THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

When I was a lad living on Norris Avenue in Stockport there were still horse drawn deliveries of milk, coal and of course the rag and bone chap. Any horse muck on the road was immediately picked up with the coal shovel and spread on the front garden.

[Stanley]

Looking back can be bad for you.... I am well aware of the 'rose coloured spectacles' problem and question my memories many a time. If I was forced to go back to lino covered floors and only one open fire in the house I don't think I would welcome it! Having said that though there were some things I miss, the main one is that life was so much more simple 70 years ago! Every time I see the latest scare about anything from questions of privacy to terrorist alerts I reflect that we never had to cope with them, not even in the darkest days of WW2. It seems to me that we were tougher then and more resilient. In today's world we would all qualify for 'counselling' but then we just got one with it. No wonder my attitude towards life is seen as strange at times by my kids and grandchildren.
One of the key elements in this equation is the fact that in those days we had no choice, or very little. Just think of the modern supermarket, do we really need multiple choices of margarine? I know the reasons for this but still question whether 'choice' is good for us. The politicians equate it with freedom but how much 'freedom' do fashion and brand victims have? It constantly shocks me when I realise that some people are addicted to brands and shopping, I simply don't understand how someone can voluntarily accept a handicap like that.
I'm whingeing aren't I..... Sorry about that but I've just written a post for Steam Engines detailing why running a big engine was the best job in the world.... I have been very lucky.....

[Stanley]

Sounds a bit narcissistic but I started reading my own memoirs yesterday to pass the time. Valuable exercise as it reminds me yet again how much things have changed..... I'm so glad I had that frenzy of emptying my head! One thing is certain, my kids will have a far better idea of what my life was when they decide to take an interest.

[Tizer]

Your kids are lucky to have the record of your life and all the associated things that appear in the books. Most of us, no matter how much family history research we've done, end up with questions and are still trying to find out the answers...but probably never will. Something this morning triggered a memory that one of my dad's uncles, probably in the 1920s, worked for Blackburn Corporation and one of his regular jobs was to put a ladder up to Queen Victoria's statue on the Boulevard and give her a good clean. But I know nothing more about him. Similarly, another of his uncles worked on Samlesbury Aerodrome when it was being built. It's possible to find out more about these people from census data and certificates but those sources don't give you the more interesting information!

A news report about Boots Chemists getting into bother over promoting `blue lens' glasses triggered memories of my time working for the company as a trainee dispenser. We were very proud of working for Boots in those days, it had a good reputation and people put their trust in the pharmacist. It was often said that the pharmacist and dispenser knew more about his/her prescription customers than their GP did! This may well have been true. After all, the doctor didn't hear what his patients were saying when they were in his waiting room. In contrast, the patients brought their prescriptions to the pharmacy then sat and waited on the chairs conveniently provided outside the partition that separated them from the dispensary. As you dispensed prescriptions behind the partition you overheard all the gossip going on outside. People would discuss their medical problems (and other folk's medical problems) in great detail, not to mention everything else about their lives.

[Stanley]

You're right about the omissions we discover when it's too late. I never spent enough time with my mother and always regretted it. That was the genesis of the LTP, it seemed to me that if you wanted to know about an industry, go and talk to the workers! It worked and I did weaving and condenser mule spinning at Whittakers but they withdrew funding before |I could do an old dye works, I had one marked down and did the preliminary work but it slipped me. Great shame.
No need to go to the lengths I did, just talk to the old folk while they are alive! You may not have an interest now but as you get older the bug bites.... By the way, write your own history down as well, old diaries and written accounts are gold dust to historians.... What seems mundane to you is valuable social history.

[Stanley]

Tiz, your mention of office partitions reminded me of the offices at the central Cooperative building in Barlick. This was the place where the members went to draw their dividend, usually once a year for the annual holidays. The 'divi' was a well established institution and in early days could be quite significant. Kelbrook Co-op paid 3/- in the pound one memorable year! Long gone now of course, the Pioneer Store in Barlick paid a yearly divi until the collapse of the finances a few years ago. Now their largesse is restricted to money off offers on large trolley fulls, no use at all to the pensioners and singletons.

