THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

The railways were big users of horses for local freight deliveries. They stuck with them until around 1950 and it was the Scammel Scarab that replaced them. At that time the main line stations had big stables associated with them. I can clearly remember when they were demolishing the stables at what used to be Manchester Road Station, now called Piccadilly, I saw a tide of rats early one morning as I was passing through Manchester on my way to London with the wagon, in those days that was the direct route from East Lancashire to the south. A bobby stopped me and jumped into the cab, he had been warned they were coming. We sat there and watched a carpet of rats passing, there must have been thousands. I had heard of rats collectively deciding to move but that's the only time in my life I have seen the phenomenon. It was unforgettable, they were jumping over each others backs and very tightly bunched together. After they passed there were odd rats left on the road, I suppose those were the old and infirm ones that had been overcome by the effort. If anyone ever tells you that this tide of rats is a myth, send them to me, I saw it with my own eyes. (I should have said earlier that the bobby reckoned they were all from the stables that were being destroyed.)

[Tizer]

There was a paddock and stable behind our previous house and rats appeared when that was cleaned out. Now there's a rat problem in towns due to the food left over from people feeding the birds (and a seagull problem!).

[Stanley]

Fast food litter is another problem as well Tiz. It's never been easier for the rat population to survive.
Food is not valued as it used to be. It's quite common to see it scattered on the streets (Walk down Church Street on a Sunday morning!). I never saw this as a lad, we never wasted anything! I still eat apple cores for that reason. I remember when I was four years old at Primary School our teacher, Mrs Ackroyd, telling us that food should always be eaten sitting down and never on the move. So much for modern 'grazing'. (She also made us recite "Peas Beans and Lentils are Flesh-forming foods".)
The only exception was fish and chips eaten out of newspaper as you walked home from the pictures. They tasted so much better that way!

[Stanley]

Clothing has changed in so many ways. 50 years ago the preferred protection against cold weather was woollen underwear and one of the main brands was Chilprufe. (The Brand name has survived, see this LINK for the history)
I used to get my wool vests at a lady's outfitters on the row where Bontofts Opticians are now she stocked Chilprufe and one day when I was shopping for a vest she said she had something that might interest me which had gone out of fashion. It was a set of lady's woollen combinations but they were large enough to fit me and I bought them at a very good price. They were brilliant! I have never been as warm in cold weather since and in case you are wondering, yes, they did have an escape hatch for use in emergencies!
I went for a furtle and the 'union suit' is still available, sometimes called a 'onesie'. Some ideas are too good to die!

[PanBiker]

I have some Damart thermal combies which I used to use when fishing in winter. Excellent at keeping you warm when it was biting cold, but if the sun came out you felt like you could explode.

[Stanley]

In earlier times when I was on tramp in winter, especially the horrible winter of 1962 (LINK) I used to pinch a pair of Vera's tights and wear them. They made a big difference!
That reminds me of a coal merchant I once encountered at Causeway Foot on the way into Halifax. He had 4 daughters and said that the worst thing that ever happened to him was when tights became popular. He said that in the era of stockings, if one laddered his daughters would still wear the other one. When tights came in he objected to them throwing them out if one leg laddered. He made them cut the bad leg off and match up with another pair of one legged tights. I don't think the lasses stayed at home any longer than they had to!

[Tizer]

Soap isn't what it used to be. Mrs Tiz bought me a bar of Aleppo soap for Christmas (there must be a hint there) that she saw at a Christmas market in Wells. It's a traditional product in the Middle East and made from olive oil and bay laurel oil. There's information here and some photos of the traditional production method: Aleppo soap

[Stanley]

You've reminded me Tiz of something I learned when I was researching the mills in the Lake District. One of the key ingredients of many chemical processes is the use of strong alkalis. I noted that a common surname in the Lakes was Ashburner and assumed it was charcoal burners but I was wrong, it was a completely separate trade of burning bracken to get the strongly alkaline ashes.

[plaques]

Skara Brae in Scotland is a interesting place for the archaeologists. Build around 3,000 BC it shows an advancement in community living that was unknown until it was exposed by a violent storm. Older than Stonehenge and the great Pyramids its still a bit of a mystery.

