THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

It came to my notice yesterday that the Nenette Duster is still on the market. Anyone remember them?

[Big Kev]

It came to my notice yesterday that the Nenette Duster is still on the market. Anyone remember them?

I had one in 1979 when I got my first car.

[Stanley]

Can anyone remember 'Headquarter and General Supplies' which was a mail order company based in London founded in the 1940s and very active after the war in selling war surplus items. They had large adverts in many of the popular magazines and one of their main lines in the early days was imported binoculars, not the best quality but incredibly cheap. They sold them under the trade-name Lieberman and Gortz which many assumed to be connected with the well established firm of Goertz in Vienna who made high quality optics but in fact it was made up. I used to spend hours trawling through their advertisements, they sold everything from a pin to an anchor. I remember that all the tents used by the choir and the cub scouts for their annual camps were ex WD and came from there. I can still remember the smell of the hot canvas which was impregnated with some sort of preservative to guard against mould when they were stored.
What isn't remembered today is that after the war a fund was established by the Labour government using part of the proceeds from the war surplus sales and in later years this was renamed and became the National Heritage Memorial Fund which was a funder of last resort for national treasures threatened with export.

[Stanley]

Thirty years ago when I was running Ellenroad I was always looking for sources of funding. I was told that it was a waste of time contacting the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) but heard that the current director had left and was tipped the wink that his deputy who had taken over pro tem was a bit of a character and had been chafing under the yoke for years, he wanted to extend the areas of funding so I had a crack at him. I invited him up and got the Town Hall to lay the red carpet on for him.
I forget the man's name but he was a softie, he only had about two years to do before retiring and was eager to leave a mark. The Council rose to the occasion and the Mayor entertained him in the magnificent Mayor's Parlour and gave him the full tour of the Town Hall which is a bit of a goodie. Then we took him to Ellenroad and ran the engine for him..... The upshot was that he agreed in principle to funding major works on the chimney at the mill and as a bonus offered funding to the Council for maintenance on the Town hall. I admit that I had primed John Pierce the then chief exec and we buttered him up something shameful! Nothing happened immediately but later we got a result.......

[Stanley]

I've never forgotten one bright summer's morning in a small town in Lincolnshire. It was in my tramping days and I had been driving all night and was knackered. I saw a bloke opening up a small barber's shop to catch the early morning trade and went in. He gave me a wet shave and I got out of the chair feeling much better. I asked him how much and he said it was a tanner..... I told him that was far too cheap and he said he'd only recently put it up from threepence..... Those were the days! Mind you, my wage was only 3/6 an hour...... (17.5p)

[Stanley]

60 years ago a breakfast in a good transport café cost an hour's wage, about 3/6. I suppose it's about the same now, that's a good way to measure prices. Some items are far cheaper in terms of how long you have to work to buy them and some far dearer, houses for instance. Young people are amazed to hear that I bought a big house, 7 acres and a barn in 1959 for £2,200 on a basic wage and my wife never went out to full time work but stayed at home to rear the kids. This is not possible today and is a good indicator of how variable the results of inflation can be. I often think that the less essential something is, the easier it is to 'afford' it. The basics like housing and security of income are what has suffered. On the whole I think we had it easier despite the long hours, hard physical work and low wages. Is what we have to report progress?

[Wendyf]

I remember you saying that before you bought Hey you came to look at a farm on the other side of the road to us at Hawshaw. The converted barn is for sale at the moment, a snip at £495,000!

https://www.daleeddison.co.uk/hawshaw-end-lothersdale

[Stanley]

It was Hawshaw Side we looked at in 1958.... At that time, 60 years ago, the guide price for the smaller farms up there was £50 an acre and this bought the buildings as well. Bit of a change Wendy!

[Wendyf]

The farm was called Hawshaw Side, I think they have just called the barn conversion Hawshaw End. There is another Hawshaw Side next door to it which is accessed from Centre Road which runs parallel to Skipton Old Road.

[Stanley]

We looked at a farm near Milford Haven which was even cheaper...... Lovely land and river frontage, I often wonder what it's worth now! Hey Farm at £2,200 with ingoings was relatively expensive but of course in the middle of town. Best investment I ever made......

