THE FLATLEY DRYER

[PanBiker]

I suppose the bottom line is that the screen isn't reality and experienced advisers on these matters are getting very thin on the ground.

Regarding this and comment in the TV thread. I was wondering if you have ever seen "Saving Private Ryan" the massive production from Stephen Spielberg? It's a wartime based drama of course and is widely regarded for its "about as near as you can get" battle scenes. These include the landings on Omaha beach, forward attack on a hillside machine gun post. sniper attack and the final culmination battle for the last bridge crossing of a river in a bombed out village. Spielberg used a raft of combat veterans as advisors while he still had access to them. Huge budget for the thousands of extras, ordnance and CGI and it shows. It's 20 years old now and still regarded as one of the most realistic war movies ever made.

Best seen at the cinema with big screen and sound but I have the DVD if you haven't seen it and would like to watch it.

[Stanley]

I've seen it and it was very good, caused me no problems at all. There have been many good and accurate depictions of war on screen. They all shared the drawback of enormous expense that could only be recouped by the income from universal screening.



Does anyone remember anything like this? My uncle Ernest got so fed up of loose brush stails that he invented and attempted to market one he called The Zonk just after WW2. I don't think he was the first and the venture failed but it's an example of the weird and wonderful things that inventors with fertile minds used to come up with. The immediate post war period when everything was in short supply was a fertile period for ventures like this and the majority bit the dust. Some like the Flatley Dryer had a brief period of success but they too eventually failed.

[Tripps]

Here's the successor to the Flatley drier. Aldi clothes airer

Typically it's out of stock - they don't give you much time to think about it there.
The allure of the middle aisle. It was well marketed with several mentions by the likes of news show presenters. Mixed reviews though.

[Stanley]

People still need to dry washing so old ideas never die.



I am constantly surprised by the fact that the old fashioned clothes rack in the kitchen has gone out of fashion. Is it due to some sort of aversion to having your knickers on display? It's still carbon neutral as it uses the existing heat and circulation and has the added bonus that it puts humidity back in the air inside a well heated house. Good for your chest!
The contrast is of course the heated clothes dryer and I think we all know how they can both gobble electricity and be a fire hazard. Think Whirlpool. (LINK)

[Wendyf]

Bedding on mine this morning....

20191123_081657.jpg

[Cathy]

In winter I often have to pull the shower curtain to the side and hang items (on hangers) over the rail. Works well.

[Stanley]

Nice to know I am not alone!
In days gone by the racks weren't just used for clothes. They were essential for drying 'hard', the flat oval oatcakes baked on the backstone. There were many names for them, I think one was 'flead'. I once heard a rhyme. "Cat sat on the rannel boak eating musty bannocks" but have never been able to pin it down. I think it's a genuine rhyme as 'boak' sounds like a corruption of 'baulk' which was also used to describe the storage area above the low ceiling of a mistal or byre.

[Stanley]

One piece of kitchen furniture which is now extinct.



The folding mangle or clothes wringer that converted to a table. We had one at Norris Avenue but it had a scrubbed top. It was part of the furniture of my life together with the Dolly Tub that lived outside in the back yard.



Modern housewives don't know how lucky they are! Washing was at least a two day job and more if it was bad weather. By the way we had no wash house so possing the dolly tub had to happen outside.



A copper posser without the stail.

[Cathy]

I have a vague memory of being in the wash—house out the back (and to the right side) at Back Colne Rd. I must have been quite small and I think there was more than 1 woman in there.
I don’t think I was in there for very long, maybe I just popped in to tell Grandma it was time for a cuppa.

[Stanley]

[Cathy]

[Stanley]

I thought that might tug at your heartstrings!
One of my most abiding memories of life at Norris Avenue is condensation running down the walls if washing was being dried inside on a wet day. The mangle left a lot of water in the clothes and it all had to go somewhere! In those days the modern and hygienic finish for interior walls was gloss oil paint. Our colour scheme was light green and cream and of course was impervious to moisture so it condensed and ran down in rivulets, mother was always wiping the worst up before it made a puddle on the floor. The metal Crittall window frames didn't help either and there was no such thing as double glazing then. It's a wonder we didn't have permanent Bronchitis! (Of course, many did. Thick green snot leaking out of noses was so common we called them 'candlesticks'. As one of my mates once said you could knit pullovers with it.)
I complain about many aspects of today's world but I hope I also recognise the improvements!

[Wendyf]

Our 30's semi in Leeds where I grew up had large Crittall windows but I do remember ventilation bricks beside the bedroom windows. My word it was cold in those bedrooms on a winter's morning! Mum & Dad's room had an ancient electric fire attached to the chimney wall and we were allowed to get dressed in front of it when the weather was really bad. I can still remember the warmth and comfort from the red glow!