Skara Brae.JPG

[Stanley]

I love the stone furniture. The inhabitants were importing wine or olive oil from the Mediterranean, I think amphora were found there.
Getting back to Flatley Dryer territory, how many of you remember the Etch a Sketch and the Spirograph? Both still currently manufactured and available.

[PanBiker]

Getting back to Flatley Dryer territory, how many of you remember the Etch a Sketch and the Spirograph?

Used both, owned one, the Etch a Sketch.

[Stanley]

The kids had them and I used to play with both of them. Johnny Pickles was triggered into Ornamental Turning by playing with his daughter Joyce's Spirograph. He liked it so much he got his own!

[Stanley]

I asked Margaret about them yesterday and she said that I had bought them the big Spirograph, I suspect it was a bit like Dad buying a train set. I wanted to have a go at it myself!
Thinking about our collective medical experiences..... It's no wonder the world is getting clogged up with Crumblies! Things have advanced so much that they will keep us going forever! That is as long as the attacks on us are containable. In Janet's case it was all a bit too much even for modern medicine.
Then I look at the statistics for missed appointments and wonder whether some people appreciate how lucky they are. It baffles me that anyone can be so 'busy' that they lose any good manners they have. In over 80 years I have missed two appointments, only one was medical and I have never forgotten it!
Which reminds me of something else.... I was brought up to regard being punctual as part of the Ten Commandments. I once had to get my late friend John Robinson to London Road Station in Manchester to catch the London train. He started off by being late and then on the way wanted to stop in Bury to look at a steam roller he was funding. By superb driving I managed to get him on to the platform just before the train drew out. Judge my chagrin when he saw a lady called Jane he knew on the platform and they immediately went into a private conversation as I watched the train set off. I never asked him about it but I suspect he had got a better offer!! I have never forgotten that and didn't let John forget either.

[plaques]

Then I look at the statistics for missed appointments and wonder whether some people appreciate how lucky they are. It baffles me that anyone can be so 'busy' that they lose any good manners they have.

I believe that a large proportion of those who miss appointments have mental health problems. These may be depression or alcohol / drug related. Its difficult to draw conclusions without the full facts.

[Stanley]

[Tizer]

Then I look at the statistics for missed appointments and wonder whether some people appreciate how lucky they are. It baffles me that anyone can be so 'busy' that they lose any good manners they have.

I believe that a large proportion of those who miss appointments have mental health problems. These may be depression or alcohol / drug related. Its difficult to draw conclusions without the full facts.

It must be much wider than that. This was published in Nursing Times...
`Her comments [Chief Nursing Officer for England], released in a statement by NHS England today, have been widely covered by the national press. She cited latest figures showing that almost eight million hospital appointments have been missed over 12 months, not including those cancelled in advance by either the hospital or the patient. NHS Digital published data in November showing that around 7.94 million outpatient appointments were missed in 2016-17 due to patients not attending, compared with 7.5 million in 2015-16.' LINK

[Stanley]

I was trying to remember how we knew the time when I was a lad. These days everything, even phones, has a clock incorporated in it. At home we had a mantelpiece clock with Westminster chimes and it was checked daily against the wireless. [They were wirelesses then because you didn't need headphones to listen!] We didn't own watches but seemed to develop an internal clock. Remember we still had the steam whistles on mills then and they signalled starting time at breakfast and dinner. I love my clocks and as a consequence of a lifetime working and driving to time I seem to have developed a good sense of it as long as I am outside.
I still have a clock in every room and Jack and I run our days to a schedule. Internal timekeeping must be a universal instinct because Jack has a good sense of time or perhaps he's just reading my body language.....
Richard once commented that he could set his watch by my journey times and when I was tanking milk we always had a delivery time at dairies up and down the country, some of them over three hours away.
On Tuesday Margaret and I agreed a time for her to pick me up at the top of the back street. As I reached the top she drew up in the car. Punctuality must be catching!

