Bernard

What's next?

Ronald

We were talking about the unions and their demands and how you dealt with them.

Bernard

Oh ah. How we collifogled, (muddled through) and it was a collifogle I can tell you. Sometimes we came up against a brick wall, and I thought well crikey this is Baptist Missionary Society's enterprise and if we get stuck then it's the Field Secretary's job to help to sort it out.

Ronald

But you never had a strike.

Bernard

I didn't. I didn't. No. They did after. But the relations actually between the management and the workers were better than they'd been for, to my certain knowledge, for at least 20 years. But your Uncle Norman it nearly drove him crazy. Because he was a bit intransigent.

Ronald

He had a different attitude to...

Bernard

Completely.

Ronald

Completely different. I mean it was like red rag to a bull to him was it?

Bernard

Well it was eventually when he had to declare this lockout, you see, when they went slow. It follows a certain pattern, these lockouts did, from what I was told later. I mean first week, second week, third week, and then fourth week they're getting churned up, and the fifth week they're getting bolshy, and the sixth week they're ready for throwing stones or assault and battery, because there was no money coming in you see. The sixth week was the crisis week. Either they gave way, or, management and the workers had to meet to reach some compromise. That was how it could be resolved. That was the only way in which it could be resolved because sooner or later the two parties had got to get together. That was what happened. Your Uncle Norman wouldn't give way.

All that arose over one man being given the sack because he was found drinking tea, and whatnot, in a restaurant in Elliot Road when he should have been working. He just strolled out and...

Ronald

... had a cup of tea. Who found him?

Bernard

Oh, somebody split on him. You're not supposed to leave the premises during working hours. Of course not. It was a serious offence that was.

Ronald

So he was dismissed on the spot?

Bernard

He was dismissed. Yes.

Ronald

And Uncle Norman dealt with that?

Bernard

Yes. And that was really the cause of the lockout. When it got to about the sixth or the seventh week there was stone throwing and brick ends coming into the compound, and gathered round the gates, they wouldn't even let the servants in. We had a helluva job that time. There were these deadline dates to meet, you see, with all this confidential stuff that had been completed and we couldn't get it out of the Press. We used to hire lorries to, you know, take these boxes away to the station and get them sent away to these various universities. It finished up with Hazleton and your Uncle Norman and me doing it all; not the printing, but the boxing up and hiring lorries and getting them to slip into the compound before the pickets were aware of what was happening. Anyway, all the deadline dates were met with.

But I didn't have that trouble, I say, because I decided that this was a joint enterprise and the Society had got to come into it sooner or later. I got the Field Secretary in and we all consulted together and eventually the Worker's Union, in one instance, decided to accept what Ro Cowling, who was a finance man, he'd got banking experience and whatnot, although not much industrial, they'd accept what they entitled the 'Cowling Award'. Which sounded very... The only difficulty about it was that the award that he made was so generous that we immediately got into trouble with other printing presses in the City because we were over-paying our men. Of course it settled the demand and they accepted what Ro Cowling recommended, but it was much too high. I never dreamt that he'd go as high as he did, but I sort of said I'd agree with whatever he suggested. Anyway, that was that. We got over that, and I thought well we can't be having this sort of thing another year.

By this time Sham Howard was a bit of a wreck because of the way they got back at him... the workers... took the ground clean from under him because they wouldn't go through him they'd always got to come direct to me. That's what they wanted, to talk directly to the Superintendent across a desk and settle all these things. I got round that. Of course otherwise you'd have spent literally half a day, every day, doing nothing else but talk about Worker's Union problems. One of the problems was the time that was spent exclusively on Worker's Union demands. It wasn't a matter of an hour or a two hours meeting, sometimes they'd be about three hours, and they were not working while these meetings were taking place and I most certainly wasn't.

So, I got Lakshmi Narayan who was the former head reader, the barrister chap, and he was in the Confidential Department by that time, and I worked it round to his agreeing, and the Worker's Union agreeing, to consult together with Lakshmi Narayan, who was, as I say, a trained barrister, he wasn't pro management and he wasn't pro workers. He was a half way man. I got them to accept that whatever he and the Worker's Union agreed between themselves would be fair, in point of basic pay and that sort of thing, that I would accept his recommendations. And that was how we go round it. Otherwise I should have spent nothing else but my time working out basic pay. It varied from one department to another. It was very involved. It wasn't all sort of saying, oh, every man gets so much, and every man gets so much. You just couldn't do it like that. It was all very difficult.

Ronald

But this problem with this chap who got caught in this tea place...

Bernard

How did that get settled?

Ronald

I mean he...Yes... Well... Uncle Norman locked them out did he?

Bernard

Yeah he did. Yeah

Ronald

And weren't there signs all over the place saying...

Bernard

Oh aye. There were not only signs. They not only took the processions out shouting abuse against him, but in the night they'd got the fly posters posted on every wall, pasted on every wall, right up to Serampore, which was 15 miles from Calcutta, and all over the City. "GO HOME NORMAN ELLIS!" All our Norman's friends in the City could see these signs, and they used to pull his leg at the Swimming Club. He didn't like that. I know one night he and I were out and he was trying to get rid of these fly posters all round the Press. Stuck on the walls everywhere they were. "GO HOME NORMAN ELLIS!" It were that really that killed his pig.

