THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Wendyf]

We haven't needed to empty our septic tank in nearly 20 years. We heard a story recently about a farmer who was spotted going round a field on his quad picking up a sackful of white things with a litter picking stick. He had done a neighbour a favour by emptying a septic tank and the field where he spread it was covered in wet wipes......incredibly dangerous if eaten by livestock.

[Stanley]

I once lived in a house with a Septic Tank Ian and couldn't use bleach...... Imagine my delight..... NOT!
I once watched a double decker septic tank being built at Bank Newton. The builders told me the best way to revive or start one was a dead cat...

[Stanley]

Remember Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins? When I was a lad it was not uncommon to see a bloke in soot covered clothes riding a bike with a set of rods and a brush strapped to the cross bar of the frame. Today the sweep is more likely to be in a van with an industrial vacuum cleaner in the back but the service is still the same.
They could also be hired to be present at weddings when the couple emerged from the church, it was regarded as lucky to encounter a sweep on wedding day.

[Stanley]

Does anyone remember Exchange and Mart? (LINK) First published in 1868 and on sale in the printed version until 2009 it was the go-to place if you were buying or selling small items. That and the Classified Ads in the local paper were always worth a look, you could pick up amazing bargains at times.
A high point for these advertising papers was just after WW2 when the government sold of War Surplus goods. Weekly magazines like Tit Bits had big advertising sections. The Model Engineer specialised in the sale of esoteric items like bomb sights which were crammed with interesting mechanisms like gear trains and Gyroscopes, ideal for incorporating in DIY inventions in the shed down the garden. Names Like 'Headquarters and General Supply' and 'Lieberman and Gortz' were familiar to readers. If you wanted an ex-army tent you went to the former, if it was optical equipment you were after it was the latter. I spent many happy hours reading them.





1950 adverts. The prices give an indication of wage levels then.....

[Tizer]

I spent many happy hours reading them.

As did my father! You'll be pleased to know that there are still many hobby magazines that have display and classified ads. For example, you'd be surprised by what's on offer in the back pages of Railway Modeller magazine. Inkjet printing, laser cutting, digital gizmos galore, plastics technology, besides all the conventional soldering, brass working etc.

[Stanley]

I used to have a Brown Brothers of Manchester catalogue from the 1930s and it was fascinating reading. One of the gems that disappeared when I went in the army and the family downsized before moving up here. Just looked on Bookfinder and a 1965 edition is over £100.
I also had a 'Dixon Kemp's Yacht and Boat Manual' and enormous volume that was issued to every ship of the Royal Navy, God alone knows what that would be worth now..... Everything from Dinghies to Steam Yachts.

[Tizer]

When I was in Liverpool around 1970 I used to buy stuff from the Army & Navy store. I had a combat jacket which was great because it had so many pockets and was functionally better than most of the usual jackets on sale at that time. Also had a safari jacket which probably came from there - same advantages. And a parka - that seemed marvellous then and the warmest coat I'd ever had in winter!

[Stanley]

My son in law Mick tells me that they are still in business. When he was in the Falklands his cardboard army boots disintegrated and like many of his mates he bought his own boots from Headquarters and General. He got trench foot and still suffers from the consequences.....
The boots when I was in the army were good and if they had run out of your size and you got lucky they issued you with officer's boots. They were brown and very high quality. You had to scrub them with hot water and dye them with Radium Leather Dye to make them black. Funnily enough, the worst thing you could do to your boots was demonstrated by the fact that when your 'best boots' which were bulled to make them like patent leather became your working boots they never lasted as long as the originals. Over the years the best treatment I have found for working boots is to brush Neat's Foot Oil on them. The purists tell you this rots the stitches but this has never happened to me. Well oiled boots shed muck when it gets on them.

[Tizer]

That's another thing I bought from the Army & Navy Stores back in the late 60s - army boots. I was still wearing the same pair for gardening in the 1990s!

