A. J. Jewsons Halifax
Me and Ronnie Wood circa 1964
My dream was to be a footballer, I was the school captain at the final year of Greetland Secondary Modern School.
I became a ball boy at Halifax Town and worked part-time on the ground staff during school holidays.
I loved being amongst the staff and players, like a dream come true. The manager Mr Harry Hooper liked me as a person but made it clear I would never make a footballer other than the local Sunday League.
But I was good at Subuteo.
So as I was about to leave school best that I looked for a job, a proper job. School gave no help as they were not interested in us comprehensive boys who had intruded on their grammar school teaching.
My father came home from work on evening and told me there was an advert in the window of A.J. Jewsons and they needed an assistant.
I got the job and started officially on 17th July 1961 having worked a few trial Saturdays.
The owner was Len Scott a local businessman who also owned Nicholl & Brown the local sports shop and a craft shop in the indoor market.
He gave me £ 2.17.6 a week which compared to shop workers starting pay was about average, I was overjoyed when he gave me my first rise to £ 3.10.0 within a year.
Mr Stott was a fine Salmon fisherman and also had a small factory making fishing lures.
My boss, the manager, was Ronnie Wood a slightly built man who always had a pipe in his hand and he would smoke it all day sometimes making me feel sickly.
Ronnie had two daughters and would have liked a son so you can imagine how he took me under his wing.
"Always have a clean collar and tie and shiny shoes and people will respect you" he used to drum into me.
Jewsons where known as practical gun makers so I had to learn to service and repair guns and assist Ronnie in apprenticeship fashion.
If he dropped a screwdriver while working on the bench it was the lads job to pick it up and hand it to him like a surgeon in a theatre.
We used to hand make 12 bore shotgun cartridges using a wooden template that held 100 empty cases.
First adding the nitro powder then one over powder cardboard wad followed by two felt wads followed by lead shot and an overshot wad.
Each cartridge would be hand rolled in a lathe, rolled turned, now they crimp them.
We would do special custom loads for various people, less gunpowder for Lord Bolton as he did not like too much recoil, size 6 shot for Lord Saville for his Grouse shooting.
As well as shooting we had a big customer based for fishing tackle, this I loved as I started course fishing right away, perhaps the only thing I got trophies for.
Some famous people used to come in the shop in fact one day I was reading Private Eye round the back, I was reading a piece about Screaming Lord Such when the door bell rang, I put the magazine down and went to serve the customer... it was indeed Screaming Lord Such, he came in to buy blank cartridges for his stage act. What a coincidence, anyway I got the magazine signed and had a chat with him.
The biggest surprise one day my boss Mr Stott phoned from the Cavalier Club to say he was sending some boys down to the shop to buy some fishing tackle, " you might know them" he said, they are called The Small Faces. Gosh I was a bass playing and I am going to meet Plonk Lane! The boys were great they stayed for over one hour and showed genuine interest in my band Peter and the Wolves.
We had to lock the shop as word had got around that the Faces were inside Jewsons.
On the run up to Christmas the Toy & Sports shop Nicholl & Brown were very busy just as the gun and fishing business was quiet so Mr Stott would call on my services there, it was a complete change to the gun trade and they had some very nice female sales assistants.
I loved the busy atmosphere and the Christmas feeling of good will. My job would include selling sports gear so I had lots of interest in selling football boots, not so many brand names then in fact Winnit was the strong brand, some with knock in leather studs.
We would also insert bladders into leather footballs and blow and lace them up.
Mr Stott took in a new partner Mr Frank Lloyd he was an ex Flight Sg.in the RAF and formally the agent for Lord Bolton.
Frank Lloyd was a kind man, he taught me to fly fish for brown trout from a rowing boat somewhere in a lake in Rushworth or Ripponden.
He would buy me vitamins when I had cold or I was low with working too hard as I was also playing in a band called Peter and the Wolves which meant lots of late nights.
Mr Lloyd recognised I had flair and a talent for retailing and often told me to be patient in job progression as it would be many years to Mr Woods retirement. I am pleased I did not wait around to become manager of Jewsons as Ronnie stayed on until 1991 when he was 75 years old.
After Christmas it would be back to Jewsons selling maggots to the anglers still an enjoyable workplace.
I enjoyed my time at Jewsons and Nicholl & Brown as both staff and customers gave me confidence and made my job worthwhile.
I still believe to this day that Mr Stott, LLoyd and Wood gave me a good grounding to adulthood.
I became a ball boy at Halifax Town and worked part-time on the ground staff during school holidays.
I loved being amongst the staff and players, like a dream come true. The manager Mr Harry Hooper liked me as a person but made it clear I would never make a footballer other than the local Sunday League.
But I was good at Subuteo.
So as I was about to leave school best that I looked for a job, a proper job. School gave no help as they were not interested in us comprehensive boys who had intruded on their grammar school teaching.
