THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

Another thing that has improved immensely is clutch operation. Big engine need heavy clutches with powerful springs to force the friction plates into contact with the drive chain. Clutch pedal travel governed how much leverage can be built into the mechanical system and the result was incredibly heavy clutch pressure needed to disengage the drive for gear changes. Remember that most of the old gearboxes were 'crash boxes' and double de-clutching was essential for clean gear changes. I can tell you that you soon developed a very powerful left leg!

[Wendyf]

The Fiat 500 I had back in the early seventies had no syncromesh on the gears so I quickly learnt to double de-clutch. I loved that little car!

[Stanley]

Good training Wendy and it makes you treat gearboxes with respect. The standard Leyland box in the 50s and 70s was a constant mesh box in which gears were always in mesh but activated by dog clutches on the shafts. Worse than crash boxes because there were fewer teeth to hit! Clutch mechanisms improved with the introduction of hydraulic linkage but when they failed you had no connection at all. I had the clutch cylinder fail as I drew away from the dock at Lanark one day with a full load of beasts. My solution was to drive home without a clutch, effecting the gear changers by matching engine speed to the gearbox. I shaved ten minutes of the trip back home and had no major problems. It goes to show how much time and energy gear changing absorbs. In case you're wondering how to get started from a dead stop, put the gearbox in a low gear and press the starter. From then on change gears as normal but without the clutch.
I have a story for you, pay attention and then think what you would have done....

I nearly caused a major accident on the railway crossing at Snaith one morning. You’ll have to pay close attention if you’re going to understand this one! I was empty and going over the crossing in third gear. Now this level crossing was anything but level, over the years the height of the tarmac between the lines had risen until it was like a ridge and furrow field, I think this was a deliberate ploy to slow traffic down. As I went over the crossing the vehicle in front stopped suddenly and when I went for the brake and the clutch, the hydraulic pipe to the slave cylinder burst, I lost my clutch and the engine stalled as I had my foot on the air brake. I must have lifted my foot off the brake and the wagon rolled down off the top of one of the ridges of tarmac until the rear wheels ended up in the furrow. Because the wagon was still in gear, this torqued the transmission up and made it impossible to get out of gear. Normally there would have been no problem, I would have shoved the motor into first gear, pressed the starter and away we would have gone but I was stuck in third and the starter couldn’t shift the wagon, it was too high a gear.
At this point I realised that the gates were closing, there was a train coming! I baled out straight away and ran off the crossing. The signal man came to his window and shouted something at me but I shouted back that I couldn’t move the vehicle. He vanished inside the box and seemed to be doing half a dozen things at once. Then I heard this roaring, screeching noise and I saw a train coming round the bend with all it’s wheels locked! There were sparks flying out from the wheels and I watched as it slid right up to the crossing and eventually stopped about 15 feet from the gates. The police arrived and the inquest started. The first thing they did was call a breakdown wagon but the nearest one would be half an hour before it reached us. This cause consternation until I told them I could shift it myself in five minutes if they’d let me get on with it. I got my jack and lifted a back wheel until the torque spun out of the transmission, then I jumped in the cab and popped it into first gear, out again, drop the wheel on to the ground, chuck the jack in the cab and press the starter. Hey presto, with one bound Jack was free! This impressed the Old Bill no end and by the time I’d managed to explain to them what had happened they let me go on my way. Shortly afterwards they tell me that the crossing was smoothed out. Good job too! I drove back without a clutch and back at Marton we simply fitted a new hose to the slave cylinder.

[Tizer]

Wendy, did you ever see the old Fiat 500 Abarth (or even better, drive one!)? These little racers had engines modified to the extent that you had to keep the boot lid propped open, as shown in this photo from the Abarth Cars UK web site.
http://abarthcarsuk.com/blog/2011/07/ab ... c-partner/

[Wendyf]

No Tiz, but I do remember that the heater in mine was just a a lever that opened or closed a pipe under the back seat that led to the engine. I'm sure I remember doing 70mph on the M6...downhill and slipstreaming behind lorries.

