THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Tizer]

...always had a sticky fly-catcher hanging from the light fitting and carpeted with deaf flies...

Did you play loud music at them?

[Stanley]

Oh dear.... As my right eye recovers it fights with my left one and actually makes things worse because it's still distorted and out of line. I just have to put up with it...
Anyone remember the pineapple chunks that were the standard sanitary defence in the gutters of urinals? In earlier times it was a coat of hot gas tar. I doubt if anyone will remember that!

[Tizer]

Sorry Stanley but I couldn't resist it! I should be ashamed of myself for taking advantage of your eye problem. But I know you're tough enough to cope with cheap jokes.

Those urinals are cleaner than the outdoor ones I had to clean when I worked in a brewery in the 1960s. They had fungus growing all over them and I, as the young sprog lab technician, was given the lovely job of finding something that would clean it off and prevent it happening in future. The brewery workers had great fun at my expense, seeing this lad in a pristine white lab coat disappear into the Gents and come out all grubby and smelly! A formative experience.

[Stanley]

That wasn't a cheap joke, it was a good laugh. I like the idea of deaf flies.....
Cleaning toilets at the mill was Colin Macro's job, the cloth carrier. Occasionally I'd give him a hand by helping him give everything a good bleaching. I was I/C toilet rolls and made myself very popular with the ladies by ordering soft toilet rolls instead of the industrial grade George Bleasdale favoured. One image that is always with me is that when Colin came to me to top up supplies he used to lift the corners of his brat and I'd throw rolls in until he had a good load. I can remember my mother carrying stuff like that in her pinafore. Now there's a word you don't come across much these days!

[David Whipp]

You might not come across pinafores much, but bog roll theft is still rampant! (And we know who to watch out for now, Stanley Challenger Graham...)

Taking on the town's public toilets has led some of us councillors to take a healthy interest in the quality, dispensing and, yes, theft of Barlick's bog rolls!

We've fitted new dispensers for BIG rolls (you'll struggle to get those down your knickers...), but there's still noticeable pilfering.

I have had some inside info and am on the lookout, but if anyone wants to come clean (pardon pun), an amnesty could be arranged.

[Tizer]

David, you could arrange with a manufacturer to make you bog rolls with the Barlick coat of arms as a watermark or printed on so that it would be easier to catch the thieves. Thinks....On the other hand, they might become a collectors' item and disappear even faster...but then you could start selling them and make a profit!

[David Whipp]

Somehow, I suspect the last suggestion will go down the pan...

[Stanley]

I was reminded yesterday of the time when, after starting at Bancroft, I decided it was time we had a car. I found a second-hand Anglebox just like this one and breathed on it. An essential part of the refurb went wrong when I drilled into the main wiring loom and set it on fire... I bought another one and made a good motor out of the two of them. It served us well for about three years but one day when bringing Vera back across Whitemoor after a shopping trip to Nelson she asked me why it was making a funny noise. I told her it was because the chassis pan had broken and the gearbox was dragging on the ground.... Amazing the things we did in those days and thought nowt about it! [I welded the chassis back together and it did another six months.....]

[David Whipp]

The miracle is not that you've survived Stanley, but that your not still banged up for multiple manslaughters!

Can't top Stanley's tale, but am reminded of going to our firms Christmas do with very black fingernails after the back axle packed in on my motor on the day of the event. A call to a mate (it would have been bush telegraph in those days...) and visit to scrap yard later, arrived on time at bash with fresh back axle, change of clothes and grimy nails.

[Stanley]

Good driving David. No motor is safer than the driver....

[David Whipp]

Of course...!

[Stanley]

We always used to say "drive accordingly". When you had a 16 ton wagon that had no brakes, the old Albion at West Marton was one such, they were perfectly legal until the 1968 Transport Act but needed very careful management. For instance, the brakes were so bad that when you got on the straight leading up to Steeton Level crossing you had to start braking over 100 yards before the crossing if you thought they were about to close [And this from a maximum speed of 32mph]. This trained you to think ahead and of course, never tailgate another vehicle. In a modern vehicle with efficient brakes this defensive style of driving has been eroded which is why, even with the best cars and wagons we still see vehicles not being able to stop in time. So a simple fault like the chassis breaking in two was no problem. You assessed the situation and drove accordingly! Little things like losing your clutch pedal were no problem, you just used the accelerator to match gear speeds and carried on. The fastest run I ever did from Lanark to home was done with no clutch. Amazing how much time and drive you lost changing gear the normal way.... Give a modern driver that situation and they would be immobile. I know, it all sounds far-fetched but believe me it was possible.

[David Whipp]

Suppose it helped that there were many fewer cars in that era.