[Stanley]

I was reminded during my recent misfortune that in my youth there was a product called Thermogene wadding, a medicated pad that could be taped to the affected area and imparted warmth and a low level of quite strong vapour from the ingredients you normally found in liniments. We also had Dr Sloan's rub which was so strong that you were warned not to rub it vigorously as it could cause blistering!

[Stanley]

During the war North Western Bus Company in Stockport used gas producing trailers fuelled with charcoal to save fuel. I went searching, this is a London bus but the same principle. I don't think they lasted long, too many problems but for a while they were a common sight in the bus station in Mersey Square.

[Stanley]

At this time of year I am, like everyone else, looking for signs that our over-long Northern winter is over. At this degree of latitude and at our height (550ft at the lowest) we always have a long wait. The old farmers always regarded the second week in June as the time when milk beasts could be safely left out in the fields overnight and it is still a good guide for planting vulnerable bedding annuals. Mind you, we could occasionally get a surprise. I can't remember the exact date but one June day in the 1960s I set off into the East riding for a load of straw and we had a very sudden and heavy snowfall. By the time I was on the old ring road at Leeds it was a good 6" deep but thawing fast. I can clearly remember a man sat parked in his car at the side of the road with his driving side window down and as I passed him oncoming traffic forced me into the nearside and I regret to say that the resulting bow wave of freezing slush sent a good bucketful through the window..... Regrettable but nothing I could do about it and I think he may have learned a valuable lesson!

[Stanley]

As I peer back down the years and note the once commonplace things that we have lost I remember the days when I had no thought for my body or its functions. It was just there and it worked! As things quietly deteriorate with age I feel as though I want to educate kids into taking more care of themselves. I can remember being warned that things would get worse as I got older but ignored all the warnings, it could never happen to me.... The bad news is that they did!
The message is don't take these things for granted, enjoy your abilities and the resilience of your bodies but never lose sight of the fact that life is a terminal disease and many of the disadvantages of ageing can be held at bay if you use a bit of thought.

[Stanley]

I'm seriously hacked off with myself after throwing a ball for Jack yesterday and reawakening the old injury in my shoulder. Take note all you young ones! These things tend to come back and bite you as you get older.

[Stanley]

I complain may at time about what I see as deterioration in modern life compared with when I was a lad but it struck me yesterday that at least one thing hasn't changed and is as good as it ever was. A good book, a comfortable chair and a pot of tea! Time flies!

[Stanley]

I was reared in Stockport which at that time was so cursed with air pollution from coal burning that the Luftwaffe never did get a clear aiming point for the big railway viaduct which is what they were after. Post war, when we saw the aerial photography the town was always a black smudge.
I was looking at the air pollution figures for London yesterday and they are terrible. No wonder there are so many cases of asthma! As I walked round Barlick this morning I was thinking about the people who have to live there as I took in great lungfuls of clean fresh air.

[Stanley]

Going back to yesterday, how do people square the advantages of living in a heavily polluted city and the effects on their children?

[plaques]

We tend to pollute our environment in ways that cannot always be seen. Your early morning photo shows the masts on the fire station. Radiation from these doesn't always follow the inverse square law. Often it reaches a maximum at about 200 yards at ground level. On a good day at your position you should be able to boil an egg without putting it on the stove. Why do you think that installation of these things is prohibited near schools?

[Stanley]

I knew they had an effect P but had no idea it is at that level. Favourite perch for the Jackdaws.....

[Tripps]

Extract from HSE website -

In 2000 the UK Government commissioned the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones (IEGMP) chaired by Professor Sir William Stewart, to conduct a review of the possible health effects from the use of mobile phones, base stations and transmitters. It concluded that:

“The balance of evidence indicates that there is no general risk to the health of people living near to base stations on the basis that exposures are expected to be small fractions of international guidelines.”

I once spoke with a colleague who had just returned from measuring the field strengths on the top floor of a block of flats in S. London. There was a phone mast above them, and the residents were concerned, and making quite a fuss. . It emerged that the levels were well within safe limits, and in fact a lot lower than the radiation from the nearby Crystal Palace broadcast mast about which they had no concerns. I am not saying that there is no danger at all from such radiation, but I would not be worried about mobile phone masts.

