THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

Ah, you are right Ian. I had forgotten the blotting paper monitor! Do you remember the tables of land measure on the back of the old exercise books? Rods, poles and perches! We had a blackboard monitor as well whose job was to always ensure the teacher came in to a clean blackboard every lesson.
I suppose the old chalk blackboards are a thing of the past now. I always remember that as I stood with a group of staff at Nelson and Colne College watching the onward unit burn down one of them said "Well at least we've got rid of that squeaky blackboard in room ...". I asked him about it and he had a blackboard that squeaked under the chalk so one summer he took positive measures. At his own expense and in his own time he came in, sanded the surface back and applied the proper blackboard paint. When he came back in it still squeaked. It turned out that the cleaner had been dusting it with her polishing cloth and transferring a small amount of polish to it.
I remember squeaky blackboards and the horrible noise they made if someone dragged their fingernails across it!

[Tizer]

Leaking fountain pens - aaargh!!

Now that they no longer have blackboard dusters what does the teacher throw at the misbehaving kid at the back of the class?

[PanBiker]

Nothing or they stand the chance of going to prison.!

22 yards = 1 Chain, 10 Chains = 1 Furlong, 8 Furlongs = 1 Mile. Something stuck.

[Stanley]

The same thought occurred to me Tiz. A serious missile because they had a wooden back.
Do you remember the two sided blackboards on a stand? We used to write rude words on the back so that if they were reversed during class we had a laugh.

[Cathy]

I remember in 1st year of High School, a teacher called Mr. Peard who was a nasty individual, especially to the boys. One day he got so annoyed with a male student and dangled him out the window of the second storey window while holding him by his feet!

[Stanley]

Behaviour like that, but perhaps not quite as bad, was common Cathy. I remember my dad telling me about he and his brothers going to a small country school near Eumalga at Dubbo. They had a very violent master and one day the brothers fought back. It ended up with them breaking a slate blackboard over his head and running for home. When they told my granddad Alex about it he took them back to the school and told the master that if he punished the lads he would be back and exact his own punishment! Father said that after that the man restrained himself a bit better but they were glad to leave when the family moved into Dubbo and they went to a new school which was much better.

[PanBiker]

My metalwork teacher at Barlick Modern once threw a 3lb hammer at me from the front of the room to get my attention after I had ignored one of his "gather round boys". In my defence I did have my back to him and had the blower going on the forge as I was bashing hot metal, never heard him!

[Stanley]

Even then Ian I suspect he could have been in trouble for that!
Corporal punishment was common in my schooldays both primary and grammar school. Even at 4 years we could 'get the cane'. During the war imports of Rattan stopped and as canes frayed at the ends they were shortened or repaired. Mrs Ackroyd, my first teacher, must have had access to a handyman, hers was reinforced by copper wire whipping. Can you imagine that today?
I consulted THIS Wikipedia article on birching and was surprised to see birching was still used in UK prisons as late as 1962. I understand the arguments about its deterrent value but then the same applied to burning at the stake. Deterrence is no excuse, such methods are medieval and one suspects that Solitary Confinement in 'punishment cells' will eventually go the same way. Good!

[plaques]

In my early boozing days on the IOM a typical night out was a booze up with a piano sing song. Then a quick fight followed by more booze at the boarding house. One of the lads from Burnley was following this routine but was daft enough to have a go at the policemen. He was birched, sent home never to come back again. His comments were. " It was the biggest mistake I've ever made".

[Stanley]

I'll bet!

[Stanley]

One of the things I remember clearly from my youth is that Mother liked making curries. She also made tea with boiling milk and it was much later I realised that this was the influence of the men who had served in the army in India. I was in the Karachi Social Club in Bradford and the tea was made with milk there. (Many years later I found that the club had survived when we went for a meal there.)



The staff of the club on my second visit in the new premises. Still making milky tea.

[Stanley]

It's colder and dry this morning and something came back into my mind from childhood.
Can you remember your mother stringing your gloves on a tape long enough to pass through your sleeves and across your back? Annoying at times but a brilliant idea, you never lost a glove!
Another trick she had was sewing a piece of Thermogene wadding into the back of your vest.

[Stanley]

One matter that is completely forgotten today is how difficult it was to fit new solid tyres when they were common on Commercial vehicles. The only mention of this I have ever found is in Jack Platt's evidence in the LTP. He told me that he used to get is changed at Oswald Tillotson's garage at the Summit, Burnley. (LINK)
They had to be pressed off under a hydraulic press and re-installed the same way. Jack said he got a tip of ten bob from the firm for each tyre.
'Ossie's' also built coach built cabs on AEC chassis. We had two at West Marton, JEH 29 was a Tillotson cab and JEH 28, mine, was a Park Royal cab and the best one of the two. It was very common in those days for truck manufacturers to just sell the bare chassis.



