THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

Many people will tell you the downside of getting older but I prefer to think more about the privileges age brings. I often wonder how ancient I must appear to kids. They learn history at school and it's a bit of a shock for them when they realise that I lived what they read in books. One of my earliest memories is that I loved to watch the steam cranes working on the building of Merseyway in Stockport where they roofed the Mersey to make a town centre road. That was in 1936 and I was in my pram. My mother knew I liked the cranes and always stopped to let me watch when we were in town shopping which was two or three days a week. 1936 is like prehistoric times to young children. Lovely!
And yes, I know I tell the same stories over and over again!

[Stanley]

My mother was very good at teaching me. She was teaching me the first hesitant steps into reading from the advertisements that were all around then. By the time I went to school aged 4 years I was in front of most of my class mates. I doubt if she ever read anything about child-rearing, it was instinct and perhaps her mother did the same with her. She wasn't what you would call 'well-educated' but often surprised me with her abilities. Even in old age she was a wizard at crossword puzzles and was always reading.
I was often reminded of her when I was doing the interviews for the LTP. So many were obviously what we would now regard as university potential but never went on to higher education because of prejudice and artificial barriers like the cost of transport and school uniforms. It always struck me as a waste of talent and so unfair.

[Stanley]

To a certain extent, the prejudices and barriers against 'working class' entrants into grammar school still existed when I was lucky enough to get a place at Stockport Grammar School in competitive examination, I just scraped through (and they made sure I knew that!).
For various reasons, even though my dad had a good job, the family was hard up in 1947, my school uniform of grey flannel trousers and jacket was a major expense and I had to wear it until it was coming apart and too small for me. Add the fact that I was a 'speccy four eyes' and you had all the ingredients for bullying and it happened, I had four years of it and I am sure it had an effect on me but eventually I climbed out of it and got excellent results in what was then the old School Certificate, 13 passes over two years because of my birth date. I was seen as a candidate for further education and university but decided to leave and go farming. At the time I justified this by the fact that my parents couldn't afford to support me but with hindsight I now think that the bullying was a factor, my self-confidence had been damaged and I knew I would be more comfortable doing something practical. As it happened it all turned out to be OK!

[Stanley]

I remember that at the time I was a bit puzzled why father had let me have my way about leaving school. Later he told me that at the same stage in his life he had the chance of going to a good engineering school in Sydney but Granddad Alex wouldn't hear of it because he said people would say he was getting rid of him. Father never forgot this and so he was going to let me have my head and decide for myself. I took notice and did the same with my children.

[Stanley]

Looking back over my life experience it strikes me that instinct is a good thing. When Vera and I got married and started a family, in modern terms, we had no road map or support system apart from common sense and the experience of our respective mothers. Looking at my daughters today we must have done something right somewhere! We let them have their head outside the house, encouraged them to roam and play with their mates and as we had our own seven acres and animals at Hey Farm it was usually round the barn and the field. That and plenty of books and writing materials seemed to do the trick! Here they are enjoying Pam Ayres in 1976.



And exposed to infection playing with a calf!

[Stanley]

Today, if kids visit a farm where they can have contact with the animals they are hedged in by Heath and safety regulations. Parents are afraid of 'infections'. In my view these are good within reason as they help develop strong immune systems. I know that many will throw up their hands in horror but our kids were reared in contact with animals and drinking unpasteurised milk and they all survived!

[Tripps]

Not totally without risk though - cases here from Salmesbury and Bacup.

petting farm

[Tizer]

Unfortunately at present we have some varieties of bacteria such as E. coli that are particularly nasty (E. coli O157 for example) which weren't around in the past. Death or serious kidney disease may follow infection, rather than immunity.

[Stanley]

Ah well! this was 40 years ago.....

