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Mr Colin Elliot former headmaster of the Rowlett school sits in the stocks (right hand side) at the 1962 Pole Fair. He gives a very interesting insight into village life in Corby about 15 years before the new integrated steel works development started.
Corby, as I remember it just after WWI, was a fairly rambling village of about 1500 souls. Family names which predominated at that time were Ironmonger, Bailey, Rowlatt, Dixon, Lattimore and to a lesser degree Robinson, Langley, and Patrick.
I cannot recall, nor could my father, either a football or cricket team which did not boast one or more of those names.
Local names associated with villages were not peculiar to Corby. If you were a Mears of Fellows you certainly came from Weldon, and similarly if you were a Starsmore or Blades you obviously came from Brigstock.
Corby had five exit roads - one to Oakley, possibly the poachers chief paradise; one to Cottingham (there used to be a small engraved stone about a mile outside the village with a Cottingham cross on one side and Corby keys on the other). A third road pointed north to Rockingham with its historic stretching away in the distance. To the east, past the parish church of St John the Baptist was the road which led to Weldon, home of Corby;s arch enemy in the world of sport. The last authentic outlet was Stanion Lane which led to the woods, nuts , rabbits, blue bells, primroses, and keeper Watts - But more of that venerable figure later!
The main industry derived from ironstone and converted the manufacture of pig iron. The name 'pig' in this instance was derived from the shape of the cast iron after the molten metal had run in to beds of sand. My most vivid memory of Lloyds Ironstone Company was being taken up to the top of the large building which house the turbines. I was taken up by my father who was at the time of a maintenance fitter. We went up through a circular hole in the roof of the building and looked out onto a miniature reservoir which covered the whole roof. We then made our way precariously on to a raft was propelled to the side. Gingerly looking over the parapet one had a wonderful view of molten metal flowing from the furnace into the serried rows of the pig beds. Floating over the to the other side one had a clear view of Weldon over two miles to the east.
I recall with mixed feelings the grim times when my father had to mount the many steps to the top of the furnaces to do running repairs under dangerous conditions whilst the furnaces were operating, day or night and in all kinds of weather. Probably his most dangerous missions was made to release explosion doors which had jammed. When I was quite small the sight of burns hanging like grapes from his face as they carried him into the house on Weldon road. My mother dreaded the sound of the Knocker-up either knocking on the window or throwing stones to wake up my father in the middle of the night. Because other mens' lives might be endangered he had to leave his warm bed and mount those slippery steps to the top of the furnace to those hated explosion doors. It must of have been about that time I decided that way of life is not for me.
Across the years the names of the little puffing steam locomotives which plied between the ironstone pits and furnaces flit across my mind - Dolobran-rhyl-islip - how proud we were as boys to be able to boast to our school fellows of the journey we had made on the floorplate of these small hissing engines. Proud too of our foolhardy (hindsight) daring in walking across swaying planks which with the support of a central wooden derrick spanned one side of the pit to the other. Barrow men used to wheel stone across these planks. This was another mode of living which I refused to contemplate. This was entirely different though from indulging in boyish escapades. Not many lads brought up in Corby at this time will fail to remember Charlie Freeman and his wonderful smelling hut from which he guarded the crossing of engines on the Weldon road about half a mile to the east of the last house. Many of us spent hours in Charlies hut - Charlie with his one left (the other he lost in the service of Lloyds Ironstone Co) and one crutch, of the stuff exterior and kindly heart.
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