We all love a good story from the past and this little beauty from the pages of the Eccles and Patricroft Journal from January 1966 takes some ‘beating’.
Readers of a certain age may recall the Eccles Tripe Works at Monton.
But those of a more delicate nature may want to turn away now.
Tripe is a traditional British dish made from the stomach linings of various farm animals, usually cows.
It was cheap to buy, nutritious to eat and helped cut down on waste. For the poverty-stricken it was a godsend.
UCP Ardwick – ©UCP
In 1906 there were 260 specialist tripe shops in Manchester alone. By the 1990s, there were none.
But for those intervening years, tripe was big business, and factories employed hundreds of people in Salford just to process this delicacy and sell it on.
In the late 1930s two independent businesses: Hiley’s Tripe Works and Frederick Hill’s Tripe Works of Salford, were bought out by the United Cattle Products (UCP) company and became known as Hill and Hiley Ltd.
There were UCP shops on nearly every high street in Salford to dish it out: you can see the UCP on Broad Street in Salford in this exclusive video from the early 1960s.
Salford Broad Street UCP, 1970 – By Dave Moran
The newly-formed Hill and Hiley Ltd moved into brand new premises on Monton Fields Road in 1938.
The first sod of grass on site was cut by the Mayor of Eccles, George Hiley Snr. It was soon to employ 50 people at the works.
Sadly the tripe works is long gone and new housing has been built on the site, but the memories linger on – if not the smell.
In January 1966 Eccles Magistrates Court heard the story of a shocking assault at the tripe works in, believe it or not, a dispute over a pie.
Young worker Jean Hall, 18, told the court that she had been bringing pies from the refrigerator to van drivers and had moved to the ‘pigs feet’ department when another worker approached her and told her that an employee had been seen eating a pie: a gross breach of trust, apparently.
She asked the man, Fred Cope, 29, if he had permission to eat the offending item when he allegedly hit her in the mouth and bruised her nose.
Things quickly escalated when Jean’s 22-year-old sister Sheila, remonstrated with Coupe and a knife which she was using to prepare tripe cut her on the wrist.
Fred Cope denied the allegation of assault.
He told the court he had been working on the ‘tripe deck’ when he was accused of stealing the pie, stating that he didn’t punch the teenager but only “back-handed her because she was telling lies about him”, and when threatened with a knife he tried to disarm the woman which could have caused the cut to her wrist.
Things got heated when Jean Hall said that Coupe had threatened to “wipe her all around the factory floor” and when her sister intervened he punched her to the ground and kicked her in the face.
Again Coupe denied these allegations saying that these women had “had it in for him for ages”.
He protested that Sheila Hall fell over a barrel when he pushed her away as she was brandishing the knife, and denied kicking her adding that he was wearing clogs at the time, and there were no injuries to her head.
Fred put on a gentlemanly face in court saying he would never kick anybody in a fight if they were on the floor, especially if it was a woman.
A witness callled Francis Copeland gave evidence to the court in support of Fred’s side of the story.
He also admitted that he had been the one to hand over the pie to his colleague after it was given to him by a girl in the factory; it turns out it was in fact a ‘return’ from a cafe and would have been thrown away.
Fred Cope then told the court: “All I can say is that I wish to apologise to them both, I did apologise the same day but they wouldn’t accept it.”
Despite his somewhat limited apology Fred was fined £4 for assaulting the sisters and bound over in the sum of £10 to keep the peace for the next twelve months, also he was dismissed from the tripe works.
I can vaguely recall Fred Cope from many years ago, he was what would have been described as ‘a bit of a character’.
I know that he would work on Silcocks Funfair when it came to Eccles and was fond of a drink, especially in the Patricroft area.
I have no idea if Fred Cope is still alive, if so he would be 79 years old, and the Hall sisters in their 70s.
I hope after all these years the Hall sisters found it in their hearts to forgive Fred for the Battle at the Tripe Works.