[Stanley]

When I was a lad the special Yellow Infectious Diseases ambulance (The Fever Wagon) was a common sight. Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria and TB were the worst culprits. With the advent of modern drugs after the war this need vanished like mist in the morning sun. One of the greatest advances in medicine I have seen.
I thought of this yesterday when I read about the startling increase in Scarlet Fever and saw the comment "but they can be easily controlled with antibiotics". This got me to wondering if, in the future, we might have to go back to isolation and the Fever Wagon as antibiotics lose their efficacy.

[Tizer]

Another big difference now is that if we lose antibiotics we'll be in a worse situation than in the past. In the old days of no antibiotics the infections were dangerous but as we developed better hygiene you weren't so likely to get them. Now, we have people travelling much more frequently, over greater distances and arriving on the other side of the world in a matter of hours. The spread of disease can be much faster and there is less time for the health authorities to react. Another difference is that in the past the spread was slow and by the time a new strain of bacteria reached the UK it would be attenuated to some extent. Now we get the full-blown virulent strain here overnight.

[Stanley]

Is what we have to report progress?
The local Borough Council ran a decontamination service. If a household was infected they fumigated the house and took some things like bedding away to a central depot and treated them there. I don't know how but in Stockport I believe it was in the main tram shed at the end of Didsbury Road in the town centre.

[Stanley]

One consequence of the medical circumstances and the state of the health services was that home remedies were frequently resorted to. Everything from a sweaty sock round the neck for sore throat (Warming and giving off ammonia fumes) to rubbing goose grease on the chest for respiratory complaints. My mother swore by Surgical Spirits and there was always a bottle in the house, very effective by the way for many skin complaints. I could go on for hours before I got to the proprietary medicines like Fenning's Fever Cure, Lung Healers and Beecham's Pills. I think my mother never missed her Beecham's pill before going to bed!
People of my generation still do this, one of the reasons why we bother the doctors so seldom! I note that in an attempt to reduce the load on GPs and Accident and Emergency we are being advised to consult the pharmacist about self medication, always with very expensive proprietary medicine!
It may be time for us to start going back to the old remedies, apart from anything else they are cheaper. A classic example is that on the first sign of a sore throat, gargle with salt and water.... That's dirt cheap!

[Bodger]

I recall my father taking Phylosan ? " fortifies the over forties " not sure what it did .

[Tizer]

`... not sure what it did.'
Made lots of profit for the manufacturer! LINK

..a sweaty sock round the neck for sore throat (Warming and giving off ammonia fumes)

I was fortunate - I was only given a little bag round my neck containing a camphor block; I think it was intended to help me when I had a bad cough (which I got every winter). You can tell the power of advertising by the fact that in winter my dad was given a spoonful of Owbridge's Lung Tonic by his mum very morning before going to school - no matter whether he had a cold or not!

[Big Kev]

I recall my father taking Phylosan ? " fortifies the over forties " not sure what it did .

[Tizer]

Talking of such things...do you remember when Tommy Ball, the Blackburn shoe magnate, sunk a lot of money into a cure for baldness?

[PanBiker]

I was fortunate - I was only given a little bag round my neck containing a camphor block;

Me too Tiz, a camphor medal made from folded brown paper, soaked in the oil and then fastened to your vest with a safety pin. I can also remember being given sulphur and treacle but cant remember what for. Loads of calamine when I had chicken pox or any other spotty illness and kaolin and morphine for an upset stomach.

[Tizer]

Sulphur was meant to `cleanse the blood' and was usually given as a cure all. I guess the treacle was intended as a vehicle for the sulphur but it probably did more good! Kaolin and morphine eventually got prohibited when the rules around morphine were tightened. Another `stomach bottle' came in later, what the chemist new as `mag trisil' - white magnesium trisilicate powder suspended in water to produce an antacid mixture.

Opiods and heroin are a very big issue in the USA now with tens of thousands of people dying from overdoses and many more addicted. Most of them are a result of being initially prescribed the drugs by doctors who were wined and dined by the drug companies to convince them that opioid antidepressants were not addictive when in fact they are very addictive. CNN

[Tripps]

Talking of such things...do you remember when Tommy Ball, the Blackburn shoe magnate ?

