Our Jack Trickett
A biographical sketch.
By Klaus Bung
(Written in August 2005)
1908 (age 0)
Jack Trickett, our oldest member and much loved by all of us, is now (August 2005) 97 years old. I visited him and his wife Edna recently to get an outline of his eventful life and to record it for posterity. Some readers may also draw from his story some lessons for a happy and fulfilled life and a serene old age.
Jack was born in Newchurch, Lancashire, on 14 June 1908 and now lives in Waterfoot, less than a mile from where he was born. He is still going strong and attends Meeting every Sunday.
1914 (age 6)
He was six and entered primary school in 1914 when World War 1 started.
1921 (age 13)
During his last year at school, aged 13 to 14, he worked half-time in a slippers factory. The timetable alternated every week. Week 1: Morning at school, afternoon in the factory. Week 2: Morning in the factory, afternoon at school.
1922 (age 14)
He left primary school in 1922, when he was 14, and started a seven-year apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker. He also took private lessons in wood-carving, and today his wood carvings can be seen in many town halls in Lancashire, for example in ???.
The Master to whom he was apprenticed had a small business in Waterfoot, employing three fully qualified members of staff and one apprentice.
At that time cabinetmakers were also coffin makers and therefore also undertakers. Today this is called 'vertical integration'.
Jack remembers sad and funny stories from that time.
He was taken to a house where a woman had died in childbirth. Mother and the child in her arms were in the coffin. It was a sad sight.
On another occasion, the chap in charge said: 'Put your coat on and come with me.' Then sort of instructions Jack received were:
- 'Take the body to the coffin.'
- 'Put handles on the coffin.'
- 'Put the body back.'
- 'Rearrange the shroud.'
Then the local carrier, who was also a singer in the pub, happened to pass and said: 'Have a look at him.' (= ???)
The widow said: 'Just give us a song.'
The carrier said: 'I couldn't really under the circumstances.'
The widow said: 'He would have enjoyed it,' but the carrier refused.
On yet another occasion, there was a funeral in the local church. The widow was standing in the doorway of the house as the funeral procession passed. Someone said: 'Ain't you coming?'
She said: 'No, when these folks come back, they need their tea.'
Jack finished his apprenticeship in 1929, when he was 21, receiving his certificate has a Master Cabinetmaker ??? . Two weeks later the company folded, and he was unemployed.
1929 to 1938 (age 21 to age 30)
Someone approached him and asked him to make a dog kennel, which is not more difficult than making a coffin. Gradually more work came Jack's way without any particular effort on his part, and he found himself in business, self-employed. He bought a big wooden shed, which was his first workshop.
Seven years later, when he was 28, his father bought empty premises formerly occupied by wheelwright, and Jack moved there. He employed two joiners (not cabinetmakers).
Again, being an undertaker was part of his cabinet-making trade.
He saw some horrific sights. Once he had to bury a railway worker. His
head had been cut of. Jack had to put his severed head into the coffin.
Then he had to bury a person who had been working in a factory. His arm had been pulled off. Jack had to put the arm into the coffin separately.
Jack had had enough: 'So, this is the end of undertaking,' he said.
1929 to 1941 (age 21 to age 33)
He spent several years teaching in evening classes in different schools in Waterfoot Valley. In one of these schools he met his wife Edna, who was then 17 and a pupil at a grammar school. They got married nine years' later.
1933 (age 25)
During the period after their first meeting and before their getting married, Edna went on a hiking and youth hostelling trip to Germany. She was travelling alone.
1939 (age 31)
Jack was 31 in 1939, when World War 2 broke out.
During the same year, he got married to Edna, when she was 26. That was at Bethel Baptist Church in Waterfoot, which now has been demolished. Edna is a Baptist.
Marriage
When Jack first met Edna she was 17 and he was 22.
Edna: 'He was my first and only boyfriend. He kept wasting for me.'
Jack smiles: 'What's worth having is worth waiting for.'