[Stanley]

When we lived at 38 Norris Avenue in Stockport Mr Nixon at No. 40 died suddenly and left his widow in penury. Father bought the house of her and rented it back to her at 6/6 a week. I collected the rent for years until I went off farming in 1953. Eventually when my sister Dorothy got married she and her husband bought it at the same price that father had given for it. I wonder what it's worth now?



40 on the left and 38 on the right in about 2000. They were built in 1935 and at that time both had detached garages and bathrooms, state of the art housing then!

[chinatyke]

https://www.zoopla.co.uk/house-prices/h ... is-avenue/

What's the average house price in Norris Avenue?

The average price for property in Norris Avenue stood at £224,936 in May 2018. This is a rise of 2.19% in the last three months (since February 2018) and rise of 5.26% since 12 months ago. In terms of property types, flats in Norris Avenue sold for an average of £168,258 and terraced houses for £211,029. This is according to the current Zoopla estimates.

No 38 suggested current value 245K, and no 40 suggested value 228K (last sale Mar 2003 115K)

[Stanley]

I don't know what they cost new but would guess at somewhere round £500. It was a greenfield site and the developer went bust before the roads were completed, it was unmade streets with no street lights until after the war when everyone had to pay a contribution and the Borough Council adopted it. No great disadvantage because the lights would have been out in the black out anyway!

[Stanley]

One of the things I have seen change beyond recognition in the last 80 years is the growth in the private ownership of cars. We always had a car because it was part of my dad's perks as works manager for GGA and of course his responsibilities during the war. After the war he got the MBE for this and it made him very proud. Only problem was of course that he was an illegal alien living under a false name and he must have thought that at last he was going to be found out. Luckily the Jobsworths in Whitehall didn't do too much digging. Have a look at 'An Australian Life' on the site for the full story!
Back to the cars.... nobody else on the Avenue had one, during the war we had what was available from the works car pool, it could be anything up to a big American Pontiac. After the war he bought a 1938 Vauxhall 14, registration DRF 954, funny how that has stuck! Even as late as the 1950s car ownership was a rarity. Compare and contrast with today! I wonder sometimes how the emergency services get access to some streets!

[Stanley]

The thing I remember best about that Pontiac was the battery. It was wooden-cased and installed in the boot and stretched full width of the car.....



1938 Pontiac Silver Streak.

[Tizer]

Having just come back from holiday I'm reminded that Mrs Tiz often calls me Mr Grumpy when I complain that people seem to be always on holiday nowadays and no wonder productivity is low. When I started work we had Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Year's Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, a wakes week in Blackpool and I think the August Bank Holiday. I remember when I worked for Boot's Chemists and finished at 6.00pm on Christmas Eve then had two buses to catch to get from Darwen to the other side of Blackburn, have a meal, get changed then walk back into town to meet my mates in the pub who were by then well into party time!

[PanBiker]

We showed our Ruby how to play Monopoly last night, she's 9 now and in the space of two hours she fleeced both of us. I had to mortgage all my assets before final capitulation of funds and all properties to pay rent on Coventry Street with hotels! Ruby also had all four stations regularly collecting £200 in rent for landing there. Sally also took the hit and at the final count up Ruby had nearly £2000.00 in cash and every property on the board except three, she had hotels on Leicester Sq, Picadilly and Coventry St and houses on Park Lane and Mayfare.

I found something out about Monopoly as well. You would think that it is a Capitalist game by it's nature, which it is but it was actually developed by a Socialist over 100 years ago to demonstrate Capitalist greed to the working class.

[Stanley]

Our board games were Snakes and Ladders, Solitaire, Ludo and Draughts. When we got Monopoly and Trivial Pursuits much later I enjoyed playing them with the kids......

[Stanley]

My mother used to take me to whist drives and from an early age I was familiar with cards. At home we played Snap and later I spent a lot of time playing Bezique with my mates and Cribbage with my dad. Years later I had to go to a garage in Stoke on Trent when my wipers failed on a very wet day. They were having lunch and there was a Solo school going. They invited me to join in so I agreed if they'd teach me how to play. An hour later I had cleaned them out and they were looking sideways at me! But they made a good job of my wipers!

