ROCK SOLID (10)

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Stanley
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ROCK SOLID (10)

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ROCK SOLID (10)
Some time in the 1930s Jack got a new wagon, a Leyland. The biggest improvement as far as Jack was concerned was that it had a proper cab and acetylene lamps. Apart from that, it was still on solid tyres and had lousy brakes. As I write I can look up and there is an acetylene lamp stood on my bookcase and there’s a tin of carbide in the workshop but many of my younger readers won’t know what I am talking about unless they are cavers because that’s about the only place they are used nowadays.

An acetylene lamp is simply a container into which you can put calcium carbide which when it comes into contact with water gives off acetylene gas. This is highly flammable and burns with a brilliant white light. There is a small container for water on top and a valve to control the rate the water drips onto the carbide thus regulating the flow of gas. The gas is piped to a burner set in a reflector and hey presto, you have a very serviceable lamp.

The system on Jack’s wagon was a bit more sophisticated. Just behind the cab there was a round container about a foot in diameter and a foot high. You tipped your carbide in, filled the top tank with water, shut the lid and the gas was piped with rubber pipes to your lights front and back. All you had to do was start the reaction going by opening the water valve and light the lamps. True, there were little hitches at times. Jack tells me he started it up one day and while he was round the back of the wagon trying to work out why his lights weren’t firing up the acetylene generator exploded with a loud bang. There must have been a blockage somewhere. The joys of modern motoring!

I asked Jack how long the solid tyres lasted. He said they were pretty good really and told me that when they needed new ones they went to Oswald Tillotson’s garage at the Summit at Burnley. He described the process of forcing the old tyres off with a hydraulic ram, relining the rim with canvas strips and pressing the new tyres on. He said the drivers got three shillings backhander for each tyre which was a nice contribution towards his wage which was about three pounds a week then.

Late in 1939 the war started and Jack decided to volunteer for the army because he had always fancied it. The big problem of course was that when they saw his hand they gave him Grade Four which meant he was unemployable as far as they were concerned. Later on in the war he got calling up papers and was told they might use him as an instructor but he never heard anything about it. Truth to tell he was getting a bit unsettled at the quarry and was looking round for something else.

His opportunity came during the winter of 1939. During a spell of hard weather the quarry was frozen off. There was no snow shifting and so Jack went down to the Labour Exchange and enquired about what was going. The clerk told him there were plenty of jobs at the new Royal Ordnance Factory at Steeton, he could get there on the train easily so he and a bloke called Arthur Fawcett signed up to go. Jack got the shock of his life when they told him what the wage was, he was on twelve pounds a week, four times what he had been earning in the quarry!

Well, despite the war, and thanks to his accident with the detonator, Jack had never been as well off in his life. Only one thing marred the view, he couldn’t stand being inside in a blacked out factory all day. He stuck it for two years and tried to get out on medical grounds but the doctor he saw wasn’t having any of it. He told Jack that he wished he was as fit as him and sent him back to work.

So, out hero is well off in terms of money but a very unhappy man. One day he saw John Wild the haulage contractor and they fell into conversation. John asked him how he liked at Steeton and Jack told him the sorry tale. John said that he could alter that, would he like to come working for him driving a coach as he had a contract for ferrying prisoners of war about but was short of a good driver. He said that if Jack could pass his Public Service Vehicle test, which he would need to drive coaches, he would set him on.

Jack went for the test, the Examiner made no comment about his injured hand, and Jack set on for Wild’s as a coach driver. He dropped a lot of money by doing so but was happy at last. He said it was a smashing job. He used to go to Overdale Camp on the Harrogate Road, it’s a caravan park now, pick up a load of Italian prisoners of war and ferry them to whatever farm they were working on. He said his Italians were a good lot but his mate Mark Caan always got Germans and he said they were nowhere near as cheerful.

Wild’s garage was on Cobden Street but they also had the old foundry on Havre Park where Gissing and Lonsdale’s is today. They used to have a small garage above Bancroft Mill but that was washed away in the flood of 1932. Jack was to stay on the coaches until the end of the war but had finally found his home. He worked for Wilds until he retired. We’ll have a look at Platt and the long distance next time round.

A word of thanks for the scores of people who rang me about Rag Albert. His surname was Broughton and I think almost everyone in Barlick knew this except me!
SCG/25 April 2003

Image

A coach similar to Jack’s.
Stanley Challenger Graham
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scg1936 at talktalk.net

"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
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Re: ROCK SOLID (10)

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More essential history!
Stanley Challenger Graham
Stanley's View
scg1936 at talktalk.net

"Beware of certitude" (Jimmy Reid)
The floggings will continue until morale improves!
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