OneGuyFromBarlick

I told you they were a strange lot in Sheffield!

I wouldn't want to be the one doing the sweeping up!

The poor beast looks underfed to me....

Worth noting that during WW2 many steam wagons that had been retired and replaced by motor vehicles were brought back on the road to avoid fuel shortages. I remember that Nelstrop's Flour Mill and Robinson's Brewery, both in Stockport used their old wagons until after the war.
Another strategy was the use of town's gas in a large flexible bag on top of vans which flapped alarmingly and that perhaps accelerated wear and leakage, they didn't last long.
The North Western Road Car Company had a different solution. They had small trailer behind the bus which carried a small gas producer running off charcoal and sawdust. The engines used the gas and they had them for quite a while.

We forget now how common the use of producer gas and its near neighbour, water gas, was right up to the 1960s when we first started to get North Sea Gas coming ashore. At General Gas where my dad was works manager they made the gas for the furnaces themselves as it was cheaper than town gas and anyway it's doubtful whether the local works could have kept up with the demand.
Berry's wood yard at Sough made gas from sawdust to run their gas engine until the producer corroded and had to be abandoned. By then North Sea Gas had come in so they went on the mains. This was OK for a few years until the gas company put a new meter in and consumption shot up! The old meter had been seriously under recording for years.

Newton was a great fan of gas engines which, before the advent of mains electricity, were the main choice for anyone who needed economic power on a smaller scale. Many were used to drive dynamos to give DC power to places like the Co-op or the Majestic Cinema. Smaller ones were used for workshops or even chip shops to power the peelers. Here's Newton at the Anson Museum at Poynton near Stockport. If you're ever in the area call in and have a look....

Looking back one thing that struck me is that we have lost one of life's great pleasures for a man. Not being sexist ladies, it was having a proper wet shave with a sharp open razor by an expert barber. I've had them and it is one of the most relaxing and luxurious feelings I have ever had. Does anyone do it these days?

Stanley wrote: Not being sexist ladies

Perhaps you don't remember the verse in Jake Thackray's song 'Sister Josephine'
"Admittedley her hands are big and hairy
And embelished with a curious tatoo
Admittedly her voice is on the deep side
And she seems to shave more often than the other sisters do"

When I was on the tramp and in Glasgow early morning after driving all night I used to book in at Jimmy MacAll's clearing house to get a return load and then go into Enoch Square to the BA departure lounge at the station for a wet shave and a coffee. I forget how much it was, not much, and it set you up for the day. They never worried about our dress as it was early in the morning. Those were the days!

My razors. The old black one was my dad's, the Gotta is one I bought new in Barlick. Notice that the Gotta has a nick in the blade, one of my daughters sharpened a pencil with it......

Something to deal with the other end...an Ever Ready Safety Corn Remover.

I have one as well Tiz, and spare blades! Never had a corn, I see they are still advertising corn plasters on TV so there must be a big market! Appears to be mainly women wearing high heeled fashion shoes... Serves 'em right if they are stupid enough to treat their feet like that. Put them in clogs I say!!!
Seriously, clogs were the healthiest footwear ever. Plenty of room so air was being pumped in and out as you walked and in effect you were walking on a polished wood surface.

Stanley wrote:I have one as well Tiz, and spare blades! Never had a corn

Perhaps corn removers are like homeopathic remedies and crystal healing...once you've paid out money for them the problem suddenly goes away.

''one of the most relaxing and luxurious feelings I have ever had. Does anyone do it these days?''

One of the barbers in Hoylake used to do it until the other month. He stopped doing it as there was little demand and when someone did come in wanting it, the time to do it would lead to a backlog (as demand meant he couldn't justify the staff). A barbers in Meols next door and only a spit for me, run by Turks, does offer it. Its 12 quid for a 'Turkish' wet shave. Marvellous

And...my sister-in-law's husband offers it in his barber shop in Tetbury, Glos!

Richard Broughton

I once had one for 6d in an old country town when I was on the tramp. Can't remember the village but it wasn't a million miles from Tetbury.
The best experience I can imagine (at my stage in life) would be for someone to arrange for me to be taken into a good Turkish bath, shepherded through the whole treatment finishing up with a wet shave. Nearest I ever got to this was at Ringway many years ago when my Polar Flight to LA was delayed three hours. While everyone else was complaining I went into the barber's shop and asked the man to give me everything he did. He said it was the first time in his experience anyone had asked for that. It was wonderful and about a tenner I think. I was a new man when I came out.....