[Stanley]

As many of you are aware I have a bit of a fetish for good boots! My mother always bought us good shoes and boots. When my mate Roger Perry's father died he had just got a new pair of brown shoes from Lobb's and they were too small for Roger but fitted me. I was always impressed by the fact they had a German Silver stud bearing the maker's name on the instep of the sole. Still going strong, ridiculous price of course, over £600 in those days but looked after they last forever.
By the way, slightly off piste, but my Trickers are fine except for the fact that the soles are too thin. I can feel every stone I walk on. I shall ask them to beef up the sole with a mid-sole when I take them back for repair. I never take them off, I threw my old sheepskin slippers away!

[Stanley]

Does anyone remember Red Ex? At one time there was a dispenser on the forecourt of every filling station but I never hear of it now, However, looking on the web it is still alive and well as is Holts, the firm who made and distributed it.
For the uninitiated it was an additive for fuel that helped clean the internal surfaces of fuel systems and engines and, if used regularly, was cheap and effective.
Carburol made similar additives for Diesel Fuel and lubricating oils. They were particularly effective in gear boxes and differentials and I used them when I was driving for Richard Drinkall on the cattle wagons. In the days when we were having serious problems with accelerated wear in the transmission because of bad design on the part of ERF they saved the day and kept us going until ERF came up with the solution which was what I had suggested to them but I never got any credit.....

[Stanley]

There was a time in the early days, and I include the immediate post war years, when 'petrol' was petrol! Incidentally, the reason why we call it 'petrol' and the Americans 'Gasoline' is because he word "petrol" was first used in reference to the refined substance in 1892, and was registered as a trade name by British wholesaler Carless, Capel & Leonard. Derived from the word petroleum and also used by the French.
Early straight petrol only had one differentiation in grades, that of 'Octane Rating', Basically ordinary road fuel was 80 octane and more highly refined fuel used in modern aero engines was 100 octane. The higher the octane rating the more pre-disposed the fuel was to pre-ignition. This is the explosion of the petrol air mixture in the cylinder before the piston has reached top dead centre due to compression, rather like the Diesel principle, and the resulting excess pressures gave rise to 'knocking' or 'pinking' which was a big problem both in aero fuel and road fuel. The cure for this as early as 1920 was the addition of Tetra Ethyl Lead to the fuel which partially addressed the pre ignition but also reduced the consequent damage to the cylinders by coating the rubbing surfaces with lead which is a very effective high temperature lubricant. This allowed higher compression ratios in engines which made them more efficient.
'Leaded Petrol' was the norm for many years but it was realised that it was harmful to the environment and life as lead is a poison. Despite this being well understood, lead in petrol in the UK wasn't finally banned until 2000 under EU law. Modern effective non-poisonous additives were developed to replace lead and with today's engines and fuel, knocking or pinking is almost entirely eliminated in normal use. One interesting result of the research was that it was noted that the figures for crime, when presented in graphic form had exactly the same curve as lead content in the atmosphere due to leaded petrol.
Today of course we have realised the dangers from all fossil fuels and their days are numbered.

[plaques]

It was the norm to tune the engines to give a grey coating on the exhaust pipe a sooty black pipe showed it was running too rich. When petrol became lead free this rule of thumb collapsed and people realised how much pollution they were causing.

[Tizer]

Petroleum: literally `rock oil'.

There are photos of the Handley-Page HP-10 airliners of Imperial Airways in the 1930s being refuelled from tankers in the deserts of the Middle East. I wonder if they scheduled the refuelling stops for dawn when it was cold. Otherwise, I wouldn't like to have been around if they were doing it in the scorching daytime temperatures!

[Stanley]

I hope they did Tiz.... very volatile stuff at the best of times.
Quite right P, a very light grey showed you were a bit too weak and it could burn exhaust valves. Citroens always had black tail pipes even when new. The perfect colour was a chestnut shade. I only ever saw one engine that could achieve that consistently. It was a big GM six cylinder petrol engine in a Bedford Wagon, 28hp rating on the old RAC taxation scale. It had one tiny Zenith carburettor for all six cylinders and I often marvelled at the fact it could be as good. Army wagons were always tuned rich so that the same mixture would serve in any theatre of war. In the Austin 7 tonners we still used in the 1950s this was achieved by fitting a restriction washer in the inlet pipe and bigger jets in the carb. Our Stuart gun towers had two Cadillac V8 engines driving through a Hydramatic gearbox. Cross country they used a gallon of fuel a mile. We used to save fuel if we wanted to by running just one engine. Rumour was that this provided a useful extra income for the REME drivers!
The RAC rating used for taxation was based on cylinder capacity, that's why engines were described as being 7hp etc. The tax paid was a pound a year for each unit of horsepower on the rating, so a 7hp Austin was £7 a year and a 44/50hp Rolls engine was £50 a year. I think that system was changed at the beginning of WW2.

