THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Big Kev]

I believe a very high percentage of the population are on the spectrum to some degree. I can see it in myself sometimes, feeling slightly 'uncomfortable' if I sit in a different chair. It soon passes but it's there.

[Stanley]

I know exactly what you mean Kev. I am aware that I have what too some people would be very strange attitudes in the hours I keep and my compulsion to stick to routines for everything I do. I can give convincing reasons to 'prove' that this is a product of my life and work experience but even so, I recognise what the lady was talking about. I suspect that like you, I can live with it and won't let it spoil my life.
Now, on the matter of bases for the engines. If you're passing a woodyard that is open feel free to spend money on my behalf, you will of course be more than adequately reimbursed!

[Tripps]

I believe a very high percentage of the population are on the spectrum to some degree. I can see it in myself sometimes, feeling slightly 'uncomfortable' if I sit in a different chair. It soon passes but it's there.

I really believes you are correct in that. I've given it quite a bit of thought lately. Perhaps it's just a feature of being human?

[Big Kev]

I'll keep my eye open for some, got to finish up my shift rotation before I get to venture anywhere further than my dining room or garden

[Stanley]

Good lad Kev....
David, when Susan and Mick visited yesterday we had a conversation about autism, they both have experience with it as carers and counsellors. They too believe that some degree of autistic behaviour can be detected in most of us and say that when they are meeting their charges for the first time always take a very careful look at the parents. Like the lady in the radio programme they say that there are almost always signs of some kind in one of the parents.
Looking at the pictures Margaret is sending me of glamping as they drive north up the west coat of WA I remember my first experience of camping with the choir when I was a lad. Our tents were all ex-WD, heavy canvas and tent poles. Even a bell tent for cooking. Everything weighed a ton, I remember we had a local tradesmen's lorry to take us to Wales and bring us back. If it was wet the weight increased and everything had to be dried before it was put in store for next time. That appears to be Flatley Dryer country now.

[Tizer]

We too listened to the programme interviewing the lady studying autism and found it interesting. Our view too is that everyone is somewhere on `the spectrum' of autism. We should teach this so that others would be less likely to criticise if they felt they were part of it. At present it's another of those `othering' topics where people think an autistic person is a failed human.

[Stanley]

Exactly the point that Susan was making Peter.
A stray thought came into my head yesterday. How many people will instantly recognise 'It Beats as it Sweeps as it Cleans!'. That must have been one of the most effective sales slogans of all time.

[Stanley]

I doubt if this advert was as successful!

[Stanley]

Something China said triggered me this morning and I remembered a very widespread 'fact' that was current 50 years ago. It was said that by law a certain percentage of condoms had to have a pin hole in them to keep the birth rate up.
In turn that triggered something else. There was a widely used alternative to condoms, the Rendell's Pessary. (LINK)
Ernie Roberts told me a story about this. He went into the chemist's shop to buy some Rendell's and was so embarrassed by the fact that a lady came into the shop behind him that he whispered his request to the man behind the counter who gave him a packet of Rennie's Indigestion tablets. Ernie paid up and retreated in confusion. He never told me what ensued.
This embarrassment was the reason why the most common source of condoms was at a men's hairdressers and was prompted by the hairdresser at the end of a haircut in a phrase that entered the lexicon; "Something for the weekend Sir?"
It all seems so quaint these days when condoms are even on supermarket shelves.

[Stanley]

I seem to have slipped into the lower regions of late. We had an outside lavatory, a tippler, at Sough when I was open all hours and it used to fascinate me. They were flushed by an earthenware vessel that collected all the waste water from the house and when it was full (about twenty gallons) it pivoted and discharged into the shaft of the lavatory. You got used to it happening when you were about your business in there. Harold Duxbury once told me that he had a man working for him at B&D who was their blocked tippler specialist. He used a big mop head as a plunger that attached to a set of drain rods and was never beaten!



A working Tippler at the Clarion House.

There were horror stories about babies falling down tipplers but I never found an authenticated report. Bit like the same story about babies being dropped in tar boilers when they were being held over them to get the medicinal fumes if they had a bad chest. I have little doubt that the use of the fumes was true and this also happened at the gas works where the fumes at the top of the retorts were reputed to have the same affect and babies were taken down there and up onto the charging floor to get the benefit.
I have triggered off a thought about lavatories and will have to tell you my lavatory brush story...
A tackler and his wife moved into a house in Barlick with an outside lavatory. The man asked his wife shortly after they had moved in if there was anything she wanted and she made a request for a lavatory brush at sixpence because all the neighbours had one hung on the wall in the lavatory. Not long afterwards the tackler told his wife that he was going to have to go back to using paper squares because the brush was too harsh for his bum. (Sorry about that!)
I once lived with a woman who had a bidet in her bathroom but told me she couldn't get on with it. Things improved when I pointed out to her she should sit on it facing the taps, not the other way round. Too much information? Perhaps but I thought it was funny!