[Stanley]

My dad had a mate called Harry White. He was a signwriter in Stockport and was what they call 'a character'. Always up to something, looking for an angle.... He fascinated me as did his wife Lal who had a permanent fag in her mouth and played the accordion. He had lots of guns in the house and when I visited he always let me fire one. At the beginning of the war he got the bright idea of going round painting people's house numbers with luminous paint. During the war he was no stranger to the black market and at one point when soap was scarce he found a source of army foot soap at a good price. He bought a pile of it and then found it was loaded with grit and was unsaleable! After the war he bought surplus aluminium stock as the aero industry wound down and started making caravans. Last time I saw him as a very old man he was retired and had taken up painting, he hired models to pose for him naked...... Is it any wonder the man fascinated me?

[Stanley]

One of the big failures in my early education was when, at the age of 9, I had to transfer to St Thomas' School for two years until the time came for the 11+ exams. Miss Hogg had done such a good job of tuition at Hope Memorial when I was in a class of two pupils that St Thomas's soon regarded me as unteachable because I was so far ahead of my class mates. Instead of taking me further, they abandoned me and for two years all I did was learn poetry and go for the headmaster, Mr Bower's, pipe tobacco. The chief culprit was a man called Enoch ? who my sister told me later was prosecuted for molesting children. When the 11+ came round I sat for Manchester and Hulme Grammars, two separate exams and Stockport Grammar school. I failed all of them but was so high up the order of failures for Stockport that when someone dropped out I was offered a place and took it. The only bit of 'luck' I had in those two years 1945/1947. If that hadn't happened I would have been in the secondary school which was simply a mill turning out factory fodder. As things turned out it was OK but I often wonder what might have been!

[Stanley]

Those exams were three hour affairs. A big ask for an 11 year old..... I remember being totally over-awed particularly by Manchester Grammar School.

[Stanley]

I threw a pair of jeans out yesterday before they were completely worn out. They had suffered at one time in the past by being the subject of The Lurcher's Revenge, I had a dog called Joe who had many problems, one of which was chewing stuff. At one point he ate a set of binoculars..... It struck me yesterday that it was time I broke away from the imprinting I had as a child when everything was worn until it dropped to bits so I screwed up my courage and binned them!
Due to a combination of clothes rationing and shortage of money the only way clothes left the house was if you grew out of them, in which case they were passed on. Otherwise you wore them until they dropped to bits. They started as 'best' and gradually fell down the scale until they were 'playing out'. Nothing was 'branded' and there was no competition in the playground. I am told that this is not how it works these days!

[Stanley]

'Make do and mend' was seen as part of the war effort and 'Dig For Victory' where everyone grew vegetables on any available piece of land was a valuable supplement to the food ration. Many women did their bit by sewing, mending clothes and making new ones. I don't know how it came about but it was quite common to come across 'parachute cloth', a very fine strong silk mixture cloth that got used mainly for making underwear.
Other things 'leaked' from war production. I can remember Home Guard thunderflashes appearing occasionally, Verey Lights were exciting when thrown onto bonfires and I had a dummy Mills Grenade and a 25lb practice bomb, God alone knows where they went when I left home..... At one time early on in the war there was a scare about paratroopers and my dad brought home a double barrelled .22 pistol and a box of blanks. It was sup[posed to for defence but even then I wondered what good it would be. I found out that if you threw the blanks on the fire they made a very satisfactory bang. Problem was they also caused a fall of soot..... I think they vanished after I was caught doing that.

[Stanley]

There wasn't a lot of DIY in our house during the war as father worked all hours at GGA. After the war things settled down a bit and he took up gardening. The first DIY job I remember him doing was just after the war he replaced one of the wooden posts that the front gate hung on. I remember that particularly because somehow he managed to convert a chisel into a missile and it caught me a glancing blow just to the right of my right eye. I think it frightened him to death because there was blood all over the place and I still carry a scar!