THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

It struck me yesterday as I had a very nice lunch on the roof at Dawson's in Clitheroe that so many elements of what I used to know were gone. The cattle Market, the Railway station and Dawson's themselves used to cater mainly for the agricultural industry. That area was the heart of the town. All gone now....

[Stanley]

A chemist's shop was where you bought olive oil and acid for your car battery. It's now a pharmacist's and you can get vaccinations and tests done there.... I doubt if they sell olive oil and battery acid. They are Flatley Dryer country.

[Tizer]

As a young teenager I used to get all my chemicals from a chemist in Blackburn. Concentrated sulphuric acid, ammonia solution, copper sulphate, caustic soda, alum, lead salts etc etc. They probably don't even stock them now.

[Stanley]

Try asking for Armenian Bole or Yeast....



And as for something as useful as this modern medicine,,,, Forget it.

[Tizer]

I've just been reading about Sir Roderick Impey Murchison, a famous British geologist, and how he managed his long exploration treks around Wales with the help of laudanum.

[Stanley]

Time to re-read my Drugged to Death articles. It wasn't until the Dangerous Drugs Act of 1920 that the retail sale of drugs like opium, cocaine and their derivatives were made illegal. Reach talks about chemists who made up lethal mixtures containing drugs for use as soporifics to make children sleep in twenty gallon lots.
See THIS Wikipedia entry for Angus Bethune Reach who was my start for the articles.

[Stanley]

See THIS Wikipedia description of a haybox for slow cooking food. The principle was that if cooking was started at a fast boil and the pan placed in an insulated box the heat was conserved and cooking went on for hours afterwards. A pan of hotpot could be started and after a day in the mill was fully cooked and just needed heating to full temperature again to be ready for tea. Flatley Dryer country now.

[Stanley]

I went for a furtle and found this little group of shops just opposite Heaton Chapel Station north of Stockport centre. 80 years ago there were just three small wooden huts perched on the side of the cutting that the main North South railway line runs in at this point. The reason it interests me is that the lee of that third hut was the perfect place to collect train numbers on the main line. I have spent many happy hours there watching the procession of steam locos, many of them pre-war in those days of course. Both our spot and the steam locos have gone, Flatley Dryer country.....

[Stanley]

I seem to remember that all gas meters were slot meters before WW2. Am I right? Shilling in the slot as I remember.

[Tripps]

I seem to remember that all gas meters were slot meters before WW2. Am I right? Shilling in the slot as I remember.

That looks a lot like I remember ours in the 1940's. It took old pennies not shillings. It was a treat to be allowed to put them in the meter.
(Beginning to sound like Monty Python's four Yorkshiremen sketch) . A man came and emptied it every so often. It was under the stairs and I recall the pennies being counted and stacked on the bottom step. A calculation was done, and a rebate awarded. The gas was only used for a cooker though, so I imagine not a lot was used. Hard to imagine it all happening even then - let alone today.

However I guess my current system is as near as you can get. I use bottled Calor gas for the cooker. Not worth paying for the cooker to be converted - it's about £200 for any sort of visit by the engineer. A bottle lasts a year easily, for about £40 ish, and I always have a full one waiting in reserve, so no danger of running out.

[Stanley]

I heard an appeal from the Bank of England for people to spend the hoarded coins they have. It's estimated that there is £50million in jam jars up and down the land. (Isn't that number so obviously one that has been pulled out of thin air!) The reason is (they say....) because coins cost so much to make.
It struck me that in the days of coin in the slot meters being the rule there must have been a lot of coins in them!
It also brought to mind something my mate Ernie told me about the time when he was in the army waiting to be posted overseas to Burma and he and his mates were sent to help the London authorities to make bombed out properties safe and I suppose search for bodies. He said that when they arrived at a site the first job was always to empty the gas meter for beer money.

[chinatyke]

I heard an appeal from the Bank of England for people to spend the hoarded coins they have. It's estimated that there is £50million in jam jars up and down the land. (Isn't that number so obviously one that has been pulled out of thin air!) The reason is (they say....) because coins cost so much to make.
It struck me that in the days of coin in the slot meters being the rule there must have been a lot of coins in them!
It also brought to mind something my mate Ernie told me about the time when he was in the army waiting to be posted overseas to Burma and he and his mates were sent to help the London authorities to make bombed out properties safe and I suppose search for bodies. He said that when they arrived at a site the first job was always to empty the gas meter for beer money.

