Visiting ‘Burnie’ the Blacksmith
Memory by Clive Dalton
Mothers in our day never seemed to worry about us being late home from school, knowing that we would have called in at some friend’s place, and would certainly have been fed and be safe unlike today. My after-school mates on the way home up to Noble Street were often Alan Story, who he and his mum lived in a small cottage down a narrow dark back lane behind the church yard, and Willie Reed who lived in a cottage next to R.J. Burns (Burnie) the blacksmith. The smithy was my favourite venue down the burn side, as it was with many other village folk of all ages and for many reasons, the main one being it was always warm and there was always plenty of Burnie’s action to watch and to crack!
It was also a competitive place where young bucks would compete to see who could lift the anvil, or a single cart wheel, or even a pair of wheels mounted on their axle.
Burnie was a gruff character with kids to say the least, but he put up with me as my Dad provided him with leeks – and he always did well in the competition at the Annual Leek Club Show in the Town Hall. His competitors always claimed that it was because of the horse muck and hoof trimmings from the smithy.
Blacksmith’s shops always seemed dark places due to the windows being made up of many small panes and a half door with only the top half open. And of course the blacksmith didn’t just shoe horses. He made a wide range of things from fancy gates, and especially in my day of tractors arriving on farms, drawbars to convert horse machines to be pulled by tractors. He even made runners for kids’ sledges and round metal hoops that we rolled along with a bit of bent wire. We called these a ‘guard’ for some daft reason and loved the noise they made on the tar-sealed road.
Outside the smithy was a circular shallow trough in which was laid a wooden cart wheel freshly made by Weightmans of Lane Head. Burnie would make a large round rim or tyre to go over it which expanded when it was hot, and then it was quenched with buckets of water to shrink it tight. That was not a good day for us kids to visit the forge as he needed quite a bit of help, and we kids were best out of the way.
But my favourite time was seeing a horse being shod. Many blacksmiths have a range of shoes of different sizes which they make in preparation for a client. But if the horse has different feet, then the four shoes had to be made from straight bar steel which takes a lot more work for the fire, the bellows, the anvil and all the range of tools, such as spikes to make holes for the nails. It’s said that the blacksmith is the only tradesman who makes his own tools. It was an art without a doubt and Burnie had spent a lifetime at it, including his time in WW1 where his job was to shoe mules and horses used to pull guns up and back from the battle front.
So if the ready-made shoe fits, the horse may be ‘cold shod’, but if a new shoe had to be made, then it’s ‘hot shod’. It’s quite a process taking an old shoe off as the nails sticking out the front of the hoof have to be knocked back, and the underside of the hoof (the frog) is cleaned out with a hoof knife with special bent blade and then levelled with rasps and files. And all this has to be done with the horse’s hoof between the smithy’ legs through the split in his leather apron.
Holding the new hot shoe on the foot with a spike in one of the nail holes generates clouds of smoke which the poor smithy has to keep blowing away. Burning hoof does not make a pleasant odour and it’s a wonder so many blacksmiths lived to a ripe old age. Doing the front feet is much easier to hold up but a cunning old horse when you have a back leg between your legs discovers something very nice to rest it’s weight on – you! But a smart blacksmith soon reminds the horse of it’s manners to stand up by a dig in the ribs with his elbow or hammer handle. Burnie could add some choice dialect too!
One day while burning on the shoe I was watching, Burnie’s wire rimmed specs must have got clouded over so he took them off, flinging them towards the forge door – shouting at me to ‘tek them bluddy things in te Ester (his wife) and git hor te clean them’, which I promptly did before he or the horse got more agitated!
The other reprimand I got one day was when I was enjoying moving the bellows handle up and down to generate air to heat the iron that was in the fire. I got a bit over enthusiastic and by increasing the pumping up and down of the handle I had a real furnace going from the bellows. All that did was to cause a massive ‘gollar’ from Burnie reminding me that ‘I was not playing a bluddy musical instrument, so gan stiddy’.
The sound of a hammer hitting an anvil brings back instant memories, not just of R.J. Burns but of my year at Kirkley Hall Farm Institute when we had a forge and a visiting blacksmith (Mr Jackson) who tried to teach us some basics of doing things with metal. He helped me make a shepherd’s crook or leg cleek to catch a sheep by the back leg – which I found ideal for harvesting fruit from high trees in later years.
One important jobs in a smithy is to be a ‘striker’ for the blacksmith. Here you help with a heavy hammer and take your turn at hitting the iron where the blacksmith wants it. No words are needed as two bouncy taps on the anvil tells you to hold your action till he leads off again. I loved that great privilege – and Mr Jackson’s visiting days.
When Burnie needed extra power for striking he gave a massive shout for Ester and his skilled assistant duly arrived! One important lesson I learned in the smithy at Kirkley is NEVER pick a bit of metal off the floor of the smithy without spitting on it first. A few burned fingers helps to remember this.