CONTINUITY

[Tizer]

Seeing Pluggy talking about electricity bills on the Energy thread prompts me to relate the following but I thought it would be best under this topic. My Dad having now moved to a different house, we found out that EDF hadn't sent him an electricity bill for a long time and they've now sent him a big bill. They'll chase up people who haven't paid on time yet don't seem to care when they've forgotten to bill someone who's elderly and doesn't have a good memory. Fortunately Mrs Tiz is on the case now! Since the move my Dad has become much more willing to let us see his bills, bank statements, credit card statements, pension etc and we can now more easily help protect him from scams. He used to throw away bills after paying them and statements after reading them but we've managed to convince him it's important to keep them. Mrs Tiz set him up with a filing system and now he looks forward to them both sitting down together and going through the latest paperwork. It's difficult sometimes when an elderly relative is too proud to admit that they need help, and they can be quite crafty at hiding the need. He wouldn't have let me sort his paperwork...but that was probably good judgement!

[Stanley]

If ever that happens to me my kids will have the opposite problem, I keep everything! Mrs Tiz is welcome to come and look over my affairs any time.....
Bodge, the stone table and recesses in the walls in a cellar are a common feature in old buildings. A really good cellar will maintain a stable temperature below 60F in the warmest weather. The table was also used for salting bacon. At Eumalga, where my dad was born in NSW they had an old wine cellar dating back to the days when it was one of the first wineries in Australia and they used it for settling milk to allow the cream to rise and for perishable foods. They had a snake living down there which killed the mice and drank some of the milk which turned it white. A sundowner shot it one day and couldn't understand why my grand dad was so pissed off with him!

[Bodger]

Livestock in cellars, we lived in the Organ Inn, Hollingworth, and in the cellar there was a toad, my father said do'nt harm it it will help too keep the cellar clean ?, The cellar was always damp and cool, but i recall in hot weather it was my job to keep the beer cool with damp flour sacks laid on the wooden barrels, no fridge cooled ale in those days

[Stanley]

Your dad was right. The toad would be eating insects. I had a spider colony in the top right hand corner of the windscreen in my old AEC Mercury tanker for years. I always left it alone working on the assumption they were living by eating something! No flies on me..... (and before you say it, yes, you could see the marks where they had been!)

[Stanley]

I have a stock of Zebo black lead under the sink. I'n considering doing the cast iron stove in the front room with it. Now that will be continuity!

[Stanley]

When I got up this morning the sky was clear, the glass high and it was misty. The first thought that came into my head was that it's a good day for washing bedding! This got me to thinking how much things have changed. When I was a lad the first good days of Spring triggered off blanket washing. In those days we slept between sheets but with woollen blankets for warmth and perhaps even a quilt on top if you were lucky. I remember that my dad's Home Guard greatcoat was my quilt in those days. They were thick blankets and we washed them using 'blanket soap', a very pure soft soap with flecks of camphor in it to guard against moths. It took perhaps a couple of days to dry a blanket and then it was folded and put away until the following winter. They only got washed once a year. The replacement for the blankets was a light Aertex type of blanket during the summer months.
So, things have advanced but a good drying day is still a bedding day, nowt like going to bed between duvet covers that smell of fresh air! My mother used to say it was ozone and killed the bugs! Not sure about that because my dad used to tell me about washing clothes in WW1 and hanging them out to freeze in the hope of killing the lice. He said it didn't work, the best way was to run a lighted cigarette along the seams.....

[Stanley]

One of the best examples of continuity is families and the way they renew themselves down the generations. This has been much on my mind lately as we have one member seriously ill but a new baby kicking in the womb. Things have a way of balancing out......

[Marilyn]

How is the poorly family member, Stanley?
Awful when someone close to you is sick....hope you have some better news soon.

[Stanley]

No change, we are waiting for news.

[Stanley]

The coal chap delivered 6 bags of smokeless fuel yesterday. Those of us reared with coal fires will remember the weekly delivery. What strikes me is that a modern stove is so economical compared to the old open fires. I think that in a small house we'd average at least a hundredweight and a half a week in those days. Remember the back leathers they used to wear to protect them from the sharp edges of the lumps in the heavy Hessian bags? Coal distribution was a major source of employment and profit in those days before modern energy marketing and distribution. In Stockport we paid the Corporation for gas and electricity as they were the suppliers.