[Tizer]

In the mid-1980s we had a mini, custom-converted, with a 1.4 litre engine, one big fat carburettor, lowered suspension and upgraded springs and brakes. It was red and had an appropriate 666 registration. It was all declared and we paid a higher insurance premium. It was good fun!

[Stanley]

When I sold my last Fulvia I needed a car for work and my mates at the New Garage in Barrowford came up with a Viva that had a good body and interior but the owner had neglected the engine and it was clapped out. At £100 it was cheap so I bought it and gave them the job of fitting a reconditioned 'short' engine and a new battery and going through the rest of it to bring it up to as new standard, the total was well under £300 including tyres and it was cheap to insure.



1100cc engine and as near bog standard as you could get.

The engine was excellent and once it was run in and settled down it was a good car, always started instantly, nippy, cheap to run and totally dependable. I hadn't had it long when I overtook a brand new Porsche one morning going up over Whinney Hill, at Altham and the owner didn't like it! I think he would have been back at the dealers that day.... Then the Ford Ghia with the big engine came up and I bought it. At the time Margaret needed a car and I gave her the Viva. It was just as good for her and she ran it for over three years, sold it for more than it had cost me and gave me the money. She loved it and on reflection in terms of fun and utility it was probably the best car I ever bought. It remained surprisingly nippy right to the end and surprised a lot of drivers with bigger vehicles.... Some cars leave you with a warm glow......

[Stanley]

There has been an excellent book serialised on R4 in the morning about living in a corner shop. Well worth seeking out. One thing the lady mentioned brought back memories, she said har parents decided to buy a corner shop and started their search in Dalton's Weekly. (LINK) Published as a paper from 1867 to 2011 the brand is still active today online and is the go-to medium for the buying and selling of small businesses like corner shops.

[Stanley]

Looking at the furore that racism generates today (Quite right too but sometimes it goes a bit too far) reminds me of the immediate post WW2 era when we regularly had bearded Sikh travelling salesmen at the door with a suitcase full of haberdashery. They were regarded with deep suspicion and many wouldn't entertain them. Even then I couldn't understand why the Breton onion sellers, equally foreign!, were welcomed without question. I've even come across the same attitudes to the Welsh. There was no problem when these 'foreigners' came from all over the world to fight for us. Funny stuff this racism....
Incidentally that's the reason I wrote Stan's story at a time when half the country was railing against Polish plumbers etc. We needed to remember just what they had done for us.

[Whyperion]

Didn't know about the Sikh salespersons - I have been binging on YT videos of the building of the Victoria Line in London in the Mid 1960s. The interesting bit was the concrete batching and moulding plant out near Newbury Park - which is a gravel site still running today, although only a few I noted some Sikh Gentlemen of a not young age working on the pouring and moulding, I wondered why there were a relatively high number of Sikhs in the North Ilford area and this sort of explained it, strangely 25years on from that every Sikh I knew in Ilford seemed to be exactly the same age as those men, do they not age or just appear aged 55? We had a local Gudwarah at the end of our road - the were always good at sharing in the community.
Mum reminds me that her current church leader sometimes brings round his grand-daughter- at age two she is speaking at least two languages happily mixing English from her mum and Hindi from her Dad- he is from the lowest caste of Hindus by heritage - but Christian by Choice- which gives rise to some prejudice in India ( see how the idea that lower caste means you sinned in some way in a previous incarnation - a belief not held in so many ways by Christians ), but he is fullfilled in London working as a care worker- tough job around that part of South London !

