THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

You may be right about the age thing. We were never frightened of the bombing or the war news. I can remember my dad coming in one night after being blown over by a near miss as he walked down George Road and we all had a good laugh about it. Even when we saw the bodies being carried away when the orphanage got a direct hit we were curiously detached. I think we soon ;learned to be fatalistic about danger and I am still like that today. If it's got your name on it..... Someone once commented on this many years later after a bloke died in my arms after a road accident on Sawley Brow but it just seemed natural to me. Were we damaged or hardened?

[Tizer]

BBC News
`WW2 torpedo boat takes to the water in Somerset'
"A World War Two torpedo boat being restored in Somerset has taken to the water in Bridgwater. The 73ft (22m) Motor Torpedo Boat (MTB) 219 was built in Portsmouth in 1941 to defend Britain from the threat of a German invasion. It has been floated in the docks as part of the next stage in its restoration."....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-31074285

[Stanley]

Murdo at Arisaig converted one of these into a ferry for booze trips and services to the Small Isles. It ran for many years under the name 'Shearwater' and was a good sea boat, very popular! It has been replaced by another launch but I haven't seen it.



The Shearwater in Arisaig Harbour in 1986.

[Tizer]

There's a restored RN fast patrol boat at Watchet harbour in Somerset, or at least there was in June 2010 when I took this photo...

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Gay_Archer_%28P1041%29

[Stanley]

My mind goes back to the days when if public works were being done on a busy road there was a night watchman with a large coke-fuelled brazier and a wooden sentry box. His job was to make sure the red paraffin lamps marking the works burned brightly all night. In foggy weather they used oil flares as the flickering orange flame was more visible.



A Well's unbreakable flare No. 18.

[Stanley]

The council owned the gas works so coke was the preferred fuel for heating schools. At Hope Memorial, in addition to the CH boiler (Big black cast iron pipes all round the building) we had a large open coke fire in the main hall.

[Stanley]

In winter the crates of school milk were stacked in the hearth in front of the big fire. I don't think that would happen these days!

[PanBiker]

The council owned the gas works so coke was the preferred fuel for heating schools. At Hope Memorial, in addition to the CH boiler (Big black cast iron pipes all round the building) we had a large open coke fire in the main hall.

When I was at Gisburn Road Junior School in the early 60's, the only time I can remember it being closed for lessons was was in the winter of 62/63 when the coke delivery could not get through. The school was still open and all staff in place but it was just too cold for lessons in the classroom without heating. It was decided that all kids should turn up everyday in winter woollies and wellies with their sledges until further notice. Everyone turned up for registration then we would set off. We spent everyday on Loughber, Bob Prestons or King Hill. The local hills were full of teachers and kids as most of the other schools were in the same boat. Never a thought of sending kids home, lots of mums and dads were out at work although they did let any home where they knew that mum was at home. I still used to go home for dinner but back out with my sledge in the afternoon.

[Stanley]

That was a bad winter. I was out on the tramp right through it all and looking back it was miserable! I look at how far less severe conditions bring us to a standstill these days and wonder how they would have regarded that bad spell. It was so cold you had to take your own water into transport cafés , all the water pipes were frozen.

[Stanley]

One thing you learn over the years is how variable our weather is. I set off for the Mull of Galloway on a clear morning, I was delivering a load of calves to Drummore and picking up 16 cattle at Ayr market, a nice day's work. As I passed through Kendal it was bright sunlight but cold and a man was painting a shop front on the main road. Four miles up the road I was in six feet deep drifts on Shap. I turned round and went round the coast to get round Shap. I was the only English wagon to get into Ayr that day, stayed the night there and came back the following day. You can never be sure what you are going to come across.....

[Stanley]

Almost every form supplies protective clothing and high visibility wear these days but in the old days you wore clothes that came from your own wardrobe. The Sunday suit became your work wear. I can remember steel workers in the 1960s dressed in sports coats and cloth caps as they were bombarded with flying lumps of molten iron. If you had workwear you bought it yourself and high visibility was unheard of.

[Stanley]

The sale of ex-army clothing after WW2 was a boon for the workers. Workwear soon included BD blouses, the greatcoat and the ubiquitous leather jerkin. Ex army bivouac tents were also very popular. Hugh Dalton, the Labour chancellor in the 1945 government used part of the proceeds from the sale of ex army material to fund a heritage fund which in 1992 became the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

[PanBiker]

I remember my dad getting an ex army tent. We went camping one summer in the 50's up on the side of Weets in the field above Eric Parsons farm at Moor Close. Bacon from Jack Bennett's, laid away eggs and fresh milk from the farm. Camp fire and a Primus stove, proper camping. I remember we had a massive thunderstorm early one evening and my Mum and sister bolting back down Esp Lane and home. I stayed with my brother and Dad. The tent turned most of the water through the night but we did have a bit of a run through with the separate ground sheet.

