THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

Whatsapp was on fire yesterday from Oz (all good news) and I know I bang on about this but what a miracle it is. Conversations in real time with other people, distance no object. It's a modern miracle..... (Yes, the smart phone was a good idea!)

[Stanley]

As many of you know, I post my interpretation of the Met Office weather forecast on the site each morning based on my local knowledge. Some people take very little interest in weather unless they get wet but all my life I have been doing jobs where weather was important. Old habits die hard!

[Stanley]

Politics is on top of my agenda today and I can't remember a time, ever, in my life when I had less confidence in the way things are going. In terms of world peace we appear to be in a position that is in some ways worse than WW2. Before you demur, think about what is happening in the world today. We are in a hell of a mess!

[Stanley]

I have been trying to remember if there was ever any general application of salt on the roads in wintry weather when I was a lad and I can't remember any. In those days motorists did one of two things in winter. Some laid there cars up in the garage for the winter and often jacked them up on blocks to preser4ve the tyres. This was the origin of the old system of 3 monthly var tax periods. Others who had to be out on the roads changed their tyres in Autumn for 'winter tyres'. These had far heavier tread patterns and were designed for snow. One of the consequences of the laying up of cars in garages was that come Easter, many cars were taxed again and taken out on the road for a day out in the better weather. On hills like Sawley Brow it wasn't unusual to see three or four cars parked on the road side with their bonnets up and clouds of steam rising from boiling radiators.

[Bodger]

Dont remember the salt, but recall horse drawn wooden snow ploughs, drivers carrying shovels & a bag of ashes in the boot, the local farmer used to cut slots in old tyres and put them over the tyres that were fitted

[Tizer]

I found this web page on road salt which says: "Because of its local resource, Detroit was the first city in the world to apply salt to its roads in 1940". LINK

[Stanley]

Wooden snow ploughs in Bavaria. Apart from the back section, just like the one that used to sit in the lay-by between the Lanehead pub and the water works on the top road. Ticker, the bloke who drove the Barlick Council wagon for years once told me about setting off with it on the top road one morning and when they got to Standing Stone gate where they turned back to Barlick they found they had lost it on the way there and had to go back for it!

[Tripps]

I'll put it on this thread as that's where it was first mentioned.

I said I'd been looking at Lend with Care website. Well last night I took the plunge, (sober, I may add), and made a loan to one of their candidates. I chose this lady - largely because she seemed a good cause, (in fact nearly all of them do), and she needed an amount to be fully funded, that I was prepared to lend.
So she will have her loan by Christmas, and I get a warm glow.

Happy Christmas and good luck with the new pigs - Bue thi Dieu.
I may even get the money back - but I'm not counting on it.

Time for an update All looks good at the moment. I had a payment in December which was a refund of the currency fluctuation contingency amount which they add to each loan. Yesterday I got the first repayment of the loan on schedule, and as agreed. Actually the amount remains with the charity in my account. That's fine - I can re-lend or or withdraw it as I choose. I will re-lend it when it reaches a meaningful amount. All good.

Time for an up date I think for anyone interested. . . . . .

All has been well with this venture. This lady has made all repayments correctly and on time. Now about a year later, I've decided to do it again. More pig farming, and in Vietnam again. This time to fund a small gas producing device. (I think). This lady is called Bui thi Toan. I'll find a link for you to see her later. (hopefully). I've done the same as last year and found someone with a required an amount that I'm happy to donate, and the balance in my account from the repayments plus another donation will complete the deal.

PS Here's the link Bui thi Toan

And here's how I prefer to see pigs (Not good viewing for vegetarians) Barbecue

[Stanley]

I think that's great David. I like the look of the lady. What a practical way of helping people!

[Stanley]

Thinking about helping people.... All my life the Salvation Army has been the one constant source of help for the needy. They still are today and I have always had a soft spot for them.

[Stanley]

A name from my childhood came into my head this morning for some reason, Travis Brow in Stockport. I looked at a modern map of the area and not surprisingly it has changed altogether. They have driven a motorway through my memories!

[Stanley]

38 Norris Avenue, Heaton Norris, Stockport. (The house on the right) Built in 1935 this was where I spent the first nine years of my life. For some reason my mind has been returning to my old haunts of late, old age I suppose! One thing about this house that I remember very well was that when I lived there the road wasn't made up. The developer had gone bankrupt before the road was done and it was not tarmacked until after WW1. In 1936 when I was born these were state of the art houses. They had a garage and a bathroom! But still open fires and washing in a dolly tub with a hand wringer. I remember the wringer was in the small kitchen and when not in use folded down and became a table with a scrubbed wooden top. I don't know what they cost in 1935 but will guess at well below £500, a large amount in those days of course but barely comprehensible to youngsters today....
I remember that when Mrs Nixon in the left hand house lost her husband my dad bought the house off her and rented it back at 7/6 a week. I was still collecting that rent until the 1950s when my dad sold it at a very advantageous rate to my sister Dorothy when she got married in the late 1950s. Can you imagine a rent like that (37p) today. Things have certainly changed!

[Stanley]

In 1945 we moved into a large Victorian terraced house in Napier Road, Heaton Moor. It was enormous and my dad bought it off his mate Harry White for £850. Later made into flats and now demolished.

[Stanley]

The family's next move was into more modest accommodation!



This was where I started my 'Open All Hours' phase in 1956........

