THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

Nice! I was ink monitor once but it was decided I should never have the job again as I was too messy!
We had posh desks at Hope Memorial because there was a brass slide that covered the inkwell when it was not in use.

[Wendyf]

That has stirred a few memories! I remember dividing up the sheets of blotting paper and handing them out and I can feel what it was like to slide back one of those brass covers, so we must have had posh desks too! I would have thought that we only used fountain pens but the memories of inkwells and dip pens are strong so perhaps that was at junior school and the fountain pens came later at the grammar school.
We definitely had slate boards and chalk to practice our writing in the infant school.

[PanBiker]

Inkwells at Gisburn Road were just the little white ceramic jobs. Desks had a pencil channel along the top above the hinge line. I think last year at Juniors was when cartridge pens became popular. I remember feeling very grown up when I got one of those (Platinum), you could get cartridges with black ink as well! Later still I had a proper fillable fountain pen with the rubber reservoir and the tiny brass pumping lever on the side. All kitted out with that stuff and then just into secondary school ballpoints became the weapon of choice.

[Stanley]

I had a lovely Swan fountain pen. It had a gold nib with an Iridium tip.... Never used the school ink in it because it clogged them up. Always Quink.
What was the name of the newsagents on the Square before Singh took it over? He used to repair fountain pens in the 1950s and 60s......

[PanBiker]

Nutters, Fred and his dad before him.

[Tripps]

Is this him? Hope so it's taken me half the evening to find this photo. smile:

Fred Nutter.jpg

[PanBiker]

Yes that's Fred and his wife Linda.

[Stanley]

Yup, that's him. I can remember when they were on Rainhall Road.....
I have it in my mind that half the shop on the Square used to be the PO, is that right?

[PanBiker]

Yes, I think it was there until the new P.0. buildings were built. I can just remember the the wooden buildings and hoardings on that corner before the new build.Come to think of it, it was at the same time as Holy Trinity was being built.

[Stanley]

That's my memory as well...... I also have an idea that Sneath had a barber's shop in what became Nutter's on the Square. This of course was in the days when the Central Cooperative building was still there and it was Albert Road.

[PanBiker]

Yes it was Sneaths barbers, I used to go to Jim Browns on the first block on Gisburn Road, next to Alan Lea's veg shop where we used to get bags of pea pods.

[Stanley]

Did Sneath use to have his shop in what is now the laundromat in Park Road? Or was that another barber. That was where I bought my cut-throat razor and strop...... Before that I used to have a Rolls Razor, a clever thing that you could sharpen automatically and then strop it in it's own case. The army made me hide it and substitute an ordinary safety razor in my kit display, they didn't like the idea of a squaddy having a more expensive razor than most of the officers.....

[Stanley]

Did Sneath use to have his shop in what is now the laundromat in Park Road? Or was that another barber. That was where I bought my cut-throat razor and strop...... Before that I used to have a Rolls Razor, a clever thing that you could sharpen automatically and then strop it in it's own case. The army made me hide it and substitute an ordinary safety razor in my kit display, they didn't like the idea of a squaddy having a more expensive razor than most of the officers.....

[Stanley]

Does anyone remember the magnetic gizmos you could buy to straighten the edge out on your safety razor blade overnight to prolong it's life?

[chinatyke]

Does anyone remember the magnetic gizmos you could buy to straighten the edge out on your safety razor blade overnight to prolong it's life?

Never used them but I remember them. There was also a pyramid shaped device that was supposed to resharpen your blade edge by just being placed on the blade.

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

At one time we had itinerant knife-grinders.



Here's an Italian example. These died off during the war years and I have never seen one since then. However, when I was working in Rochdale I came across a man who had his van fitted up with the appropriate equipment and went round hotels and restaurants where he reset the edges on their knives, something that needs doing occasionally after prolonged use of the steel or strop.



Here's the Gotta razor I bought off Mr Sneath. Note the lump missing from the edge caused by one of my daughters using it to sharpen a pencil! However, what I want you to see is the design of the blade. The heavy back ensures that when setting the edge on a fine stone, if pressed flat, the back ensures the correct angle of the edge after honing. They needed doing about every three months of daily use during which stropping on a leather strop kept the edge in good order. You dressed the strop with jeweller's rouge which is very fine iron oxide in a fatty body, it acts like lapping paste.

[Stanley]

One of the major changes in the world of work is the amount of weight you were allowed to lift. I've mentioned this before, the use of what we called 'railway sacks' large heavy Hessian bags which in theory held 14 stones, 196lbs. There were firms which hired these bags out, one that I remember was called Severn Side but yesterday I heard an old farmer on Farming Toady mention another name, Gopsill Brown. See THIS LINK for their history.
Note that I said 'in theory'! In practice, because of the cost of the hire, they were filled as full as possible by closing them by sewing the mouth with heavy twine and a packing needle. Used like this they held far more and when used like this were called 'catch weight'. Some grains like corn and pulses like beans, were heavier and they could actually hold over 250lbs. It was handling bags like this that gave me my bad back and so I am glad they are now illegal. There is no maximum weight under HSE regulations only guidelines, the maximum is 25kg (55lbs) and less in certain circumstances. A bit of a difference!

[plaques]

Slight correction, 14 stone = 196 lb. 168 lb = 12 stone. I know because that's what I weigh. and Mrs P says I'm too thin. !

[Wendyf]

Most horse feed comes in 20kg bags and I can manage those reasonably easily, the hen food and grain comes in 25kg bags and though I can just about lift them I would rather not!

