FORGOTTEN CORNERS

[Tizer]

In the Nelson Police Force photo I suppose the man on the front seat on the right of the image was the force's plain clothes detective.

[Stanley]

That struck me as well Peter!



Hardraw Force in 1978 with a good flow. The word for waterfall in the Dales is 'Force' and at one time Hardraw was a favourite trip out for us as indeed it used to be in the days when railway excursions were run out to it and there were large organised picnics. A forgotten corner now we are more sophisticated....

[Stanley]

Hard to realise that I used to drive an AEC Monarch like this with a 2,000 gallon tank on when I worked for West Marton Dairies....
(It was a good motor and I enjoyed driving it.....)

[Stanley]

We also had a 1939 Albion Chieftain with the Albion 4 cylinder oil engine in it. It was famous for the fact that it's maximum speed was 30mph. Here it is in 1968 parked up at West Marton waiting for scrapping as the new Transport Act had set minimum standards for braking and the Albion was incapable of meeting them. Funny thing is it never had an accident while we were running it! My mate Keith Byers once said that it wasn't a job driving the Albino, more of a challenge! He was right, the first time I drove it I did over a mile before I found the trick of getting the 4 speed crash box into top gear.....

[Stanley]

The can dock at West Marton Dairies in the 1960s when the dairy was a busy bottling dairy taking in milk from the farms all round it, pasteurising it and bottling it and then shipping out to retailers anywhere between Burnley and Skipton. We also supplied school and canteen milk.
How management could be so bad as to allow a rational use of resources like that to become uneconomical still defeats me. It was a great shame and is now of course a forgotten corner.

[Tizer]

Tata Steel is set to cut 3000 jobs across the UK and close both blast furnaces in Port Talbot. Coincidentally I've been reading a book on `The Industrial Revolution in Metals (Day & Tylecote, 1991) inherited from my father-in-law. Last night I saw this table and the figures show how Britain was the leader in cementation steel production in the 1840s. The units are tons.



I've posted this photo showing the conditions under which those steel men worked even in recent times. I've kept the caption in for the details.



Photos from `The Industrial Revolution in Metals', eds> Joan Day & R.F. Tylecote, 1991, The Institute of Metals, pages 299 and 300.

[Stanley]

Hot dangerous work Peter.....



Rolling boiler plate at Dan Adamson's boiler works, Dukinfield in 1930. Another heavy steel industry that is long gone.

[Tizer]

Another point made in the Day & Tylecote book was that those enterprising men who developed steel making over the centuries before we'd invented scientists! But also many of them were Quakers who met regularly as a characteristic of their religion and that led to them discussing their latest work and observations as scientists do.

[Steeplejerk]

Did lots of work at Adamsons in Hyde where they pressed the boiler dish ends

[Stanley]

I carted them out of there Tom when I was on the tramp. The other big place for them was Galloway's at Glasgow.



A Dan Adamson Lancashire boiler having its brick setting built round it Most likely early 1930s.

[Tizer]

The old photos remind us that men always wore flat caps or hats in those days, whatever they were doing. It makes me wonder how many children were conceived under a flat cap!

[Stanley]

I don't know Peter but I know that George Hanson from the Moorcock used to blow his nose on his flat cap and it became shiny and waterproof!



One thing that has been forgotten today is that the rakish angle that most farmers wore their flat caps was nothing to do with a fashion statement but down to the fact that they habitually milked cows and one thing you learn very quickly if you are milking is that if you jam your head into the cow's side just above the udder it prevents the cow getting a full blooded kick in! Over time this moulded both the shape of the cap and the angle it sat on your head.



To illustrate that have a look at this image of a group stood outside what used to be the Clarence Club at the bottom of Stoneybank in Earby.
taken out the front of the Clarence Club Earby around 1950 ,the two gents on the right are Harry Hodge(snr) and Bobby Taylor two old Earbyers. Sent by Rosie OGFB.
Look at their caps. I'll bet that Bobby Taylor had milked cows in his career, notice the rakish angle!

[Stanley]

Bancroft boiler being blown down at the start of the Summer break 1977.