But, when this lockout took place, finally it got to the pitch where unless there was some solution arrived at your Uncle Norman stood a good chance of having his car door wrenched open and him being stabbed. And I told him so. I said "When you go out, and you come back to the Press, and you have to drive through the pickets, and the durwan opens the gate for you to go in, in your car..." I said "You want to keep that car door locked till you get inside that compound." "Because..." I said "The way things are going they'll not be averse to wrenching the thing open and having a go at you." Especially Muslims because they were very handy with knives. They were great stabbers.

Ronald

Did you feel safe?

Bernard

Me?

Ronald

I mean you were his brother. I mean they didn't shout abuse at you?

Bernard

Well I wasn't Superintendent.

Ronald

I mean you felt you could come and go...

Bernard

I never took it personally. Oh yes I didn't take it personally. But you see your Uncle Norman added fuel to the fire, really, by when he went out and had to pass through these pickets and the workers also on the pavement outside, he didn't walk through expressionless, as you might say. Which he should have done. He sort of, um, well I wouldn't say goaded them by his manner but he didn't calm the situation down by, sort of, passing through them with a bit of quiet dignity. Which he should have done. No question about that.

It was that that caused this keen animosity between the workers and your Uncle Norman. Relations would never have been the same again. Of course he was going to retire within a year or two. So that killed his pig and he decided that even if the Society asked him to stay on a year or two, to help me out, he decided, and Peggie, Auntie Peggie said "I shan't be satisfied until I get my husband out of India." And she wasn't satisfied. And then they went, and when he went out of the compound on his way to the station it was...

Ronald

Was the strike still going on?

Bernard

No. It was settled by then. There was an icy atmosphere. There was no fond farewell after about 30, 40 years which he had done at the Press. Nothing. He just went out and that was it. Turned his back on the Press and he never wanted to hear any more about it, really. It was that lockout that did it, that settled his...

But how we settled that lockout was that, as I say, by the sixth or the seventh week we decided that we should have to have this meeting round a table, and there were two of the Worker's Union, and there was Earnest Madge, and me, and your Uncle Norman. We'd got complete deadlock you see. Neither side would give way, and your Uncle Norman wouldn't give way, until it got to the pitch where I said to Samuel Das... There was dead silence round that table and I said to Samuel Das "Samuel." "Fetch so and so." This was the chap who had been dismissed. Immediately he reacted. He jumped to his feet and he went out. Nobody expected him to do that. But you see that's how Indians do react. You give somebody a sudden direct order and instinctively they'll obey. I just said "Samuel. Go and fetch him." And Samuel was on his feet, this barbery Communist, Christian Secretary, and out he went and fetched this chap in. Your Uncle Norman just said to him "Where are the witnesses against you for this etc. etc. that is alleged to have happened?" There were no witnesses, so he withdrew his charge against this chap. I believe he was re-instated. So they all decided to come back to work next morning. And everything should have been pretty well back to normal. They certainly came back to work with great alacrity because they couldn't stand being out any longer because there was no money coming in you see. It was a much more serious business in India than it was in England if there was no money coming in, because there was no 'tick' (credit), you'd got to pay cash for everything.

Ronald

Was everybody out? They were locked out were they? There were not some that came in and tried to man the presses?

Bernard

All of them. All. All. No. No, no. Everybody. No, no. No. No, they'd have been assaulted if that had've been the case. There was just Hazleton and your Uncle Norman and me.

Ronald

Did you try to do any work while they were out?

Bernard

Oh we had to! They couldn't say anything against us. We 'thacked in' in the Press and did all the boxing of all the confidential stuff that was luckily finished. It had all got to be packed up, and nailed down, and lorries hired and carted off to the station. It all had to be done very, very early morning before the pickets were half awake, and realising what was happening. Swing the gates open... Mind you the durwans were on duty. The gatekeepers were on. It really was a pretty grim time.

Ronald

When did all this happen?

Bernard

Oh, about 1962 or 3.

Ronald

While we were at school?

Bernard

Oh yes. 1963, something like that.

Ronald

63. So that was a couple of years before we came out?

Bernard

Ah, well it was all settled and done with. But after your Uncle Norman had gone and I had the misfortune to be appointed Superintendent, because it was a case of 'England's last hope', they hadn't got anybody else, we literally never had the possibility of another lockout, or a strike. They'd had enough by it, and I'd had enough, and the workers didn't want that situation to recur. Gradually during the following three years the whole, I won't say whole, but the air altered... changed; except for when Len Hazleton was foolish enough to touch this Mono Operator on the shoulder and ask him what he was doing about some way he was doing his work. He was a proper troublemaker, this chap that he'd tapped on his shoulder, and he complained to the Worker's Union and Len Hazleton was taken to Court for assault. That cost the Press thousands of rupees. They wouldn't withdraw that case. No that was before your Uncle Norman went. That was another affair. But this same chap always cast his eyes down whenever he saw me. But when we rescued him during those riots, when we went out in the stationwagon and we pulled him out with his relatives, and got him to safety, he couldn't have done enough for us. He couldn't. I never had any more trouble with him after that. No.