TEACHING AT SAREHOLE MILL (OFTEN KNOWN AS TOLKIEN'S MILL): 'THE SAREHOLE MOP'...

 Teaching at Birmingham’s Sarehole Mill, often called Tolkien's Mill: 

THE SAREHOLE MOP…

PENCIL SKETCH OF SAREHOLE MILL BY PAUL BRADDON (1864-1937)...

ABOVE & BELOW: VINTAGE IMAGES OF THE MILL...

Introduction…

My colleague Elfyn Morris built up some fine teaching sessions at Sarehole Mill in Hall Green, Birmingham, following his teaching stint at the old Science Museum in the city centre. I did cover a couple of his sessions when he was unavailable which offered me the opportunity to learn more about the workings of the mill.

Richard Eaves from Sarehole Farm bought the mill in 1727, which at that time was known as Biddle’s Mill, named after its builder but the Eaves family would let the mill to tenants, rather than actually running it themselves. In fact Matthew Boulton was once a tenant, before moving to Handsworth to set up his famous Soho factory.

SAREHOLE FARM...

Eaves likely rebuilt the mill between 1764-68 and it was used for the grinding of edge tools, as well as for grinding corn.

However, in the 1850s a steam engine was installed to increase the power of the north wheel and that installation offered an idea which was at the heart of this role-play session involving four members of the Schools Liaison Department’s staff.

THE MILL WHEN WE WORKED THERE...

Elfyn eventually became the lynch pin of the sessions as Mr Taylor, the mill owner although Aston Hall’s Ailyse Hancock had been the original link person. Jan Pick, the fine teacher from Blakesley Hall played the part of a vicar’s wife and she was responsible for the activity of corn-dolly making and also involving her group of children in conversation about the mill and maybe spreading one or two rumours about the miller…

THE MILLPOND...

The baker was played by several members of staff over time but ultimately, the Head of Department Jan Anderson would assume the part, although following her earlier eagerness to get down to the mill and start, it did appear that her enthusiasm waned rather quickly…

I played the part of Joseph Briscoe, the much maligned miller, a character who was subjected to several rumours during each two-hour session. Elfyn, Jan Pick and I took part more often than anyone else but we were pressed into using a succession of different bakers, including art teacher Trish Peate and two of our office secretaries! 

AT THE TOMB OF THE REAL JOSEPH BRISCOE IN A CHURCHYARD NEARBY...

However, the Sarehole Mop would be a fascinating session for Year 6 children mainly, all in role as characters who really did live in the area in the 1850s. Jan Pick had done some remarkable research to find out about individuals in the locality during Victorian times and she played the part of the vicar’s wife so well that I was a little in fear of her…

The set-up… 

The visiting children were hoping to get a job at the mill by visiting the Mop, some being shown around the mill as prospective workers in milling, some learning the baking trade and the others learning the skills of corn-dolly making.

The children and their accompanying adults were herded into the yard and welcomed by Mr Taylor, his top-hat and tails looking rather splendid. After Jan Anderson was called over to meet her prospective bakers whilst sweeping the yard, Jan Pick was called from the mill to be introduced as the local vicar’s wife. I would be loitering on a deck at the rear of the building overlooking the millpond awaiting my cue, when a frustrated Mr Taylor would yell for me, but I would purposely take a while to emerge… 

TRISH PEATE WITH BROOM, JAN PICK IN RED & ME LOOKING RUSTIC...

One morning, whilst I was tarrying there, a kingfisher dropped into the millpond and caught a fish, something I had never before seen live. I managed to film another one diving into the pond later that same week, which I still have on a VHS video tape.

Sarehole Mill: The Wait…

Urban life rattles

On commuter route;

Recycling bins resound

To crashing glass

And profanities testify 

To some family dispute.

Pond life hides

In residential bustle;

Heron stands sentinel,

Testing a firmer perch

As mallards mingle

And coots hustle.

Predator life awaits

Above peaceful pool;

Kingfisher hesitates,

Alert on slim bough

Then snatches prey

From waters murky and cool.

