THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

Sorry David. Your hero has feet of clay!
Almost all telephone poles and other standards had cast iron finials. Many industrial chimneys had a cast iron top course as well. It weathered well, only rusted very slowly and made a weather-tight finish possible. The post office went over to a wedge shaped top with a piece of aluminium nailed on. Cast iron is still the favoured material when the ultimate in strength, resistance to abrasion and corrosion is required. Look at manhole covers and gulley grates. It also withstands high temperatures and was used for lining industrial flues and the construction beams if they were exposed to the hot gases. Cast iron stoves are still made of it for the same reason.



Casting is the only way this could be made.....

[Stanley]

Stone quarrying for mason's stone has almost died out now but until the early 20th century was an active industry in areas that had good stone resources. That's why Barlick is almost entirely built of stone from the Tubber Hill and Salterforth quarries. This was very high quality Millstone Grit and apart from local use millions of setts for road building were made and exported to East Lancashire. There were tramways down to the canal from the Salterforth quarries and two wharves on each side of Salterforth, one near the New Kelbrook road bridge.



Here it is in 1982, almost healed up. Hardly noticeable but at one time a very busy place.

The last new stone I carted was in about 1970, flagstones from a small quarry at Southowram near Bradford which was going down South. Southowram was famous for the quality of the flag stone quarried there which took advantage of the natural bed in the strata. Barlick stone in contrast had little or no bed which made it better for different applications. Some of the last quarries to survive were flag and roofing slate quarries. The other popular flags in mill building were those from Rossendale. They were heavier and had to be planed to give them a good surface. If you see a flag with parallel ridges in it it's a Rossendale.



One of the Park Close Quarry boats loaded with 40 tons of setts in about 1890. destined for Burnley almost certainly. These boats were built near Salterforth from local timber.

[Tizer]

Recently we visited Swanage Museum and saw the diorama shown below. It illustrates how the harbour looked until the 1890s at Swanage when vast quantities of stone (Purbeck and Portland limestone) were stored up in what were called `bankers' waiting to be worked on or shipped out. Banking on this scale at the harbour began in the mid-1600s, after the Great Fire of London when much stone was needed for rebuilding in the city. They also stored stone sinks, troughs and rollers.

Swanage_museum1.jpg

[Stanley]

In Barlick 'The banks' were where the 'banker-hands' worked. They were the rough masons who carved out squared stone from the rough 'run of the quarry' raw material. This could be building stone of varying types and qualities or setts for road building. In general they were utilising what was left after cutting out the enormous slabs that were worked by sawing to make cills, lintels and other precise products like stones for engine beds or foundations. What was left was 'offal' and in the case of Loose Games quarry went for road making. Park Close quarry on Salterforth Drag had shale between the beds and this was used as the raw material for making inferior bricks at a brickworks on the site. Anything left over was waste or spoil and was dumped below the two quarries. In the 1930s much of this waste was carried away for building the road beds for Kelbrook New Road and the new road at Sandbeds on the Keighley Road out of Skipton. This was possible because motor transport had been introduced after the Great War.
Jack Platt worked at the quarries and there is a lot of information in the LTP. Incidentally, he told me that in winter in very frosty weather the stone couldn't be cut accurately on the banks so the banker hands were laid off. Very often this coincided with casual work for the Council shifting snow and they liked this because the pay was better!
Look for the articles titled 'Rock Solid' in Stanley's View.....

[Tizer]

While in (on?) the Isle of Purbeck we visited the Burngate Stone Carving Centre near Langton Matravers. LINK They're on the site of an old quarry and run carving courses. Once we had convinced them of our interest in stone they allowed me to `raid' their waste pile for pieces of genuine Purbeck and Portland limestone for my collection. They also showed us around and explained more about the stone industry. We bought a twin tea light holder carved and polished by Mark Norman, a local well-known carver from Worth Matravers (his father was a carver too). It's made from Purbeck `cinderbed limestone' which is a mass of naturally compressed fossil oyster shells. The cinderbed is a thin stratum of Purbeck limestone which is assumed to be the result of the sudden death of oyster beds a couple of hundred million years ago.

