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Rag And Bone Men


RichardB

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Where did the bones come from, what was their use please ? Fertilizer ??

Where there any famous Rag 'n' Bone men ?

Possibly used in the manufacture of bonemeal fertiliser Richard.

Or to give to dogs, or to extract the marrowbone jelly to make dog food.

Or, more likely at the time, used in the manufacture of glue and adhesives.

I would have thought, dating from a time before motorised transport, many of the bones would be horse bones.

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I remember rag & bone men from the 50's with their horse and cart.

Depending on what you gave them you would get a few balloons, or some clothes pegs, but for a large bundle you could have a goldfish.

Not only did you get one of these as payment, but you also got the horse manure if you were lucky enough for it to be deposited when it stopped outside your particular house.

That also applied to the milk man and any other horse drawn vehicles that came along the street. First claim went to whoever's house it was outside.

"Ai-o-rainks" (some people will remember that I'm sure)

There were still a couple of R & B men in the 90's They pushed hand carts for Collins on Hill Street.

===========

A high sided open back lorry pulled up outside our junk shop on Asline road one day. (1970's) The driver bought something, a small chest of drawers I think.

To load it onto his truck, I climbed up on the wheel and dragged myself to the top of the sides. As my head reached the top I saw that it was full of bones, fresh from the abattoir. An evil sight and smell. I swapped positions with the driver and passed the chest up to him instead. He just dumped it on top of the pile.

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I remember rag & bone men from the 50's with their horse and cart.

Depending on what you gave them you would get a few balloons, or some clothes pegs, but for a large bundle you could have a goldfish.

Not only did you get one of these as payment, but you also got the horse manure if you were lucky enough for it to be deposited when it stopped outside your particular house.

That also applied to the milk man and any other horse drawn vehicles that came along the street. First claim went to whoever's house it was outside.

"Ai-o-rainks" (some people will remember that I'm sure)

Depending on what you gave them.

Their main trade seemed to be in scrap metal which they could weigh in as scrap and obviously had the highest value for them.

I remember in 1962 playing in the gale damaged prefabs ripping out old metal items for the rag and bone men for balloons and goldfish.

I managed to get them an old one-bar electric convector heater off the wall of a neighbouring prefab which had been torn apart by the gale, the wall I took it off was horizontal on the floor. The R&B men (sounds like some musicians when you say it like that) told us that the toilet cystern ballcocks were copper and carried a high price so we went round the wrecks removing copper ballcocks for trading in. Fortunately the water and electricity supplies had been switched off long before, if not I am sure with the aggresive destructive enthusiasm we used to remove these items there would have been a few floods and shocks.

I had 2 goldfish as a kid which came from either R&B men or a funfair, - can't remember which.

I now have 4 in my cold water aquarium

Not a very nice practice getting live fish from an R&B man or fair in a plastic bag as fish rarely survive long in those stressful conditions for any length of time.

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b]"Ai-o-rainks" (some people will remember that I'm sure)

Yep,

They used to shout this as they went round the street

It translates into English as "Any Old Rags" but is said in that miss-pronounced way that Eric Morecambe used when he was playing a street trader selling the Morning Standard as the "Morny Stannit"

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Where did the bones come from, what was their use please ? Fertilizer ??

Where there any famous Rag 'n' Bone men ?

When we lived in the Rodley Inn, a couple of Rag and Bone men used to come in the pub at lunch time.

At that time they had horse and carts, they would leave these tied up on the waste land outside our side gate, some where we have a photo of my sister sat on one of these carts.

I think the firm was called Collins, they came from either Hill St or Denby St.

Steve do you remember these

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Guest transit

yes Collins were on Hill St , and used to hire their carts out , and were still going to the mid 80's !

....does this sight look familier ?.....

http://www.ronsandersoncollection.com/display-photograph.asp?id=142&gallery=3

...i think this pic was taken of Hyde Park Walk - before modernisation - , from the beer garden of the Earl Francis pub (the buildings shell still stands) on Manor Oaks Rd ?

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yes Collins were on Hill St , and used to hire their carts out , and were still going to the mid 80's !

