A few years ago the family came across some cans of old 8mm film shot by my granddad, Arthur Edward Rose, a keen amateur film maker and also a pork butcher, first in Horwich and later in Burnley, Lancashire. Around 1960 he shot some reels of film in his factory.
So not Yorkshire food, but despite the fact It’s a rather shaky bit of film and not very well shot we thought it was a fascinating bit of social history well worth sharing.
The factory, opened sometime in the late 40s or 50s I believe, in Lawn Street, Burnley. This is where the pig carcasses were delivered by van, usually followed by another delivering flour and spices which were loaded onto a dumb waiter-style lift that I always fancied riding on, but was never allowed.
My granddad told us he slaughtered the animals himself and then had them delivered to Lawn Street to be butchered. The pigs were cut up into joints for sale in his two shops, one on Burnley Market the other in Standish Street. He was proud to say he used every bit of the pig except the squeak and in this clip you can see the staff making sausages, black pudding from fresh blood and rendering down the skin to make crackling, this, if I remember rightly, was put into a press and came out as a big wheel so that crackling could be cut off and sold for pennies. I love they way they link the sausages and then put on the wrap-around label which probably says A.E. Rose, pork butcher.
If you like this, you’ll like my grandma making hand raised pork pies.