FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Stanley]

Is it my imagination or a product of age but I seem to think that the changes or circumstances that affect us and alter our lives are getting more sudden giving us less time to accommodate the changes whatever they are. Think surprise emails or news that you no longer have a job or a political policy announcement on social media that affects whole swathes of the population.
Looking back, even the start of WW2 was a slow burn, people still remember 'The Phoney War'.
There is a corollary in that as decisions have become more sudden, security has diminished. For many families, insecurity is the 'new normal'. I can never recall feeling insecure even in the days when I was on a low wage for long hours. We knew exactly where we were and could make the necessary adjustments to survive. That seems to me to be a forgotten corner these days and a luxury. Perhaps the prime example in Barlick are the highly skilled, well paid workers in long term jobs in the aerospace industries. Out of the blue that security has vanished and that applies to all the ancillary support industries as well. I know people who have had a good run but are suddenly out of work, not furloughed, it is far too long a time scale on the change for that to be a continuing option. Simple redundancy is the rule now. That must be a hell of a shock and I sympathise with anyone who has experienced it.
The world is moving faster, we all know that, this acceleration has now spread to the bad news as well. So, job security is today's forgotten corner.

[Whyperion]

And the National Safety Net of Unemployment Benefit, administered locally.
It seems the only way out is Build Build , Anything, Anywhere, about the enviroment , dont care.

[Whyperion]

Now you've made me feel really old. (probably because I am). I remember when it was an (old) penny (or usually two or three) in the gas meter under the stairs. A chap used to come round now and then, read the meter, and emptied the box - counted the pennies out on the bottom stair, and issued a small refund there and then.

It's a lot better system now - isn't it?

Makes me think of the quote "man had never lived at a level of technology below that which was available".

Why was there an overbill - just the excess to the date of reading or a rate miscalc in the meter. Mum used to put half crowns in. I got one back once. When in bedsit in Cardiff it was landlords rates, 50pences, frequently, I opened the door and turned on the kitchen oven off the communual supply and used torches. Still got frost on the insides of the single glazed windows.

[Whyperion]

Have a look in The Flatley Dryer for today's forgotten corner...



The small double ended containers for tea and sugar that used to be in the bait tin of almost every working man. This was before the days of tea bags and all the employer had to do was provide a source of hot water.



At Bancroft it was this boiler supplied with live steam and a large stone sink. The bucket on the right was for the used tea leaves and it was used for scattering on the concrete floor when sweeping up as it laid the dust. It used to stink!
In the early days the management charged workers a penny a week off their wage for use of the boiler and I once did the calculations and worked out that it was the most profitable piece of equipment in the mill. In my time the payment had been discontinued, I think during the war. It was in use right up to closure.

Probably safer than some supplies that harbour legionella.
I thought they used tea leaves at school to sweep the parquet flooring in the hall once a half term, I thought no, could not have been must be some special cleaning material, wonder what it was, probably was tea leaves.

[Whyperion]

Large advertising hoardings are still around, perhaps not as many as there used to be. The one at Primet Bridge is still there. When we were children one of the games we played on journeys was to each pick an advert and see who counted the most. As most of our trips were around Leeds and Bradford there were plenty to count! Another game involved cars and recognising makes and models.

They often surrounded bomb sites, developments sites and so on, i should have got involved in the car parking game, rent space for pounds, get the advert revenue etc from back of tickets, hindsight is a wonderful thing. Others were on the flank walls of corner shops and similar , with changes in housing using every corner plot its difficult to see out the windows when there is plywood in the way. There then came the triangle rotating slates to give three adverts. Now some are LED panels, one changes so quick with so many variations afterwards I cannot remember what I was interested in, bit like banner ads etc including on YT.

[Stanley]

Thinking about backwards facing pouches on some marsupials.... I remembered a useless piece of information that I once picked up somewhere. I was told that when pigs are forced to swim they cut their throats because the front trotters are so short they catch there. It's still stuck there in the back of my head. Amazing.
It would be no loss to forget that.

[Stanley]

A current forgotten corner is the absence of young footballers and later groups of cyclists on the Pioneer car park. All using the car park as assembly points for the day's activities. I suppose it is social distancing caused by the virus that has caused this. Sunday morning at 5AM is never rush hour in Barlick but today it is even quieter, not a soul about and only two cars.
I suppose this is the 'new normal' they keep talking about. It remains to be seen what will happen this winter. I fear there could be even more forgotten corners as we go forwards into colder weather.

[Marilyn]

The thing to be mindful of, is the toll on mental health. All this social distancing can have its price. Imagine how hard it would have hit you in your childhood, teens, twenties, middle age etc. all stages of life are different. ( I feel sorry for babies/toddlers who need to socialise at that age...like puppies).

[Stanley]

I agree Marilyn but then again, think of the traumas my generation were subjected to as children and reflect that somehow we seemed to come through with no major ill-effects. Children are very resilient of given otherwise normal TLC, I'd like to see that message being sent out loud and clear. Of course circumstances are against them. Personally I believe that by far the most dangerous of these circumstances at present is insecurity and instability in the family caused by poverty. What we saw as a normal family life even though we were poor may be one of the really big forgotten corners and its effects will reverberate down the years in society.
But that's long term and our politicians don't do long term these days.

