THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

I had a cooking accident yesterday and overcooked some stew. I ate it anyway just as I would have done during the war when food was rationed. It was quite acceptable but I doubt if modern kids would have touched it. Every cook has occasional accidents and you learned to put up with it.

[Stanley]

This is a mystery object really but as I don't know what it is and it is definitely Flatley Dryer vintage I thought I'd post it here. I got it years ago in a job lot of stuff out of a workshop. It's made of metal, very heavy and has no marks other than 'ICI. Tested' on the base. It has a release valve built into the top under the screw cap. When I got it there was a small amount of what felt like liquid in it which, when the valve was depressed came out as a gas. I was very careful with it and discharged the gas to atmosphere outside on a very windy day.
The funny thing about it is that though obviously a pressure vessel it has no test marks or data on it. I get the feeling that the massive construction, (it is very heavy) was more for guarding against accidental damage than containing high pressure. If I was guessing I'd say it was most likely a laboratory container for a very rare/dangerous/expensive chemical. Has anyone ever seen anything like it?

[chinatyke]

Probably contained Sarin. Did people start dropping like flies when you released it outside?

[Stanley]

There was very little left in it and it was a very windy day China. No bodies reported.....

[Tizer]

At last, we've discovered the cause of climate change and the ozone hole...it all began when Stanley let the genie out of that bottle!
What material is the bottle and valve made from?
It might have held something like CFC which was used as an aerosol propellant. This bottle might have been a crude precursor of the aerosol can during development.

[Stanley]

The body and all the parts including the valve is made of high quality bronze. Very soft, feels like leaded bronze under the file. Very thick wall. The shape interests me, it would have been a lot easier to make without that narrow neck. Very expensive to make and a high standard of manufacture.

[Tizer]

Is it a similar shape to a Champagne bottle, built that way to best resist the pressure from inside? Perhaps they simply used the champagne bottle shape because it was so well tried and tested.

[Stanley]

That's an interesting thought. The base is domed inwards slightly as well.

[Tizer]

I've sent a copy of the photo and your description of the flask to someone in the Historical Group of the Royal Society of Chemistry and we'll see if they can help.

[Stanley]

Good!There's something quite special about it... It was not cheap to make. The thing that strikes me the most is the material it's made of. Can't help thinking it was because of the properties of whatever it contained.....

[Stanley]

We have got so used to having efficient small electric motors to power household appliances that we forget that they were all powered by breeches arse steam in days gone by. I think of this often when using old lathes which, when they were built, were powered by foot treadle. One thing is certain, in those days people paid a lot of attention to making sure that anything they turned by hand was properly lubricated and the tools were sharp!

[Tizer]

Good!There's something quite special about it... It was not cheap to make. The thing that strikes me the most is the material it's made of. Can't help thinking it was because of the properties of whatever it contained.....

The RSC man has agreed to include the photo and details in the next issue of the Groups' newsletter which will be published in a few months time. I've PM'd Stanley and asked him for a `side on' photo.

[Stanley]

I haven’t received the PM Tiz. I'll do some pics now and mail them direct to you....
Done. Higher res available if necessary. Let me know you have them. If the flask is of interest I would happily give it to a good home.

[Tizer]

I've received the pics from you by email, Stanley, thank you. I wonder why you didn't get my PM? When I clicked `Send' I remember the page changing and showing a copy in a different font and I assumed it had gone. I've just sent a test message to you but I notice that when I click `Send' my page changes to an Outbox page showing the message. It isn't shown in the `Sent' box. Am I supposed to do something more to make it go or will it go at some time later? I don't remember any such complication in the past. Let's see if it arrives.

[David Whipp]

Tiz; I think you have to click 'send' twice...

[PanBiker]

The PM behaviour on here is a little different than the previous site or indeed a normal email client such as Outlook.

Messages stay in the Outbox until read then they are moved to the sent box. I have one still sitting in my Outbox since I "sent" it over a year ago now.

It's not intuitive and differs from all other messaging clients I have come across. I'll have look but I don't think it's behaviour we can change in the admin panel.

[hr]

Just had a look and it's as I thought, no settings for changing the behaviour.

[Stanley]

Peter's second PM was OK.
The old version of 'instant communication' was a young lad on a red cycle delivering a telegram. I hadn't got a phone in the late 1950s and Billy Harrison sent me telegrams frequently....

[PanBiker]

Over on Gus's Facebook photo site for Barlick. I saw some pictures of old trade adverts from a program for a local event. There was a joiner in there who had a telephone but also listed postcards as a means of contact. "Tel xxx or contact by PC". Not as daft as it sounds as at the time it would probably be delivered the next day for a penny or so.

[Tizer]

Small businesses used to send postcards to order items they needed for a job and replies would come back by postcard very quickly. They would have postcards printed as we would have business cards made.

[Stanley]

In Barlick local letters posted up to 7pm were delivered at the mills the following morning in time for the office boy to get the latest orders to the Manchester Man as he waited at Barlick for the train.

[Stanley]

We talk about the speed of modern communications but in the days of the Manchester Men and trading on the 'change it was not unknown for an order to be obtained early in the morning, the spinners contacted for the yarn and for it to be delivered in Barlick so quickly that there were instances of it getting to the mill before the representative got back home that night. This encouraged the mills to work on small margins and when the trade cracked in July 1920 proved to be a weak element in the trading chain.

[Stanley]

One of the biggest changes that has crept up on us in the last seventy years is the weight of traffic on main roads. I can remember a time when you could drive many miles in the early hours of the morning on trunk roads without seeing another vehicle. Unthinkable today....

[Stanley]

One of the things that strikes me watching the TV adverts is the way home baking has been dumbed down and glamorised in that things like cup cakes and ersatz cake decorations are the big sellers. What happened to the old fashioned baking of pies, sad cakes and solid fruit cakes? At Hey Farm when I came off the tramp and was home every night Vera used to do the ordinary run of baking and I used 14lbs of flour (A stone) a week to make bread. The kids loved it and believe it or not were never obese. If there's a better smell than brad baking I don't know it!

[Stanley]

Can you remember the days when Barlick BUDC had its own road gang and Ticker and his merry men were always about, tidying up grotty spots, filling potholes and in winter snow clearing. They were aided by the 'lengthmen' who each had a particular piece of rural road to care for. They cut the verges and hedgerows, cleared the drains and in winter were always there on the really bad spots spreading salt on the corners from small piles left for them on the side of the road.

[Stanley]

My mother wasn't a highly educated woman but she had the right ideas. I had started reading before I went to school aged 4 years. It was because my mother used to read the advertisements to me when we passed billboards. I didn't realise at the time but I was taking it all in. Are we doing any better now with all the modern 'smart toys' that people buy to advance their children's education?