FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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The man wearing the hat is John Henry Pickles, Richard Drinkall's farm man at Yew Tree Farm West Marton. John and I worked closely together and he was a lovely man. I was surprised this morning when I realised that this is the only image I have of him.
I remember one day I was in the Byre at West Marton watching John milking and the beast I was stood next to kicked the milking cluster off. I automatically stepped in and replaced it. John started laughing and said "It's not the first time you've done that!" I told him not to tell Richard or he'd have me doing relief milking as well as waggon driving. He took notice and Richard didn't find out for years.....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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It's 1969 and I am setting off from Demesne Farm at Newsholme with 16 big heavy beasts for a dealer called Harry Laight at Droitwich. This was a typical day's work for me. On the way back I would call in at Beeston Castle market in Cheshire to pick up the calves that David Drinkall had bought there.
I have a good story about Harry Laight.... He was a very old-fashioned dealer, he was operating in exactly the same way his father had a century before. His farm man was his servant and so was I. He had one good habit.... he gave me a five pound note as a tip every time I delivered a load of cattle with no injuries or other damage. One day when he did this I told him I was getting a bit concerned about this as I was expecting the fiver every time I came. He considered this for a minute and nodded, he told me he knew exactly what I meant....
He never gave me the fiver again! I told Richard Drinkall about it and he laughed. I could even see the funny side of it myself.....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Three years later I had graduated to the biggest wagon in Barlick and the most miles annually. But the world was changing and 12 months later I was firing the boiler at Bancroft Shed. Driving for a living was a young lad's job and the trade was changing. I reckon I got out just in time.
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Nice pair of shoes! Ellenroad 1987. Those were the days!
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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I still have the shoes but climbing 240ft stacks is off the agenda these days.... This was in 1986 at Ellenroad.

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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Wow 40 years ago 😳 🤣
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Yes Tom, that's my reaction as well..... I'm 90 next month. How the hell did that happen?
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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🤣hope you're having a big party 🥳
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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No Tom, nothing like that. I shall just keep my head down and hope nobody arranges anything demanding!

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A bit of old Barlick. Tom and John Pratt, off for a bit of thistle mowing I think in 1953.
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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This windmill was made by Newton Pickles and when he lost interest in the project he gave it to Jack Grayson who was a loomsweeper at Bancroft Shed.
Jack had a later gruesome claim to fame. He lived on his own with a large number of cats. When neighbours got worried because they hadn't seen him for a while they contacted the police who broke in. As they did so the cats who were starving and thirsty made a bolt for freedom and the police found Jack dead. The cats had been surviving by eating him....... So we had man-eating cats at large in the Havre Park area of town....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Jack had another claim to fame also. He claimed to have heard radio traffic from the USS submarine Scorpion after it's loss. it went missing in May in the Atlantic and was declared lost in June 1968 after an extensive search, it was lost with all crew. It has subsequently been successfully located. He had US Navy brass and technicians descend on his house for a statement and to inspect his radio equipment which was ex WWII surplus fed by a rudimentary wire antenna system.

Personally having visited a RN communication centre and know of the massive wire arrays and very sensitive receivers that are used for VLF communication, I find it very hard to believe that he could have successfully resolved a signal on his rudimentary setup. Got a write up in the syndicated press though!

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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Another reason to doubt his story

VLF (Very Low Frequency) communication allows submarines to receive messages while submerged because its radio waves can penetrate seawater up to tens of meters, supporting strategic command for nuclear submarines with slow, low-bandwidth data like Morse code, not voice. Submarines use large, land-based VLF transmitters, often employing trailing antennas or buoys for reception, but must surface or deploy antennas for higher-frequency, two-way communication, making VLF a critical one-way link for stealthy command and control.
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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I know nothing about radio frequencies but what I do know is that Big Harry and Janet were king pins in a field called 'Battlespace Management' when they worked for Nautronics. They told me that VLF was the key to getting information from the databases held in key global locations to submarines on patrol.
That was how the Los Angeles class sub that was sat on the ocean floor monitoring Russian submarines off Murmansk was able to get the sound signature that identified the Kursk and the sound signature of a torpedo fuelled by Hydrogen Peroxide exploding which gave them the reason why the Kursk exploded. The only way to get that at information back to the US securely was for the US sub to go to the nearest Norwegian port and pass the physical recording of all they had heard into the hands of an agent who had a jet waiting to take him back to the US. A copy of the file was sent to Nautronics for Harry, Janet and their team to analyse. That's how I knew what had destroyed the Kursk before the rest of the world.
That triggered me off into going back to read Family Matters for December 2016. Now that is a forgotten corner....

More.... Janet and Harry's work on battlespace management led them into even more esoteric fields and one was the positioning of the undersea listening posts that listened for the sound signatures of vessels (Including Russian submarines) which also used VLF communications.
This in turn led them into using what they had learned to make what is often called 'Undersea GPS' It is called Nasnet and if you are interested in such things is well worth a coat of looking at.
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Janet at sea off Fremantle testing a NASNet receiver.
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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The Low Pressure crank and the banjo oiler on the Bancroft Shed engine. Forgotten technology now but delightfully efficient.
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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After nearly 325 years, Koninklijke de Kuyper is still a family business and the company has succeeded in making a global name for itself as a leading distiller of liqueurs and advocaat: more than three centuries of excellent quality from the heart of Schiedam!
Why this as my forgotten corner?..... When I was very young my mother taught me to read using advertisements. The printed advertisement was a much more powerful medium in those days because of course it was the only visual culture we had.
I particularly remember the rhyme they used in the advertisements.... "He who De Kuyper nightly takes, soundly sleeps and fit awakes".
I can't remember when I last saw that......
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Another forgotten corner in the same vein is the advertisement for Kruschen Liver salts. " Every picture tells a story"........
"Every picture tells a story" was a famous, long-running advertising campaign for Kruschen Salts (often referred to as liver salts) during the 1920s and 1930s. The ads typically featured a photograph of a smiling, energetic, or youthful-looking person—often in their 50s or 60s—and a testimonial letter explaining how a daily dose of Kruschen Salts ("the little daily dose") transformed their health, vitality, and appearance
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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'Young' Sid Demain looking his sheep at the old tannery opposite Bancroft Shed. He established a very tidy little holding there before he died and I think his daughter still owns it.....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Postcard of Newfield Edge, former home of Billycock Bracewell. Possibly 1900.
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Far Newfield Edge at Middop. I confused this with Newfield Edge on Folly for a while....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Ernie Roberts with a young weaver called Susan in Bancroft Shed in 1977. Ernie was giving her a bit of advice about her career path. This sort of interaction was common in the shed at many different levels. People felt they had the time for it and management never questioned the use of time. I feel we may have lost some of this with more pressure to be efficient and productive.....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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1978 and a sign of what was to come. Bang-up looms leaving Bancroft for Queen Street. We had sold them and the contract that required them to weave the heavy cloth.....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Not a comfortable sight. Looms going out of the gate. Of course we were to see much worse and it was not a happy time.....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

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Unless you have been through the experience I don't think you can really appreciate just how traumatic it was for us when Bancroft was scrapped and demolished. There is something visceral about watching scenes like this but someone had to record them. This is how looms were scrapped. A big lad with a 14lb sledge hammer smashed the castings until all that was left was a pile of bits which were transported to Long Ing where they were melted down and made into Firemaster grates.....
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Re: FORGOTTEN CORNERS

Post by Cathy »

I can still see our Grandma Tillotson (Tillum) behind one of the weaving machines..
And hear that awful noise.
I know I'm in my own little world, but it's OK... they know me here. :)
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