[PanBiker]

I used to look forward to the two Sikh gentlemen coming when I was a little lad. They seemed very exotic, they sold "Betterwear" household products and their suitcases were like Aladdin's cave for small boys. I remember the small 1" or so round purple tins of wax furniture polish they used to give away as testers. You could buy bigger tins of course. Even if mum didn't buy anything on a particular visit there was always a taster or a bit of marketing left for potential future sales. You could order bigger items from their catalogue. Amazing what you remember, I'm fairly certain one wore a purple turban and the other gent blue, always smartly dressed and very well spoken.

[Stanley]

I remember the testers as well.... and yes, they were always soft spoken and polite. We used to get gypsy ladies with big baskets as well selling sprigs of heather, clothes pegs made of split hazel with reinforcements nailed into the end made out of thin strips cut from food cans and 'hand made' lace but I suspect these were waste ends from the Nottingham industry!
The most regular caller was 'The Man from the Pru'' who collected the insurance every week, you could set your watch by him. There must have been thousands of insurance men, almost everyone seemed to have one.
We never had them as a lad but The Providential used to issue clothing cheques and you paid them off weekly. Round here it was 'The Scotsmen' (from Leeds actually), they would measure you for a suit and deliver it the following week and you paid on the drip system.
Knife grinders and onion sellers. Bin men and paper lads. Gas meter readers who also emptied the coin slot meters. The rag and bone man.
I never saw one but tinkers used to be common. They were travelling tinsmiths and would repair a leaking pan or broken tin article. We still use the word today for little jobs in the shed!
In Barlick there used to be a fish cart selling fish door to door. Ernie told me the cats used to follow him round. Oat cakes were sold door to door and in the pubs.
There were so many of these door to door men that you often saw a sign on front gates and doors, 'No hawkers or circulars'.

[PanBiker]

you often saw a sign on front gates and doors, 'No hawkers or circulars'.

I still come across a few of these when I am leafleting. I always give them one of ours as I don't consider it a circular more an information leaflet in order for them to make an informed decision.

[Stanley]

How about 'Beware of the Dog'?
I was once badly directed with the cattle wagon on the first occasion I had to go to Dan Smith's farm at Biggar in Lanarkshire. I went up a long drive and found myself in front of an imposing house. I was going to have to turn round on the gravel forecourt so, being a polite Lad, I got out to explain and apologise. Half way to the front door two Dobermans came running round the side of the house, jaws open, silent and serious. Too far to get back to the wagon so I just stood stock still and avoided eye contact. They skidded to a halt in front of me and at that point a well spoken man in a tweed suits opened the front door and gave them a command and they retreated whence they came. Big sigh of relief! He was understanding and very nice about the mistake, he said there was no problem about the gravel he'd get the gardener to rake it smooth again....
I never made that mistake again when I went to Biggar Mains! Dan and Kath told me I had been lucky, the dogs were notorious in the village and had attacked several times but the man was a magistrate.... One half the world doesn't know how the other half lives.
Kath was Champion Scottish Shepherd one year. She kept good dogs and she gave me a pup sired by her champion dog 'Old Tam'. I called him Fly and he was my cab dog for years. When she gave him to me she said he had one fault, like his dam he wouldn't go through puddles at a gate but find another way into the field.
I once went to pick up a bunch of eight cows to take them to Lanark for her and she whistled a dog up and sent it off to sam up the beasts which were out of sight on a very uneasy bit of land. Impressive and made even more so by the fact she was suckling her baby at the same time! You don't see that every day!



Fly with my mother in 1977 at Hey Farm.

[Stanley]

Dogs.... I have had more dogs than you could poke a stick at. One that sticks in my mind is a beautiful black Greyhound Lurcher I bought in the pub one night for a fiver. Lovely looking animal and good to bid but when I took it on the moor all it would chase was cats. I sold it to a young couple off the ranch in the pub for a fiver and a few weeks later they showed up again and I thought Oh Christ! They are going to ask for their money back! Not so, they told me how delighted they were and how well it got on with their two cats who slept with it! It had found it's perfect home and I'll bet it had a long and happy life.
It originated on Windy Bank in Colne, a noted location for good Lurchers. This was a classic cross; Greyhound and Labrador crossed with Border collie and Whippet.