FROM SOCKS... TO SOOT... ONE OF THE WORST JOBS IN HISTORY...
‘He cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw; and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day in the week ; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the week ; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the week likewise…' (Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies).
This is the story of my Chimney Sweeping ancestors. It is about working class men, their families and the hardships they endured. From roots in Leicester and the poverty of the framework knitting industry, to the Black Country and the lives my forebears made for themselves there.
Instead of working in the iron and steel mills, which might have been expected, my great-grandfather and others chose a different path, one in which, as climbing boys, they would have negotiated the narrow flues of chimneys with brush and scraper, a notoriously hazardous task. Yet several of my ancestors plied this trade for many years, my own great-grandfather for all his working life...
‘He cried when he had to climb the dark flues, rubbing his poor knees and elbows raw; and when the soot got into his eyes, which it did every day in the week ; and when his master beat him, which he did every day in the week ; and when he had not enough to eat, which happened every day in the week likewise…' (Charles Kingsley, The Water Babies).
This is the story of my Chimney Sweeping ancestors. It is about working class men, their families and the hardships they endured. From roots in Leicester and the poverty of the framework knitting industry, to the Black Country and the lives my forebears made for themselves there.
Instead of working in the iron and steel mills, which might have been expected, my great-grandfather and others chose a different path, one in which, as climbing boys, they would have negotiated the narrow flues of chimneys with brush and scraper, a notoriously hazardous task. Yet several of my ancestors plied this trade for many years, my own great-grandfather for all his working life...
