FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Cathy]

That image took me back to working at RM’s.
Towards the end of my time there, a computer was installed in the accounts dept. It was in a glass cage, the size of a small room.

[Stanley]

What's 'RMs' Cathy?

[Cathy]

RM Williams Bushmans Outfitters (The Longhorn Brand). Leather horse riding boots, saddles, all sorts of country clothes. They have had stores worldwide for a long time now.
An Australian Icon and still made here in Adelaide.
The pic shows where I worked at the original store, with the factory upstairs. It’s a store and museum now.
There is a lot written about Reginald Murray Williams, not just relating to his business.
From ‘swagman to millionaire’, very interesting man and self made.

AEF88424-08B4-4D08-B377-AC0802EE059A.png

3C325C04-9709-4791-BC5A-9B86AA7F61F0.jpeg

6D890800-67B6-4A5F-9BD9-FA1837BB7841.jpeg

Many a whip has been ‘cracked’ in that front carpark

[Stanley]

Thanks Cathy....

[Stanley]

A forgotten corner from my childhood....



Rupert Bear was a cartoon strip in our daily paper and from that I am forced to realise we must have been taking the Daily Express! I still remember the characters, Algy, and the Chinese girl Tiger (?). Amazing how something like that could become so vital to each day.
Come to think, it must have been the Express because another favourite was Carl Giles.

[Tripps]

I think she was Tiger Lily ? I looked at it of course, but wasn't a fan. I'm a bit surprised to find that it's still going. The Daily Express is a parody of itself these days. Rupert Bear

[Stanley]

Could have been Tiger Lily David.
I think in those days the Daily Express was a largely pro-Empire paper. I remember our Sunday paper was the Sunday Empire News, a Kemsley Newspaper. With father being Australian I think this may have been behind the choice. It was printed in Manchester and we always got our copy on Saturday Night as we came out of the evening showing at the Savoy Cinema just a couple of hundred yards along Heaton Moor Road where we lived after the war. That's all a forgotten corner now....
Having said that, I looked the Savoy up and got a surprise...



The Savoy is still in business, described as a boutique cinema. Just out of interest the large brick building to the left used to be the Manchester Corporation electricity transformer station.

[Stanley]

A Stockport Corporation tram in the late 1940s climbing Wellington Road South on its way to Hazel Grove. This road is the old A6 and this tram service ran from Manchester Piccadilly to Hazel Grove, at almost nine and a half miles it was reputed to be the longest through service in England. It later became the Number 92 bus route and is now numbered 192 for some reason. (LINK)
The trams are long forgotten, they ended in 1949, but the route has survived and even has its own Wikipedia article.

[Stanley]

The older I get...... (Far too many of my pieces start like that these days!) the more I realise that one of the greatest assets of the young is the speed at which their bodies can recover form effort or a hard day's work. In the early days I healed up during the night's sleep but as I got older it spilled over into the following day and now it is a serious matter and I have to make sure I don't take too much out of myself or I will pay for it!



I think I was about 38 years old when I realised that the glory days were coming to an end. I was changing a spring on a wagon and it weighed almost 400lb. I remember telling Vera while I was doing that that it was time I started thinking about the future, I wouldn't want to be laid under a wagon in the rain doing that much longer.
My point is that the ability to stand that hard work and recover in time to do it again the next day is definitely a forgotten corner. Not only that but illegal today.....

[Stanley]

It used to be the case that a forgotten corner was something ancient that had long since crumbled or lost its use. Today we could be looking at a forgotten corner when we think of Rolls Royce or Carlson's. There was a time when the cotton industry looked as though it would last forever, we found out that that was not true. The same thing could be happening now to the 'modern' industries. They may not be modern any longer.
We live in uncertain times.

[plaques]

This is especially true of little plots of green space that used to be adventure areas for kids. A big park may look OK on paper but it will never compare with the dump just round the corner.