Before the days of washing machines, commercial laundry services were big business. Barrett's Steam Laundry here in Barlick and in Stockport I remember the Bagwash Laundry. Many household used their services, it wasn't restricted to the rich. Whewn I was Open All Hours at Sough we used Barrett's and I remember the delivery driver, a small active character who always had either a joke or a horse worth backing. I can't remember his name but he was a genuine character!

Lynne Wisemans dad used to drive for Barret's they lived on Valley Road. Her mum was Agnes but I can't for the life in me think of her dad's name. He was smallish bloke and sported a rather nice RAF type moustache, not sure if that was from service in WWII or not. He used to take a bunch of us kids for a ride sometimes during the school holidays in the van (Bedford I think) when he was picking up round Barlick. His name is on the tip of my tongue but it won't come.

[hr]

Later: It's come to me, Lynn's dad was Ken Wiseman, ring any bells Stanley?

That's the bloke! A proper character, always ribbing my mother and making her laugh. Apart from doing some of our laundry we were agents for them at Sough.
Another essential trade in the days before plastic was the tinsmith. There were several in Barlick and one of their mainstays was curing leaks in old saucepans and copper vessels. A very skilled trade.



This travelling box for my Primus stove was made by Les, the tinsmith who shared our shop at Rochdale. It was a joy to watch him turning flat sheets of tinned metal into precise shapes. He once had to make two 'lobster back' bends for a ventilator and you wouldn't believe the strange shape of the segments when he cut them out.

When I was an apprentice down at Earby as a TV Engineer, we wore white lab coats. My first job on Monday morning was wrapping up last weeks overalls in brown paper, tied with string and dropping them off at the shop on New Road. I collected our newly laundered, bleached and starched ones so we were all fit for the week. When the laundry shut we swapped to navy blue and lab coats were all washed at home. Lovely, clean smell when first put on from the laundry..

My first experience with lab coats was working in Boot's Chemists and I remember, like you, the folded, starched coats back from the laundry. They had to be perfect for standing behind the counter in the shop and dispensary! Not like the ones I wore when working in a lab, they were usually full of acid holes and coloured stains and I often got into trouble, especially if we had anyone important visiting.

My first white lab coat was when I turned up at Calico Printers at Loveclough with my pristine white coat. Unfortunately for me, all the other lab assistants wore khaki coats, so I stood out like a gleaming new pin. My first trip through the colour shop (where the printing colours were mixed) brought a call of "it's Doctor Kildare" immediately followed by the foreman dashing over and putting 2 hand prints on my coat backside in bright red. The name Doc stuck with me throughout my time there. The white coat gradually changed to the coat of many colours.

Now there's a blast from the past! When I was doing the LTP I did weaving, then spinning at Spring Vale and I wanted to do finishing at Loveclough because I passed it every time I went to SV. Nobody would fund it and we missed a great chance..... If they'd have let me do it we woul;d have had the complete process recorded. Ah well.....

Calico Printers , china, was this the same firm who had a mill in Hyde, known locally as Africa print works ?

Yes, CPA - Calico Printers Association. The group consisted of many mills and the headquarters was on Oxford Road, Manchester, a grand old building. Was it Ashton Brothers in Hyde? Many of the mills were known by their location like Strines and Broadclough at Accrington.

Stanley, it was a pity you missed Loveclough. When I started there in about 1964 I was fascinated by the old fashioned treatments and practices. Often it was more like alchemy than science. Whatever faults occurred the chief chemist (Frank Jones, a lovely fatherly character) had a remedy. For example, mild bleaching with potassium permanganate to remove slight print soiling marks, who would have thought? And part of the bleaching process was done on the "dung range" - a term from when cow dung was used for its enzyme content. As was mentioned in another thread, gills were used as measures, and noggins (0.25 gill) and grains per gallon, rarely grams per litre. I loved it there, just suited my personality! The people were real characters, salt of the Earth. Happy memories.

I worked in Sterling Moulding Materials, pilot plant, in polymer production, a viscosity test on reacting polymer was a 4" test tube inverted and checked against a manual stop watch, if you got it wrong before discharing from first stage reactor to the second stage , you had 2 tonnes of solid polymer in a stirring vessel, think of a mobile concrete mixer without power !