Pete Ray

Sarehole Mill, waiting, dressed as a Victorian miller, for a class of children to arrive to begin a role-play session: The Sarehole Mop…

I would lurch into the yard carrying a sack of flour on my back and Mr Taylor would usually scold me for being sluggish but I would often use an accent in reply, either Brummie, Yorkshire, Cornish or even Scottish when I responded to him and Elfyn would have to stifle laughter sometimes. Trouble was, I had to keep up the accent for the whole two hours of a session… He would then mention that there was some disquiet amongst the locals in the yard because it was felt that when poorer folks gathered up any unwanted corn from the edges of a harvested field, known as gleanings and they were brought to me for milling, I didn’t return an equal weight of flour to them. 

ENTERING THE YARD...

I would argue that I was allowed to keep a small amount of that flour as payment but it was upon my discretion how much I kept, which was usually a small cupful. I needed, I said, to feed up Albert my pig, which would be shown in the local show in order to win a money prize. Mr Taylor told me then that surely my pig was big enough already, having knocked down one of the prospective worker’s garden fences. I was then goaded into agreeing to repair the fence, even though I complained that clearly the fence hadn’t been erected strongly enough in the first place. 

LOVED THE SCYTHE...

I KIND OF KNEW MY PLACE.
ONLY I DIDN'T...

One morning, I told Mr Taylor, “I am entering my pig in the local show…” He retorted, smiling unpleasantly, “You are entering your pig, Briscoe?” Suddenly, all the adults present fell about laughing, except of course the vicar’s wife, the baker and me. I recall frowning, not realising the meaning of Elfyn’s naughty interpretation of ‘entering my pig’… He explained over lunch. Thanks for that…    

BEING QUESTIONED BY MR TAYLOR...

However, Joseph Briscoe had been asked by Mr Taylor to prepare a sack of the very best flour for his rather unwell wife and I was told to fetch it and show him, before placing it in a room near the mill’s gates, ready for collection. He then saw the label round the neck of the sack, which read: ‘Mrs Taylor, The Hall’ and he was suitably impressed that I had been learning to write and I explained that the vicar had been teaching me, something which Jan Pick, as the vicar’s wife corroborated. The green ink had been given to me by the vicar, I told him…

DISPLAYING THE GOOD SACK...

PROUD OF MY LABEL...

I took the sack to its dropping off place out of sight and each of the three groups of children then went off with their leaders: the corn-dolly maker, the baker and the miller… 

OFF TO THE BAKEHOUSE...

SACK OVER SHOULDER...

The activities…     

I would take my group into the mill and explain how the sacks of corn were hoisted by a pulley system linked to a turning waterwheel, up to the top floor of the building, where it was drier and of course the corn was less likely to be nibbled at by rats and mice.

CHECKING THE HOIST...

We would then go upstairs to the middle floor where I could release water from the pond and set one of the wheels turning, which was always a real bonus for the children. We would talk about the millstones, the dressing of them and see how the corn fell from the top level to be ground up by those stones, activated by the power from the turning of the mill’s wheel…

Then I would talk about the safety of the wheel and confessed that a worker called Edward Smith had once trapped and subsequently lost an arm in the turning wheel as he tried to repair it. Another worker had turned the steam engine on, not realising his colleague was there… I was blamed for the injury of course and since that time, I had been forced to put more safety measures in place, I explained. 

We would look out onto the millpond next but almost every day there was a heron standing on the far edge of the water, which some of the children reckoned was a fake, until of course it moved… 

AH, THE HERON...