[PanBiker]

The powers that be have turned my childhood adventure playground into a grassed area with a park equipment at the top which just seems to get vandalised. When I was a lad the area was abandoned former hen pens. There were three 60 foot trees on the slope and we could climb all of them to the top. We used to have climbing races to see who could stick a hand out of the top first. We always has a fire going and used the area for our annual plot night bonfire. Our chubs were hidden around the nearby garage site which had the old foundry building and a "flat part" in front. We had goalposts on the roller shutter door and wickets painted on the wall at the side. Added attractions in the area was Wellhouse Mill shed with its skips that we used to make dens out of and of course the mill dam with some pretty nice big goldfish in. That was filled in with industrial rubbish and now has the Post Office sorting office on top. All the garages are gone and replaced with industrial units. - Funspoilers.

"They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

[Stanley]

Both pics 1`963. Ian's goldfish pond and adventure playground.

[PanBiker]

Thanks Stanley, you can see all the bits I mentioned. Dads allotment is on there as well. Valley Road now is treated like a race track. It had good noggins when it was a compacted cinder path.

[PanBiker]

Bill Cradocks smallholding at the end of Vicarage Road or just over the wall from the dam embankment. Had some good times there, I learned to drive Bills Land Rover there at hay time in the field when I was about 10 or so I reckon. Little lads were just right for sending up into the hen loft which was above the barn when there were some to catch for Gisburn market. The whole job lot gone now and only remembered by a few.

[Stanley]

It was in those buildings that West Marton had their Barlick Depot when the pic was taken in 1963. In the right hand building of the two. They had to move from the old one in the old electric transformer house that still stands there in Gissing and Lonsdale's yard.



The old depot in Valley Road still in use in 1957.



Here's the rest of the pic with Valley Road (You can see the old depot on it.)

[Stanley]

Kelbrook Young Farmers meeting at Owlet Nest Farm County Brook in 1976. At that time it was farmed by Jack Muff and his daughter Jennifer ran the cooked meat shop he started in Frank Street. Many older Barlickers still call it 'Jack Muff's'.
The Young Farmers was a wonderful organisation.....

[Stanley]

It's over ten years since I walked up Skipton High street on market day and much of what I remember is a forgotten corner. Even Rackham's has gone. Most of the stalls seem to be selling clothes, I found one cheese stall and there was a van selling fish, I think that was it for the old-fashioned market. One good change is that they close the High Street now. It was a bit warm....



Just after that pic was taken I put my arm on the table and burned it.

[Stanley]

It's quite significant that one of the biggest changes in West Craven leading to a large forgotten corner was caused by a virus. Could there be a warning embedded in this image for us today?



Remember March 2001 and what it did to farming and local industry? We lost dairy farming and in turn our two dairies, Dobson's and West Marton. Will Coronavirus have the same effect?

[Stanley]

I've just been reading Kev's account of making a working space at home.



There are enormous changes coming to how we work. Does this mean the end of rush hour in cities?
Could the whole concept of offices in city centres become a forgotten corner.

[Stanley]

An old kettle. At one time they were a standard item on any stove or fire. Here in the UK we are almost 100% converted to the electric kettle. Funnily enough this is not the case in the States. The 110volt mains supply means that heating elements have to be much heavier and this makes electric kettles too bulky and expensive. The same applies to many washing machines, they are either plumbed into the house hot water system or gas fired.

[Wendyf]

I'm sat looking at my kettle now. We don't use it much these days but it's always there just in case!

20210720_065209.jpg

[Stanley]

Snap! I have a heavy bottomed one like that for the day the leccy goes off and my cooking has to be done on the stove in the front room.

[Stanley]

I used this as a mystery object. When I was a lad there were no electric wheelchairs and these hand cranked ones were quite common, some even more sophisticated with a central steering arm that had the cranks mounted on it. I think they are a forgotten corner now.

[Stanley]

My forgotten corner today is the time before we had a domestic refrigerator. The first one I ever saw was in 1945 at the end of the war, it had no freezer, just a chill box really but such an improvement on not having one. Think of the last few days and then consider how you could have kept food fresh. About the best you could do was make a tent with a wet cloth over whatever you wanted to protect.



Before the advent of the refrigerator this was the best you could do. An old fashioned meat safe. About all it was good at was keeping the flies off the food. We forget how lucky we are!