Yes indeed - I could still find the place today. Thwaites brewery was the landmark then left up the steep hill over the canal bridge and left again. Called in on nearly every trip North.

[Stanley]

"Parkinson's Pink Pills for Pale and Poorly People". They knew how to drive a jingle into your head!
Kruschen's Salts for Rheumatism. A picture of an old man leaping about. "Every Picture Tells a Story".

[Stanley]

There was much wrong with society's treatment of the mentally disabled when I was a lad. We all vaguely knew that there was a mysterious place called 'The Loony Bin' but we had no specific knowledge. The segregation wasn't limited to the truly mentally ill but extended to the 'misfits' in society, the eccentric, the indigent poor and in particular to those in 'moral danger' like young unmarried mothers. In later years we found examples of such people who had been incarcerated for many years and totally institutionalised. Quite rightly the system was reformed but in the process (and in order to save money) many inmates were put out in the community with insufficient support and basic medication. We have all seen some of the results. A friend of mine was, for many years, a mental nurse on violent wards. Her institution was closed down and she lost her job. I remember at the time she told me that many of the people pushed out into the community were not going to survive and she was very bitter about it. In the latter days when some major reforms had taken place but the institutions were still functioning (There hadn't been time yet to close them) these large. often rural, establishments were a valuable place of refuge and support with happy and well-cared for inmates. Pity that we eventually threw the baby out with the bath water!

[Stanley]

When I was working on large boiler maintenance we had the contracts at the large institutions between Clitheroe and Blackburn, Langho Colony, Brockhall and Calderstones. The thing that always struck me while we were working there was that you could tell the inmates from the staff, the inmates were the ones who were walking about smiling! I often wonder if the lot of those put out in the community ended up worse off. In fact, if you saw someone who looked deranged it was almost always a member of the psychiatric staff!
My friend Joan who nursed on violent wards, often alone at night, loved her patients to bits even though they were some of the most dangerous people you can imagine. I had and still have enormous admiration for her, I couldn't do it! Often she'd turn up at Ellenroad with scratches on her forearms and she told me that a standard mild restraint was to hold the forearms of a disturbed patient and they tended to scratch you while this was being done. She was small built but an exceptional woman!

[Stanley]

I have a story about Joan..... She was one of my first volunteers at Ellenroad and I ran a six month course for them on steam engine tenting and safety. She is still a volunteer. One day while she was running the engine an unreconstructed man came in and took a dim view of her being the engineer. He got quite abrasive with her and told her she should be making the tea! I took him on one side and gently set him straight pointing out that her day job was something that he could never do and as far as I was concerned she was fit to run the engine. He couldn't accept this and left in high dudgeon. Tough!
This attitude wasn't uncommon. I have always said that the high point of my tenure at Ellenroad was the day I made Joan and Thelma her mate do everything necessary to run the engine on their own from firing up to closing time. I shadowed them but kept quiet. They didn't put a foot wrong. That was possibly the first time in the world two women had had complete control of a 3,000hp steam engine!

[Stanley]

In my youth, most doctors did their own dispensing as they needed the income. The medicines were mainly non-proprietary and mixed up from common materials on the British Pharmacopoeia. Our GP Tommy O'Connell and his partner Dr Horton worked from a large detached house at Didsbury and had their dispensary in a lean to greenhouse at the rear. As a friend of the family I got in there occasionally and watched him dispensing. He had tow Winchesters, one full of Mist. Expec. the other with Mistussi. The former was an expectorant the latter a cough treatment. There was another Winchester full of coloured liquid and I suspect that was a placebo. My other strong memory is that the entrance to the consulting room from the waiting room had two doors, the normal heavy wooden door protected on the waiting room side by another door covered with heavily padded green leather. I think that was to muffle any sounds of pain! It makes you wonder how we survived!