(I'm a little disappointed if I have to touch my brakes; prefer gears whenever I can. Once over, someone followed my over the tops from Barrowford into Barlick and flashed me to stop on Skipton Road - he wanted to tell me my break lights were out... Mind you, I turn into a grumpy git when folk nip into the gap I've left between me and the vehicle in front!)

[Stanley]

As the anglebox gradually deteriorated even further I had to consider a replacement. At that time I sold Raymond Rance a load of roofing timber to finish a contract on the promise he would pay me when he got paid. He never did and refused to pay so I joined with the others and bankrupted him. It cost me £40 but we got nothing back as he and his father had everything in their wives names. Then I met him on the road one day, him in his new car and me in the anglebox. I was not happy.
We weren't using the field much so I made a friend for life by selling it to Young Sid Demaine together with a right of way through Hey farm yard as he was trying to build a bungalow but was told he had not got enough land or a sufficient access for planning purposes. Sid built his bungalow, I bought a brand new Land Rover 12 seater for £4,800....

[David Whipp]

We had to bend the odd planning rule to give Sid his permission... nothing untoward, just application of common sense.

Did you use Landrover to run Raymond off road?

[Stanley]

No, I put Raymond behind me and got on with my life. However, I was once in the Cross Keys for a Labour Party meeting and was having a pint with Alan Parker when we were interrupted by a boomer at the next table telling all and sundry how well he was doing. I realised it was Raymond Rance and I'm afraid I lost it. I went across to the table and told them to ask Raymond about the money he cheated me out of when he went bankrupt and told them the story of how an act of kindness had left me £185 in the red (A lot of money in the 1970s). He never said a word and the jolly party broke up. The whole pub heard it and Alan was impressed! As far as I am concerned he still owes me the value of that load of timber plus interest!
By the way, I was once told that I should be careful about retailing this story but there is no danger. I have all the paperwork, court papers and witnesses who are still alive. It was a lousy rotten trick made worse by the fact that Mrs Rance taught my kids at York Street. I never blamed her, it was all down to Raymond and his dad. Some of us have long memories....

[Tizer]

This trained you to think ahead and of course, never tailgate another vehicle. In a modern vehicle with efficient brakes this defensive style of driving has been eroded which is why, even with the best cars and wagons we still see vehicles not being able to stop in time.

When I was about to start learning to drive in the 1960s my mum gave me a book about driving and it was probably old even then. It began by telling you to always imagine you had a glass of water balanced on the bonnet...so it was probably aimed at Rolls Royce drivers rather than those in an A35! (Do you remember the handbrake on the A35, down by the R.H. side of the drivers seat? We kept having to get it welded back on.)

[David Whipp]

I think it was an A35 van that we used to have. Used for delivering point of lay pullets and for the egg round, it was also the family transport, with us kids in the back. It was our job to watch out for police cars out of the back windows...

[PanBiker]

One Friday night during Barlick holidays back in 1972 we set off on a whim down to Torquay in an A35 van. We had been there the week before on our motorbikes and noted that Slade were playing the following week at the Town Hall. Nowt to do in Barlick at the tale end of the second week of the holidays except stare at an odd pint at the Railway. Six of us piled in and our driving mate who owned the old girl drove all night to arrive in the resort at about 7am on Saturday morning. After a day in the town we saw the Slade gig in the evening which tipped out at about 11.30pm. We went round to the Greek all night cafe for a bit of sustenance and then set off back. We all had to be back at work on the Monday. Our mate Kevin drove half way back up and then had to be relieved as he was falling asleep at the wheel. His mate Charlie who hadn't passed his test at the time drove the rest of the way, we got back into Barlick Sunday afternoon. It was a grey A35 van and did a maximum of about 50 mph downhill with a tailwind but it got us to the South coast and back in 36 hours. I remember flapping the doors in the early hours coming uphill on the motorway trying to get her to go a bit faster, happy days. Our kids don't believe us when we tell them what we got up to when we were 17 and 18.

[Tripps]

The attraction of a van rather than a saloon car was that there was no purchase tax on vans. I think you were allowed to fit a rear passenger seat, but not side rear windows.

We had a mini van in the late 1950's, which I think cost about £360 rather than about £500+ for the equivalent car.
I think I vaguely remember that rear windows could be fitted after a specified time period.

PS - I typed widows for windows at first - good job I spotted that.

[Stanley]

"There is a French Widow in every bedroom". Test your memory on that....
I drove for many miles in the wagon with a Thermos top of tea or coffee on the bonnet, never spilled it.
When I left home in 1978 I had a rush of blood to the head. I sold the Safari for the same price I bought it and bought a new Sunbeam Alpine off Windle Brothers.



