THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Moh]

When Dick Barton was off air the Daring Dexters came on - it was about a circus family, we used to go out and swing on the lamp post pretending it was a trapeze.

[Stanley]

Funny, I have no memory of that one Moh.....It mustn't have grabbed me like Dick, Jock and Snowy!

[Stanley]

In the days before TV radio programmes, particularly comedies, were sure of an almost 100% audience. I show my age here. ITMA with Tommy Handley, Jimmy Edwards, Arthur Askey, Harry Korris.... These were the superstars. Anyone remember Worker's Playtime?

[Moh]

I used to listen to it with my grandma. There was also Forces Favourites on Sunday lunchtime when people requested tunes for service personel.

[Stanley]

The radio was so important then... I remember 'Monday Night at Eight o'clock' , the introduction was "We stop the mighty roar of London's traffic"... The Nine o'clock news each night was obligatory. We had reports of bombing raids on Germany and I remember thinking that the town of 'Marshalling Yards' must have been very important because they seemed to bomb it every night!

[Stanley]

I've got radio matters in mind.... Can anyone remember when Wilfred Pickles was tried as a news reader but rejected on the grounds that his accent was not up to BBC standards? Also, can you remember when to reassure listeners the news reader always started by saying "Here is the news and this is Alvar Liddell (or whoever the announcer was) reading it"?

[Tripps]

I saw Wilfred Pickles once, lunching in a pub in Manchester. I read a story much later that being a true Yorkshireman he always paid for such visits with a cheque, even for a small amount - knowing that quite a few would be kept as a souvenir of the occasion, and never cashed. Can't be true can it?

[Stanley]

Wouldn't put it past him! Do you remember "Give him the money Mabel". Can't remember the name of what I think was the first programme to give money prizes. Do I remember "A penny on the drum!".....?

[Stanley]

It was Barney, not Mabel. I looked it up on Wiki....

"His most significant work was as host of the BBC Radio show Have A Go, which ran from 1946 to 1967 and launched such catchphrases as "How do, how are yer?", "Are yer courting?", "What's on the table, Mabel?" and "Give him the money, Barney", delivered in Pickles's inimitable style. He appeared in the show with his wife Mabel (née Myerscough, 1906–1989), whom he had married on 20 September 1930, at Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church, Ainsdale, Southport. The series attracted a weekly audience of over 20 million and a mailbag of around 5,000 letters. Contestants could earn £1/19s/11d by sharing "their intimate secrets." In May 1954 he brought the show to television with the programme Ask Pickles which ran until 1956.[3] The show was publicised enthusiastically by the BBC."

[Stanley]

Imagine a radio programme getting an audience of 20 million listeners today.....

[Stanley]

One thing that frequently strikes me is the number of people out in inclement weather in what I would regard as completely inappropriate clothing. Not unusual to see shorts and even shirt sleeves when I am rugged up in my Crombie. I was told once that a problem at schools and other public venues was that heavy outdoor coats were liable to be stolen but this doesn't explain why people are out and about doing ordinary things with hardly anything on. Is fashion more important than being warm and dry? Or am I just getting old.....

[David Whipp]

No comment (brushing snow off my tee-shirt; but not off my snow free legs...).

[Tizer]

How can I word this diplomatically? Most people are now much better insulated then in the past, even if they walked about naked.

[David Whipp]

Here! Here!

(In more than one sense!)

[plaques]

Richard Dawkins suggested that the reason for apes becoming 'naked' was down to sexual attraction. He didn't say which sex started the ball rolling (no pun intended), probably both in equal measure. Donning a crombie as against wearing shorts may have Freudian implications but I think its damned good common sense.

[Stanley]

P, I'll go with that! I've done my share of sexual attraction, on the whole, the Crombie causes less trouble. Time for a notorious pic I think....



Flying my kite at Laguna Beach. Only 34 years ago...... Speedo and a pipe......
A quotation from a Bernard Shaw play comes to mind, speaking of a woman one of his male characters says; "She has about her the remains of a fine woman"......

[Tizer]

Perhaps Stanley could look like that again...take a look at this report on `The art of before-and-after pictures'. The difference between the two pairs of photos is only two hours!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazin ... r-31638187
(Although I wish they'd displayed the photos in the correct order - it looks like the man turned into a woman and vice versa.)

[Stanley]

I doubt it Tiz.... Those days have long gone.....

[Stanley]

I was once told that up to the age of 40 we have the face we were born with, after that we have the one we deserve. I suppose this applies to bodies as well.... Oh Dear!

[Stanley]

That reminds me of something my mother used to say when we were going round with a miserable face on. "If you go out in an East wind with that face it will stay that way!"

[Stanley]

Public transport in Stockport in about 1950. I used this service for many years to go to school and old-fashioned as it looks, it was a very efficient system. This tram is heading up Wellington Road, south towards Hazel grove, the terminus of the line. Heading north the tracks extended into Manchester, I suppose this was over 15 miles. In the days when car ownership was rare, this was an essential service which shaped industry and the growth of the suburbs.

[Stanley]

We walked a lot more in 1950 than we do now. My mother thought nothing of setting off pushing the pram to visit her sister seven miles away at Dukinfield. Then she walked back! Walking distances like this were common, she wasn't eccentric, just poor.

[Tizer]

People in this village used to walk that distance to visit their relatives on Sundays in the local town. I don't know if the townies did the same!

[Stanley]

I think they would do Tiz, it was the only way you could get there! There's a story about Blind Jack of Knaresborough (Yorkshire) the famous road builder. He set off to walk to London and was offered a lift in a carriage by a local magnate who was going there as well. Jack refused politely giving as his excuse the fact that he was in a hurry.... He knew he'd be faster on foot than by carriage....

[Stanley]

Can anyone remember when hand carts were a common sight on our streets? Some rag bone men still used them as late as the war years. Small builders and other tradesmen used them. Walt Fisher talks of going with the handcart to the Foundry at Ouzledale mill on Longfield Lane to collect castings. See his transcripts in the LTP. This was after the Great War.