....does this sight look familier ?.....

http://www.ronsander...d=142&gallery=3

...i think this pic was taken of Hyde Park Walk - before modernisation - , from the beer garden of the Earl Francis pub (the buildings shell still stands) on Manor Oaks Rd ?

Thats the horse and carts, just need to find my photo of my sister

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yes Collins were on Hill St , and used to hire their carts out , and were still going to the mid 80's !

....does this sight look familier ?.....

http://www.ronsandersoncollection.com/display-photograph.asp?id=142&gallery=3

...i think this pic was taken of Hyde Park Walk - before modernisation - , from the beer garden of the Earl Francis pub (the buildings shell still stands) on Manor Oaks Rd ?

Here are a couple of horse & carts parked up near to John Collins yard,

looks like the owners could have nipped in the cafe for a pot of tea. picturesheffield

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Here are a couple of horse & carts parked up near to John Collins yard,

looks like the owners could have nipped in the cafe for a pot of tea. picturesheffield

What a job being a rag and bone man is!

First a few pints in Rodley Inn served by Stuarts mum the landlady,

then off on the horse and cart to the cafe for a pot of tea!

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like I said, Collins had one or two hand carts being pushed around years after the horses went.

They've left Hill Street and are now located in the small trading estate at the top of Granville road.

Last I knew one of the family was still living in the Hill Street House.

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Some of the family have now past away and others moved out to Rotherham Way.

There's also the other John Collins who had his rag shop at the bottom of

Portland Street and when the property was demolished he moved his business

into established premises at the bottom of Montgomery Terrace Road.

His bother Walter had the business on Upper Allen Street which still operates

but mainly in scrap and skips. Many years ago you would also see their " tatters "

doing the streets around Upperthorpe and Netherthorpe with the horse and cart.

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Some of the family have now past away and others moved out to Rotherham Way.

There's also the other John Collins who had his rag shop at the bottom of

Portland Street and when the property was demolished he moved his business

into established premises at the bottom of Montgomery Terrace Road.

His bother Walter had the business on Upper Allen Street which still operates

but mainly in scrap and skips. Many years ago you would also see their " tatters "

doing the streets around Upperthorpe and Netherthorpe with the horse and cart.

I'm sure that one branch of the Collins family used to have a yard down a passage off Langsett Road, near Cuthbert Bank.

As a young lad I used to buy old valve radios to play about with from him for 6 old pence each. At one time I bought a very early radio built on a oak board with all the components fastened with brass screws and the wiring between carried out in square-section wire. If I still had that today it would be worth a fortune to a collector.

There was also a scrapyard at Low Matlock Lane (we used to call this Loxley Bottoms). The yard was on the site of an old mill dam and was full of WW2 army trucks, radar trailers and the like. All very interesting for young lads.

The owner lived in a large house nearby and I always understood was another of the Collins tribe.

HD

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I'm sure that one branch of the Collins family used to have a yard down a passage off Langsett Road, near Cuthbert Bank.

I do recall visiting there with my Mother; can't have been much either way of 1970.

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Yep,

They used to shout this as they went round the street

It translates into English as "Any Old Rags"

My wife has just bought herself a new local history book for Christmas.

It is called "my family and other morticians" by Ann Sapcote

So called because the authors family lived above the Co-Op funeral parlour at Attercliffe

All of it is about the old Attercliffe and my wife bought it because her family is mentioned in it and there is a previously unseen (by us) picture of her late grandfather taken in 1945.

There are some very interesting and amusing stories in it, - made all the better for MrsH as she knows half of the characters involved lol

In one story an unfortunate rag and bone man with his horse and cart wanders down an Attercliffe street with his usually cry of"Any Old Rags", - Ai-e-ol Rainks,....Ai-e-ol Rainks,....Ai-e-ol Rainks,.....

Now in the street is an old steel worker on shift work who does nights, so not suprisingly he takes exception to being awoken by the rag and bone man.

He does no more than throw open his sash cord bedroom window, point a loaded shotgun out of it and shoot at the rag and bone mans cart bursting all his inflated balloons he had for the kids who brought rags out.