Sights like this, a chassis being delivered by a works driver on trade plates were common.

[Bodger]

And the drivers thumbing back with the plates under their arm.

[Stanley]

I always gave them a lift Bodge. Do you remember the universal fastenings they used? Thin cross sections of inner tube rubber. Must have been efficient, they all used them!

[Tizer]

This web site has wonderful photos, drawings and engravings of railway works in the early 1800s during the building of the London & Birmingham Railway. There are 15 long chapters, so as Tripps would say, get the popcorn in! HS2, eat your heart out! LINK

[Stanley]

Looks like a good read Tiz but I mustn't get distracted! Shed needs attention.
Dorothy Hartley lived in Wigan in early life and knew the mining community well. She says that when pit-head baths first came in many miners wouldn't use them. They preferred the arrangements at home where their wife looked after them and they had a bath in a warm place and then a sit in front of the fire with a pipe, paper and pint of tea afterwards before getting into warm clean clothes and having their tea followed by a visit to the local. They thought the more Spartan arrangements at the pit were dangerous and the sale of red flannel vests went up! She says that with some of the older ones it took a long time to re-adjust.

[plaques]

I remember them getting the pit bus to a local bus service point and then standing on the platform so as not to dirty the seats. The golden rule when pithead baths were introduced was 'Don't drop the soap'.

[Tizer]

I remember taking the local stopper train from Lyons to Le Puy in central France. It's a coal mining area and the train filled up with miners going home off a shift. Coal dust everywhere and they were `black as fire back'!

[Stanley]

Dorothy raised another memory yesterday. Remember the days before reliable hot water systems when every bathroom had a gas hot water heater or as it was usually called 'a geyser'? The 'Ascot' was possibly the most modern and best known. I see they are still in business and market an electric instantaneous heater, LINK.
The earlier gas fired heaters were very unreliable and in many cases dangerous. I can remember instances of old ones exploding! When Ascot brought out their improved design they cornered the market.

[Stanley]

Looking back, (do I ever do anything but that?), one of the red letter days was when I decided to put central heating in Hey Farm. I can remember coming on one November night after a day out in the rain and the cold. I didn't even take my coat off even though it was wet, Vera had brightened the Rayburn fire, the only source of heat in the house, and I sat there with a pot of hot tea. I heard a funny noise and realised it was our threadbare carpet (Bought second-hand from a pub) flapping in the draught that was coming in under the back door. We were hard up but that did it, I said to Vera, this is ridiculous, one way or another we are going to warm this house up!
The upshot was that by scraping all the resources together I put an oil-fired boiler in the outhouse and a radiator in every room. I remember us being disappointed because the house didn't warm up but Jack Martin told me that this was normal, we had to warm all the walls up before we'd feel any benefit. He was right, it took about a fortnight but after that the house was never cold again! What I noticed particularly was that before CH the house revolved round the Rayburn, the only warm place there was. After that all the house was used and the kids started to enjoy their bedrooms!
We tend to forget things like this and occasionally need to remember! Today we live in the lap of luxury!

[PanBiker]

Could go in jokes but I'll put this here. Found in FB land from a post showing a Barlick Cafe serving breakfast in a frying pan! It's a good one:

We Want Plates

[Stanley]

Not quite sure what to make of those complaints Ian. My most inappropriate was the antler! Perhaps they were making up for the small portion.
This post reminded of me of the advent of 'Tomato Dip' cafés in the late 50s. They were all transport cafés and their 'speciality was to dip the bread for a bacon butty in a pan of slow cooked canned chopped tomatoes. They sprang up all over the place and the big one built at that time at Sandbeds at Skipton started as a self build by the owner and was one of them. I think it's a motel now.... It was always far too big.

[PanBiker]

The "Dip" at Skipton was our local motorbike cafe. Lads and Lassies from all around the area used to meet there from the mid 60's onwards. Denholme and District Motorcycle Club (DDMCC), we used to have our annual Pennine Rally in the field opposite for a few years. Hundreds of bikes used to be at the cafe over the weekends and we used to always call for a brew on the way back from the club meetings in Keighley on Thursday nights.

[Stanley]

I remember watching the build as I passed it every day as I was delivering Keighley bottles. I seem to remember the bloke was a bit of an oddball and lived in the farm a bit further on on the right of the road as you went towards Kildwick. I remember at the time I thought the size was over ambitious, it seemed enormous for a transport café.
In another post I was referring to the fact that we are becoming addicted to so many things these days but then remembered that at one time Laudanum was freely available over the counter at any chemists. Queen Victoria is thought to have been addicted to it. Perhaps it's time to bump my 'Drugged to Death' articles again!