[Stanley]

I remembered something else about coal deliveries. If more than one bag was delivered the coal chap folded the empty bags and piled them on the floor next to the coal hole as evidence of the number of bags delivered. The coal came from the pit into the sidings and it was bagged straight out of the coal trucks. At one time some coal came in by canal as well but eventually almost all domestic coal came into the sidings as well as much of the mill coal. It was a busy place!

[Nolic]

As a nipper used to watch the coal chaps in the yard behind where the 'bus stop is now on Station Road. They would shovel the coal into a weighing machine with a half barrel like container to 1 cwt and then tip the barrel so that the coal went into the sack held over the end. Seemed like a great job to a 7 year old - shovelling and getting black all day long. Nolic

[Bodger]

One trick used was to put a empty sack under the full bag on your back, you then had an extra bag to fold and be included in the count.

[Stanley]

Trust you to have had a dodgy coal chap!

[Stanley]

This came to mind as I was responding to another topic. When I was a lad this was the 'bathroom' for over 50% of the people in Britain. A far cry from what is seen as an acceptable standard these days but were we really in any danger of dying from dirt?

[Marilyn]

No plug oil.
Fine to have a good soak in, but does it come with a strapping lad to carry it out for emptying?
I'd have to do several trips back and forth with a bucket before I could shift it.

[Whyperion]

Wasn't the order , baby, child , mum , father when home from work , not much water left by then anyway as could not fully fill or would splash go over the floor and hot water limited by the size of the kettle to fill. Even back in the mid 1960s my great aunt didnt have an internal bathroom , though part of the back garden had been enclosed with timber frame and plastic glazing to internalise the WC and adjacent coal store. Grandma and her husband too the weekly visit to the public baths in the town centre.

[Stanley]

Maz, filled and emptied with a lading tin. Hot water came from the side boiler on the kitchen range, held over ten gallons.

[Bodger]

Lading can in our house was a "piggin"

[EileenDavid]

I always had a plumbed bathroom (spoilt) but we used the lading can to wash our hair. I thought the lading can was for the dolly tub. Thank god for the walk in shower. Eileen

[Tripps]

Mercifully, I'm a generation removed from the tin bath. I expected the word to be ladling can, from the word ladle. but a little research shows that lading is a dialect version. I even found piggin - never heard of that word before.

[Tizer]

Tripps, I know you like words and I have one you might not have encountered. Some of the people who write letters to The Times have a game trying to get this word into their letters and past the letters editor: `conniption' It means a fit of rage or panic, as in "Tripps had a conniption when asked to take his bath in a tin tub".

[Tripps]

Wonderful word Tiz - I shall put it in the cupboard with tergiversate,to be taken out on special occasions. According to the Daily Mail was the "word of the year " in 2011.

Actually I had a conniption yesterday when our vehicle failed its MOT so the word has just arrived in time. Seems there were clips missing from the fuel pipe, which had been removed to fit the wheelchair lift, and not replaced. However they were removed four years ago, and the vehicle has had three full services, and an MOT by the same main dealer, without comment since then. They are not a stock item, and must be flown from Japan to Belgium, then to UK. I am off the road for two weeks. No visits to Mrs T.

I am well connipted.

[Stanley]

I first came across 'k'niption when I was spending time with a Jewish family in NY. In Yiddish, if a word starts with KN they are both pronounced, Kerniption or conniption would be an accurate way of conveying the sound. A lot of dictionaries say that the origin in about 1830 is unknown but the fact I heard this from Yiddish speakers seems to me to be good evidence. Strictly speaking it is an emotional outburst on hearing something shocking or surprising but in the family I was with it was used to describe any upset caused by a personal outburst, including temper.
There's another interesting transfer of a word from Yiddish to English that always intrigued me because at one time in the army I had a by-name, Knocker. This was usually associated with the surname West but in Yiddish a K'nocker is someone who is cocksure or over confident. I still meet old friends I haven't seen since the days when my beard was black who know me as Knocker.
David, if you'd had a shed you could have made your own.....

[Tizer]

Tripps, ask the boss of the main dealer to provide you with a courtesy car until the clips are received and fitted. It's the least he can do for having exposed you to death by being burned alive in your own car over the last 4 years. Also, he would be in deep trouble if you reported him for not having found the missing clips in the previous MOTs. You've got him over a barrel.