The book does not say what happened next, if police were called or if there was any follow up. We are lead to believe, given that shot from gun spreads far and wide, that neither the rag and bone man or his horse pulling the cart were hit or injured and that there were no children in the immediate vicinity at the time.

For further details (if there are any) see the book.

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He does no more than throw open his sash cord bedroom window,

That reminds me of when I used to pee out of the bedroom window,

wel the jerry would have been full,

and it was a long way to the backyard loo in the middle of the night.

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That reminds me of when I used to pee out of the bedroom window,

wel the jerry would have been full,

and it was a long way to the backyard loo in the middle of the night.

I said SASH not SLASH Steve! lol

..and I thought you were going to say something about shooting an air rifle out of your bedroom window to take shots at the windows of a boozer run by the parents of another well known member of this site! B)

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I'm sure that one branch of the Collins family used to have a yard down a passage off Langsett Road, near Cuthbert Bank.

As a young lad I used to buy old valve radios to play about with from him for 6 old pence each. At one time I bought a very early radio built on a oak board with all the components fastened with brass screws and the wiring between carried out in square-section wire. If I still had that today it would be worth a fortune to a collector.

There was also a scrapyard at Low Matlock Lane (we used to call this Loxley Bottoms). The yard was on the site of an old mill dam and was full of WW2 army trucks, radar trailers and the like. All very interesting for young lads.

The owner lived in a large house nearby and I always understood was another of the Collins tribe.

HD

The one at Low Matlock does live at that large house , it has been in the family for many years.

The tie up is with the Upper Allen Street branch. [ my relation,. . . tribe? :o ]

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The one at Low Matlock does live at that large house , it has been in the family for many years.

The tie up is with the Upper Allen Street branch. [ my relation,. . . tribe? :o ]

It's something that you don't seem to see nowadays. Members of an extended family all engaged in the same sort of occupation.

If you look in the alphabetical listings of Kelly's directories of 60 years ago, you can find whole series of distinctive surnames but with different initials in premises all around the city. Brothers, sisters or cousins all with grocery shops or butchers or the like.

I suppose that the advent of the supermarket closed down all these family run businesses.

Incidentally, we all talk about supermarkets appearing in the late fifties / early sixties, but there was a type of supermarket operating way before that. Everything in one shop, own brand goods produced in their own factories, attached butchery departments, and under one over-arching senior management structure.

I refer, of course, to the Co-Op.

HD

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Guest Tommy Ruffe

I'm sure that one branch of the Collins family used to have a yard down a passage off Langsett Road, near Cuthbert Bank.

As a young lad I used to buy old valve radios to play about with from him for 6 old pence each. At one time I bought a very early radio built on a oak board with all the components fastened with brass screws and the wiring between carried out in square-section wire. If I still had that today it would be worth a fortune to a collector.

There was also a scrapyard at Low Matlock Lane (we used to call this Loxley Bottoms). The yard was on the site of an old mill dam and was full of WW2 army trucks, radar trailers and the like. All very interesting for young lads.

The owner lived in a large house nearby and I always understood was another of the Collins tribe.

HD

I used to take old rags up there for my mother. They'd weigh them on a scales, it was fascinating just to watch them adjusting the balance weights, and then they'd give you a few wooden clothes pegs. I lived on Cuthbert Bank Road, at number 149, Mum would always moan at you when you got home, "Huh, is that all you've got?"

My avatar is a photo of me taken on Kymies Hill, looking towards High House Road.

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The one at Low Matlock does live at that large house , it has been in the family for many years.

The tie up is with the Upper Allen Street branch. [ my relation,. . . tribe? ]

Brian Collins, must be getting on a bit now, remember him as a fella you would't want to argue with.

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Brian Collins, must be getting on a bit now, remember him as a fella you would't want to argue with.

He's doing ok, other than just having a knee operation. Still a big lad.

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He's doing ok, other than just having a knee operation. Still a big lad.

He used to shift our Drott about with his wagon, he looked like he could pick it up and carry it under his arm.

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Guest whyme

I remember as a child my dad would give me a bucket and small spade every time the Rag and Bone man was in the area so that I could follow him around to get the horse muck for dads roses.lol

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