Newton bought one at the same time and we both agreed it was the worst car we had ever owned. The main fault was that the front wheel drive self-steered during acceleration and we both had the funny feeling that one day when we steered into a bend it was not going to turn.... It didn't last long....
Many years later Margaret saw the Safari in the car park at the All England Show at Stoneleigh. She told the driver that her dad had bought it new and he said he'd like to meet her dad! He asked what I had done to the chassis because there was no rust at all on it. She told him I had parked it pointing uphill on a bank and filled the chassis with hot cylinder oil! She also told him that three moths after I got it I took the engine out and rebuilt it because I thought Rover had got it wrong. He said the only repairs it had ever had was replacement injectors. I forget how many miles it had done but it was enormous. I should never have sold it....

[Tripps]

""There is a French Widow in every bedroom". Test your memory on that...."

First thing that comes to mind is Flanders and Swan?

[Stanley]

Gerard Hoffnung at the Oxford Union.
I was staying with my mate Roger Perry in London and we got to talking about my lousy Alpine. Roger was a Lancia nut and it turned out he had a high mileage Lancia Fulvia for sale. I made him an offer but he wouldn't sell it to me because he said it had so many faults. I persuaded him it was better to sell it to me with my eyes wide open and my track record as a mechanic. I'd gone down on the train but came back a fully-fledged Lancia owner!



I'd had it for three years when this pic was taken and yes, you're right, it was a rust bucket. Lancias were famous for rust! However, inside it was fine and the reason I still had it was that it was a perfect car to drive. Only a 1.3 engine but it went like stink, cornered as though it was on rails and sounded lovely! Remember that Fulvias were the most successful rally car of all time and there were good reasons for it. It had funny little habits like refusing to start when it was half warm but on the whole was cheap to run, reliable and in the end I did over 100,000 miles in it. One little fact, I know you won't believe this but to the best of my reckoning the factory fitted Michelin X rear tyres did over 160,000 miles before I changed them and even then the treads were OK but the side walls had cracks due to the UV. The back axle was a piece of pipe with a wheel on either end {the Lancia was the first production car with front wheel drive} but here's the funny thing, they were set up to toe in slightly and the front wheels were parallel, the opposite way round to most cars.

[Tizer]

Panbiker's A35 trip to Torquay reminds me of many trips from Blackburn to Devon starting with our summer holidays in the late 1950s, first on a motorcycle combination, then in a hired Mini, followed by various other cars. When I started driving there were further trips with my pals in A35s and Morris Minors. One trip was Blackburn-Brixham-Bournemouth. Breakdowns and mishaps were frequent - failed batteries, jammed starter motors, flat tyres. We got stuck in various places and Weston-super-Mare and Bournemouth come to mind. We were camping and if the car gave problems we could simply pitch tent and stay as long as it took to get the problem sorted. Bournemouth was a good place to be held up - in the summer its parks and beach were always full of French, Spanish and Italian girls enjoying the sun and learning to speak English! We once arrived in Brixham after dark, drove along the beach road to find a place to pitch the tent, parked, climbed over a fence in the dark, got the tent up and slept. When we woke in the morning we were on a golf course in full view of a car park!

[Stanley]

Mrs Fulvia stayed the course well and I still had it in 1982 when I was at Pendle Heritage. I used the New Garage up the lane next to the White Bear for servicing and small repairs. They were good lads and helped me keep her on the road despite the advancing rust. One day when I was up there they told me that they knew of a Fulvia for sale for £100 that had only done 15,000 miles. It had two faults, a single rust hole on one of the doors and a serious oil leak that needed a complete engine strip to cure because the Fulvia engine had a separate crankcase from the block. The leak was caused by the twopenny paper seal bursting if you used the wrong oil and on cold starting in winter it blew the packing.
I bought the red Fulvia and we decided to scrap the old one and shift the engine and gearbox, which were perfect, into it. Remember that this unit had done at least 180,000 miles! While they were on with it I told them to split it and put a new clutch and pressure plate in as it was still running on the original. When they opened it up the lads sent for me and showed me the innards. The flywheel had a lot of holes drilled in it, seemingly at random. I rang Roger and told him about the new motor and when I gave him the chassis number he said it was one of the last batch manufactured and went to the UK. I mentioned the holes in the flywheel and he almost blew his top! He said that he had always suspected there was something different about the engine and the holes were proof that the engine had been race-balanced and breathed on by the same firm that did the rally cars. He said that if he'd known he would never have sold it to me! The only other thing I did was swap the lovely wood and aluminium steering wheel from the old one to replace the new plastic horror.
The red Fulvia was a complete success and I took about 3 more years out of it.



Mrs Fulvia in 1982 at the New Garage in Barrowford. Heading for the great garage in the sky!