Continued from Sat 24 January--
Chapter Eight..
The Sheep Men.
The sheep trade was changed dramatically from the Heady Days of 1954, by the opening of the French Market for lambs.
This combined with the immigrant market for mutton.
The Indian and Pakistani communities started to open their own butchers shops.
The meat had to be Ritually killed by the Halal method.
There was a man called Yaqoob in Birmingham, who was the first immigrant butcher, to open a Stall on an English wholesale meat market.
Birmingham had slaughtering facilities on the meat market, so Yaqoob had mutton at his own prices, for this lucrative New market.
Today there are thousands of Moslem Butchers all over England, especially in the centers of London, Birmingham, Leeds and Bradford.
This previously discarded meat, had now become a valuable commodity.
The reason the Indians and Pakistanis prefer mutton, is because of the cooking.
They soak the meat in spices, cook it overnight in curry, lamb just goes to shreds, however the tough texture of the mutton, stays in shape and becomes tender, with the length of the cooking.
By the end of the fifties and in the early sixties, the Immigrant trade was massive and growing on a weekly basis.
The Pakistan community now control their own abattoirs, kebab factories and retail shops.
The best example is Queens Market in the East End of London.
Around the West Ham football ground at Upton Park, there are hundreds of Halal butchers.
Equally in Southall, Harrow, Wembly and Willesdon.
The main diet is mutton and chicken.
Today the children of the Immigrants of the fifties and sixties, are middle class, doctors, lawyers, bankers and accountants, so like all middle class English people, tastes change. The Halal butchers now use 60% lamb, also large quantities of beef, Halal burgers and small goods.
The export of lamb to France was pioneered by Peter Blackburn, Toby Cobden and Doug Clay.
These men were getting 6 pence a pound more for lamb than anyone else.
However to protect their own industry, the French would close the door on imports.
This often happened without notice causing many lambs to be sold on commission at Smithfield.
It wasn’t long before smaller plants started to specialize in France.
More of them lost money, than made money.
Namely because they neglected then own traditional markets.
The three pioneers mentioned were cow men, the lambs were a side line.
If the French markets closed it didn’t effect them.
The other people Rowleys of Kiddiminister, Welsh Quality Lamb, didn’t last long.
Marshal Brothers of Lamberhurst in Kent.
We can’t talk about lamb without mentioning Dick Cawthorn of North Devon Meat.
Dick was the manager of a small cooperative plant in Bideford Cattle Market.
They had a second plant in Halwill, that used to belong to Fred James, an old railway slaughterhouse.
Dick had been the foreman/ manager of a small bacon plant in Weymouth Dorset.
He employed a slaughter-man called Jack Harris.
Jack had served his time in the Caledonian Market and was an excellent beef and sheep slaughter-man.
The North Devon way of killing sheep, was dress them on the cradle.
When you lift the lamb up, just pull the skin down the back.
Jack Harris designed and Dick Cawthorn patented, the moving cradle in 1967. this was manufactured by Bristol Abattoir Equipment.
Very soon 60% of plants in England had the system installed, so simple yet so very good for effecting a well dressed lamb.
Cawthorn went from strength to strength building a State of the Art plant at Torrington, which opened in November 1967.
This plant could kill 360 lambs an hour, unheard of outside Australia and New Zealand.
Not only good on production, Dick Cawthorn pioneered direct selling to multiple retailers and supermarkets and was awarded the MBE for services to the Meat Industry.
There are other players came on the scene such as Oriel Jones in West Wales.
For quality lamb perhaps Lloyd Maunders were number one.
They have been associated with Sainsbury’s for 100 years as suppliers of poultry pork, bacon and lamb in the season.
Still a family run business they would be the "Royal Family" of the English sheep trade.
today, since the demise of the Vestey Organisation.
Today Dunbia are the biggest lamb people in the country.
Owen Owen in North Wales is also a big player and Dungannon Meats who have bought out Oriel Jones.
Euromeats at Cravan Arms, are an off-shoot of Halal Meats in Ballyhaunis, Ireland, like nature, the flower dies and the seeds "Sprout Up".
Chapter Nine.
Pig Men
First you have the pork men who specialized in pork and cutting pigs, then you have the bacon men who specialize in bacon and ham.
The main bacon men in 1954 were Harris Bacon Calne Wiltshire and Totness in Devon.
Walls Bacon, TW Walls Meat and Handy Foods Willesdon in London and Stockport Manchester.
Bowyers Bacon of Trowbridge Wiltshire and Richmond Bacon, Evesham in Worcester.
These boys were killing 3/ 4000 pigs per week.
As the fifties progressed they followed the Danish marketing and went into pre-packed sliced bacon.
Whilst controlling a great "Niche Market" they always had to compete with cheap imports from Denmark, Holland and Ireland.
Hams became to expensive for the working people, until the invention of picnic ham.
This is taking the cured shoulder and pressing it, in a manner it could be sliced.
Poor mans ham, sausages have always been a huge market, yet again the pork sausage found it hard to compete, with the mixed meat sausage, of inferior meats, mainly mutton, beef off cuts and fat..
Hermin Van Vlielman, was another Dutch Jew who traded on Smithfield.
He started out before the war by buying a load of canned meat, rejected on board ship.
He apparently only had five shilling to his name and bought the load on credit.
His company on Smithfield was Dufaires his son Jack started Scotts of Bletchly, who successfully combined pork and bacon together.
Hermin had his finger in many meat companies and life was good until he got involved with Leslie Hughs.
Mr Leslie was an Ex FMC, Public School Boy.
Together with Basil Palmer a Devon farmer, they took Hermin, for an awful lot of money.
Leslie Hughs used to do the Smithfield prices, each morning, for the BBC Home Service.
The pork men were in a different trade initially selling carcass pigs.
Henry Nichols at Probus in Cornwall was a big player and very successful.
Likewise Cliff Playle at Royson in Herts.
The biggest and best pork man without doubt was Dudley Bowles at Wooten in Norfolk.
The pork men eventually progressed, to cutting their own pigs, at the plants and selling loins, legs, bellies and shoulders.
The sows like the cows were a different trade.
Coggans of Fareham, were big sow men, one of the brothers went on to become Archbishop of Canterbury, Peter Rawson at Hull, used to cover the North of England and work hand in hand with Coggans..
Later on Cheales in Essex took control of the whole sow industry, mainly exporting to Germany.
Cheales worked with Dawkins of Leicester and several people in Scotland and Ireland.
We can’t cover the pig Industry without mentioning Lloyd Maunders of Devon.
Lloyd Maunders had a cutting pig operation second to none geared to supply Sainsbury’s.
Barrets and Baird of West Bromwich in the Midlands, also had a big pork operation.
Reg Barret the cha
