Neither have I Ken. As for Russia, whole mills were exported to Russia.
We often forget that we exported complete mills. Here is the Nevsky Thread Mill in St Petersburg. Taken from Textile Recorder of May 15th 1894. It was owned by a syndicate of English owners led by J P Coates and is on the banks of the River Neva in St Petersburg, Russia. There are two mills, the older one in the front and the new one at the back. The latter was erected from the designs of W J Morley of Bradford. The windows were smaller than an English mill and double glazed.
There was also a woollen mill in St Petersburg associated with Thornton's of Bradford. See THIS article.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
The whole of this picture is Flatley Dryer country. It's west of the town centre at Stockport. You're looking at Didsbury Road on the left as it heads towards Heaton Mersey. It crosses over the railway sidings and there are two factories on the right. The one fronting onto the road is Cheshire Sterilised Milk and the one behind is Needham's Foundry, where so many gully grates and manhole covers in the NW were cast. Beyond that is the lozenge shaped Bankfield and Norris avenues. I was born in No 38 on the top right hand corner. I lived there all through the war lying in bed and listening to the goods trains being shunted in the sidings. The viaduct was at the bottom end of these sidings and that was what the Luftwaffe were after in the early years of the war. They showered the area with bombs but never hit their target, they couldn't see it. All gone now and the bottom left hand corner is a big interchange on the motorway.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
The 1927 copy of a Birch ornamental turning lathe made by Johnny Pickles because he wanted one and couldn't afford to buy one. That sort of behaviour is totally Flatley Dryer country today. He built it as an electrically driven lathe and it must have been the first in Barlick. Even the large ones used in industry were steam driven by lineshaft and flat belts.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Nevil Shute's book Slide Rule led me to look up information on the `welded helical duralumin tube' he says was used by Barnes Wallis to make the frame of the R100 airship. I was trying to work out how they would have made it. I found this page and thought about putting the image on Mystery Objects but it would be too easy to find with a reverse image search! It shows what is claimed to be a section of the original tube... LINK
Nullius in verba: On the word of no one (Motto of the Royal Society)
The gas boiler. Once considered essential for washing day but now extinct. Also called a 'copper' which was a reference back to the old solid fuel fired wash house boiler as it was a copper casting.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
We are so used to electric irons.... Once of a day things were different and this was one solution that was an improvement on the old flat iron warming in front of the fire. This is a box iron and slug, you had a number of slugs, shaped pieces of cast iron, that you had warming on the stove and popped them in the body of the iron when the one you were using had cooled. It had the advantage that the sole of the iron could be kept clean and shiny as it was never put on the stove to warm.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Speaking of rubbish collection (somewhere else) I came acros this photo in the Manchester Archives. Quite remarkable from many points of view - and very unlikely ever to happen again, I'd say.
Wonderful image David. I wonder what the same parade would look like now?
Here's a Manchester Corporation bin wagon from the 1950s. Basically unchanged since the 1920's. All the bin wagons I remember as a lad had the sliding shutter arrangement on the body to keep the rubbish covered as much as possible.
Barlick bin men in 1970.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
The Cleansing Vehicle parade gets better. I find that scrolling with the right arrow gives a lot more pictures, with impressive detail, and it seems to have been an annual event, with prizes being handed out. Hard to imagine this was within (my) memory and in the early 1970's.
I lived 100 yards outside the Manchester boundary so wasn't affected, but I seem to recall that Labour was always in charge, and strong on public ownership. I do recall the had a 'Direct Works' department, and oceans of council houses. Looks great to me - almost enough to get me to vote Labour. In fact at the time I probably did - my mother held a proxy vote for me and would have done so. There are however several 'elephants in the park'
Interestingly I had this site thrust upon me by Flickr someone must had told them what interests me. That would usually annoy me but this time it doesn't.
Born to be mild Sapere Aude Ego Lego Preferred pronouns - Thou, Thee, Thy, Thine My non-working days are Monday - Sunday
I set off to try to find an image of Manchester Corporation trams being burned at West Didsbury in 1947 but failed. However I found this which is definitely Flatley dryer country as it depicts the late afternoon rush hour in Moseley Street Manchester in 1937 and is described as a 'busy scene'. This was busy and rush hour? As I said, Flatley Dryer.
As for the fire. It was advertised in the paper and I remember cycling down there with a couple of mates to watch. All the trams were parked nose to tail on the outside tracks and they were set fire to to get rid of all the wood and make it easier to scrap the metal. The wood was all thin and had multiple layers of varnish so you can imagine how fiercely they burned. Very efficient no doubt but I doubt if they could get away with it today.....
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
Tripps wrote: ↑22 Jul 2021, 10:49
Politicians eh - never miss a photo opportunity.
