THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

My point exactly Tiz which is why I always use the snot test! Funnily enough, pipe smoking doesn't affect this test..... One thing I noted and over the years have become convinced is a good thing is that most of us reared in that environment made a lot of mucus in our lungs and I've had conversations with doctors about this. I'm convinced it was nature's way of keeping our lungs and air passages clean. Over my life, apart from pipe smoke, I have been exposed to all sorts of pollution from particulates and asbestos through to coal smoke and solvents and I seem to have survived. The thing that I always particularly avoided was vaporised metal from welding stainless steel and copper. Like silica and grinding dust, once that gets in your lungs I think it stays there!

[Stanley]

The trams in Stockport must have been beautifully fitted out when first made with light coloured varnished wooden interiors but by the time I was using them they were deep brown with the nicotine from tobacco smoke. Pub interiors were the same and I grew up convinced that as a race, the British simply didn't understand ventilation! From memory, there was no heating in buses and trams and so the windows were never opened in winter!

[Bodger]

Were there "utility" buses no upholstery just wooden laths ?.

[deebee]

A couple of shots of the trams in Corunna. Made by English Electric (in Preston?) but probably more ornate than those in Stockport!

db



IMG_0665 by duncanbennett, on Flickr

IMG_0666 by duncanbennett, on Flickr

[Stanley]

Yes Bodge you're right. The ones built in the war had no upholstery, neither did the trams, they were wooden seats as well and on some you could alter the backs to face whichever way you wanted.
No Dee, the Stockport trams would look very close to that when new.

[Stanley]

I went back to my childhood yesterday with my steam hauled day out. Magic!

[Stanley]

During the war Nelstrop's flour mill and Robinson's brewery in Stockport both brought their steam wagons out of retirement because of fuel shortages so I am lucky enough to have seen them working. The C-op and the railway used horses as well for the same reason. I looked them up and Nelstrop's are still in business. See THIS.

[Stanley]

On a morning like this when I think nothing of reaching for my waterproof, Goretex lined, coat to keep me dry I remember the days 70 years ago when apart from full scale marine oilskins, there was no practical waterproof clothing. Even the ubiquitous Mackintosh wasn't waterproof. There was no waterproof working clothing at all and the only protection was a thick coat, the rain took longer to soak through! Then there was a problem getting it dry for the following day. All this changed when the ex army gas cape came on the market after the war and was quickly followed by better and better modern fabrics based on plastics. Let's not forget how lucky we are!



On holiday in 1943. If you dressed children like this today you'd be accused of cruelty but in those days it was all we had.

[Stanley]

I get my leg pulled gently in another topic about my 314 Tricker boots but one thing that has changed completely over the last 70 years has been clothing. There were no brand names on clothes then, the only one I can remember is that my raincoat was a Burberry. (Today that's a fashion brand!) Basically kids were dressed in scaled down adult clothes. One thing my mother was always hot on was footwear. I always had good boots and shoes and they were changed regularly as I grew, no doubt handed on to someone younger than me. Those habits stayed with me all my life and I still wear clothes and boots I have had for 40 years. Even in the war quality was maintained. There was a scheme called 'Utility War Standard' with a government mark.....



This was used not only on clothing but furniture, utensils and other items. It was very well regulated and soon became a guarantee of good quality. I often think we need something like this today!
In the US they had a looser system but many items of clothing contain a label issued by the Garment Workers Union stating that the item was produced in a place that paid Union Wages, it usually includes the number of the local branch.

[PanBiker]

I have a number of CC41 marked garments, a nice pair of bunny ears grey braces is my favourite.

[Wendyf]

My inherited Ercol dining table & chairs have it too, still going strong after over 60 years of constant use.

[Stanley]

If my memory serves me right, the Utility mark was abolished in the bonfire of regulations after the war and was eventually replaced by the Kitemark but it wasn't compulsory and never grabbed hold.

[Stanley]

Can you remember when Formica ruled the design world and Fablon was the cheap way of modernising older furniture? Wendy's comment about Ercol reminded me of my favourite, 'G Plan' which is very similar and actually made of wood! Good secondhand wood furniture is so cheap and readily available that I can't understand why people buy chip board and plywood. To my mind the modern designs of all-wood furniture ('No veneer in 'ere) is a bit like remedial woodwork class standard! Or am I just an Old Fart......?

[Stanley]

As I say so often, it's funny how things pop into your head that you haven't thought of for years. I remember over 70 years ago when we were still living at Norris Avenue my dad brought something home one day and spent the weekend installing it on the garage wall. It was an electric motor with two eccentric discs on the ends of the shaft to which was attached a broad leather belt. I was vastly intrigued when he started using it. He put the belt round him and switched the motor on and the result was a rapid oscillation of the belt that massaged his waistline. I realise now it was some sort of keep fit device, he had a sizeable belly on him! I have to report that this phase didn't last long, I think he soon realised it wasn't resulting in any reduction!

[Stanley]

Another modern device that appeared in the late 1940s was the electric bed-warmer. I later learned that it was just a 40watt bulb in a metal case, bedded in slag wool. I remember there was a warning not to use it for more than twenty minutes. The mind boggles at how unsafe it was and if I remember rightly a favourite was to run it off the socket of a bedside lamp so it wasn't earthed either! The early electric blankets weren't much better. I remember fires caused by them.