One day, whilst eating my lunch on the deck, the heron snaffled a mallard chick and rose towards me with its prey in its beak and I stood and yelled at it and waved it away. The female mallard was noisily distressed but the heron turned in flight and disappeared over the trees to another perch along the River Cole. Amazing…

On the top floor it really did feel warmer and drier, hence storing sacks of corn there but I had placed a stuffed rat on one of the beams, which we had to pass beneath to descend the staircase near to where the vicar’s wife would be quietly making corn dollies with her group of children. I would curse the rat and start to bellow for the mill’s cat to appear but one day a loutish lad told everyone that it was actually a stuffed rat…

Instead of arguing with him, I said nothing because when we reached the yard at ground level, having carefully managed the stairs, I stopped my group, called the doubting lad forward and pointed to a grassy area near the bakehouse, where I had chucked away some crushed corn from the previous afternoon. There, a crow and a rat were racing round and round in a circle in their desperation to forage the scraps of cereal… 

The lad said nothing and I didn’t have to… 

A MILLER'S LIFE IS A TOUGH ONE...

My group had all tried out a small model of a pair of millstones, turned by a handle, which worked very well and was a fine representation of what happened on a larger scale within the mill. The kids were amazed at how flour could be produced in such a way but I did tell them something else rather important. 

I explained to them that although I usually took a cup of flour from most people’s gleanings, if I considered a person unpleasant or rude, I would take more than a cupful and I showed the pupils what was essentially a hidden chamber pot. The kids were shocked, certainly, yet I asked them to say nothing about it to Mr Taylor, although they would need to know about it, should they get a job at the mill. 

I said that my pig was special to me and that there was quite a resemblance between it and my wife. Indeed, I would remark that I had mistaken the pig for my wife several times in conversation and had wondered why I hadn’t received a reply from her…  

Clearly I had to make sure my group doubted my honesty and subsequently felt that I was a bit of a scoundrel…

In the yard, I would show them the tail-race, along which used water would run off towards the River Cole, by which time a shouting Mr Taylor could be heard, whilst he rang a bell in distress. He had discovered that his wife’s sack of fine flour (no chalk or ground-up animal bones as additives in Sarehole’s best flour) had been vandalised…

And there would be trouble…

The investigation…

There were of course two sacks, which Elfyn would switch whilst the three groups were otherwise engaged. The second sack looked like it had been damaged, or dragged through a hedge and the green ink on the label had been smudged. During the activities, Jan Pick, Jan Anderson and I would send a child, possibly two, on errands to the other groups, meaning that those pupils would have been crossing the mill’s yard alone, perhaps to ask for a piece of ribbon, or to collect some salt but in my case I would send a pot of flour to the bakery for the baker’s perusal and opinion about its quality. A female member of the school’s staff, predominantly the class teacher usually played the part of Esther Smith and we made sure that she too was sent across the yard…  

THE DAMAGED SACK APPEARS...

We were all ushered into what was essentially Elfyn’s teaching room to investigate who had damaged the sack of flour and the children were generally totally shocked to be considered culprits. Elfyn conducted the absorbing debate and would suggest that the vandal must have been someone who had had an opportunity to damage the sack. 

After he had asked whether anyone had been alone in the yard during the previous hour or so, the penny would drop and a few children began to name those they knew had been sent on errands, eventually naming their teacher, Esther Smith too. All of the suspects, usually four of five of them, were made to sit in a row upon a bench and indeed, all of them would appear mightily guilty. There was quiet in the room as Elfyn tried to get the children to think of clues which might identify the culprit, often having to explain the offence again, until, eventually, a spark of realisation would force a child to suggest that whoever had touched the sack would likely have green ink on their fingers…

Elfyn would be delighted with that suggestion and I would always notice at that point that the suspects would actually check their fingers surreptitiously… 

All except the suspects were then asked to show their hands first and the two Jans and I would check them for green marks, finding none. Then each child suspect was asked in turn to show their hands too but of course no green ink was visible. It was amazing how those pupils looked so relieved, despite knowing full well that they were blameless!