[Stanley]

Isn't it wonderful what aeons of compression can do to materials! It's almost as though the shells have been made plastic and compressed into that pattern. Fascinating...
This reminds me of a characteristic of the last 60 years, that all problems could be solved by technology. De Beers was doomed because it was 'obvious' that diamonds could be made industrially. Disease would be conquered by antibiotics. Modern industrial processes, 'automation' in those days, meant more leisure for the workers and a golden future. Today we have the touching belief that technology will save us from the consequences of our lousy stewardship of the world's resources.
In all these cases WRONG! When will we learn that we cannot impose our will on Nature, we have to work with it not against it. Will the penny drop as the consequences are felt here as rising sea levels and climate change engulf us? Actually I doubt it.... Instead of concentrating on the essentials we carry on in the old way, over-exploiting resources, grabbing land, arguing about sovereignty and fighting economic war.
Forgive me for being pessimistic.

[Tizer]

It's a shame that the study of geology is being dropped by schools, colleges and universities. It's a very interesting and useful part of science and as a nation we are short of professional geologists although we have lots of amateur ones. We also need to know some geology to better understand Earth's origins and to fend off the Creationists. The reason it's being dropped at university level is because it's an expensive subject to teach, like maths, science and engineering but seen as secondary to those mainstream subjects. Even the maths, science and engineering courses are disappearing for the same reason and being replaced with more humanities and other non-technical subjects. It all comes back to the way we now fund graduate studies. Universities get a fixed amount of funding for each student, regardless of which subject they study, therefore universities make more money from cheap courses.

[Stanley]

It was happening 40 years ago Tiz but then it was dropping classics and humanities on the grounds that they didn't give the same economic advantage to students. Now it appears to have changed and depends on the cost of the courses.
In my days at Grammar School 70 years ago, classics and Latin were still taught at 5th form level , I was in the science stream and we did German instead of Latin from Third Form onwards. Because of the war we still had aged pre-war teachers in mortar boards and gowns.... Talk about Tom Brown's Schooldays!

[Stanley]

I know I have commented on this many times before but reading Bryson on The Body has reminded me of the importance of vitamins, particularly Vitamin 'A'. In the 1930s and 40s this knowledge was available but not widespread. We were so lucky to have a man, Jack Drummond, who was an expert on these things and in a position as chief adviser to the Ministry of Food to be able to implement the knowledge. All through the war we youngsters had a free weekly supply of Cod Liver Oil (Vitamins A D and E) and concentrated orange juice (Vitamin C). I am certain that this was one of the reasons why, in a place with such terrible air and ground water pollution, we grew up healthy with no serious consequences. In warm calm weather you could smell the River Mersey even at my school, Hope Memorial, which was perched up on the side of the valley. The whole of the town was in the valley and got the benefit!
Are today's children as lucky as we were? On the evidence of the prevalence of breathing difficulties, allergies and ear problems I doubt it. Not for nothing was my generation dubbed 'The Last Healthy Generation'.

[Tripps]

Not for nothing was my generation dubbed 'The Last Healthy Generation'.

Some rose tinted glasses here? I seem to remember I spent a lot of my childhood with a painful boil on the back of my neck or a sty / pouk on an eye, chilblains or chapped legs, terrified of grids - because 'that's where scarlet fever comes from', swimming baths closed 'due to poliomyelitis. etc etc

All totally unknown to my grandchildren thank goodness.

[Tizer]

When making comparisons and judgements about health now and in the past we have to keep in mind the high level of child mortality in the past. A reason why we might think people were healthier then is that any weakness in a child would mean it was likely to be naturally `culled' due to lack of antibiotics, drugs etc and to lack of knowledge about allergies. If a child had a serious allergy it would probably be dead before it even reached school age.

[Stanley]

I never said we were healthier then, indeed many times I have written about the infectious diseases we had then. What I was saying is that due to the good basic nutrition we had in the war we are on the whole healthier now than other generations. During the recent unpleasantness everything has been scanned and tested and the verdict is always surprise that I am in such good basic nick considering the mileage and abuse. I believe in the healthy generation description.
Whenever I see a jogger I always reflect on the fact that we didn't need to 'take exercise'. We got plenty and what's more I was paid for doing it!



40 years ago.....

Here's another thought. I was reminded when reading Bryson on the function of the bones and bone marrow about a long series of conversations I had with a Canadian Air Force doctor I gave a lift to when I was on the tramp. He told me that just by looking at me he could tell I had good bone mass and that this was a function of working hard in the late teenage and early twenties and eating good grub for fuel. He told me that the main benefit came in later years because that mass of bone and marrow was vital to so many bodily functions, the marrow was a manufacturing plant for many good things. So, putting on that bone mass in youth was one of the foundation stones that could lead to better health later. So work hard and eat well when young. QED.

