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Those of us who live on or near to the border of another
county know all too well the problems that come with having a geographical
(actual) address, and one created for the convenience of the Post
Office, which invariably puts us in the wrong county. The fun begins when you start to receive
letters from Reader’s Digest telling you that of all the people in Lancashire
(wrong) and in the Granada TV area (also wrong), you have been chosen to
enter the prize draw. Delivery vans
drive up and down local roads, confused as to where it is they should be
delivering, and our children grow up believing they live in another county
altogether. Martins Bank’s Branch at
Earby in Craven is subjected to this arbitrary re-writing of history, and has
to be addressed “Colne Lancashire” (instead of Yorkshire, which is where it
is physically located).
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In Service: Pre 1906 until Friday 7 April 2000
Branch Images © Barclays
Ref: 0030-0869 and 0030-0192
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 Whether or not this might restart the Wars of the
Roses, at least those who live in these places know where they
are! Once a full Branch of the Bank,
by the time of the merger with Barclays, Earby is a self accounting sub to
Barnoldswick, with a Clerk in Charge and full six day banking hours. Our
images show the branch in 1936 (above) and at the time of the Merger with
Barclays in 1969 (below). More or less
exactly inbetween – 1951 – Earby branch is visited by Martins Bank Magazine…
 Earby-in-Craven
is a little manufacturing town in Yorkshire with a Lancashire postal address.
It has about 5,000 inhabitants and as a town is rather an ugly little place
because of the close proximity of the factories with their belching chimneys.
Yet, although our branch is centrally situated, it is possible, as our
photograph of the staff shows, to reach fields and country lanes within five
minutes' walk of it. When Staff Department, Head Office,
gave us the list of the staff at Earby we were rather surprised to see that
it was an all-male list—somewhat
unusual these days. Our friends will understand that we were a little
disappointed, also! However, they do have a girl at Earby; she has been there
three years though she is not officially on the Earby strength. Her name is
Margaret Robinson, and on the day of our visit was there also Miss J.
Watkinson, officially relieving from Barnoldswick.
 Mr. J. N. Slater, officially on holiday, came
in specially for the photograph and we were also glad to meet David Fielden,
son of Mr. E. L. Fielden, Manager of our Burnley branch, and recognisable
from his smile as being his father's son. We used a photograph taken by
David for our frontispiece in the Spring issue this year, and we have one or
two more put by for future use. Mr. T. E.
Green must have set up something of a record in getting his first managerial
appointment when within four years of the optional age of retirement. He has
done a very good job of work at Earby and has stayed on to see something of
the fruits of his labours. Anyway, he doesn't look old enough to have reached
the time of retirement. He entered the Bank in 1906, and served at Nelson,
Colne, Barnoldswick and Skipton before going to Earby in 1945. After taking
the photograph we went down to Colne to have tea with Mr. and Mrs. Green.
 This
was our second visit to their home, the first having been made on the
occasion of the gathering at the Manor House Hotel, Thornton, in 1948. They
have a very attractive garden with a lawn which is their special pride, so
weed-free that we understand that Mr. Green has been rash enough to offer Ł1 for every weed which could be found in it.
We hope that publication of this news won't result in busloads of bank clerks
descending on Colne in a new gold rush, and we can assure our readers that we
ourselves failed to earn a penny piece, and it wasn't for want of looking! From their back windows they can look out over the hills
and see Lancashire Moor, which is in the Bronte country and is mentioned in
the books. Eight miles away is Haworth where the sisters lived. Also at
Haworth is the Bronte museum which brings visitors, Americans in particular,
in great numbers. On the wall of their hall,
at the foot of the staircase, is the family tree of the Waite family, of
which Mrs. Green is a member. She can trace her ancestors back to the sixteen
hundreds and the tree makes an interesting and attractive addition to their
home. In his younger days Mr. Green was a
tenor with a considerable local reputation and, the talk turning on music, he
treated us at the close of our visit to an impromptu rendering on the piano
of a number of the songs of the beloved Ivor Novello. It was a very pleasant
conclusion to a most happy day.
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