THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

That post is a better illustration of the Flatley Dryer than anything I could dream up. Imagine trying to do that conversion with a modern electronic wonder. It would be impossible. Is this progress?

[Big Kev]

Certainly not something that could be done without a lot of specialist equipment now. There's a series on Quest, called Vintage Voltage, where they put electric motors into classic cars. I'm guessing this episode would fill Stanley with horror...

It's a 44 second promo for

[Stanley]

Go wash your mouth out Kev!

[Big Kev]

[Tizer]

Did you see that an Indian company is going to make BSA motorcycles but with electric engines?

[Whyperion]

A long watch for the BMW / Nissan based MBG style electric , limited to 80MPH, made in the UK , a mere £88,000

[Big Kev]

Did you see that an Indian company is going to make BSA motorcycles but with electric engines?

The Vintage Voltage programme showed the conversion, of a Royal Enfield motorcycle, a couple of weeks ago. I believe that was a fairly new model which are made in India.

[Stanley]

I suppose it all has to happen but I am still lost in Flatley Dryer country. Nothing quite like the growl of a Gardner running fully retarded or the scream of a Foden two stroke diesel when driven properly and changing down for a hill.....

[Stanley]

Many years ago, before the advent of the motorways, the road through Earby and Colne was the direct route from the North East to central Lancashire. A firm called Econofreight from Teeside had a contract delivering materials to the steel industry in Warrington and the 8 wheel Foden Tippers they used for this traffic were regular traffic in Earby.
They all had the Foden 2 stroke engine, a very modern high revving engine that was only efficient at maximum revs so driving one involved many gear changes, for even the smallest rise in the road. I used to love standing outside the Craven Heifer at Kelbrook and listening to them as they rounded the bend at Sough and then attacked the climb through Kelbrook centre. They dropped at least two gears on the approach to the Heifer and if you were an enthusiast as I was the sound of those engines was magic.



There was another two stroke diesel, the Commer TS3 built by Rootes Group. Possibly the strangest diesel ever built it had three cylinders and each had two pistons. If you want to know more you'll have to look it up (LINK), It's complicated! But again, Flatley Dryer country.

[Stanley]

We've noted the old fashioned electric tram as a mode of public transport that fell out of favour but I don't think we have ever mentioned the Trolley Bus. This was in effect a tram but on pneumatic tyres and not needing rails. Where they were used extensively, as in Bradford, they were a very popular mode of transport, more comfortable and quieter than both the trams and the diesel engined buses. They were also not generating exhaust smoke so were a good thing in crowded towns.
I am still not certain what killed them off. I suspect a combination of the overhead wires needed and improvements in the diesel buses. It would almost certainly be an accountant that consigned the Trolley Buses to the dustbin of the Flatley Dryer.

[Tizer]

Watching some TV film footage last night showing a a protest march in London probably in the 1970s I spotted the front of a car through the crowd. Something was familiar but it took me a while before the penny dropped - a Saab 96. Lovely cars, and much used in rallying. It was the last of the Saabs with that shape, after which they became much more conventional. The original shape was due to Saab being a builder of jet fighters and the first of the model type had the lowest drag coefficient of any car at the time. We knew a car mechanic in the 1980s who had one and loved it. Flatley Dryer territory! Here are two web pages with photos - click on the main pic then scroll through..

A brief history of Saab: LINK 1

The history of Saab - picture special: LINK 2

Saab 96 bullnose model...

[Stanley]

In winter 1981 I was in NY and my friend Ethel had a Saab car. It was more rounded front and back because in the US they had to have energy absorbing bumpers. It astonished me on two counts, first was the fact that in exceptionally severe frost it always started immediately. Second was the way Ethel could park it in spaces only inches longer than the car. The rubber bumpers meant that if she was short of space she could usually push the cars in the way a few inches to give her enough space. This was common practice in NY. A very practical city car!

[Stanley]

These days I try to imagine what personal transport is going to be like when the present evolutionary changes have taken place. In the 1950s and later so many people could afford a car. There are even more today. Will car ownership still be seen as desirable then? Will our streets still be clogged with parked cars? Will more expensive houses still be built with garages? I don't know the answers to these questions but I can't see present trends being allowed to continue. Traffic has become a budget draining monster that demands more tarmac for car parks and roads. The pollution from the cars (and there will still be carbon penalties with non fossil fuel vehicles) is seen as an existential threat to people exposed to it. See the recent inquest in London on the child who died of acute asthma.
How long can we allow this to go on? The next thirty years are going to see some striking changes and in many ways I am glad I won't have to deal with them.