[Cathy]

You love that photo don't you Stanley

[Stanley]

Yes I do and with good reason. I like to look back to when I was in my prime! Nothing like that now Love!

[Stanley]

As you all know, I have an interest in weather having spent most of my life dealing with it. I often think when I look at the Met Office forecast how much things have changed in the last seventy years. Today's forecasts, using the latest technologies, are remarkably accurate. Seventy years ago the stone above or a bunch of seaweed was about the size of it. That's why crumblies like me can remember so many weather related sayings.
However, this ability to predict the weather has spawned the belief that many other things can be forecast. We have all noted the economic forecasts based on data and modern science which almost always have to be corrected later when actual circumstances have revealed the true picture.
The media are in many ways to blame for this. In order to generate news/sound bites interviewees are invited to speculate on hypothetical scenarios and often get themselves into trouble as a consequence. This is particularly prevalent at the moment in uncertain times and I often wish that all respondents would simply say "I refuse to speculate". Dead simple!
Incidentally, another place where modern technology has damaged news reporting is the number of telephone calls from correspondents that fail. Lots to be said for a physical copper wire connection!
Despite all this, I shall not be going back to the seaweed.

[Stanley]

I don't know why but this morning my mind went back to the days of Lord Reith at the BBC when announcers had to wear evening dress later in the day. Such a contrast to the freedom our 'presenters' have these days! I think they should have a day when they are all made to dress to these standards just to remind us of how things used to be.
In another topic I commented on the fact that a man noted for his Yorkshire accent, Wilfred Pickles (LINK) was made a newsreader on the Home Service during the war on the grounds that spoof German propaganda wouldn't be able to copy his accent. He didn't last long, listeners in the South complained that they couldn't understand him. You may laugh at this but in 1978 when the BBC did a programme about me and Newton Pickles(!) and the closure of Bancroft Shed I was disappointed when I found that in the actual broadcast much of Newton had been edited out. When I complained about this to the lady producer she said that his dialect was impenetrable and wouldn't be understood. I have to report that she got the rough edge of my tongue.
I am reminded that during the war the announcers reading the news always introduced themselves by name. Another attempt to make spoof programmes more difficult for the Germans.
I can remember Lord Haw Haw, "Garmany Calling. Garmany calling" That's how he pronounced Germany. (LINK) My dad used to tune in to him sometimes just to laugh at him. I don't remember the station but we had a big Ecko 8 valve superhet wireless that could pick up all the continental stations. I used to spend hours tuning in to Hilversum, Berlin and Droitwich, all stations on the dial.
(LINK)

[PanBiker]

but we had a big Ecko 8 valve superhet wireless that could pick up all the continental stations.

A bit of flawed memory here Stanley. It would not have had 8 valves, (too expensive) 3 maybe or even as many as 5 but not 8. More valves does not make it better and is not a requirement of the superheterodyne design. A superhet receiver only means that is uses an IF, (intermediate frequency) and mixer stage in the design. All broadcast receivers except the very first generation, which were predominately TRF (tuned radio frequency) receivers used the same design which was developed shortly after the First World War. All receivers, domestic, commercial and military used the same principles, (including later transistor based receivers) the broad design stayed basically the same until the advent of digital radio.

EK Cole were one of the first manufacturers to use Bakelite cabinets for domestic receivers shortly before WWII. They also produced a number of military receivers and transceivers for the war effort including the 19 set used for mobile and tank communication. These particular models were produced by a number of different manufacturers to meet the demand at the time.

[Stanley]

All I know is that was what it said on the big square tuning dial. It was in a big wooden cabinet and had an enormous speaker.....
When we were at Hey Farm we were poor and the radio we had wasn't very good. When things improved a bit we decided to splash out on a new radio. VHF had just come in and so I bought a VHF set. Big mistake, there was only one BBC station on VHF at first. I think it was radio 2. One day Ted Lawson happened to mention how much he liked Jimmy Shand and his Accordion Band and Vera exploded. That and 'Sing something simple' were the two programmes Vera associated with listening to on Sunday nights when she was on her own because I was off on the tramp down to London very Sunday night at that time. She hated them!