Blowing down is a misnomer actually because when you are emptying a boiler for maintenance you blow down as well as up from the safety valve but it is the escape of steam at close to working pressure from a 3" pipe directly to atmosphere that gets the attention. One woman on Manchester Road once told me that her cat always left home for a couple of days when I blew Bancroft boiler down.
In my day water treatment was so good that we didn't need to routinely blow down a boiler completely so as to be able to wash it out as used to be the case in earlier days when many boilers were emptied and washed every weekend. This was very expensive because it took about five tons of coal to heat a new charge of cold water and the boiler settings up ready for work on the Monday.
So boilers blowing down was not as frequent as it used to be and today is a virtual forgotten corner as so many factories no longer have boilers and those that do have better methods of making sure their boilers are clean internally and therefore efficient.

[Stanley]

The day that Bancroft finally died as a working mill. The men from the waterboard watch as we blew the boiler down. As soon as I declared it empty and the fires out they could cut off the mains supply.
Not the happiest day of my life.....

[Stanley]

Part of the Midgely estate maps which are recorded on the site. If people aren't researching these matters evidence like this sinks into oblivion and can even be destroyed if the archives where the original was kept aren't looked after. That's why these forgotten corners are important.
(The 'New Mill' recorded by the map is what we now call County Brook Mill.)

[Stanley]

People look at me askance when I tell them how the weavers at Bancroft loved the job. The shed was such a dirty, noisy place.... But look at this pic of Gwen, one of my weavers in 1978. This woman is not unhappy in her place of work.... They used to say that Bancroft was a holiday camp.
(How many workers could you find today as happy as this? We must have been doing something right.

[Stanley]

The badge of the Barnoldswick Motor Club. Long defunct. The man who once lived in my house,Eddie Spencer, was a leading light.

[Stanley]

A 'Pyrene' fire extinguisher. These used to be very popular especially on public transport. They were filled with carbon tetrachloride which smothered fires but unfortunately was found to be very bad for us when inhaled. There was another reason why they fell out of use. The chemical they were filled with was also used as dry cleaning fluid and the extinguishers were often emptied for that purpose rather than firefighting. As far as I know they are now obsolete and a forgotten corner.

[Wendyf]

The Co-operative Dairy on Stanley Street in Colne. No date but possibly early 20th century, another photo shows the delivery men lined up outside with their horse drawn carts.

421855315_6254773997892345_733723212964925630_n.jpg

[Stanley]

That's an interesting image Wendy. What intrigues me is the fact that the milk cooler is high enough to accept the 17 gallon Railway kits, there are two in front of it. However, in the background I see a 15 Gallon kit and it signifies to me that at the time the image was taken, the Coop hadn't yet standardised on the 10 gallon kits they eventually settled on.



Here's a picture of the lead mine at Cononley. At the time efforts were being made to protect the fabric of the buildings from any further deterioration you can see scaffolding on the engine house.

[Stanley]

Sorry about the quality. This is the engine at Dalton Mills, Keighley, which was built and installed by William Bracewell's foundry at Burnley (Later becoming Burnley Ironworks.) When installed it was reputed to be the largest textile mill engine in the world. If you look carefully here you'll see that the jack gear is missing having been destroyed by an overspeed, you can see the broken spokes. (Running Boggart.) The original intention was to repair it but when it was realised how long this would take the decision was made to scrap the original engine and replace it with two smaller engines made I think by Yates of Blackburn. All a forgotten corner now but in a way, part of the history of Barlick.

[Stanley]

Some important elements of the town's history are almost invisible. This is the back of Hudson's Building at the corner of Lamb Hill with Manchester Road and Church Street. If you look carefully there is a crude head embedded in the wall above the door lintel.



The question that occurred to me was 'Where did it come from?' It looks very old and judging from the style I'd say perhaps Saxon era. The usual way stones like this get embedded in a later house is if there is a ruin nearby that can be plundered. The only such building I can think of near this one when it was built is the remains of Barlick's church, the one that was demolished by the Cistercian monks in the 12th century. So is this head a relic from that site?
All this is conjecture but that's the way you have to go when you come across a mystery like this. Of course it could be a fake but why go to the trouble? I think it's most likely to be a genuine relic of as much older building and our ancient church fits the bill. It's up to us to retain the memory of it and not allow it to be forgotten.

[Stanley]

The remains of the puffer Jenny lodged in a cave on Eigg in the Small Isles. I did this image in 1977 and Some remnants will still be there. It was wrecked in February 1954 when delivering a load of coal to Eigg. Not forgotten by me.....

[Stanley]

The corner of Frank Street and Rainhall Road in 1983..... Who were Ken and Ern? I never did know....

[Stanley]

Alf Watson of Southfield Farm on the Marton Road. Our local racehorse trainer in the last century. Now a forgotten corner.