They got married nine years later. 'He was so slow,' Edna says.
'This was on Saint Swithun's Day (15 July, Edna says). - When it rained all day.'
'Did it?'
'Yes,' she says.
Edna talks about her youth-hostelling holiday to Germany.
'This was walking holiday. We stayed in youth hostels along the river Rhine, Boppard, Rüdesheim, ... Frankfurt. I met many nice and interesting people along the way.'
'So, did Jack miss you then?' I asked.
Edna puts on her naughty pout, which she has preserved from when she was young: 'I didn't bother with him, I had a German boyfriend. But not like they have boyfriends today. It was all very respectable.
In Frankfurt I met that boy I had been writing to for a few years. His name was Willie Kohl, but it turned out that he was a Nazi, a member of the Hitler Youth. When I met him, he wore his Hitler Youth uniform, of which he was very proud.
This was in 1933. Hitler was in power then.
We passed an ice cream shop. Its windows were smashed. I was surprised.
The boy simply said: "Juden" (Jews), shrugged his shoulders and walked past. I couldn't understand that. Now I don't like him any more.'
1941 (age 33)
In 1941, 33-year-old Jack was ordered to work in a munitions factory in Padiham. But he was a pacifist and a conscientious objector. So he refused.
He was accused of being a traitor and fined £25. He refused to pay the fine and was sent to prison for two months. The prison was Strangeways Prison in Manchester, which became notorious because of the prison riots in 1990.
When he came out, the authorities thought he had learned his lesson and sent him to the same factory. He refused again. After a month of thinking (who did the thinking? Jack or the authorities?) He was told: 'Find yourself a job of which we can approve.' So he worked on the land digging ditches somewhere near Blackpool.
He did this for about one year. Then he was released from digging ditches because the country needed teachers. He was sent for one year to the Drake Hall College in Stafford for teacher training. His subjects were woodwork and metalwork.
??? he also spent one year at Shoreditch College in London studying the same subject. (??? when, and how, was that?)
1943 (age 35)
Because of his pacifism he came to the attention of a Quaker, who took him to a Quaker Meeting. He liked what he saw and heard and joined the Quakers in about 1943, when he was 35.
1943 to 1954 (age 35 to 46)
In about 1943 he was appointed to teach woodwork at a 'selective secondary modern school'. He stayed there for 11 years.
1945 (age 37)
In 1945, at the end of the war (Jack was 37 then), their daughter Elizabeth is born.
1946 (age 38)
In 1946 Jack went to Shoreditch College in London to study woodwork and metalwork. Shoreditch College is now part of Brunel University.
1954 to 1969 (age 46 to 60)
In 1954 he took up a post teaching woodwork and metalwork at Bacup and Rawtenstall Grammar School. He stayed there for 15 years (aged 46 to 60).
1968 to 1978 (age 60 to age 70)
In 1968 he was 60 years old and retired. However, the school was short staffed and, so he went back part-time for ten more years till he reached the age of 70.
Then he really retired.
Now Jack is 97, he still has his peaceful reposed and sunny face, and may God continue to bless him and Edna with a long and healthy life!
(The article ended here.)
Note: Jack died on Wednesday, 4 January 2006. May he rest in peace.
Links for Jack Trickett
Listen to Jack talking about his life and his ideals
This is a recording made, it appears, by the BBC Lancashire for the
series:
"Lancashire, Telling your stories: Digital Lives". There is a video
clip in which you can see and hear Jack talking.
Thought of the Day given by Nigel Rawlinson on Radio Bristol on Friday, 20 January 2006
Testimony to the life of Jack Trickett, given by Philip Whitehead
Jack Tricket Memorial Bench
A memorial bench was placed outside the Meeting House in honour of Jack. Beryl read Advice Number 27:
"Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak. When decisions have to be made, are you ready to join with others in seeking clearness, asking for God's guidance and offering counsel to one another?"
Click here for a video clip of the dedication ceremony.
