THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

During the war car use was severely discouraged, indeed, many cars were put up on blocks in private garages (to take the weight off the tyres) and stayed there until 1945. Father, because of his position as works general manager at GGA had a car provided by the company because he was on call 24X7. It was a Vauxhall 10, about 1938 vintage. At the end of the war this concession was withdrawn and for some reason Allied Ironfounders wouldn't allow him to buy the car off them. I can remember going with him as we tried out some very ancient cars that had been stored during the war years and, as I remember, they were fetching good prices. In the end he was lucky and through the offices of a good friend who was a garage owner he got the 1939 Vauxhall 14 that served us well for many years until 1955 when it was sold and replaced with the Dormobile van as Father had bought the shop at Sough.



I was 9 years old then but still remember the number of cars you would see stopped at the roadside even in town, I suspect most of them were cars that had been stored and not properly refurbished before putting them back on the road. Later in my early wagon driving days there was a system whereby you could suspend registration and road tax and insurance and take a car off the road for the winter months. Easter seemed to be the time when such cars were re-taxed and insured and went back on the roads for a spin out in the countryside. I can remember in particular that old Sawley brow was a favourite place for them to give up the ghost, mainly with cooling problems. I've seen as many as five stopped at the roadside with bonnets open cooling down. The motoring magazines were full of advice about essential maintenance when they went back on the road but many ignored it, just filled up and set off.
Another custom then was the annual change from summer to winter tyres. You never see that these days.....

[plaques]

As a kid there was a car stored up during the war years in a large private garage with its own heating stove and sheet covers. This was no ordinary car but a top of the range Lagonda V12. once owned by Frank Randle the comedian but now by on old farmer who never drove it. Finally when the garage site was to be redeveloped it was sold for £200. which for me was an unheard of sum. I can still see it in my minds eye even today. Better that the RR's that were going at that time fitted with little curtain winders and loads of other goodies. Built in hydrauulic jacks under the dummy spare wheel holder. A really fantastic car.

[PanBiker]

there was a system whereby you could suspend registration and road tax

There still is its called a SORN declaration part of the registration documents. "Statutory Off Road Notification". Fill in slip tear off and return put vehicle in garage and claim unused tax. You can do it all online as well if you don't want the trip to the post office.

[Stanley]

I remember Lagondas being on the road David, as you say, a very expensive and impressive car. Was Prince Charles a fan at one time?
The government also did the equivalent of putting a car up on blocks for the duration. Fear of damage by bombing meant that many art treasures were put in places of safety. Salt mines were favoured because not only were they bomb proof but storage conditions were excellent, a constant 55F temperature and humidity of about 50%.
When my mate Robert bought Masson Mill at Matlock Bath he became owner of this as well.



The river Derwent and the A6 at Masson Mill in 1992.

If you look between the weir and the main road you'll see a square structure near to the road. This is the mound of earth covering an underground vault built to bank standards. It was put there by Tootall's who had bought Sir William Arkwright and it was where they stored all their archives and important legal documents for safety during WW2. Every week during the war, one of the directors was driven up to Masson from Manchester in a chauffeur-driven limousine where he inspected the security of the vault and the condition of the contents before lunch in a local hotel and a leisurely trip back to Manchester. (It was hell but someone had to do it.....)

[Stanley]

One thing I miss these days with the decline in print advertising is the miscellaneous ads in the magazines. You could peruse gems like the 'Seebackroscope', a gizmo that enabled you to see behind you when walking down the street. The 'Zonk' which was a metal attachment that clamped onto a brush head enabling you to re-attach a brush stail that had come loose in its hole. A miniature loom attachment that could be used to guide your stitches when darning socks, does anyone still darn socks? Various miracle cleaners that worked on brass and other metal items.
And then there were dozens of proprietary medicines.
I can still spend hours looking at these. It was a very prolific field after the war when war surplus material was being sold off. You could buy incredibly expensive things like bomb sights and gyroscopes for peanuts and many used them for robbing gears and mechanisms to use for other purposes. Ex-naval binoculars was a very prolific market as was radio equipment. I remember a firm called Lieberman and Gorz who were in business for many years, eventually importing East German binoculars made at the old Zeiss factory. Does anyone remember the Praktika camera? A crude but incredibly rugged single lens reflex machine that sold in thousands as an alternative to the expensive Japanese originals like Nikon.
Later on as car ownership increased we got the flood of car accessories, everything from miracle fuel savers to complicated picnic tables that attached to a wound down window. Magic!
Lastly, can you remember Headquarter and General Supplies? Have a look at THIS link and have a flood of nostalgia.

