six o'clock in the evening
Factories were built by the side of the beck , and while a certain amount of weaving continued to be done by the old people in their cottages , the younger generation sought employment in the mills , and payment for piecework gave way to time-wages . Most of the younger weavers welcomed this change when it was fully understood . They found that the hours of work , though still terribly long , were shorter than those spent by their parents over their hand-looms , and the social intercourse of the mill , where the youths and girls met their equals in age , was deemed preferable to the family labours in the upper story of the cottages . Moreover , if the overseers and foremen in the mills were often brutal , the workers could , at any rate , get away from the atmosphere of the weaving-shed when the hooters sounded at six o'clock in the evening . When this revolution in industrial life took place Tom Parfitt found himself too old to adapt himself to the change . `` T ' hand-loom 's gooid enough for me , '' were his words . `` If I went to work i ' t ' mill I 'd feel like givin ' up an owd friend , just because he 'd grown owd-feshioned .