[Stanley]

In 1959 we made what I have always regarded as our best move. Hey Farm was a perfect home for all of us, particularly the Kids! It was the best adventure playground in Barlick. £2,200 for a house and seven acres including ingoings. Unbelievable in today's housing market.

[Stanley]

Looking at Black Friday and thinking about the £1.5Trillion of personal debt in the UK I think back to the days when 'shopping' was a chore and the purchases were overwhelmingly necessities, most people were too poor to think of luxuries and there was not the imperative of mass advertising of fripperies. There was another factor, ordinary people had no easy access to credit. I look at the picture today, even the worst credit risks can borrow spot cash at 1300% APR and there are credit cards available as well for all at 40% APR. Given a social ethos where worth is measured by the ability to consume is it any wonder that so many people are overspent. I consider myself lucky in that I was reared at a time when the Micawber Principle was supreme and if you were really good you ensured that at New Year you went on into the next year debt free apart from long term liabilities like mortgages.
Am I hopelessly old fashioned? Or is my instinct correct, that we have gone badly wrong somewhere down the line. Is there a different way to run the economy? I know the answer, it is to institute progressive taxation and curbs on expenditure by both government and the public but how would any political movement fare that espoused those principles? I think we all know the answer to that one!

[Big Kev]

Apart from a mortgage which hasn't got long to go, I consider myself lucky to not be a contributor to the £1.5 trillion.

[Tizer]

One of the reasons we see so many people going to food banks and needing financial help now is that not only do they have debt but they don't have any savings, they have no `buffer' to fall back on if they lose their job or a salary payment is missed or goes astray or the car breaks down or a washing machine or, or, or.... . As well as having no buffer, a lack of savings means no way of accumulating money via interest (admittedly difficult at present but it will change) and of taking advantage of unexpected cheap deals and special offers without going into more debt.

[Stanley]

Interesting subject and one that has always intrigued me. I have never had money earning interest apart from later years when my small private pension pot would benefit. My best financial friend has always been a wife who was brilliant at sticking to a tight budget and high inflation. The latter is surprising I know but over the years we managed to stick to our budget even in the worst years of devaluation and 20%+ price inflation. At the same time the value of our main asset, Hey Farm, was rocketing up every year and the loan repayments stayed the same, £15 a month. In the early years this was 50% of our household income but as wage inflation progressed that percentage fell. The farm cost £2,200 in 1959 and we sold it in about 1982 for £34,000. That was a greater increase in real terms than the rise in cost of living. I always though the money men were missing a trick with mortgages, the capital that constituted the debt stayed the same while the value of the asset went up..... Always a mystery to me.....

[Stanley]

I have remembered the infamous Wilson speech about 'The pound in your pocket' at the time of the 1967 devaluation. Some of us took that with a pinch of salt and were proved right over the subsequent years as the cost of living rose steeply. When I was at Bancroft our wages were controlled by a Wages Board with heavy Union involvement and I found for the first time in my life I was getting 'Cost of Living' wage increments every three months! No wonder subsequent governments gradually killed off the old wages boards. Amongst other things they guaranteed us things like holiday and sick pay. They were replaced by Contracts of Employment which eventually proved to be no protection and today many people work for flat wages with no overtime increase, no holiday money and no sick pay. Some don't even have guaranteed hours of work. Is what we have to report progress?

[Whyperion]

Interesting subject and one that has always intrigued me. I have never had money earning interest apart from later years when my small private pension pot would benefit. My best financial friend has always been a wife who was brilliant at sticking to a tight budget and high inflation. The latter is surprising I know but over the years we managed to stick to our budget even in the worst years of devaluation and 20%+ price inflation. At the same time the value of our main asset, Hey Farm, was rocketing up every year and the loan repayments stayed the same, £15 a month. In the early years this was 50% of our household income but as wage inflation progressed that percentage fell. The farm cost £2,200 in 1959 and we sold it in about 1982 for £34,000. That was a greater increase in real terms than the rise in cost of living. I always though the money men were missing a trick with mortgages, the capital that constituted the debt stayed the same while the value of the asset went up..... Always a mystery to me.....

Not in 1991 ish, when the outstanding capital exceeded the market value of the property (and still is in some bits of the north)

[Stanley]

Funny how phrases from the past come back to you. Two which pervaded my childhood were 'balance of payments' and 'invisible earnings'. They don't seem to be used as much today. Oh, and then there were 'The Gnomes of Zurich'.

[Stanley]

One of my clearest memories of the war years is the cartoons, especially by a bloke called Fougasse. (LINK)

[Stanley]

These days we are used to large gritting wagons spreading salt on icy roads. In my youth it was a bit different, the dustbin wagons were loaded with salt and drove round with two men in the back spreading salt with shovels as they drove slowly down the road. In the country districts the length-men, who each had a stretch of road to look after year round, had piles of salt in strategic places like junctions and sharp bends. They spread salt on the danger spots when necessary. After the war we gradually saw rotary spreaders towed behind wagons loaded with salt and one man stood in the back shovelling salt into the hopper. Later of course this developed into the mechanised gritter we see today. What next? Heated roads?

[David Whipp]

Think that gives me an intro to mention one of my Liberal predecessors as county councillor for our area - Dr Pickard.

My colleague Tony Greaves recounts the tale of Dr Pickard's suggestion to deal economically with icy roads; he suggested adjustable 90 degree bends on the ends of exhaust pipes. In winter the bend would direct the warm exhaust towards the ground, melting the ice, whilst in summer it would be bent upwards to encourage the noxious fumes away from pedestrians...