HOMEBREW HERITAGE

Good afternoon, here's a last image of the Brewery seen through the eyes of the young Paul Winder, visiting his mum in the office...and with it a couple of images of souveniers.  The Beer mats come from Rachel Smith whose Nanna worked in the Bottling shop, we hope to hear more from Rachels Nanna.. the pumphead and ashtray come from Peter Butler in Calgary while the bar towell is with  Peter Thompson in Massachusetts.   And now over to Paul Winder.. "..My Dad was very friendly with Eric Simpson who was, I understand, the head honcho in those days. One of dad's favourite days was when Eric took him to the cricket at Old Trafford and introduced him to Freddie Truman.  I used to go with mum when she cleaned the offices in the evening. It was all under the pretext of doing my homework though not much got done. I would sit in Eric Simpson's office and marvel at the section of "Bluebird" which had been retrieved from the bottom of Coniston...

Hello again, and I hope this finds you all well. Here's another snippet of Hartley's history from Paul Winder.  These  great little stories about Paul and his Dad  conjure up another time entirely,  and for me they're an example of what can make reading and hearing personal histories so rewarding. Remember, if you have a connection with the Brewery,  we want to hear from you. The photo at the top of the page is  from Nigel Saul and shows one of one his workmates cleaning the copperwork.  Nigel isn't sure of the feller's name.  Can anyone tell us who this is? The Barrel-end photo comes from Jo Clayton Brown at The Hope And Anchor.  Thanks Jo. By the way, this is now the longest Ive ever had to wait to get served at the Hope... And now, over to Paul.... "..Dad used to start work at 4.30 in the morning on brewing days and would be responsible for starting off the brewing process. It was one such morning that he slipped ...

Paul Winder is an exiled Ulverston lad with a strong family connection to Hartley's. Over the next couple of weeks we'll hearing about his Mother and Father and  their work at the Brewery up to the 80's and the personal touches they brought to it.. And on the right is his Dad, George.. "My mother and father both worked in the brewery. Dad was the boilerman (George Winder) up until his retirement in around 1984. My mum used to clean the offices (Jenny Winder).  Dad was a well known character in the town and had a number of little sidelines going alongside his job. The used hops were very popular with local gardeners and they used to come and fill bags to use on their roses etc. The old oak barrels, when cut in half by the coopers made excellent planters. Dad also provided a "pet cremation" service on occasion.  In those days, the brewery workers were allowed 3 bottles of beer a day. Dad used to bring them home with him and save them up until...

Hello again and welcome to the other 'alf of Nigel Saul's working day at Hartley's back in the 80's. Nigel's photo on the left shows Buck  one of his workmates, adding finings in a celler in around 1980,  and below that we have Roy Snaith and Ken Pelter..if you're out there..get in touch! Last week we heard from Nigel he was  watching the cockroaches in the  Racker as it filled with beer... "..Once the cask was full the levers were flicked back up and the beer flow stopped. A bung was banged into the filler hole in the barrel then it was rolled away by the cellarman (me) to whichever cellar it was to be stored in. This could be risky as the wooden barrels were held together by metal hoops, which would rust and when a hops was only held together by a sliver of metal the could snap and spring apart and if you were unlucky it could stab you in the arm. I still have the scar. Health and safety? Tsk tsk. As beer was now seeping out it had to be repair...

If you've spent anytime in Ulverston you'll have probably noticed that there is a bit of a cross-over between the world of folk music and brewing. There's the long established (and currently much missed) folk session in the Hope And Anchor on Daltongate, and there's a lot of it in the music as well, locally and nationally..theres a 16th century ballad that came to be called When Jones Ale was New, there's local heroes Firkin, and Bag O Rag's song about Hartley's, and of course John Barleycorn, rising up as strong as ever, since who knows when? This version in the right was published in 1725.. And if you want to combine the two - responsibly, of course - in the spirit of friendship, what better time than Mayday. Normally, anyway, Heres a song recorded in 1938 for Topic records by Paddy Ryan. Topic is one of THE great folk labels,  but it began as an offshoot of the   Workers' Music Association in 1939,  moving towards traditional music after the war....

Hello again. It's very nice to see that so many of you are taking an interest in what we are doing. What with The Situation this project has taken a slightly different shape than we intended, but the comments and contributions we've had have been great, and I'm very grateful to you all. As you know, we have been training our interviewees up, and they are currently putting Jenn Bell's tuition into practice  by looking at the recording kit, listening to archive recordings and by running mock-interviews with their nearest and dearest (certainly thier nearest, but not too near, I hope..) so by the time we get round to talking to you we should be running smoothly. Till then I thought we might have some Tasters.. early doors we had some interesting chats and online letters from former brewery staff and thier families, and we will be sitting down to interview them all as soon as we can...but in the meantime i thought you might enjoy  a few excerpts from what they sent us....

Hello again and welcome to part three of Eric Simpson's personal history of his time at Hartley's.  In this last part Eric talks about upgrades to motors, pumps and boilers and  the cost of such maintanance, and we hear a little of the process of replacing himself as Head Brewer, and about the birth of his famous XB. The story ends on a bitter sweet note, as you might expect, but not before Eric has told us a little about the role of the Lancashire Constabulary in testing the strength of a particular brew... https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Y7eMgBLAUEJAJYMcqliXUt7LYJi75nqG?usp=sharing The photograph here comes from Nigel Saul, and shows his workmates Tony Doyle "Alf" Atkinson, Geoff, and Steve Gilpin in the Change Of Bottle shop. Thanks again to Roger Baker and to the Brewing History Society. Remember, if you have stories or photos from your time at the brewery or of members of your family that worked there, we want to see them.  It all helps to k...