[Tizer]

Perhaps Britain will look like this proposed Saudi city...
Neom

[Stanley]

Include me out.
There is much to be said for the Flatley Dryer way of doing things. A good example is the public clock. The two modern ones, the Millennium clock in the Town square and the one on the bus shelter on station Road are both useless, neither telling the correct time. As far as I know, all of Johnny Pickles' clocks, Holy Trinity, the Catholic church and the one on the offices in Wellhouse Road which used to be on Riley Street Chapel in Earby are still functioning correctly.

[Stanley]

There was a time when ownership of a steam roller and responsibility for local roads, drainage and waste disposal were all seen as natural functions of our own Urban District Council. At one time gas water, sewage and electricity together with ambulance, health and fire services were also local responsibilities. Gradually, as time has passed all this has changed and we have outsourced these services to national bodies, the County and Pendle. The argument is made that this centralisation is more efficient and in many cases that may well be true but the short chains of command in early years made things seem to run more smoothly.
I still think that some services would be better dealt with at local level. Keeping Gully grates clear is one. The present service seems to pay on the number of grates attended to and not whether they actually run or not. The contractors make no money out of doing a proper job of clearing a blocked grate and unfortunately we have many of them in the town now.
The pendulum may have swung a bit too far.

[Whyperion]

I am still not certain what killed them off. I suspect a combination of the overhead wires needed and improvements in the diesel buses. It would almost certainly be an accountant that consigned the Trolley Buses to the dustbin of the Flatley Dryer.

In part New Bus Grant. 50percent off new buses , capable of one person operation (staff shortages used to be blamed for lack of buses to timetables), and ICE were specified (or rather electric were not). Carried on overseas, London would have had them until 1972 but South Africa made a strong bid for some second hand ones and the standardisation on vehicle types carried the London Transport Board vote. For municipal enterprises the move from 1948 for local electricity to the national grid and change in pricing had an effect. The last trolleybus to run not in a museum complex was the Volvo based one around part of Doncaster Race Course (opposite the Depot) for South Yorkshire PTE in the mid 1980s. SYPTE decided to put its money in the trams instead ( supposedly trams generated more development and passenger attraction from cars than buses did. European cities have variously retained, added, deleted or disbanded trolleybus systems since 1972.

As to garages, houses rarely have a car in them - they are mainly full of bits, workbenches, or bikes and motorbikes and boats 1

[Big Kev]

As to garages, houses rarely have a car in them - they are mainly full of bits, workbenches, or bikes and motorbikes and boats 1

Garages, in new builds, are rarely big enough to get a car in. One of my wife's friends drove her mini into the garage of her new house in Salterforth, it went in but there wasn't enough room to open the door to get out.

[Whyperion]

open door, get out, open garage door, push car in from rear. removal is the reverse of the procedure. But those BMW minis are quite wide.

[Stanley]

Two things coincided in our neck of the woods in the 1950s, the rise in car ownership and the decline of the hen pen. [Thinks, must bump Wilfred's short story again!] That, allied with the predominance of terraced housing with no garages prompted the buying of redundant hen cabins and repurposing them as garages on any spare piece of land available. The Corn Mill Dam was filled in and is still a large garage site. As hen cabins in good nick became less common we saw the rise of the concrete pre-cast garage. Banbury and Marley are two names that spring to mind. Now we have Kev telling us that the garages are being built too small for the cars. This may be a message!



The Whipp family's hen huts. Good cabins like these made ideal garages. They had wooden floors and were warm and dry because of the all wood construction. A wet car parked in such a hut would dry out but it wouldn't in a brick and concrete garage. They were also wide enough for a large car and you could still open the doors. Flatley Dryer Country wasn't bad at all at times.

[Cathy]

Here’s an oldie (sorry about the quality)
What make of car is it?

AC4DCD4B-9F2F-4FDC-AAC4-5B610236B81D.png

[Stanley]

Sorry Cathy I can't tell for sure. Reminds me of a Humber....

[Cathy]

Yes it’s a bad photo.
1964 Sth Aust.
On a drive to the middle of no-where.

The car is a Ford Customline.

[Stanley]

Never seen one of those here Cathy but you've reminded me of the first post war car we saw here in 1945.



I don't know why but where I lived in Stockport the first new car I saw was this, a pre-war model actually, but a Ford V8 shooting brake. They stood out a mile in the otherwise old fashioned pre war cars still on the road.

[Tizer]

When my mother was growing up in South Africa between the wars the American Studebaker cars were being manufactured there and were popular among people living out on farms. They were known there as `Sturdybuggers'!