I lived 100 yards outside the Manchester boundary so wasn't affected, but I seem to recall that Labour was always in charge, and strong on public ownership. I do recall the had a 'Direct Works' department, and oceans of council houses. Looks great to me - almost enough to get me to vote Labour. In fact at the time I probably did - my mother held a proxy vote for me and would have done so. There are however several 'elephants in the park'
The Totally Local Company (?) Is mostly based in Stockport ,but covers Manchester and is a sort of arms length locally owned co-operative running the bin emptying In I think Stockport and Manchester and possibly other areas. The Greater Manchester council dump sites though are contracted out to Veolia (is that not a French state-owned entity ?). I think its viaduct homes which has Stockport Council involvement in site finding , funding and nomination rights do a mix of new builds and refurbishments, which is the closest to council homes. Sort of similar to Calico in Burnley.
In the days before the channel tunnel and modern roll on roll off ferry services this was the posh way to cross the channel. The night sleeper railway ferry. You caught the train in London, went to bed and woke up in Paris. Sounds good to me!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
If you dial 123 you can still hear the BT Speaking Clock time check service, it costs 50p per minute and repeats the time every ten seconds.
In the earliest days of the phone you rang the operator and asked the time by the exchange clock and it was a free service. With the advent of reliable voice recording the speaking clock was inaugurated. In those days the dials on telephones has letters as well as numbers and you dialled 'TIM', 846 on a numerical or digital dial. For many years that was also free....
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
The GPO introduced Subscriber Trunk Dialling in 1958 but right through the 1960s 'trunk calls' were still mostly being connected by the operators. I was tramping at the time and one thing we soon learned was that you could make trunk calls by tapping out the numbers on the telephone receiver rest. We got quite good at this.....
Here's a bit from me memoirs that shows how useful operators could be.... (It's September 1962) "I arrived back home the following day and settled down to enjoy the birth of our second child. Vera was in wonderful condition and very happy because she was having the baby at home. We waited, and waited and waited. By the 28th we had decided that as long as I was there Vera was going to hang back, we really believed that me being there was some sort of pressure to perform so I said I’d make a dash for the north, get tipped and loaded back and be home as soon as I could. I set off at about 18:00 and by 03:00 the following morning I was making my way along the single track road between Lairg and Kylescu on the west coast. It was lonely and bleak, I remember being surprised when I rounded a bend on that deserted road and saw what looked like a replica of the Midland Hotel in Manchester sat in the middle of the wilderness. I found out later that this surreal vision was the Altnacealgach Hotel and was a fishing lodge. A bit further along the road I decided I wanted to pee so I stopped and went round to the nearside of the wagon, I was happily relieving myself when suddenly a lion roared right behind me! I’ve never been as frightened in my life, still making water, I couldn’t stop, I dashed round to the driving side, finished my job and leapt into the seat and locked the door. The roaring went on at intervals but I couldn’t see anything. I decided that the best thing to do was to carry on. I don’t know whether it was the shock that I had just had or simply normal doubts but because of the time I passed through Lairg I hadn’t been able to check with anyone that the single track road I was on was the way to Skaig Bridge which wasn’t on the map. I decided that the sensible thing was to turn round and go back to get clear directions. I got back into Lairg and luckily found another wagon on his way out to work. I asked him about the road and he said that even though there was no signpost, it was the right road so a quick double shuffle and off I went again into the wilds.
Shortly after first light I was near Kylescu and had found the site where the road-building gang had their headquarters. They gave me breakfast and I told them about the lions. They nearly fell off their perch laughing at me, what I had heard was a stag in rut and according to them it was probably a quarter of a mile away. I’ve heard them since and it still makes me laugh but I can tell you that at the time it was definitely a lion and within a few yards of me! The pipes I dropped were culvert pipes for installing under the new roads they were building to make access easier for the local people. They told me that most of the land was owned by Lord Rootes who owned the Rootes Group which amongst other things made the Commer brand of vehicles.
When I had dropped the pipes I drove back to Charles Alexander’s at Inverness and they loaded me with ten tons of seed potatoes for Buckingham. By late afternoon I was loaded and set off back to Barlick. We didn’t have the phone at home in those days but I stopped and rang the Greyhound Hotel, I knew there would be somebody in there who knew Vera and would pop up the lane to find what the state of play was. Try as I might I couldn’t get through, there was no STD in those days, all calls went through the operators. I explained what my problem was and they were very good, they told me where the next phone box was and said they would keep trying and I was to ring them when I could. After two abortive calls I finally reached the top of a hill on a lonely road in the pitch black and the driving rain, for some reason there was a box right on top of the hill. I got the operator and she gave me the news that I had a baby girl and Vera was doing fine. They couldn’t get back to the Dog so I retired to the cab and had a cup of tea and a smoke as I pondered on life. My main feeling was anger, what the bloody hell was I doing on a mountain top in the north of Scotland in the pouring rain when I should have been in Barlick at the birth of our second daughter. I got out of the cab, made a reverse call charge to Billy, getting him out of bed in the process and told him he had better look for another driver as I was fed up and was going to look for a job which would keep me closer to home. I was fed up with tramping, long hours and sleeping rough. Jimmy McCall had been right, there was something different about me, perhaps it was the ability to recognise when I’d had enough, it had stopped being fun.
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net
"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