[Stanley]

Our local Italian Restaurant on Gisburn Road had one of those. When it was stolen they got a new model, the boot lid closes now!

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz had a bright orange Mini 850cc for about 6 years in the 1980s. It was low geared and could shoot away from traffic lights leaving bigger cars behind. If you went above 50mph on the main roads it got over-excited and you had to pull in, switch off and let it calm down before continuing your journey at a more modest pace.

[Stanley]

I once had to go to a breakdown in Ursula's 850cc Mini when I worked for Drinkalls. I managed to wind it up to 70mph on the motorway and Ursula commented on how much better it ran afterwards, I think I cleared its tubes out!
My Mate Roger Perry liked unusual cars. He had two cars when he lived in North London, his Lancia Stratos and a tiny Italian car (I don't think it was the Fiat) and it had a modified engine in it from a Haflinger. He used that in London traffic and could leave everything standing at the lights.....

[Tizer]

Was it a Fiat Topolino?
http://www.lifeinitaly.com/italian-cars ... istory.asp
Or, if even smaller, an Isetta?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta
Or Italy's own version of the little Messerschmitt, the Mivalino? (first photos on this page):
http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2007/08 ... icles.html

[Stanley]

I forget Tiz but it was like a ladybird in shape, it would have been dead easy to roll back upright if it fell over!

[Stanley]

You've heard me say that in some cases, pre-1968, the handbrakes on wagons could be more efficient than the foot-brake.... This was largely due to the Neate handbrake mechanism which was in effect a very low geared winch with a long steel lever which was very low geared and using a ratchet system tremendous pressure could be put on the rear brakes. The ratchet was controlled by the top of the lever which was on a hinge. When you pulled back the ratchet was engaged and you could pump the pressure on. To release the brake you knocked the top of the lever forward and this allowed the ratchet to release and the pressure on the cable released and the brake flew off. It was very popular at one time, the old Albion we had at Marton had one and it was a good job that it had a second mechanism where, once applied, the lever could be released from the ratchet and parked in a forward position. I say a good job because otherwise the lever was between you and the driver's door!

[Stanley]

One of the changes made in the 1968 Transport Act was the ditching of the requirement that a wagon and trailer combination had to have a separate brakes-man in the passenger seat controlling the brakes on the trailer via a mechanical connection. This was usually the old Neate handbrake. This, plus the advent of modern three line air systems and spring brakes made wagon and trailer combinations economical again. That was when I recommended we get one to Richard Drinkall and we were one of the first modern combinations on the road. Certainly the most handsome!

[Stanley]

One interesting facet of the higher levels of heavy vehicles was that many independent firms built cabs for them. AEC favoured the Park Royal Company in London but Oswald Tillotson at Burnley Summit also made cabs for them but not quite as high quality as Park Royal. They were aluminium skinned on ash frames and a cut above the usual pressed steel ones on cheaper vehicles. The cab on our ERF was in the same tradition but GRP on an ash frame, I think ERF made their own.

[plaques]

but Oswald Tillotson at Burnley Summit also made cabs for them

It was quite a common site to see the bare chassis being driven up to Tillotson's for fitting out. Not the best of jobs in mid winter. You could hardly see the driver wrapped up in his ex-WD flying suit complete with helmet and goggles.

[Stanley]

Perched on a high wooden chair to be level with the controls....
If you look for the 'Rock Solid' articles in Stanley's View you'll find that Jack Platt talks about going to Ossie Tiilys to have solid tyres changed on wagons. He tells how they pressed the old ones off and new ones on.

[Stanley]

After WW2 there were many men, fresh out of the forces, with new ideas and many of them started small, businesses. A favourite, when sheet aluminium was available again was caravan building. A friend of My dad, Harry White in Stockport, by trade a sign writer started what became a successful business. A less successful enterprise started in Butts Mill but didn't last long. And then of course there was the massive trade in surplus War Office stocks. For a few years after the war you could buy almost anything from small ads in the papers and magazines, from a submarine periscope to small electrical motors. Anyone remember Headquarter and General Supplies?