[PanBiker]

I always lusted after a 19 set. They were used extensively in mobile applications during WWII especially tanks. The are dual mode HF and VHF transceivers. HF for battalion or wider group communications and VHF for tank to tank battlefield operations. They cost a fortune now for good working examples.

[Stanley]

It was the binoculars that attracted me Ian. There were some real bargains especially the Zeiss submariner's versions. When I was in Berlin, Goring's old boathouse which the Berlin Independent Brigade used as its yacht club had an enormous pair of gunnery binoculars mounted permanently on the balcony of the boathouse. They must have weighed over 100lbs. The magnification and clarity was impressive. I spent many happy hours scanning the Havel See, it was surprising what you could see on a clear day!
The only thing I ever bought was a kit for making your own crystal set. It actually worked! I see you can still buy such kits. I could be tempted!

[Tizer]

Stanley, if you get a chance try a pair of good quality birdwatchers' binoculars and you'll be amazed at how good they are, very bright image, large field of view and light in weight too. Mrs Tiz has a pair. An added advantage is that you can focus on very close objects - you can use them for looking at butterflies or wild flowers by your feet, very useful when you get older and don't want to be bending down all the time!

[Stanley]

What sort does Mrs Tiz have? I am still fascinated by good bins!
I had a good pair of Japanese bins, very wide angle and intended for birdwatching but they were a bit heavy so I gave them to Doc for bridge bins on his yacht as a going away present. I wonder if he is still using them?
When I was a lad there were all sorts of 'toys' for us that today would be regarded as H&S hazards. We have discussed chemistry sets at length here, I doubt if anyone could market a bomb-making kit for kids today! We produced some very satisfying flashes and bangs, some on an industrial scale because one of my mates had an indulgent father who was an industrial chemist. We once had a bottle of pure sodium balls in oil and put them down a grid in a school playground in Hazel Grove. Very satisfying. I once got hold of a Very light cartridge and we had great fun with it. Dennis Robinson's father was a platelayer on the railway and we once stopped a train with a stolen fog signal, that frightened is actually. We had acids, carbon, flowers of sulphur and saltpetre in abundance and guess what we did with that. In our defence, we once has Glycerine and conc. Nitric Acid but decided against mixing them....
There was also an engineering kit called Juneero. (LINK) The possibilities for self harm were enormous!
Then there were indoor fireworks.......
That reminds me, there were no regular fireworks during the war but it was amazing how many army Thunderflashes got through to us via the Home Guard. And then there were the 9mm bullets and access to a Sten gun, we got into trouble for that one!

[Whyperion]

Internet search now for what to do with them would probably get you a visit from the coppers if MI whatever are doing their job.!

[Whyperion]

there was a system whereby you could suspend registration and road tax

There still is its called a SORN declaration part of the registration documents. "Statutory Off Road Notification". Fill in slip tear off and return put vehicle in garage and claim unused tax. You can do it all online as well if you don't want the trip to the post office.

The SORN is the statutory version, I think back 1960s and before road tax could be bought in 3 or 4 month chunks, it was more expensive, or you pay for a year then remember to get your full months refunded when you took the vehicle off road - bus and truck companies had to keep track of what vehicles were delicenced for the season to make sure they did not go out on the road in error.

Now with older cars and some other vehicles not needing an MOT it is easier to keep the cheap insurance and the zero charge tax in place than applying for a SORN.

[Tizer]

What sort does Mrs Tiz have? I am still fascinated by good bins!

