John Welding. Brickworks

I've discussed the family links to the Whiston pottery, mining, the "cables" and the brickworks and the following is a fantastic photograph of John Welding (b. abt 1893) who, in 1911, prior to his national service worked at the cables as a drum guider, then following his return from the war, worked at the brickworks.

That's John on the left, playing a hand shovel fiddle with a workmate accompanying him on the guitar.

John worked on the kilns in the brick fields, the pair of them look to be holding coal shovels and of course, they are standing in front of a pile of coal. It was the hard work of men like these that created the very building blocks that Lancashire needed to grow and prosper in the 1930s.

In typical fashion, a camera appears and a Welding must perform!