[Bodger]

Not heavyweights but a bit of a struggle till you got used to it a CWT, , my big brother in law Les 6ft + would put a hundredweight of corn on my 14 yr. shoulder and tell me to take it down cloise and feed the hens, i found the most awkward at that weight, cement, there was nothing to grip only the slippy paper bag , i did have a try at hod carrying all i got was a sore shoulder

[Big Kev]

I had a job at a cement works when I was a teenager, it involved loading 1cwt bags of cement onto railway trucks. You had a conveyer belt feeding the bags from above and they had to be loaded onto webbing strops so they could be craned onto freighters in the river Thames.
Fortunately the process was more technique than actual lifting, we did it on a 'job and knock' basis and were nearly always home in time for tea

[Stanley]

Here's a bit from me memoirs about weight handling......

" Looking back it was marvellous experience and I could handle everything that was thrown at me. I can tell you what the hardest work was, it was a toss up between loading sugar beet pulp at Brigg and Plate Maize at Hull. The beet pulp from Brigg was a regular event during the autumn which was when the sugar factories were dealing with the beet harvest, they used to call it ‘The Campaign’. When the beet had been shredded and boiled to extract the sugar the residue was dried and bagged and then sold for animal feed. You drew into an enormous warehouse and backed up under a big elevator. As soon as you got there they started to drop sacks on the conveyor for you. The beet was hot from the drier and fine grit and sugar sifted out of the sacks as you loaded them. The trick was to have a bag over your head as a hood to keep the worst of the muck off you and to work as fast as you could because the bags came at a hell of a rate and you needed to catch them off the elevator, otherwise you were lifting them off the floor. There was a panic button on the elevator which would stop it if you got into real trouble but it was a point of honour not to use it.
It was bloody hard work but at least it was over quickly, you soon had your ten tons on and could draw away and let the next candidate for torture in to the elevator. I remember one day watching a splendidly professional driver put his boiler suit on, button it to the neck and wrap a scarf round his neck. Then he put on a large pair of gloves and collapsed half way through loading with heat exhaustion! We loaded his wagon for him and sent him on his way.
The episode with the plate maize was strange. I had gone to Hull for a load of maize for Cyril Richardson. The bags were what we called ‘catch weight’, they weren’t any specific weight, the whole load was weighed when you left the dock. (The empty wagon with sacks you had brought was weighed on arrival, this was the ‘tare’ weight and it was this deducted from the ‘gross’ weigh when you left and that gave the ‘net’.) There were no more wagons about but the dockers kept me waiting all day, don’t ask me why and it was no use complaining, it wouldn’t get you anywhere. Eventually, at about four o’clock they called me in and I drew alongside the dock. The bank was unusually high, being about a foot over my head. They bagged the maize at the back of the dock, sewed the top up and wheeled it across to the edge on a sack truck. The dockers didn’t look to see whether I was ready, they just wheeled the truck to the edge and tipped the sack over. They were Gopsill Brown hire sacks and held about 300lbs each. Realising what the game was I just grabbed the bags, ran down the flat and dropped them in position then ran back just in time to get the next. It got easier the further back I came and I was putting my ‘riders’ on top as I went along. I have never loaded a wagon as fast by hand in my life. I can’t tell you how long it took but it was bloody quick. When the last bag dropped I drew out into the yard, took a quick breather and then started to rope and sheet. A bloke came out and said “Well done mate” and shoved a ten bob note in my hand. I asked him what was going on and he said they had put a double gang on and run a book on whether I could keep up with them. He had been one of the winners and they’d all thrown a shilling in the kitty for me. Deep joy and thanks lads!"

[Stanley]

Looking back, I agree with Kev about paper 1cwt bags. I hated them, they were so slippy.
There were two loads that were easier on the driver, the first was of course 'Heavy Lift', something that was so big that a crane had to be used. At the docks there was a separate queue for heavy lift and it was always shorter than handball. The other good load was 45 gallon steel drums. Stood on end they were stable and easy to transport. It was easy to get your maximum weight and they didn't need sheeting, they were waterproof! Chuck them on their side and rolling was a lot easier that lifting. There was another advantage, every now and then the dockers would be under pressure to get their tonnage rate up and they would come down the line looking for the easiest loads to handle, steel drums were a favourite and they brought you out to the front of the queue.

[Stanley]

Do you remember the industrial action taken by the dockers when containerisation became the preferred method of packaging freight for shipment abroad? The reason for this was that it was the death knell of the time-honoured practices which included a high level of theft from cargoes. Sealed containers stuffed off site, often at the manufacturers, put a halt to this practice. This was not universal but was definitely a problem. I remember one case at Liverpool where brand new Massey-Ferguson tractors were vanishing.
On my last day on the docks I went in the stevedore's cabin and told them that I was getting out of the business and I warned them that in ten years there wouldn't be a big boat in the Pool of London. They laughed but it didn't take that long. Being an old dog I stopped on the way out of the dock and had a furtle, sure enough I found a bottle of export whisky under my folded sheet on the cab top rack. I left it at the side of the road and went on my way. At the gate, most unusually, I was called out by the dock police for what they called a 'rummage'. They found nothing and were a bit surprised and I went on my way. The dockers had an arrangement with the dock police whereby they gave them a collar now and then to massage the detection figures. Work it out for yourself. Old dog for a hard road. I always said that if the gates had been wide enough they would have stolen the ships!
The ingenuity of thieves knows no bounds. I remember one case at the factory in Coventry where Range Rovers were made where they had a problem. Brand new Range Rovers were vanishing out of the park. Eventually they cracked it, many of the employees ran Rover cars as they could get them at a good price. One had a new Range Rover and what he was doing was taking the number plates of his own vehicle which he left parked in a remote part of the site, and putting his plates on a new vehicle the same colour. Next day he came to work on public transport carrying his number plates in his bag. He was only charged with one offence......