She's had her's probably about 12 years and they are Opticron Imagic, 8 x 32 BGA, 7.5 field of view. The bins also state WP, PC, ASFT - I don't know what all that means. The weight with strap and lens covers is 700g. Folded they are about 130 x 100 x 60. They don't seem to make the 8 x 32 in that range now and the nearest is the slightly larger 8 x 42 shown on this page: LINK You can get more expensive brands of bins of course but most birders recommend the Opticron as be excellent and good value for money. If you look at the web site you'll see there are many other bins in their range. The pair Mrs Tiz owns have seen much use and have travelled about the world but are still as good as new.

[Stanley]

They look good Tiz. If I didn't already have my Olympus 12X25 compact bins I'd be tempted!
I noted the aircraft style seats in the Witchway Manchester bus yesterday and my mind went back to the wooden slatted seats in the trams in Stockport (And some of the buses as well) Very basic and of course easy to keep clean. I remember they had reversible backs and when they reached the terminus of the line the conductor went round both decks knocking the backs over so that the passengers were all facing forwards. The trams of course were double ended with a driver's position at each end to avoid turntables. Some of the older trams had open fronts and backs on the top deck and so slatted seats made good sense when it was raining. As a lad going to school I always favoured an outside seat on the top deck!
I can remember the transition to plastic covered seats and in some, the uncut moquette upholstery.
Can you remember the deep sprung upholstery in the old railway carriages? And the heavy leather straps for raising and lowering of the windows in the doors. You had to be able to open the windows so you could reach out to open the door using the exterior handle, no handles on the inside.
Funny how all these things come back when you let your mind roam!

[Cathy]

On the buses now it's no smoking, no eating, no drinking, no personal cameras or videos, no abuse, and probably more no's. Buses now have surveillance cameras and the driver sits in a clear cage. Any suspect parcels/bags left behind are reported. Police are often patrolling the bus interchange or even waiting for a suspect person to get them off the bus. All good stuff, if needed
.

[Stanley]

The only regulations I can remember were 'Do not speak to the driver' and 'Spitting strictly prohibited. Penalty 40/-'
Phones and tablets seem to be tolerated as most modern buses have wifi these days.
Thinking about buses reminded me of this...



This was how a chassis was delivered from the manufacturer to the bus body builder. Note the 'trade plates', these enabled any vehicle to be driven on public roads legally as they carried both Road Tax and insurance responsibilities. Not a bad job when the weather was fine but I leave you to imagine what it was like in bad weather.
Do they still do this today? I think they must do.

[Tizer]

We used to see a lot of those at East Lancashire Coachbuilders at Brookhouse in Blackburn, near the junction of Whalley New Road and Cob Wall.

[plaques]

Tillotson's cars at the top of Manchester Rd Burnley was another coach builders where you would see bare chassis being delivered. All gone now like a lot of these bespoke businesses.

[Stanley]

Ah..... Ossie Tillies! They were a main AEC agent and had a coach-building section where they built cabs and bodies on Raw chassis. At West Marton we had two AEC Meteors, Danny Pateman's had an Ossie cab and mine was Park Royal. The Park Royal was always a better cab than Ossie's. Ash frame and aluminium plating. The insides of the doors were covered with alloy chequer plate and polished up lovely! My doors closed like Rolls Royce's did.
One thing that cropped up in the LTP when Jack Platt was talking about the early days of solid tyres. Ossie's was the go to place to get new tyres fitted. The old ones had to be forced off the wheel by a hydraulic press and the new ones fitted the same way. Not a do it yourself job!

[Stanley]

A gas powered refigerator.

I can remember the first fridge we had. It was 1945 and new household appliances were trickling onto the market. It was powered by gas not electricity and the one we had at Hey Farm in 1960 was also gas fired. On the whole they were OK, very cheap to run, the flame that powered the evaporator was a tiny pilot light (which often went out!). They were limited, for instance they didn't have a freezer compartment. The one you see in the picture was just a 'chill cabinet' that was colder than the main compartment. It wasn't until the advent of the cheap electrically powered fridge that retailing frozen foods became a commercial reality. The trigger for this was the invention of a new type of refrigeration unit that was not the standard gas compressor that had been in use for almost a hundred years but a small self contained unit that had a vibrating block inside the casing driving the compression of the refrigerant. I don't know if they invented it but Sterne's of Glasgow was a major manufacturer and over my years on the tramp I carted thousands of these units down the country.
We take a domestic fridge for granted nowadays and tend to forget what a revolution it was. Indirectly it made supermarkets possible because prior to the advent of the fridge perishable food had to be bought each day and used immediately. Of course, this was also the start of the demise of the corner shop.

