Harold Tinsdale

For a great many years Harold Tinsdale was one of  Beeston's best known characters.  In all the time he delivered the morning milk to our doorstep he was never known to miss; even when ill he managed to drive his little van so that his wife could do the legwork.  Sadly, Harold is no longer with us but before he died Helen Lyman managed to record the interview from which she has compiled this article.
Harold Tinsdale was born in 1899 and lived at 58 Bewerley Street with his parents and three sisters.  His father worked at a foundry in Dewsbury Road and then at Hawthorn Davy.
He attended Bewerley Street Infants' School in Hunslet Hall Road and moved to the school in Bewerley Street at seven years old.  He remembered Mr Kirk, the headmaster, Mr Bates and Mr Leathley.  Attached to the school in Hunslet Hall Road was a joiners' shop where Mr Jarvis was in charge.
When he was eleven he got a job delivering groceries after school and every night worked from 4.30 until 8.00 pm. He had a pair of wheels for delivering the orders and had to walk pushing the wheels.
He remembered making deliveries to a house in Tunbridge Road at the back of the Infirmary and one day he had a large earthen ware bread bowl among the goods.  He lost his grip on the wheels and the bowl fell off and broke.  The owner of the shop said he would 'stop' the price of the bowl from his wages, so his mother wouldn't let him continue working there.
He left school when he was thirteen and went to work at Boyne's Engine Company in Jack Lane The engines were all hand painted - "beautiful, they were," he said.
his pay was four shillings and six pence (22 1/2p) per week, from which he was given three pence (1p) pocket money.  He started work at 6 am and was not paid for holidays or bank holidays.
After the first world war he was out of work for a while and eventually went to work for a milkman for just over £2 a week.  He collected the milk in large 17 gallon urns from the milk train every morning.  These 17 gallon urns were emptied into smaller ones and then the milk would be ladled out with gill and pint measures into the housewives' bowls and jugs.  He left the milk round when his employer wanted Harold's job for his son.
He then went to the Post Office as a 'Temporary'.  He would be 'knocked-up' if any of the regular postmen did not go in to work, so he worked hall over Leeds, including Harehills and Woodhouse.
He started work at 5 am sorting out his first round, then delivering it.  He also had to sort and deliver a dinner-time round and a tea-time one.  If you were quick you could get an hour or so at home during the day, between deliveries.
He remembered an old, retired post office worker who would stand at a postbox in tempest Road, where the last collection was 9 pm, with his watch in his hand.  When Harold arrived to empty the box he would say, "You're two minutes early.  It shouldn't be emptied until 9 o'clock."  Harold would answer, "By the time I get this lot out I'll be two minutes late."
"The heavy sacks of mail had you bent double," he said, and when he was at Hunslet Sorting Office he delivered to the Copper Works, an hour's walk each way.
At one time he delivered to Armley Prison.  He had to wait for the door to be opened to him, they step inside and 'sign-in', hand the mail over, then 'sign-out' and leave.  When he complained that it was a waste of time signing-in as he only stepped over the threshold he was told, "If you step through that doorway you sign in," and that was that.

From Holbeck Sorting Office he delivered to Wood's Farm (which stood opposite St Anthony's Church) then he went along Old Lane which was a dirt road.  There were no houses except for two whitewashed ones in a field near where Moorhouse's jam factory was built.  Then along to Tommy Wass (which was an ice cream parlour) and then nothing until he got to the water tower up the Ring Road.  There he delivered to Miss Maude at Middleton.

He walked all the way with, perhaps, only a couple of letters to deliver.  He said, "Then you walked back through Middleton Woods until you came to a tree with a sign "HK" on it (Holbeck Sorting Office code), there you turned right to the main road where you caught the tram back."  One day a "temp" was sent and they had to send out search parties when he didn't return.  He had missed the sign and the turning.

He spoke of buying a Jowett car for £25 and giving Fr O'Connell a lift from Millshaw.  Fr O'Connell said the car would not get over the bridge.  "But it did," said Harold proudly.  "It was a grand little car."
Harold was over ninety when he died but when he was taken out by his family it was like a royal procession.  He once said he never got as far as the Park because everyone was stopping him to talk.  He was one of the characters of Beeston.