[Stanley]

The thing that has often puzzled me about war time Britain was the fact that we never had any problems getting hold of batteries for our flashlights and bicycle lamps. I seem to remember also that for a long time we could still buy rolls of caps for our toy cowboy revolvers. These were narrow paper rolls of paper in small circular boxes that had small amounts of gunpowder in them between two layers of paper. They looked like little dimples on the roll. When struck by the hammer of the pistol they gave a satisfying crack. I see from THIS link that they also made imitation fog signals as well for model railways but I never encountered them. We went one better, my mate Dennis Robinson's father worked on the railway and Dennis occasionally got hold of the real thing, a copper dic about 2" in diameter with a spring clip for attaching it to the rail. We used to go down to the railway and put one on the line than hide waiting for the result. When the train hit the fog signal it exploded and the train stopped. Very exciting and we never got caught!
We used to make our own. You needed a 3/4" nut and two short bolts that fitted it. You entered a couple of threads and then scraped the phosphorous heads off a box of matches into the nut capping that with the other bolt which you screwed as tightly as possible. Then you threw the assembly at a wall until a bolt head hit straight on which resulted in a very satisfactory bang if you had got everything right!
A variation on this was to search the rubbish behind the garage on Heaton Moor Road until you found an old fashioned valve cap. They were aluminium and almost two inches long, about the size of one of those cylinders of CO2 for a Sparklets syphon. Then we went down and had another search behind the Savoy cinema. What we were after was the pieces of 35mm film they threw out when they had cut and spliced a broken film. In those days the film was a nitrate base I think, it was certainly very flammable. You rolled the film up tightly and then inserted it in the valve cap. You now had a very efficient smoke bomb! If you lit the film, it couldn't flare because of lack of oxygen in the cap and so produced large volumes of grey acrid smoke.
Where did we learn to make these things? I can't remember anyone showing me, only making them. We must have been inventive little lads!

[Stanley]

One of the most useful innovations in white goods was the time when top loading washing machines went out of fashion and the front loader came in. This of course enabled the built in washing machine in kitchens and was the end of having to have a free standing machine or one you had to drag out to use it.



We've come a long way from the dolly tub!

[Stanley]

One of the nice things about our dead end back street is that the kids play in it when the weather is fine. They ride scooters, play ball and most popular, chalk all over it. I've heard people complaining about the latter but can't see the problem, one shower of rain and it's clean.
What strikes me is the absence of what in my childhood were common activities, whip and top, skipping ropes, marbles and the games where you chalked squares and had to hop through them touching all of them. Some activities had died out by the time I was old enough to play, the major one was bowling hoops.



These lads are using old bicycle wheels.
When did you last see a hula hoop?

[Cathy]

I reckon I last played with a hula-hoop in the late 60’s. Great for exercising, but we just thought it was a fun thing to do back then.

[Stanley]

Did I hear once that hula hoops were found to be bad for backs?

[PanBiker]

I think that might be a rumour put about by folk that can't do it or already have a bad back. I think the motion required is a pretty standard exercise for core strength and suppleness. Gymnasts use them to demonstrate some skills, Sue does Pilates and Yoga, maybe she could comment

[Marilyn]

After suffering a ruptured disc, I could not envisage hoopla hooping ever again...
I put a pin in my Pilates exercise ball and threw it in the bin. I cannot risk further injury. I count myself lucky to be able to put one foot in front of the other these days. Stairs are still a challenge every darn day. ( I was told I may become paraplegic, so I count all blessings and don’t tempt fate).

[Stanley]

I am with Maz on this one. If you have a damaged back you get to be very careful. It's the only way you survive.

[Marilyn]

Here Here!

[PanBiker]

Indeed but if you are fit and healthy it's a good exercise. It's doesn't damage your back it helps to keep it in order.

[plaques]

The whole point of hula hoops is that they were sexy. Turkish delights and all that. Today they're out of fashion because young ladies may not fit into them or the vibrations from the out of balance gyrations could be mistaken for earth quakes.

[Marilyn]

Ooooooo...Plaquey! You need a whipping for that comment.
Panbiker...I WAS fit and healthy, until I stood up from my chair one night and BANG! Instant devastation! Life as I knew it was gone. Could happen to anyone...suddenly Ambulance/hospital/Cat Scan/MRI/Operation....and very very bad news.
It happens!
Then you really learn to respect your spine, I can tell you. ( I used to be a nurse, hauling men up in their beds etc...I was a strong woman...once)

[Tizer]

Plaques, you're running onto dangerous ground there! A rather sweeping generalisation and rather unfair to the many ladies who look after themselves...

[Marilyn]

We had to sell our kayaks, as I could no longer paddle.
We had to sell our van because I couldn’t take the rigours of travel.
I am fighting to keep climbing the stairs in our home so we don’t have to sell it.

[PanBiker]

Panbiker...I WAS fit and healthy, until I stood up from my chair one night and BANG! Instant devastation! Life as I knew it was gone. Could happen to anyone...suddenly Ambulance/hospital/Cat Scan/MRI/Operation....and very very bad news.
It happens!

I am fully aware of that Maz, my comment was aimed at Stanley's generalisation that Hula Hoops could be bad for backs. Lots of things are bad for you if you are not up to the usage but if you are it's fine.