[plaques]

Imagine how hard it would have hit you in your childhood, teens, twenties, middle age etc. all stages of life are different.

Totally agree Marilyn. The group activities for young people have disappeared. Sundays used to be fully of noise drifting over from the various games on the Alkincotes fields. All quiet now. How do young people meet and get to know each another? By internet? God help them.

[PanBiker]

When I look at my kids, they still have lots of firm friends that they both made at primary school some even from nursery. We have a fantastic photo of a birthday party for one of ours, I think it was our Jack's. We got all the kids on the settee for a group photo, all 17 of them! With an odd exception for emigration and a couple more living away they are all still mates. Our Jack and his best mate Ben met at nursery, they have one another's backs like brothers.

[Stanley]

I'll agree with that Ken. Looking back I can see that as a counterbalance to the traumas of war we had the wonderful asset of total freedom to roam and even play on bomb sites! We played cops and robbers in buildings teetering on the brink of collapse! Collecting hot shrapnel from AA shells as it rained down was 'play' to us. I had a bucket full at home and occasionally father would take it to work and put it in the crap bin. I think our parents saw it as contributing to the war effort. On non school days my mother would give me a jam butty wrapped in grease proof paper and off we went for the day. All that was demanded of us was that we be home by teatime and never go out in the dark.
I can't imagine that now.

[plaques]

All that was demanded of us was that we be home by teatime and never go out in the dark.
Being three years behind you. Playing out at night was full of adventures. Having a 'dinky' light a candle stuck in a jam jar was a real status symbol they also added a bit of legitimacy to door to door collections for bonfire night and Christmas carols.

[Marilyn]

Roll on some years, and I would NEVER allow my child to play on the streets. He was far too precious. Mind you, it was the streets that had changed - more traffic, more dodgy people.

[plaques]

Lived in one of the far reaches of Burnley. Rosegrove. a nice enough name but actually full of industry plenty of soot and dirty shirt collars but when everyone had gone home it returned to a village status where everybody knew each other. No traffic after 5.30 pm except the odd carter going back to the stables. Even the peculiar officer in the boys brigade was tolerated because everybody kept an eye on him.

[Marilyn]

Adelaide may officially be known as “the city of churches” but it is also known as “the city of missing children”.
We had to be more vigilant than most...

[Stanley]

There was one exception to the 'home after dark' rule and that was when it was legitimised by choir practice two nights a week. It was black out then and funnily enough there was never any shortage of batteries so we all had flashlights, usually with us kids our front cycle lamps with the old big two cell batteries. After Choir practice we used to play what we called 'Gestapo' in the grounds of the church and Sunday school which was mainly dense shrubbery. Gestapo was essentially a variation of hide and seek or cops and robbers. Never forgotten it, we had a wonderful time running and hiding and all legitimate. The bike lamps gave a good light and we loved it.
Never a thought given to safety and we had no incidents.

[Stanley]

Whitemoor Reservoir in 2005. Funny thing is that even during the current spell of hot weather I have heard no mention of water supplies. Could it be that the earlier rains are still protecting us? The water companies are usually very quick to warn us of the dangers of using too much water. Perhaps that's a treat in store on top of everything else!

[Stanley]

The phrase that springs to mind this morning is 'out of sight, out of mind'. I've commented on this before in terms of drainage but it's also true of most of our mains services, with the exception of the final link between distribution box and house this is true of telephone cables as well. When they were originally installed they were put underground and we forgot them.
I remember when I first started to travel I was surprised to find that even in highly developed cites like New York and Los Angeles so many mains services were above ground with a maze of telephone and electricity supplies, even the transformers were on poles. Look at any street scene in India and there is a chaotic maze of wires in every street. I suppose it is because of lack of capital investment and perhaps the greater areas involved.
There was one exception in Barlick, the Rediffusion radio and TV cables for the 'piped' services. Though long gone many of these armoured cables and junction boxes survive as the company never removed the cables when they ceased trading. There is one from Elmer's corner across to what used to be the Occasion in the centre of town that is failing and drooping down. At some point it will have to be attended to.
So let's remember our luck in this respect and if you have a vestige of the Rediffusion cables left on your property, cut it off, it's an eyesore and a forgotten corner.

[PanBiker]

I have always said there is a bob or two to be made in scrap copper for someone handy with a ladder and a van or pickup. The cables are multicore. I used to have a junction box on my house when we lived on York Street. I was paid way leave which was something like 79p a year paid by cheque.

[Stanley]

I seem to remember it was very tough armoured cable Ian. It'd take a bit of breaking down for the copper.

[PanBiker]

You could weigh the whole lot in for scrap.

[Stanley]

True, but I suppose the value is less than the cost of taking it down. Action is only taken when it becomes dangerous. The wonder is that Rediffusion were allowed to install it and then walk away.



Remembering Kev's suggestion, here's a new distance sign in the Pioneer car park. Higher up the pole this time no doubt to make it more difficult fro vandals to damage.



The relocated gormless.

[plaques]

Burnley's Gormless was a very large lamp placed in the middle of the Manchester Rd St James St road junction. Long since gone but now replaced with a replica in the pedestrian area.
Barlicks Fountain. erected by subscription. Moved by .......... Fill in your own term.

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[Cathy]

Who on earth is Queen Victopia? Haha