[Stanley]

Harry was always open to any way to make a quick buck. His main trade was sign-writing but he augmented that in many ways. At the beginning of the war he had a nifty sideline going round painting people's door numbers with Luminous paint so they were visible in the black out. His wife Lal used to accompany him playing her piano accordion. After the war when soap was very scarce he bought a large lot of ex army soap but then found out it was foot soap and loaded with grit.... At one point he persuaded my dad to join with him in a side of black market beef. They found a friendly butcher in Brinksway who could hang it in his cold store but when they went back for it he said he knew nothing about it.... Back to the drawing board!

[Stanley]

Harry finished his days retired to the seaside with a new young wife and his hobby was paining nudes from life. He had a succession of young female models.... I told you he was a character!

[Tizer]

He had a succession of young female models....

That would take on a different meaning if Ronnie Barker said it!

[Stanley]

I always liked visiting Harry and Lal at 6 Napier Road on Heaton Moor. (My dad bought the house off him after the war and we moved there). Harry had a large selection of illegal weapons, I think he was getting ready for the German invasion. The first gun I ever fired was a shotgun in the back garden of No 6. I fired into the crown of the big ash tree at the end of the garden and brought down a shower of dead twigs! Exciting stuff for an eight year old lad! Just imagine doing that today in a suburban garden. We did things differently in those days.....

[Stanley]

"We did things differently in those days" That got me to thinking.... Imagine the reaction if you put a large balloon on top of your laundry delivery vans, filled them with coal gas and ran the vans off it. The Bagwash Laundry in Stockport did just that. How about buses towing a trailer that produced gas from smouldering charcoal and had to be topped up occasionally by the bus conductor. North Western buses did that. I doubt if either would be allowed these days, there would be so much paperwork nobody would even consider it....

[Stanley]

Later in the war we were treated to a very unusual sight. Italian prisoners of war working in road gangs maintaining the tram lines on Wellington Road, the main road though Stockport, the A6. They were a cheerful bunch of lads, they were warm and safe! We used to chat with them and nobody ever interfered with us. I suppose they were mainly family men and missing home. I can remember how natural it seemed and of course we had enough oil in our cans to realise that this was a sign that we were 'winning the war'. I often wonder how formative our war experiences were. I have no doubt that today we would all be receiving counselling! In those days we just got on with it, bombing had finished at that stage, all we had to worry about was the occasional V1 overhead. I can remember being with my sister Dorothy one day and listening to one cut out as it passed overhead. For many years I thought this was perhaps a false memory but later found out that it wasn't. It was a very menacing sound..... I can still picture where we were and hear the sudden silence which was even more menacing... Then the large explosion. That was reassuring, we had enough experience to know that if you heard the bang you were safe! There was another belief, I don't know whether it was true or not, we were told that if we could hear a bomb falling we were safe because if you were directly in the path they were silent..... Funny to think that the whistling noise a 500lb bomb made could be reassuring!

[PanBiker]

Your V1 recollection must have been Christmas Eve 1944. This was the only time that the weapon was deployed targetted at Manchester as it was out of range of the conventional V1 weapon. The type that were used on the Manchester raid were deployed from specially adapted bomber aircraft. Here is the account from the IWM website.

Manchester hit by flying bombs

[Stanley]

That'll be it. It was the last bomb to fall on us I think. Earlier we had a rough time as the Luftwaffe were trying to hit the vital railway viaduct over the valley in the town and we were only half a mile away from it and the marshalling yards. The problem was that they couldn't see it through to usual Stockport murk. Funnily enough the most frightening thing I can remember was the sound of a battery of Bofors guns in the park 100 yards away. You wouldn't believe the noise the relatively small bore but quick firing guns made!

[Tizer]

Mrs Tiz's mum was living with her parents in London when the flying bombs and rockets were falling and she never wanted to talk about it, I think it was just too frightening. She would have been teenager and might have been less frightened when younger but as you get a bit older you become more aware of the danger. Earlier in the war they lived in Wiltshire where her father was an engineer building the tunnels at Deane where naval armaments were to be kept for supply to Portsmouth. The tunnels continued to be used by the military until recently.