And you put your trust in these thieves?

[Stanley]

You've lost me Graham. You have added an emphasis to the quote which is a gross violation of my text and this all happened 80 years ago.

[chinatyke]

I was thinking that normal moral standards had been abandoned as according to Ernie their first job was always to rob the gas meter. In war-time it is called pillaging, in times of civil emergencies it is looting, and in normal civil societies it is theft. Then you had to rely on these immoral people to act properly when they were in battle.

[Stanley]

You still added an emphasis to my text which was not there. That worries me, what will you alter next to suit whatever view you are promoting?

[chinatyke]

You still added an emphasis to my text which was not there. That worries me, what will you alter next to suit whatever view you are promoting?

Apologies for offending you. It was my intention to highlight an important word in the text I quoted and I didn't realise that I was breaching site or normal etiquette.

[Stanley]

Accepted. The rule is always if you quote something make sure you do it accurately.

[Tripps]

The rule is always if you quote something make sure you do it accurately.

That had never occurred to me, but surely is right. I sense we are operating at a 'dissertation' level here.

Ernie told me about the time when he was in the army waiting to be posted overseas to Burma and he and his mates were sent to help the London authorities to make bombed out properties safe and I suppose search for bodies. He said that when they arrived at a site the first job was always to empty the gas meter for beer money.

I'm sure that sort of thing happened - but human nature being what it is I suspect Ernie used a bit of exaggeration in the telling. That's what makes history so interesting. There must be a 'true version of events' - there cannot not be, but teasing it out from a mass of information (and disinformation) is the trick. Sometimes just not possible.

A lot worse went on in the War. Read An Underworld at War by Donald Thomas. Bear in mind that at the height of the blitz, no one knew what the outcome of the war would be.

I sent a copy to Stanley, but he didn't seem to think as much of it as I did. I noted that the TV series Foyles War used a lot of the themes from that book - including looting valuables from bombed out properties.

China - it's so cheap I'd be happy to send a copy to you if you wish.

[chinatyke]

China - it's so cheap I'd be happy to send a copy to you if you wish.

Thanks for the offer but I'll gratefully decline. I'll keep it in mind if I see it here.

[Stanley]

"I sent a copy to Stanley, but he didn't seem to think as much of it as I did"
Sorry if I gave that impression David. It may have been because I lived through it and none of the things that went on were a big surprise.
That's reminded me of Michael Palin in Alan Bennet's 'A Private Function' part of which was filmed in Barlick. The focus of the story was a black market pig.

[Stanley]

The Majestic frontage. Part of it was a location for the film 'A Private Function'.

[Stanley]

I was sat opposite the bookies yesterday and reflecting on how much things have changed. 60 years ago I was riding down to a council house in Didsbury from Heaton Moor and posting the betting slips my mate at Bradbury's cycle shop had collected from 'customers' through a hole in the back door. I was a 'bookie's runner' but didn't know it. All totally illegal. Today you can walk into Ladbrokes and put the mortgage money on a bet legitimately. Which system was better?

[Stanley]

I think we all know about the branch line from Earby to Barlick. The primary schools are doing a project with Barlick in Bloom on the Barlick Spud. But how many people know that at one point in May 1904 The Barnoldswick & Gisburn Light Railway Company was formed to build a light railway from the Barnoldswick to the Ribble Valley Line at Gisburn. The planned railway was to be single track but wasn't built because the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway refused to build a junction near Gisburn. There was another proposal in 1913 without a junction but this was abandoned due to the outbreak of the First World War.
We got so close to having a through connection from Earby to Gisburn.

[Stanley]

See THIS Wikipedia article on the kinderstransports.
The Kindertransport was an organised rescue effort that took place during the nine months prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. The United Kingdom took in nearly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, and the Free City of Danzig.
Today, faced with people in equally traumatic circumstances we are talking about using risky and possible illegal tactics to force them back to France. Compassion for those in need seems to be Flatley Fryer country.

[Tripps]

Came across this photo today. I have a vague memory of having seen my foot bones in a shoe shop with one. They don't seem so common nowadays.

foot xray.jpg