeleteMy parents bought a home in 1945. It was heated by a coal furnace close to five years, and then oil, from a big tank in our basement. In about fifteen years they converted to a natural gas furnace, which they had all along for cooking. And natural gas it remains.
ReplyDeleteSome here had Aga cookers - i.e. coal ovens. We moved to a house that had one, but replacing it with gas was one of the first things my mum had done. My grandparents had a coal fired range, and I think the Aga reminded my mother too much of that.
DeleteI am not sure if our coal gas was made the same way as yours would have been but I remember kitchens would acquire the gas odour, not a very pleasant smell. Perhaps those who lived in the homes became inured to the smell but as a visitor, it was very obvious.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds more like a gas leak to me, which was dangerous. Poisonous and explosive. We always had gas, but I don't think there was ever a smell unless a pilot light had gone out.
DeleteHere in Germany (at least in my part of it), natural gas was introduced as the main heating means for private households in the late 1970s/early 80s big style. I remember how much room there was all of a sudden in our cellar after the old oil tank was removed.
ReplyDeleteUntil we moved out of our 1930s terraced house in 1988, we still used coal and wood to heat the boiler in our bathroom for showers - baths were nearly off limits, as it'd take so much more hot water than a quick shower. We took turns in carrying the coal and wood two floors up from the cellar, and in cleaning out the ash tray underneath the boiler - always a tricky moment when you emptied the small-ish tray into the larger metal bucket. Usually, the entire room needed dusting and wiping down afterwards.
But I remember the particular warmth of our bathroom. No other room in the house felt like that.
I also remember (and to this day appreciate) the luxurious feeling when we moved to a new house in 1988 where all you needed to do when you wanted a shower was to turn on the hot water! Fantastic!
Presumably, you went over to North Sea gas like we did.
DeleteA lot of people here had somethings called a Baxi boiler behind the living room fire, and this heated the hot water in the bathroom tank. Often this would be supplemented by an electric immersion heater, which remained common until Combi gas boilers which heat the water on demand.
I suppose we could still use gasometers to store gas if there were any still around. I think I've seen one near where I live. Why are we so short-sighted in this country?
ReplyDeleteBecause we have had a crap money grabbing government for the last decade.
DeleteThe gasholder scaffolding pictured in the post is a current streetview in Huddersfield.
DeleteI remember the yellow smog in Wolverhampton, it was very eerie. I am sure we used coke, it was pressed into a shape, I know we had a couple of cool houses with coal and coke. This was Before the Time of central heating with a kitchen range that kept the kitchen warm, the only warm room in winter before school.
ReplyDeleteThe Aga cooker I mention in a comment above used smokeless fuel nuggets rather than coal. They were much like you describe. I think it was called phurnicite.
DeleteI well remember the switchover to North Sea gas - contractors were laying a 24" main distribution pipe through the fields of the farm where I lived but chose a very unfortunate time as we had over 36 hours continuous rain that turned the pipe earthworks into new rivers across the fields. It was also frustrating as we had the gas pipeline there, but never had any gas piped into the houses or farm buildings so had to continue using coal and wood for heating and cooking.
ReplyDeleteI guess you would have had plenty of wood on a farm so it would have been inexpensive.
DeleteI found my love by the gasworks croft
ReplyDeleteDreamed a dream by the old canal
Kissed my girl by the factory wall
Dirty old man, dirty old man!
You really should try to forget those songs you learnt at your school rugby club. Next thing you will be reciting the one about the young ladies from Inverness.
DeleteI hadn't really paid great attention to the lyrics of that song before now. Thank you for sharing such a thoughtful post. -amazing to think about your having seen gas lamps being lit/unlit along the street when you were younger.
ReplyDeleteLooking up Ewen MacColl has made me want to know more. He was first a playwright and married the influential theatre director Joan Littlewood, and later Peddy Seeger of the American folk music family. Another of his songs was the beautiful "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" made popular by Roberta Flack. However, MacColls's politics were not in favour with the British establishment.
DeleteWe would have had gas lamps in our street until 1954/55. Electric ones replaced them before we moved in 1956.
I love that song. I also loved the gasometers in my home town - something neat about the way they were the biggest thing in a lowrise town. Have you seen the London apartments built inside old gasometer frames?
ReplyDeleteI did not know about the apartments. Just looked. They would not be my first choice of res.
Delete