THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

The fake nylons. Yes I've seen that done and there was a liquid dye that you could put on your legs to get the effect of stockings as well. (If you were a woman!).
A dab of clear nail varnish to stop a small ladder.
I remember heated discussions when tights first came in about under or over knickers and the effects on the incidence of Thrush but that's perhaps getting too technical and could lead to the mention of the Crotchless tights.....
(I have a true story about crotchless knickers and peep-hole bras in Barlick.....)

[Tizer]

(I have a true story about crotchless knickers and peep-hole bras in Barlick.....)

Well, what a surprise!

[Whyperion]

(I have a true story about crotchless knickers and peep-hole bras in Barlick.....)

Well, what a surprise!

Strange things , priced on the principle that less is more, enabling weaving take-out to be done with less pain and more profit to the canny textile company ?

[Stanley]

Remember that the social historian should not avoid any areas in his quest to chronicle the full story of his subject!
Actually, they cost more to make, not less....

[PanBiker]

Sally has a collection of antique underwear. It includes a pair of crotchless bloomers, essential for ladies when adorned with five or six layers of underskirts in addition to corsets beneath their dresses. Much easier for toileting.

[Tizer]

I wonder what knights in armour used to do when they wanted to take a leak?

[chinatyke]

I wonder what knights in armour used to do when they wanted to take a leak?

They used the knight commode.

[Tizer]

[Stanley]

A medieval Shewee?
I remember Mary once buying what was in effect a fashion boiler suit. She reckoned it was just the thing for a 12 hour flight to Oz. Biggest mistake ever of course. She had to almost get undressed every time nature called!
Remember when Teddies were fashionable? They were buttoned in the crotch.

[PanBiker]

Biggest mistake ever of course. She had to almost get undressed every time nature called!

Same reason that when wearing proper stockings, suspender belts go on first and then the knickers, (French are best). Not speaking for myself of course but how the best dressed girls assemble undergarments.

[Stanley]

Once upon a time underpants for men were not common. Instead trousers were fully lined and in many cases the linings were detachable so they could be washed. The first underpants had no elastic round the waist but tape loops through which you put the tabs of your braces to hold them up. This meant of course that shirts had to be tucked into underpants. One of my favourite dictums is that you can always trust a man who tucks his shirt in his underpants!
I remember when I was in charge of interpretation at Pendle Heritage Centre I failed to persuade the management that we should research sanitary arrangements in the house in the 17th century on the grounds that it fascinated the kids who had none of the common adult aversion to discussing these matters. I had a similar failure regarding the water supply. I was convinced that the water for the house was piped from a pond full of watercress and I suspected that the mass of plants and roots had acted as a filter and possibly a biocidal effect. I'd love to see a study of this. At the time a new supermarket build in Nelson had a reed bed installed and all the run off from the car park was channelled through it before entering a local water course as this had been found to be affective in filtering out contaminants from the parking area.
Mind you, if there was ever any problem with the antiquated sewage system in the house guess where they came to.....

[Stanley]

In 1953, with no warning at all, when I was just about to go off farming at Whatcote my dad presented me with a BSA .22 rifle and a box of cartridges. I think he thought, being Australian, that everybody on a farm should have a rifle! Being a war child I had an interest in guns and soon got fairly proficient at shooting vermin and once Lionel realised I was not trigger happy he left me alone. I was the bane of the local foxes.
One day I had been zeroing the rifle, the sights had been a bit off. About half an hour later a man turned up, Tom Firnam, the local gamekeeper and informed me that one of my ricochets had just missed him. He wasn't angry, all he wanted to do was educate me and make me a better man with a gun. From then on I went with him frequently and he taught me a lot, he was a good man. He had an Elephant Rifle which fired a 10 bore solid lead bullet and let me fire it one day. When I went in the army they warned us about the kick of a .303 SMLE. It was nothing after that 10 bore!
I didn't had a firearms certificate until I got home and was at Hey Farm. I suspect regulations had been tightened up because I never had any problem buying cartridges at Gleeds. I swapped the rifle for a single shot bolt action BSA .410 shotgun built like a rifle. It was as hard hitting as a 20 bore and I had it until I left Hey Farm and had no further need for it.
He told me something about foxes that I have often wondered about. He said that occasionally he had seen foxes gather tufts of dry moss or shed wool and make it into a ball which they held in their front teeth, then they backed slowly into water until just their head was out of the water. Then they ducked under leaving the tuft of material floating on the surface. Tom said that all the fleas had migrated into the tuft as the water rose and so the fox had got rid of them. I wonder if that's true?

[Stanley]

Mention of the Ford V8 Pilot in another topic reminded me that General Gas Appliances had a 'better' car that was used if VIPs had to be transported by the works chauffeur Frank. Occasionally father got the use of it and I can remember how it used to delight him. It was a big 1930s Pontiac with what to us was an enormous engine. I remember particularly that the battery was in the boot (Sorry, the trunk in a US car!) and that too was enormous. It had a wooden case and extended to the full width of the car. It must have been a terrible gas guzzler!

[chinatyke]

PONTIAC: Poor Old Thinks It's A Cadillac.

Admin: adjusted. Please refrain from derogatory remarks.