[Tizer]

In the 80s we lived in a 50s-built house which had Crittall windows. When we replaced them with DG uPVC windows the difference was amazing, worth every penny!

[Whyperion]

Nice to know I am not alone!
In days gone by the racks weren't just used for clothes. They were essential for drying 'hard', the flat oval oatcakes baked on the backstone. There were many names for them, I think one was 'flead'. I once heard a rhyme. "Cat sat on the rannel boak eating musty bannocks" but have never been able to pin it down. I think it's a genuine rhyme as 'boak' sounds like a corruption of 'baulk' which was also used to describe the storage area above the low ceiling of a mistal or byre.

There are some words there that modern contestants on Countdown dont come up with. I presume Baulk is derived from above and used in Snooker for the area from which cue ball shots awarded as penalties must generally be taken.

[Stanley]

You're right about the cold Wendy! My bedroom at Norris Avenue had an oilcloth floor covering and I can still remember the shock to the bare feet when you got out of bed! The inside of the windows were covered with ice ferns and a penny warmed in the mouth made a perfect peep hole to view the outside world. It makes you wonder how we survived, the only heat source was the coal fire in the living room downstairs.
I remember that just before we left the house father put an infra red heater on the ceiling in the bathroom, such luxury!

[Tripps]

I came across baulk when a new development locally had the name 'Strap's Baulk' proposed by a local history expert on the Parish Council. Seems it also means a sort of wedge shaped piece of land, and Mr Strap once owned it. The developers didn't approve - seeing it as a barrier to their marketing. I think it ended up as Orchard Close or similar.

[Tizer]

Somewhere recently in discussion of floods I saw a mention of how a development on what was known as `[forgot the name] Marsh' ended up being called `[forgot the name] Rise'.

[Wendyf]

This farmhouse burnt down in 1912 when a timber baulk in the chimney caught fire on a wild and windy night.

[Stanley]

Wendy. That was quite a common experience with old flues that had timbers exposed in the flue, usually because of deterioration of the masonry lining.
A mate of mine bought a house in a small development at the end of a long access road. He loved the name, 'The Farthings'. (Far-things! Geddit?)
There was a street in Bacup next to the gas works called 'Gas Street'.
The name in Barlick that always grabs me is Castle View next to the Dog. For years it intrigued me and then came LIDAR and John Clayton's interpretation of the data which answered the question and many others. There is a very strong possibility from the evidence that it faced the site of a Roman fort or encampment. Lovely! I have always championed the folk memory and that's a good example. Another one is David's favourite, Shitten Ginnel. It firs in so perfectly with the history. I get the impression that the Old Barlickers were a feisty bunch!

[PanBiker]

Piss Pot Row in Bentham.

[Tripps]

Another one is David's favourite, Shitten Ginnel

Actually It's Pickles Hippings that's my favourite.

Here's David Whipp's take on it Pickles Hippings

[Wendyf]

A range of LiDAR images are now available on the NLS mapping website.

https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/side-by ... DAR_DSM_2m

[Stanley]

Thanks Wendy, I have bookmarked it.
David, sorry about that but it's the same ginnel.



This pic from 14 years ago came to mind this morning. Meg and Jack up at Prospect. Meg used to pinch his Frisbee and Jack never disputed this he simply sat there until Meg had made her point and dropped it so he could return it to me for another throw. Doc and I spent may happy hours watching two good dogs interacting. Meg was older and Jack always deferred to her which was very unusual. Dog watching is one of the most interesting pastimes I know and anyone who has never experienced it is the poorer.

[Stanley]

When I was in Montreal in winter I was struck by the fact that the city centre was designed to keep people out of the Arctic conditions by subways joining buildings and universal high levels of heating. The result was that some sections of the population could ignore the cold and spent their day in normal clothing with no concessions to the cold.
In my youth we had no such insulation and so I was reared to dress according to the wether, thick vests and shirts, woollies and heavy coats were the order of the day. As I walk around the town dressed suitably for the weather I am struck, especially first thing in the morning, by the number of people I see who look under dressed, some even in shorts! They all look miserably cold. Is this a trend others have noticed? Has dressing to keep warm become old-fashioned? It seems to me that only the older end have enough sense to dress to keep warm!
Or is it some sort of subconscious mechanism of denial of global warming!
I shall continue to adopt my Mother Russia mode of dress on mornings like this! Having said that, I shall get rugged up ready for our walk!