A bit later Bill Harrison at White House Farm, Earby sold me a big box of Lear 8 track cartridges for a fiver, he had gone over to the new cassette tapes. I got two players, one for the house and one for the wagon and boy! did we get some use out of them. Ideal for the kids because there wasn't even an on/off switch, you just shoved the cartridge in and it played until you took it out. I used to rotate the tapes between the wagon and the house and there was a lot of them! The cartridges had a fault, the tapes used to stretch and I remember coming in one night and found Vera with a dismantled cartridge in her lap. She had worked out how to take up the slack in the tape and was quietly working her way through them all. Don't ask me how she did it, I left it to her!

[PanBiker]

Got me going now Stanley. I have had a better look on the site I found that lists all of EKCO products.

I think I may have found what you describe, the only pre war 8 valve receivers produced by the EKCO company.

There are 3 models which all look to be basically using the same chassis. All cover Broadcast (MW), Long Wave and Short Wave Bands

First contender the PB199 desktop this looks to use the same chassis but uses a different IF stage at 480kHz



Second one is the PB289, slightly different case and uses a 127kHz IF



Third one is a console model and probably the one you remember, RG489, same chassis as the previous one but in a bigger cabinet.



All of the images are from the Radiomuseum.org site, here is the link to the entries for EKCO, E.K. Cole Ltd

Radiomuseum - EKCO

[Stanley]

It was definitely pre war and the third cabinet form is the closest. Ours didn't have the push button selection, it was darker wood and the speaker was round not square. I think the square dial was larger. It had the three dials below the dial, the big one was tuning and I think the other two were on/off and wave band selection, S, M and LW. The speaker gave a lovely tone, especially bass, and years later I installed it in the passenger foot well of my mate's Capri after he complained about the quality of sound from his small speakers.
The only speakers I ever found to compare was a pair of Wharfedales that I tripped over somewhere, heavy teak cabinets and two speakers in each.
I was once in the home of a HiFi nut and he had cast concrete snail shaped speaker housings in the corners of the bay window bottom. He played a record for me to demonstrate how the players waistcoat buttons could be heard rattling on the back of the instrument. I wondered at the time if he had lost sight of the primary aim, to listen to the music!
Question. What happens if the reproduction is better than your hearing?
Who remembers the 'music centres'?

[PanBiker]

I can't find any console model with a round speaker grill and without the push buttons. They produced only a handful of 8 valve receivers all based around the same chassis design. Most of their receivers were table top models, there are a couple of table top bakelite models that have round enclosures but that's about it.

[Stanley]

Ian, I can assure you it existed! Definitely a cabinet and the third one could be the one.
One of the glories of the BBC was Children's Hour with Uncle Mac. We never missed it, I think it was on from 5PM until 6. They did some wonderful things and the most scary was a play written by John Masefield about wolves running, I've forgotten the title but I have the book. The Boy Detectives, Norman Bones(?) and his brother. Wind in the Willows. Another scary play based on the Long Mynd and the Stiperstones. Toytown with Mr Grouser and Larry the Lamb. I remember them all and could listen to them again!

[Stanley]

One of the advantages of being reared under bombardment in a war was that it grabbed our attention and made us aware of things outside our own small world. Today's youngsters have no such stimulus beyond the ersatz world of the internet and social media. They may be 'street smart' but I wonder about their interest in wider matters. (Or am I just getting old?)
We never missed a news broadcast. I can remember clearly wondering what it was about the town of 'Marshalling Yard' that made it a target for bombing every night. I asked father and he explained it to me.

[Tizer]

I think you'll find that today's youngsters know more about the rest of the world than we did at their age. I don't mean school geography but how people live, their culture, languages etc. Obviously not all will be like that, we still have inward looking ones who've been brainwashed by their parents.

[Stanley]

You could be right Tiz, god knows there are some good kids out there, it's the bad ones that get the attention. I'm getting old and jaundiced! I've always said that as the last Romans sailed off from The Isles, one of them spat over the side of the boat and said things will never be the same again!
Another thing the electronic invasion seems to have killed off is the regular cycle of old playtime favourites. I always thought it was funny how fashions changed, one day we were all whipping tops, the next week it was marbles and then it was skipping ropes and hula hoops. Even the games rotated. The only constants were ball games. I still love it when the kids in the back street get the chalks out and still mark out old favourites like hopping games. I heard someone complaining that it made the street look 'untidy'. I think it's great and a shower of rain cleans everything up. (no batteries required!)
I've just remembered something else. At one time in the 50s and 60s there was a fashion for schools to have camp beds that could be taken out into the yard on a sunny day and the kids lay down and rested for an hour. The last place I saw this was at Broughton Road School in Skipton.