[Stanley]

Careful China, strictly speaking that post is an offence under the Race Relations Act.
My mate Norman Sutcliffe the demo man bought a new Rolls Royce about 40 years ago and found several faults with it. Rolls refused to recognise them and Norman was a great believer in direct action so he sent his men down to Crewe with it and they left it blocking the entrance with a large notice in the windscreen telling them it was no good and please could he have his money back. It worked.
He bought a Mercedes to replace it and when I had my Surprise Birthday Party 33 years ago when I was 50 someone came in and asked who owned the Mercedes parked on Bark Lane. Turned out that it was the only Mercedes in the world with the engine out of the large 600 in a smaller car. Trust Norman to do something different. He had a Sherman Tank as well......
I think he qualified for the Flatley Dryer award, men such as that are thin on the ground these days.....



Norman and Mary at Whitelees demolition site.

[PanBiker]

Careful China, strictly speaking that post is an offence under the Race Relations Act.

I have adjusted it.

On another matter, something that has been vexing me for a while. I notice this only because I am a bit of a geek. I know that our valued member Tripps is unique in his own way as are all our members in theirs but why is his username in italics in the "Whose Online" list at the bottom of the page? It's the same when you open up the list but not in the sidebar when he makes a post. I can find no rational answer for this, it's not because he is a donor to the site or anything like that and he is the only member on the site who displays thus, he must just be "special"

[Tripps]

On another matter, something that has been vexing me for a while

Yes - I've been realy concerned about it too for a while. Here's what I know.

Embarrassed at how often I log in and spend time here, I took to logging out before browsing, but I gave that up, because you can't see all the content in that mode.

I then found that I could log in but not reveal my presence to others. In that mode - I could look who was on line, and still my name came up - I assumed visible only to me - and in italics to denote that status, or so I assumed.

I don't do that anymore but I'm still in italics. I note that others are in different colours.

I know that our valued member Tripps is unique in his own way

I'll settle for that.

[chinatyke]

Poor old Negroid thinks its a Cadillac, is that politically correct?

A few years ago I was speaking to my daughter who is a Clerk of the Court (Legal Adviser as they are now called) and she said I couldn't say a brown man. I could say black man but not brown. I was referring to a Pakistani so he wasn't black. So now I'll just use the correct racial terms: NEGROID, CAUCASIAN, MONGOLOID, AUSTRALOID, CAPOID (proposed in 1962 by anthropologist Carleton S. Coon - you can't make up these things!).

I'm not insulted if I'm called Caucasian, wonder if anybody is if they are called negroid or mongoloid?

Somehow "a negroid in the woodpile" doesn't have the same ring to it.

[PanBiker]

I don't do that anymore but I'm still in italics. I note that others are in different colours.

I never thought of the hide me option Tripps but that is clearly not the reason. Admittedly as Admin I get a slightly different view on things than the general membership but the italic accolade only applies to you as far as I know. I have even tried using your permissions because I can but that also shed no light.

The different colours are the ranking to differentiate between a normal member, the moderators and those with admin privileges. The orange glow is given to anyone who has donated to the site and is attached to the user group that you and all the other donors accounts sit in. Moderator and Admin account colours trump that setting although they are donors too.

Your "leaning to the right" so to speak is still a mystery.

[Stanley]

Never noticed David's italics. Not surprising, he is special, he sends me books as presents!
When I was a lad there were more names for different races than you could poke a stick at and they were frequently used in a derogatory sense particularly by the class of people steeped in Empire and any one who was part of the Axis Powers (in itself a redundancy today).
One thing that has always puzzled me (and feel free to correct me if I am wrong) is that as I understand it it is verboten now to refer to 'colour' but OK to say black. Yet I hear the phrase 'people of colour' used frequently and the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People still exists in the US. Further it seems to be OK for the 'N' word to be used by someone who is black, especially a rapper. Very confusing and getting just as bad in gender matters. I can remember being taken to task by a very aggressive lady for using the term lady!
In another branch of Language even the law uses the term bugger to describe male penetration but if you look at the origin of the term it is racial and originally was used as a term of contempt for anyone born Bulgarian.
Another archaic term which as far as I know isn't banned is 'square head' for a German. I asked my father once why he used it and he said because their heads fitted into the 'coal scuttle' helmets worn by the army.
As I say, very confusing for an old fart like me.

[chinatyke]

However I refer to people I always treat them with respect. To me it makes no difference from what culture anyone originates. I think most of us poke fun at different people, hence the proliferation of Irish jokes, Jewish humour, Flemish etc, but it is meant to be just fun and nothing else. I find the name snowflakes to be a good description of people who can't stand a bit of ribbing. I hear people calling me Laowai (old outsider), Guiluo (white ghost), every time I go out. It doesn't bother me but if they are showing off to their friends I just call them tubaozi 土包子(literally earth dumpling - means hillbilly or country bumpkin) in return. That usually makes them laugh and we get along fine.
Why is it OK to say someone is a white person but not OK to say brown skinned?

[PanBiker]

BAME: Black and Asian Minority Ethnic.

LGBT: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender.

Used within the Labour Party, we have CLP officer posts to represent each group

[Tripps]

The situation as to these acronyms is fluid, and it's best to keep up with the latest trend - lest someone (who is probably actively seeking the opportunity), becomes terminally offended.

This explains the meaning and usage of the addition of the letter Q. letter Q

This is dated 2016 - so may well be out of date. Take care out there.

PS - since posting, I've discovered that it's as well to add the letter I as well.

[Tripps]

"Your "leaning to the right" so to speak is still a mystery."

I see what you did there - so to speak.

[Stanley]

I can remember my dad commenting that if a bloke parted his hair in the middle he most likely sat down to pee. That was as close as he ever came to mentioning uncertain gender. Then I occasionally heard a woman described as 'mannish'. Personally I am in a frenzy of indifference but as David says, be careful out there!



This was a name from my youth. I was surprised to find they are still alive and well and selling tea online! (LINK)