THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

I like the Nubreeze David. An old idea revived!



Perhaps someone could make a bob or two reinventing the clothes rack......

I had an Anglebox once, it broke in two coming back from Nelson as I was passing Sunnybank Farm on Whitemoor. Vera asked me what the noise was, I told her it was the gearbox dragging on the road. I welded it back together and it did another 6 months while I did up another two tone Anglia scrapper..... Those were the days!

[chinatyke]

Perhaps someone could make a bob or two reinventing the clothes rack......

We still have them in China, Stanley, though they are modern versions of the old rack. They are made from aluminium with steel support wires and a winding handle. They are almost always installed on outside balconies because drying in the sun is the normal way here.

[Stanley]

Still the most reliable way of drying clothes and no energy costs!

[Big Kev]

I have a drying rack (maiden?) over the stairs. Easy to load up from the landing

[Stanley]

That's a good place to have one! Always a current of air on the stairs, that's why it was the best place to hang hams and bacon for keeping.

[Wendyf]

Looks like you've scooped all the prizes, Kev! Did all the Crestas have that wrap-around back screen?

We had a Cresta back in the sixties, I hated it as it replaced the soft top Land rover that I loved. Here we are getting ready to leave a rally at Mallory Park in 1964 with a two tone green Cresta and caravan.
I have the original invoice for that car somewhere....

48360739_1493218704047922_4668254929603788800_o.jpg

[Wendyf]

It's a bit faint but you can just read it...

[plaques]

I have a drying rack (maiden?) over the stairs. Easy to load up from the landing

Stairs are the most dangerous places in the house and here you are hanging washing from the landing. An accident waiting to happen. Get a grip on yourself Kev. Find somewhere safer don't want to lose you just yet.

[Big Kev]

I have a drying rack (maiden?) over the stairs. Easy to load up from the landing

Stairs are the most dangerous places in the house and here you are hanging washing from the landing. An accident waiting to happen. Get a grip on yourself Kev. Find somewhere safer don't want to lose you just yet.

It's not a problem, it's not me who hangs the washing on it

[Stanley]

Just one small point. A 'maiden' is the folding wooden framework used to dry clothes, usually in front of the fire in the old days. The only name I have ever come across apart from rack for what we are talking about is in a snatch of verse that Billy Entwistle once taught me. "Cat sat on the rannel baulk eating musty bannocks" They were often used for crisping up oatcakes and even storing them when not used for clothes.
Under the spelling Rannel Balk I found this Origin. Late 18th century; earliest use found in John Hutton (1739–1806), writer on topography and etymology. From either rantle or rantle- + balk.
And this for 'rannel'. Definition of rannel tree.dialectal, British: a bar to support pothooks over an open fireplace

[Tripps]

Baulk is an interesting word. There was a movement in the village to name a new development 'Strap's Baulk'. This cause was pressed by the local history buffs who explained that Mr Strap was worthy local figure, and a baulk was a narrow strip of land.

The Developer 'baulked' at this suggestion, and I think it finished up as Orchard Close or similar.

Here are some more meanings -

A check or hindrance; defeat; disappointment.

A strip of land left unploughed.

A crossbeam in the roof of a house that unites and supports the rafters; tie beam.
any heavy timber used for building purposes.

Baseball . an illegal motion by a pitcher while one or more runners are on base, as a pitch in which there is either an insufficient or too long a pause after the windup or stretch, a pretended throw to first or third base or to the batter with one foot on the pitcher's rubber, etc., resulting in a penalty advancing the runner or runners one base.

Billiards . any of the eight panels or compartments lying between the cushions of the table and the balklines

Obsolete . a miss, slip, or failure: to make a balk.

[Tizer]

I wondered where the word gingerly came from when we use it to mean carefully or cautiously and found this origin: LINK

[Tripps]

Fascinating - and look what I found there.

"In 1583 a writer referred to such dancers “tripping like goats, that an egg would not break under their feet”.

That's got the goats and the dancers together in one ancient reference. Regular readers who have been keeping up will know what I'm talking about.

[Stanley]

That one was interesting Tiz.....
"Regular readers who have been keeping up will know what I'm talking about. "
I must have missed/forgotten something, the penny hasn't dropped.....
We often comment on here about the modern fashion for trashing perfectly good goods just because they are 'out of date'. See THIS BBC report of a store that has opened in Sweden selling nothing but second-hand and recycled good. I hope the lady succeeds, it seems to me to be a brilliant idea!

[plaques]

90% of our 'serviceable' items, Mainly clothes and furniture go to the Pendleside Hospice or the Heart Foundation and of course books go back to the Samaritan's book shop. I always have my doubts about these 'Non-Profit' charity outfits that give you peanuts for every ton of clothing. We would sooner do without the peanuts and know where the money is really going.

[Tizer]

I must have missed/forgotten something, the penny hasn't dropped.....

See this link: LINK

[Tripps]

Thanks for the link - good to see someone is keeping up.

[Stanley]

Ah..... Yes! Thanks.
P, last time I enquired which was over a year ago I was surprised to find they get as much as £400 a ton for the collected clothes and give an unspecified proportion of that to the designated charity.