[Stanley]

How many of you built a crystal set when you were younger. For the younger members this is not some New Age therapy but a primitive wireless sat which relied on contact with a crystal for reception. As I remember them you din'd need any electricity, just a pair of headphones to listen to the faint signal. (LINK)
My mother told me that she could remember going to dances where wires were suspended from the ceiling to individual headphone for each dancer. Loudspeaker technology wasn't available. I've often wondered how they managed to avoid getting the wires in a glorious tangle!
We could buy kits with all the necessary gubbins and I remember spending 3/6 on one and building it.

[Bodger]

I started my apprenticeship at the Hepworth Iron Co. Crowedge, I did 4 days in the engineering and one day in the drawing office, there was a multi shelved ceiling high unit containing books catalogues etc. on the top shelf was a crystal set, in the cricket season the head draughtsman had me perched atop a stepladder listening to the scores and relaying to the rest off the office. another part of my job was to keep the chief engineers open top Bentley clean, no hose pipe just buckets of cold water, the company made clayware products so all road ways were covered in grey sludge, the car needed cleaning every other day and cleaning the wire spoked wheels was no easy task. Hard times but work ethic forming, no weather wear supplied, fairly nippy at time with the wind on the Pennines

[Stanley]

" work ethic forming" That rang a bell with me Bodge! You're right, we weren't given choices, just showed the job and told you to get on with it! Learning started immediately as you made mistakes.
I remember when I started at Harrod's Farm straight out of school at 17 years old the first thing Lionel did was put me on a David Brown tractor and told me to back it out of the lean to and draw back in again. I became a tractor driver immediately and within a few days I had a provisional licence and a set of 'L' plates, all I needed to drive on public roads towing the biggest kit we had! Next thing I learned was how to make a hood out of a hire sack and use that to keep the worst of the weather off me. Best thing I had was an ex army leather jerkin, I don't know where that came from but it was standard wear for weather protection. Overalls came later..... Two days after I got there I was on my own milking 30 odd cows every morning starting at 5AM, washing all the equipment and taking the full kits down the lane to the Milk Stand, about half a mile, and lifting them on to the stand. I did this in the Land Rover, a proper treat if it was raining!
I could go on but the point is that I was expected to do everything including lifting 300llb bags of wheat on to a trailer and taking them to the granary when we were harvesting with the combine, very modern in those days. The consequence was that all that work plus unlimited good grub soon made me into a strong lad and I am sure the effects lasted me all my life. It could never happen today and I sometimes walk behind young lads with pipe-stem arms and legs, no muscle or bone mass on them at all, and wonder what the effects will be later in life. A Canadian doctor told me years later that he could tell that during my formative years I had worked like a horse and eaten like one as well. He reckoned that bone mass was the best asset you could have through life as the marrow was the manufacturing centre for so many essential body components. He may have been right.
So we weren't hard done by but reared properly!

[Tizer]

We've been going through some of our old postcards and here's one that's a bit of fun. It shows Falmouth with the big Greenbank Hotel in the background. Look at all those lovely cars! How many can you identify (inc. the scooter)?

[Tripps]

I had a Ford Anglia - a bit like the two tone one on the far side of the road. The contrast between it and my current car is astronomical.

Speaking of Flatley Dryers, I bumped into an ad on TV for this Nubreeze

What will they think of next?

[Big Kev]

We've been going through some of our old postcards and here's one that's a bit of fun. It shows Falmouth with the big Greenbank Hotel in the background. Look at all those lovely cars! How many can you identify (inc. the scooter)?

Ford 100E Popular or Prefect, Ford 105E Anglia, Ford Consul, Rover P4 and an Austin 1100 closest to the sea.

Vauxhall Victor, Vauxhall Cresta, Lambretta or Vespa and another 105E Anglia. There's a Mini just beyond the lamppost what looks like an Austin Cambridge or Morris Oxford (possibly) and is that an older Ford Popular behind the Cambridge? Looks a bit big to be an Austin Ruby...

[Tizer]

Looks like you've scooped all the prizes, Kev! Did all the Crestas have that wrap-around back screen?

[Big Kev]

Looks like you've scooped all the prizes, Kev! Did all the Crestas have that wrap-around back screen?

I believe the PA Crestas did.