[Tizer]

I think I've still got a wooden ammunition box in the garage, which we once used as a toolbox. My camping started out like your's, Ian, with an ex-army tent and separate groundsheet, but not with my parents, they never risked camping! I remember camping that way along the south coast with one of my mates, and four of us once camped in such a tent for a week on the upper slopes of Cairngorm. We slept across the tent with our heads pointing uphill and would waken in the morning with the foot end of our sleeping bags poking out from under the downward side of the tent...and soaking wet! But it was worth it, especially after walking to the top of Ben MacDui, the 2nd highest mountain in the UK after Ben Nevis. The view were fabulous and I'll never forget them - in crystal clear air and looking north there were mountains as far as the eye could see. Very impressive.

[PanBiker]

I was only about 6 or 7 at the time Tiz, by the time I was 12 like you I was away with my mates. As far as we could beg a ride from parents who might have a car, or as far as we could get on our bikes with the gear. Always camping in the rough, always by a beck or stream and a hole in the ground for the loo. Linton, Malham, Middop, Stock. Not far away but enough for independence and self reliance. Funny thing is I seem to remember more good weather than bad. When I started motorbiking we used to go to rallies most weekends all over the country, all year round as well, still with mates but by then we all had girlfriends on the pillion. Snowman rally used to be good, Peak District in winter, it was aptly named.

[Tizer]

My early camping was in fields or on moorland but the first time I camped in wild woodland I was awake much of the night frightened by noises from the wildlife! I guess there must have been foxes and badgers snuffling around the tent, as well as the haunting sound of owls hooting. A bit scary, even though there was nothing that would eat me!

[Stanley]

My early camping was with the choir from St Paul's on Heaton Moor. Army tents, mess tins and cooking tackle. Transport by local builder's lorry! Derbyshire, Towyn and Cemaas Bay. Didn't realise till 40 years later that the choirmaster was an amateur sex abuser..... I thought he was just assessing how long it would be before our voices broke!

[Stanley]

During the war, because of fuel shortages, old methods of motive power were used. Rag bone men, the Coop and our milk man used horses. The LMS delivered goods the same way. Robinson's Brewery and Nelstrop's flour mill used steam wagons. It was like a time warp!



But I never saw anyone go as far as this.....

[Tizer]

That's a very different version of a `cut and shut' job!

[Stanley]

I suspect it was a bit of a joke.



This was a slightly more ambitious conversion that was evidently street legal because it was running round Earby and Marton for a few years. It ended up in the yard of an out barn at Marton. I have no idea who did it but it would have plenty of power as it was using the original Leyland Comet running gear.

[Stanley]

The blow butter churn. Made in England for the domestic market it enabled you to make your own butter if you could get hold of some cream....

[Bodger]

I seem to recall making butter at home using a jar that you shook end to end, a god past time while listening to Jock, Snowy and Dick, at 6-45 pm on the wireless

[Moh]

I seem to recall making butter at home using a jar that you shook end to end, a god past time while listening to Jock, Snowy and Dick, at 6-45 pm on the wireless

I can still remember the tune for Dick Barton!!

[Stanley]

I think it was 'The Devil Rides out'. Now, how about Children’s Hour with Aunty Mabel and Uncle Mac.....

[Stanley]

One thing that has always struck me is that our reaction to the use of carpet bombing during WW2 was that we were totally in favour and were convinced that when the reports said we had 'bombed marshalling yards' in Germany we believed every word of it. It was only when the whole subject of 'area bombing' was investigated after the war (look for J K Galbraith's participation in this) that we found out that the reason for indiscriminate area bombing was that on the whole, all the air forces had a dismal accuracy record. Even now, while deploring the cost to civilians, I am unsure of what the overall effect was. The practice persisted in other theatres after WW2, see the carpet bombing of Cambodia during the Vietnam war. (read 'Sideshow' by William Shawcross for the full story of this war crime) This is why, even now, when I hear the words 'precision bombing' I reach for a pinch of salt.
What triggered this was the incursion by over-flying Russian 'Bear. bombers yesterday. These are the Russian heavy bombers designed for area bombing. (LINK)