[Stanley]

In the early days of mains electricity supply the usage wasn't metered, it was charged as so much for each light. Gas was the same. In both cases the use of energy on the scale we use it nowadays wasn't foreseen. In the case of leccy this meant no power points as we know them, we have commented before on the use of the central lighting pendant in a room for powering irons, wirelesses and even small electric fires. The 'Christmas tree' of adaptors on the central light was a common sight. The mind boggles at how they got away with this especially in houses previously wired for low voltage DC current where the existing wiring was used. By the 1930s meters and 15amp pugs were becoming common and things improved. I always though that the old 15amp power socket was far better built than the modern 13amp ones. Incidentally, in the US running on 120volt supplies they are even lighter!

[PanBiker]

I always though that the old 15amp power socket was far better built than the modern 13amp ones. Incidentally, in the US running on 120volt supplies they are even lighter!

I think you are misguided in your view here Stanley, no provision for putting an appropriate fuse in the circuit for the appliance, all pin sockets un shuttered, and the plugs themselves made out of material that was easily broken or shattered. I learnt the hard way with a three pin 5A variety by exploring the holes with a metal knitting needle when I was about 5 years old, lucky to still be here! Contrast this with BS1363 plugs and sockets which are made from styrene based unbreakable plastic, live and neutral in the sockets shuttered, pins on the plug sheilded, and each individually fused, its about as safe as you can get other than hard wiring all the connections.

[Stanley]

Quite true Ian but you could run a welder taking over 12 amps and the plug didn't get hot. This warms up and eventually melts the new plugs. I got over this when I wired the shed by having a 60amp supply cable and permanent wiring of the welder into a 40amp switch. No problems now!
Meters and fuse wire were primitive as well. The meter at Hey Farm was an old one and ran backwards when I was welding. The first fuses were simply thin lead wire, I still have some on wooden bobbins. Then we went modern and you bought a card with three grades of alloyed fuse wire on, 5, 10 and 15amp. It was best to have one in the meter box with a stub of candle for when the lights went out!

[PanBiker]

A normal ring main circuit and the plugs are designed for domestic supply. If you are running high power equipment you should have a separately fused supply capable of providing the required current, this would also included high power connectors or hard wired blocks. You can't blame the connectors if you are overloading them or using the wrong ones for the job.

[Stanley]

But a 13amp plug should be capable of giving 13amps continuously and it isn't, they warm up. Try it!
The best solution for welding on site was the plant wagon. It had a Lincoln generator and a compressor, both with their own diesel engines. You could spend hours waiting for a sparks to couple you up to a reliable supply but of course this was for even higher currents.
I remember when General Gas got a contract for making cases for parachute flares during the war. The demand for welding the cases together was so high it dimmed the lights in Audenshaw!

[PanBiker]

But a 13amp plug should be capable of giving 13amps continuously and it isn't, they warm up. Try it!

I don't need to its all about duty cycle and the quality of the connector which, and sorry to be a pedant on this is not a 13A plug it is a fusible ring main plug. 13A is the trip level and not the constant current handling of the connector which with domestic appliances will rarely raise above about 10A with the majority of appliances. A good quality connector is perfectly capable of delivering the current it is designed for.

You should not be running industrial welding equipment on a normal domestic supply. As you have found a separate high current capable feed does the job as it's the correct way to do it.

[Stanley]

Another innovation that I first saw after the war was a simple gas cock next to the fireplace. This could be used for a portable gas fire using rubber tube as a connector. It was also used for the 'gas poker', a heavy flattened tube with holes drilled in it and a spring or wooden handle. You lit it and pushed it into coal or coke heaped in the grate and left it until the fire was well alight. Even then I thought they were dangerous and the heat soon perished the red rubber hose!

[Stanley]

I was born in the tail end of an age that recognised three types of material, Animal, Vegetable or Mineral. We live now in the age of Plastics. One of the consequences of this is the end of many previously essential trades. Tinsmiths and blacksmiths have gone completely. Carpenters are much thinner on the ground and plastic packaging revolutionised food retailing which in turn led to the demise of the Corner Shop, newsagents and most greengrocers. Think back thirty years and recognise that our retail shops have changed completely, Charity shops, tanning salons, nail bars and 'antique shops' selling house clearance goods were absent. I know I'm old fashioned but I loved the time when you could find almost anything you wanted in the local shops.



The Nook at the end of King Street in 1979. Arthur Entwistle told me that at one time it was a small tinsmith's shop.

[Stanley]

Thinking back to childhood, I think one of the most abiding memories is 'playing out'. If none of our mates were out on the street we would knock on a nearby door and ask if so and so could play out. This almost always got a gang of us out. We had a public park just behind the Avenue and that was a favourite starting point. Apart from the play equipment there were always trees to climb but we had to keep an eye peeled for the 'Parkie'. All parks had a park-keeper who's job was, apart from general maintenance, maintaining discipline and good behaviour. He was a fearsome figure to us even though I can't remember him ever causing us problems with sanctions. My sister had a way of making the slide more exciting, she would bring a margarine wrapper with her, (remember when your mother saved them for greasing baking tins?), and used it under her bottom to make her ride faster. For some reason this infuriated the Parkie! It was a sign of the times that we had a game called Gestapo that could only be played at night with torches. In the black out it was really dark and Gestapo was hide and seek but on a bigger scale. I wonder if this could excite modern youngsters as much as it did us.....

[PanBiker]

Candle wax on the slide was our accelerant of choice.