Finally, Esther Smith was asked to show her hands but despite her unwillingness, grudgingly she would open her fingers to reveal the green ink Elfyn had painted on her fingers earlier in the session. The gasps from the children were palpable, who totally believed that their teacher had vandalised the sack but then Esther turned on me, as she knew she was expected to…  

She admitted messing up the sack as revenge, for it had been her husband, Edward Smith, whose had lost an arm in the waterwheel accident described above and he was unable to work. I had then caught him poaching and had reported him to the authorities, so that he had been convicted and sent away on a prison ship to Australia.  Obviously I would react to Esther and argue that stealing was an offence but sometimes, the teacher and I would have a stand-up row, which left the children awestruck.

Esther would then accuse me of taking more than a cupful of flour from the poor folks’ gleanings, which I of course denied but Elfyn, as Mr Taylor, picked up on that and questioned me about it. I reiterated that I would take a cupful of flour only and I would go and fetch the cup from my table to show him but Mr Taylor would then ask my group of prospective millers if anyone could shed some more light on the revelation. One of the children would always tell him that I had a larger pot too which I sometimes used. The child was told to fetch it and I was scolded and made to explain…

I said at first that it was my chamber pot, used when I needed to pee but despite my claims of innocence I was found guilty of taking more flour than was fair. However that wasn’t a crime, whilst Esther had committed one, as had her husband… Morality was rearing its head…

The children generally sided with Esther, of course they did, so she was allowed to go free, apart from a scolding by Mr Taylor but when I explained that my pig needed feeding up for the county show and that some of the farmhands had poor manners when they brought their gleanings to me, Elfyn really lost his rag because I was favouring certain poor folks and not others. However, Jan Pick, as the vicar’s wife felt that perhaps because I hadn’t actually broken the law, should my pig Albert win the money prize at the show, I should use it to have a small school built nearby and call it the Joseph Briscoe School…

FROM MILLER TO PHILANTHROPIST...

I had no choice but to agree and thus would become a philanthropist of sorts…

However, one day, not one of the children in my group would give me away, leaving Elfyn totally helpless to pursue his line of enquiry… 

I was thoroughly amused though…

JAN PICK FANS MY RUSTIC ODOUR...

Signing on… 

The children were then divided into two groups so that they could use a pen and ink to sign on as workers. The two Jans dealt with that in one room, whilst Elfyn and I demonstrated a rat-trap in the other room, which really caught the children’s imagination. We used a piece of wood to activate the trap which of course made us all jump.

CATCHING QUOITS...

We then chatted about the fact that we had been in the army together, me as an infantryman and he as an officer, of course… He would say to me: “Do you remember the soldier with one leg called Thomas?” 

I would reply: “Yes, but what was his other leg called?”

Daft but hilarious…

If Esther Smith came into the room I would often snarl at her, sometimes starting an argument with her again…

There were toys and games on display in the room too and we would demonstrate and get the kids to experiment with the quoits game and the cup and ball, which I would usually do successfully with my first or second attempt. That really irritated Elfyn but I had actually practised the mechanics of it each morning…

CUP & BALL...

Leaving the mill…

Elfyn would end the session in the yard and the children were given their corn dollies to take away, the bread they had made and also some of the flour they had ground with me…

CHECK OUT THOSE CORN DOLLIES...

NOTE THE MILLER'S ARMS ARE FOLDED...

Leaving our roles, we often chatted to the children and staff before their transport arrived…

A RARE MOMENT OF RELAXATION WITH ELFYN, JAN PICK & TRISH...

Paul Husted…

Paul taught at St Mary & St John School in Erdington and he was my son Jamie’s under-15 football manager for Boldmere Falcons, along with his own son Tom. Most of the team were rugby players from King Edward’s Grammar School, Aston but Paul actually took his Year 6 groups to experience the Sarehole Mop.

JAMIE RECEIVES AN AWARD FROM PAUL HUSTED...

The Sunday morning after he had visited the mill, he spoke to me about it at a soccer match and professed that the two hour experience with the Schools Liaison team at Sarehole Mill taught the children more about the Victorian era than a whole term’s work provided in school could…

BOLDMERE FALCONS: JAMIE & HIS MATE TOM HUSTED ARE BACK ROW, FAR RIGHT...

That said it all, really…