[Stanley]

Watching the reports of traffic and airport paralysis yesterday after 3" of snow fell I begin to wonder about modern Britain..... Hysterical weather forecasts don't help, I wish they'd follow the example of the Shipping Forecast and simply present the facts without comment. I think back to 1947 and 1962 and wonder what would happen if we had repeats of that now.

[PanBiker]

A lot of folk have no experience of driving in snowy and icy conditions. despite their cars being inherently more safe as front wheel drives to the rear wheels older drivers learnt to manage with. We had some pretty hefty falls of snow in the 70's and 80's when I was out on field service. Winter tyres, a couple of mill weights in the back over the rear axle, a shovel and your wellies and off you went. Back streets then as now were never cleared apart from the residents own efforts, you just got on with it. The only ones we couldn't get to were the outlying farms in which case you would get as far as you could and have pre arranged with the farmer to come and collect you. Getting to the top of Red Lion and Birchall used to be pretty good fun. Most folk now drive too fast for the conditions and then complain when they end up in a ditch

[Stanley]

Snow driving.... Over the years I came to the conclusion that the worst vehicles in snow were 4WD with big fat tyres and no weight. The best were the Fulvia and the Yellow Shed, both Front wheel drive with a heavy engine over the axle and hardly any weight on the back, they had narrow tyres as well which cut down into the snow.
The king of them all was the wagon and 4 wheeled trailer. If the drawbar was properly mounted and sloped down to the trailer, the harder you were pulling, the more weight went on to the driving axle. Beats artics any day. That's why they are so popular in mountainous areas of Europe like Switzerland, they know what works best! I once overtook over 100 wagons crawling up Tebay on the M6 in deep snow. I took a chance, swung into the middle lane and stormed past them. David Drinkall who was passenger thought I had gone crackers but I pointed out to him that we were on fresh snow which is always the best grip and the wagon was clearing the road for the trailer wheels, all they had to do was roll. As we passed them one or two turned out into my tracks but they all failed because they hadn't got the momentum I had. Very satisfying moment and later, one of my police patrol car mates told me he was in that queue and couldn't believe it when I sailed past them all.

[Bodger]

70+ years ago winter driving, in the boot, skid chains, a bag of ashes, and a shovel, can't recall too many cars being stuck if the driver used his / her head.

[plaques]

the worst vehicles in snow were 4WD with big fat tyres and no weight.

. Not quite true. Mine's a 4WD, but I always keep it well shod. It weights in at over two tons, so I'm not quite sure about the no weight. The one thing they don't do is 'stop' any better than a standard car. They will just slide about like any other if you are a bit heavy footed or drive like a lunatic. The little three wheel Reliant was good at finding fresh snow between the iced up tracks that you get on narrow lanes.

[Stanley]

Perhaps it's the drivers who make them so bad P. Many seem to think they are a magic bullet in snow which as you know is not the case.
You're right Bodge, when we were picking farm milk up on the back roads we had to manage without council intervention and I can never remember us failing to get through.
Ice was a different kettle of fish. I set off for Lanark early one morning and the roads were shot ice. So bad that in Settle I pulled in to the kerb at the Naked Man Cafe and refused to go any further. David who was with me blew his top and said he'd drive, he jumped out of the cab and went flat on his back. When he found that he couldn't even walk up the road camber to get round the cab he changed his mind and allowed I might have a point. We waited for about 15 minutes (seeing another wagon have a smash) until the grit wagon came through. We followed it and things were much better!

[Stanley]

Still on the theme of cold weather.... I came in from my walk in about -6C and was met by a face full of warm air as I came into the shed through the back door. It didn't used to be like that. With only one source of heat in the house, the coal fire in the kitchen that was the only room that was anywhere near warm because in those days we closed the door behind us when we went in. Even with the fire, the fireside was the only warm place and I remember my first reaction when we put central heating in at Hey Farm, it immediately struck me that the house was no longer limited to the hearth rug! It was much bigger.
A feature of the bathroom was an electric fire mounted high on the wall that you could switch on to relieve the cold in there. I never noticed any heat in the room from the hot water cylinder in the airing cupboard, a standard fixture then. In later years at Napier Road we were more modern and had an electric immersion heater in the cylinder as the back boiler in the cast iron range in the kitchen was very inefficient and because of the size of the house a long way from the airing cupboard and hot water cylinder. A feature of the back boilers was that the heavy lead pipes that constituted the flow and return to the cylinder were expose in the flue and theoretically augmented the heat in the supply.
If you're thinking that this sounds dire, remember that a back boiler was the height of sophistication and modernity in a house at that time. Many houses didn't have them and the only source of hot water was to heat it on the open fire in pans and kettles. Washing day usually had its own hot water supply, the coal fired 'copper' in the wash house in the yard. They were called a 'copper' because originally they were made of that metal as it was a good conductor of heat and corrosion free. In practice they were almost all cast iron unless very old. Washing day started with lighting the fire under the copper. Nothing could be done until it boiled!
Bedrooms had no heating at all, it was not unusual in winter for the ice to be thicker on the inside of the glass than outside! 'Oilcloth' or linoleum was like shot ice when you got out of bed! Funny thing is that I still like a cool bedroom, my window is open a crack year round.....