[Stanley]

I came across a Youtube video of Bancroft engine last night and was struck by the number of mistakes the commentary contained. One in particular was a comment about a display of clogs, he said how uncomfortable they must have been. That is totally wrong, well made clogs are the most comfortable footwear I have ever worn. You are, in effect, walking all day on a dry polished wooden floor and my own experience is that my feet were never healthier than when I wore them. I can still hear the two lasses in Paisley who got very excited because I was wearing 'build ups' which were then high fashion. Then there was the time I delivered Jersey Cattle in Aldershot. The farmer's kids were so fascinated by the clogs they insisted on me taking them off so they could try them out on the concrete yard. I don't know whether they believed me when I said I had boots as well but preferred clogs. I got the idea I was regarded as a poor benighted Northener.
You never see them today outside re-enactments or folk dancing.
I often think when I see people going about in trainers that they have no concept of how much better things were in the old days. If you don't believe me, buy a pair, they are still made, and try them out for yourselves. Many years ago there was a clog maker on Jepp Hill who made sports clogs and sold them by post all over the country!

[Stanley]

One thing I learned during my time in the army was that the quality of the cloth in our clothing was excellent. All natural fibres, the underwear was cotton, shirts were woollen flannel and the uniforms were wool. The greatcoats in particular were good, very heavy and warm and the best of the lot was the leather Jerkins lined with woollen cloth that were issued to some branches.
These last two items were very popular after the war when war surplus was sold off to the public. Remember that cheap waterproof clothing wasn't available then and the best protection against rain was a thick coat that absorbed a lot of water before letting it through. This was true until the late 1960s and I always favoured the shorter ex-naval donkey jackets and their variants. The problem was that if you got really wet they didn't dry overnight and you had the joy of wearing a damp coat next morning!
A variation only issued to the officer class was the British Warm, a short woollen Melton overcoat much favoured by ex-officers after the war. The American version was what they called the Eisenhower length overcoat. Favoured by the general of the same name a jacket of that length is still referred to as 'Eisenhower length' by US clothing manufacturers.

[Stanley]

The high street seems to have given up entirely on the concept of men's and women's 'outfitters'. They used to be common. Almost every Northern town of any size had a Greenwood's shop. Barlick had one at the corner of Brook Street and Church Street.



Later Bodycare and now a restaurant.



William Atkinson's sign used to be still visible on the gable end of 3 Church Street.

I suppose it was out of town shopping and the internet that did for them. Greenwoods sold everything form a business suit to a boiler suit and their stock was hard wearing and traditional. I don't think today's shoppers place a lot of store in those attributes.
Shops selling nothing but ladies underwear or knitting wool survived for many years. I often wonder how older ladies who still favour woollen vests and 'foundation garments' manage. I doubt if many of them are internet savvy. My daughter Susan is a knitter and she tells me that there are still wool shops but you have to travel to find them.
In passing, does anyone remember Dabitoff, the small jar with a fabric top under the lid that contained solvent and was used for dry-cleaning small spots and stains on non-washable clothing. As is often the case, I see it is still available on the web!

[Tizer]

Two unidentified objects below, photographed in the Swanage Railway Museum at Corfe Castle. They have a label saying `We don't know what these are, can anyone tell us. I'd say they were about 10cm/4 inches across. The photos are poor due to taking through glass. Any suggestions? The first one has L&SWR on it, therefore London & South Western Railway. They're dome-shaped and sitting flat on the surface but I couldn't tell whether they were hollow or solid. They look like cast iron.

[Stanley]

Only thing that springs to mind is finials from the tops of signal gantry posts.
The first thing I thought was the round weight that hung on the short end of the steelyard on an old fashioned sack weighing machine but they usually had a loop cast in the top. A possibility I suppose.

[Tripps]

That's disappointing - I was expecting you to produce one from your 'treasure box'.