Walking the Floors by Ivor Murrell
This will be the last inspection
no growing grain to muffle sound
beneath the Maltsters feet
footfalls stark on wooden stairs
trod for half a life.
Step on the germination floor
there is no need of light
as memory walks the forest
of the cast iron stanchions.
Grain was always grown in darkness
but this is more than loss of light.
The empty steep has dried and mocks its purpose,
for barley does not swell beneath the sparge.
Shovels lie where thrown
an exclamation from their users
one leans at ease against a post
positioned by a lifetimes rule
that will not end by closure,
“Always leave the tools to hand”
by hands no longer wanted.
All fired at the last kiln,
with their empiric knowledge:
Mastery of Water, Wind and Fire.
Water,
uptake judged between the teeth
and later by the Maltsters rub.
Wind,
temperature measured on the cheek,
direction by a wetted thumb,
when ‘running on the windows’.
Fire,
applied by taste and smell.
How far to crack the shutters in the frost?
How many barrows to the bay
when laying out the couch?
How deep to load the old piece on the kiln
for drying before curing?
No cure now.
The kiln fan idles in the cold draught
a clicking sucks the silence.
Yet there are noises.
Others here will walk the floor
Rats have won the ninety nine year war
and run through empty garners.
RESPONSES TO "WALKING THE FLOORS"
Ivor's poem produced several responses from his readers, a few of which are directly related to an operational maltings:-
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Gloria Walls
I remember The Maltings well. From 1941 – 1951 I lived with my Nana and Grandad in Maltings Cottage. My Grandad, William Boyden, was still there and working in the office. Myself and friends would sit on the edge of the chute and chat. No Health & Safety then.
Happy memories.
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Alan Paske
I found your poem and photographs purely by accident. The poem brought back some vivid childhood memories as my grandfather, George Paske was foreman at the maltings for many years, living over the years in two different tied cottages adjacent to the maltings on Thingoe Hill.
On many Sundays I would go with granddad to walk the floors, being allowed to shovel coke into the furnaces (before they were converted to gas) and to pull the hand ploughs to turn the malting barley on the floors.
I can even now remember the smell of the malt and the sound of water running through the steeps at the rear of my grandparents house.
I paid for my first proper bicycle by working (under-age I would add) by pricking out the dust from the tiles on the malting floors with stiff wire in a cork handle. Back-breaking labour! There were hundreds of holes in each foot-square tile and as each one was completed I wrote 6d in chalk on it because that is what I was paid!
It would be wonderful to be able to see some more photographs of the maltings especially if I could see any family members and also show my own children what the place was like!
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Avatared Freestone
You may or may not remember my time at Goughs as one of the barley technicians from 1973-75 , the pictures and the poem were all very evocative of a long lost youth!
Still long haired and vaguley chemical, as I am now the chief pharmacist in Guernsey amongst other sins, nice to read a poem about a world of work long lost but in my memory never forgotten, and in some ways still cherished for its honesty, if not for its dust (which seems to have escaped your pictures!)
Ivor Murrell replied
Ed -
Thanks for your comment. Who can forget barley dust?
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IN A FURTHER POEM, IVOR MURRELL EXPLAINS THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE STEEPING OF BARLEY COMPARED TO THE EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE MALTSTER