My father came home from work on evening and told me there was an advert in the window of A.J. Jewsons and they needed an assistant.
I got the job and started officially on 17th July 1961 having worked a few trial Saturdays.
The owner was Len Scott a local businessman who also owned Nicholl & Brown the local sports shop and a craft shop in the indoor market.
He gave me £ 2.17.6 a week which compared to shop workers starting pay was about average, I was overjoyed when he gave me my first rise to £ 3.10.0 within a year.
Mr Stott was a fine Salmon fisherman and also had a small factory making fishing lures.
My boss, the manager, was Ronnie Wood a slightly built man who always had a pipe in his hand and he would smoke it all day sometimes making me feel sickly.
Ronnie had two daughters and would have liked a son so you can imagine how he took me under his wing.
"Always have a clean collar and tie and shiny shoes and people will respect you" he used to drum into me.
Jewsons where known as practical gun makers so I had to learn to service and repair guns and assist Ronnie in apprenticeship fashion.
If he dropped a screwdriver while working on the bench it was the lads job to pick it up and hand it to him like a surgeon in a theatre.
We used to hand make 12 bore shotgun cartridges using a wooden template that held 100 empty cases.
First adding the nitro powder then one over powder cardboard wad followed by two felt wads followed by lead shot and an overshot wad.
Each cartridge would be hand rolled in a lathe, rolled turned, now they crimp them.
We would do special custom loads for various people, less gunpowder for Lord Bolton as he did not like too much recoil, size 6 shot for Lord Saville for his Grouse shooting.
As well as shooting we had a big customer based for fishing tackle, this I loved as I started course fishing right away, perhaps the only thing I got trophies for.
Some famous people used to come in the shop in fact one day I was reading Private Eye round the back, I was reading a piece about Screaming Lord Such when the door bell rang, I put the magazine down and went to serve the customer... it was indeed Screaming Lord Such, he came in to buy blank cartridges for his stage act. What a coincidence, anyway I got the magazine signed and had a chat with him.
The biggest surprise one day my boss Mr Stott phoned from the Cavalier Club to say he was sending some boys down to the shop to buy some fishing tackle, " you might know them" he said, they are called The Small Faces. Gosh I was a bass playing and I am going to meet Plonk Lane! The boys were great they stayed for over one hour and showed genuine interest in my band Peter and the Wolves.
We had to lock the shop as word had got around that the Faces were inside Jewsons.
On the run up to Christmas the Toy & Sports shop Nicholl & Brown were very busy just as the gun and fishing business was quiet so Mr Stott would call on my services there, it was a complete change to the gun trade and they had some very nice female sales assistants.
I loved the busy atmosphere and the Christmas feeling of good will. My job would include selling sports gear so I had lots of interest in selling football boots, not so many brand names then in fact Winnit was the strong brand, some with knock in leather studs.
We would also insert bladders into leather footballs and blow and lace them up.
Mr Stott took in a new partner Mr Frank Lloyd he was an ex Flight Sg.in the RAF and formally the agent for Lord Bolton.
Frank Lloyd was a kind man, he taught me to fly fish for brown trout from a rowing boat somewhere in a lake in Rushworth or Ripponden.
He would buy me vitamins when I had cold or I was low with working too hard as I was also playing in a band called Peter and the Wolves which meant lots of late nights.
Mr Lloyd recognised I had flair and a talent for retailing and often told me to be patient in job progression as it would be many years to Mr Woods retirement. I am pleased I did not wait around to become manager of Jewsons as Ronnie stayed on until 1991 when he was 75 years old.
After Christmas it would be back to Jewsons selling maggots to the anglers still an enjoyable workplace.
I enjoyed my time at Jewsons and Nicholl & Brown as both staff and customers gave me confidence and made my job worthwhile.
I still believe to this day that Mr Stott, LLoyd and Wood gave me a good grounding to adulthood.
|
 49 years later
As a result of the piece in the Halifax Courier in March 2010 my mother received a telephone call from Ronnie Wood asking if I would contact him. To be honest I thought maybe he would no longer be with us. I remembered Ronnie's birthday was 19th May so he would be 94 years old. I was keen to see Ronnie again so I did the 400 mile round trip to take him for lunch on his birthday. We were joined by an old Jewson customer and friend of Ronnie's, Peter Todd. We dined at the Malthouse Rishworth. During the 3 or 4 hours time together we chatted like Jewson's was only yesterday remembering various names and personalities we served in the shop. We compared notes on what loads we did in 12 bore cartridges for Lord Savile and Lord Bolton. Talked about who was still alive and how people had past away. Ronnie told me he stopped smoking when he was 85 and no longer drinks whiskey as it was too expensive. I got the chance to thank Ronnie for helping to guide me through my teenage years. Ronnie told me how proud he was that I had done so well it was almost like father and son. If I never see Ronnie again, this day will remain in my memory forever. |