[Whyperion]

Urban pollution , we have questions about where , and to what extent the plane trees should be located or retained, given that their roots are heaving some of the local buildings. We can divert cars away from some areas, encourage electric/ hybrid vehicles, take the walk to school via the park rather than at least one road, or given that half the kids are escaping from economic wilderness or middle eastern persecution its the lesser of a number of evils.

[Stanley]

Similar concerns to phone masts have been attributed to close proximity to electric grid pylons. Does the same apply to electro-magnetic fields and induced currents? There was one favourite parking spot on a roundabout on the M6 at Carlisle where on a dry day enough current was induced in the metal frame of my cattle wagon to give a healthy shock when you earthed it.

[David Whipp]

I recall reading of studies that did attribute adverse health affects to living close to power lines.

[Tizer]

On mobile phone masts, Cancer Research UK says: "Mobile phone masts and base stations are unlikely to increase your cancer risk. They were included in the 2012 review...which found no convincing evidence that the radiation they gave off could affect your health. The exposure you would get from a base station is usually at least a hundred times below international guidelines. And it is much less than the exposure you would get from a phone."

And on power lines: "There is little strong evidence to link power lines to adult cancers, or to most types of childhood cancer. But some studies have suggested a statistical link between exposure to magnetic fields and a higher risk of childhood leukaemia. At the moment, we don't have enough convincing evidence to be sure whether the link is real, but if it were, the impact would be small - only around 1% of childhood leukaemias." Much more here: Cancer Research UK

[Stanley]

Due to the elevation of the flyover, I think it was the Hawick road out of Carlisle, it was a closer than normal to the overhead supergrid cables and the body of the boxes picked up a serious charge, it cracked if you earthed it. No effect on the cattle of course as they were in a Faraday Cage. One of the police patrol drivers who was interested in cattle used to pull off when he saw me and we'd have a chat. I only got him once with the trick of asking him to open the calf door and look at the beasts. He once passed me on Tebay when I was doing about 85mph in the old Comet with the six speed box and the 2 speed Eaton axle. He wagged his finger at me...... Fast motor that was!



Off to Droitwich in 1969 with 16 big beasts..... I loved that job and the cattle! You can tell it was a busy week, the wagon is dirty.

[Stanley]

Looking back I marvel at the amount of work I did. In my last year with Richard I did 110,000 miles, maintained two wagons and had a life!



Dan Smith once said to me "You've got the biggest motor in Barlick, you do the most miles, you have the best wage.... What are you going to do for an encore?" I told him it was a good question and one I was working on. By that time, even though I loved the job, I had come to the conclusion it was a young lad's job, the roads were getting busier and I was 36 years old.....

[Stanley]

A year later I had seen five people killed on Beattock and gone into the mill as a firebeater. It was time for a change. I never regretted either the years on the road or my new path as a mill engineer, I have been so lucky. Everyone should get the chance of a job like having 60 feet of motor in the rear view mirror, fascinating watching the trailer tracking along on the bends! (Plus the odd dick who ignored the 'Long Vehicle' sign on the back of the trailer and tried to overtake the trailer and dodge in behind the wagon. I know, it sounds incredible but believe me there were some who tried it.....)
Then there was the satisfaction of mastering the reversing of the outfit, the most difficult thing a driver ever has to do, like playing three dimensional chess as the actions needed to alter the direction the trailer was going altered all the time. Very satisfying when you got it right! A bonus was that they were the safest outfit on the road. That's why they are so popular on the continent where you have bad snow and bad roads to deal with in the mountains.

[Stanley]

I think you can see how much I enjoyed my driving days. It was a constant education and delight and I wonder how many jobs today give that sort of freedom and satisfaction. Even in the worst days of the tramping I still enjoyed it. Once I got on the cattle wagon and had the bonus of lovely cattle, the markets and the wonderful men who were our customers it got even better. This will give you an idea of what a big decision it was to come off the road in 1972 and is an indication of how traffic conditions had deteriorated. I often say I saw the glory days on the road and still believe that. Every 'Knight of the Road' as the motoring magazines called us, would tell you the same thing.
I remember when it started to change radically. I was threading my way carefully through a small village near Oulton Park in Cheshire in 1972 with the wagon and trailer and a passing clergyman wound his window down and shouted "Polluter!" at me. Not very intelligent or Christian!