The Nostalgia column with Margaret Watson: Dewsbury people were renowned meat eaters

Meat the team: A rare picture of the men who worked in the Co-op slaughterhouse in Batley Carr in 1953, kindly loaned by Angela Joyce, whose grandad Jack Wilson was a well known local butcher. Her father, Jim Singlewood, had also been a butcher before leaving to work in the textile industry, and later emigrating to New Zealand.

Obesity is a great problem and we all have to make sure we do eat as healthily as possible, exercise regularly, have our MOT checks and keep the blood pressure down.

In these terrible times of Covid-19 we must watch our weight, stay active, follow all the instructions we’re given to keep safe, and fingers crossed we’ll all get through it.

But this week I would like to think of happier times by looking back to the days when food was just food and we were all more relaxed about what we ate.

We weren’t concerned about counting calories and didn’t know anything about cholesterol, and our main concern was not so much about having too much as having too little, especially during the war.

There was little talk – if any – about healthy eating because food was something to be eaten and enjoyed not analysed. We certainly never thought it might kill us.

I remember meat and potato pie in our house ticked all the boxes because it was easy to make and was cooked in one pot to save on washing- up, but more importantly it filled us to the brim.

Mother cooked it in a massive enamel dish which was nearly as big as the one we did our washing-up in, and to stop the pie crust from collapsing, she put an upturned cup inside to support the pastry.

Dewsbury people were renowned for being great meat eaters and there was a butcher’s shop on nearly every street corner. They had six in Batley Carr.

We loved our food which was nearly always home-cooked, and we always sat down at the table to eat it – not off trays sat in front of the telly.

Our saving grace when it came to keeping slim was doing lots of housework without the aid of labour- saving devices.

We walked everywhere and we didn’t have to go to a gym to work up an aerobic sweat, we got it from going on our hands and knees and scrubbing the floor.

And when we’d done that there was always the old-fashioned black-lead fire-place to be given a good polishing, or get out the zinc tub and posser and do a week’s washing by hand.

Some years ago I interviewed a local butcher, Alex Fozzard, who had a shop in Halifax Road, Staincliffe, on his 100th birthday and he was the picture of health.

He was still living on his own and cooking his own meals and to celebrate his hundredth birthday he had just made a special centenary stand-pie.

Oh, and by the way, he had also just baked 20 Christmas cakes for his family and friends.

And, although he enjoyed full English breakfasts, fish and chips, and the occasional slice of fat and bread, amazingly his weight remained more or less steady at 10 stone.

He was on no medication, his blood pressure was absolutely normal and he hadn’t a single health problem.

Alec had no secret recipe for a long and healthy life but he did wonder if having a long and happy marriage and being content with his lot had had anything to do with it.

I have interviewed many centenarians during my career, and they all had two things in common – they were grafters and content with life and had no worries about what they ate.

As a local historian, I have always been interested in how people lived their lives, what made them tick and what their diets were like.

The greatest meat eaters in this country, especially in this area, were the navvies who built our roads and railways.

In this district they were given an allowance of 7lbs of meat a day and used to cook it on their shovels on fires built at the side of the road.

No wonder local butchers, who supplied them, quickly prospered, and in 1882 formed themselves into the Dewsbury and District Butchers’ Association, which later became the national Federation of Meat Traders – the first in the country.

If a butcher had any meat left on Saturday afternoon, he would take it down to Dewsbury Market and sell it there, in the days when the market stayed open till midnight.

The photograph on this page shows the butchers who worked for the Dewsbury Co-op which used to have more than 21,000 members.

This was in the 1930s when the majority of Dewsbury families were members, and every penny they spent at the Co-op entitled them to a share in the profits which we called the “divi”, short for dividend.

I’m sure everyone who was a member of the Co-op will remember their Co-op number.

You might not remember what you had for breakfast but you will remember your Co-op number.

I do and so does my husband. Happy days!