THE FLATLEY DRYER

[Stanley]

The Hoover Dustette?
I have a story about Hoovers. During the war when my dad was working all the hours that God dent on war production at General Gas Appliances at Audenshaw they were making all sorts of things completely outside their normal sphere from 25lb practice bombs and Mills Grenades to complete frigate deck sections. One big item was a large flare casing for the RAF and one day he took my mother's Hoover to the works on a 'temporary basis' to use for cleaning welding slag out of the cases, she never saw it again and it wasn't until after the war she got a Hoover again! One of the small sacrifices that had to be made I suppose.

[Whyperion]

The Hover Dustette , ideal for the woodworking workshop and nearly handy for the car. http://www.vintagehoover.com/minordustette.htm Bags still available , I have two ( somewhere , skip finds ) the handle of one melted and distorted but still works , just dont use in the rain. The bags are held on with a springy circular coil that fits into a groove. When the paper bag gets too full the dust can fill the fabric bag and gum up the zip .

The carpet sweeper has had assorted makeovers , I think JML market one , and from and handy catalog company a selection can be on offer. Mums one is called a Zoom Broom.

[Stanley]

I heard a report that pawn shops are experiencing a resurgence of demand for their services. Not surprising as families experience pressure on their income. One of the things that struck me when I was doing the interviews for the LTP was the universal approval for 'Uncle'. I didn't hear a single criticism of the system, it was seen as a life-saver. I wonder whether one of the other results of austerity will be more 'make do and mend' and the trade in second-hand household goods?

[Stanley]

Eddie Mair is doing a prog on R4 this week on SOS Messages. Long ago the BBC used to broadcast messages to alert people on holiday etc. that they needed to get home as someone was ill. The only time the BBC ever broadcast to one person.

[Whyperion]

I always thought they were coded messages to the british secret services.

[Stanley]

Anyone remember Lord's carpets? Big news at the time.... (LINK)

[EileenDavid]

Our first fitted carpet at home was by Cyril Lords. The pile was like the berber carpet of today from what I remember, but better I suppose than lino and a carpet square. Used to get home from school and all the furniture would be in the back garden, the carpet over the line after being battered. Mam must have been very strong to carry it all out. Eileen

[Wendyf]

New carpets always used to have loads of loose fluff, I can still remember the first fitted carpet we had laid in the sitting room (or lounge as we called it). My brother & I played for hours with Dinky lorries collecting up the fluff. The lorries were yellow and black like the Arnold Laver timber lorries as my Dad worked for Arnold Laver's.

[Tripps]

I still remember the TV jingle -

"This is carpet you can afford by Cyril Lord!!"

[Stanley]

Isn't it funny how some things stick in your head. Does anyone remember the days when we had more than one football pool? Vernon's springs to mind. On thing that always impressed me about the advertising was that the pools were compelled to publish, each week, how much of the total stake had been absorbed by administration and profit. If my mind serves me right it was always around 27%. What a good idea if all charities and lottery companies were forced to do the same thing today.

[Whyperion]

Vernon's used to be cheaper per line than Littlewoods , but payout less , Zetters were the cheapest. Apparently an internet search seems to show its all done on line now apparently all three companies almagamated in 2009.

You can buy the central tower of the former Vernons building for £2.5m


London had a Routemaster in all over Vernons Advertising colours this is a model of it.

Leeds just a tram.

[Stanley]

Watched 'Get Carter' again last night and was reminded of the days when we had small stickers on the backs of cars to warn following motors that we had disc brakes and could stop quicker then them. This reminded me of the situation during the war when the American Army had GM six-wheelers with air brakes and they had to fit red and white notices on the backs of the wagons "Warning! Air Brakes!" after several accidents where following motorists were caught out by how good these brakes were.

[Whyperion]

With depiction Signs on buildings mostly being confined to pubs nowadays , in Barnoldswick I note at least one on a shop

[Whyperion]

I thought it was a warning for when the air reservoir ran out and you were left with no brakes

[Stanley]

How would a sign on the back of the wagon help? The driver had air pressure gauge or gauges in more complicated systems and usually a warning light. On the AEC Mercury it was slightly different. If your air pressure dropped a cut out metal sign slowly rose from a case in the bottom of the windscreen saying STOP!

[Stanley]

Wire bound fire-lighters made with four sticks of kindling enclosing a bundle of fuel soaked shavings. Anyone remember them?

[Stanley]

Rediffusion popped up in Forgotten Corners. Anyone remember the box on the window cill that gave you the radio and TV?

[Big Kev]

When I got married (1981) we had a flat, in south east London, which had Rediffusion cable tv and radio. You could rent a tv to hook up to it for £4 a month. You changed channels using a knob attached to a box in the wall.

[Big Kev]

I thought it was a warning for when the air reservoir ran out and you were left with no brakes

My understanding is that the air held the brakes off, if you run out of air you were going nowhere (happened to me once).

[Stanley]

Kev, that was true for systems that used the Westinghouse principle, first used on railways where vacuum held the brakes off against a spring and the brakes were applied by breaking the vacuum by allowing air at atmospheric pressure into the system. The great virtue was that it was fail-safe. The early air brakes were simply a diaphragm that put the pressure on the brakes when compressed air was admitted to the system, good brakes but if the pressure fell you were in trouble. Later on, in modern braking systems the spring brake was reintroduced. Powerful springs locked the brakes on and they were held off by compressed air. These systems were once more fail-safe and the last outfit I had was spring brakes on all four axles. No handbrake, the parking brake was a simple valve that opened the system to atmospheric pressure. In other words, the true Westinghouse principle. I suspect that it was the price of licensing the system that prevented the far safer system being used from the start of air brakes.
There was another variation introduced to improve hydraulic brakes on petrol-driven vehicles. Clayton Dewandre introduced a servo which augmented the pressure on the master cylinder using the vacuum created in the manifold when your foot was off the accelerator and the butterfly valve closed. With the advent of diesel engines there was no manifold vacuum and so an engine driven exhauster was fitted. On some wagons like the old Albions vacuum cylinders were used on individual brakes. I think the Bedford TK was the first wagon to be fitted with a compressor and an air actuated servo on the master cylinder of the hydraulic brake system. Looking even further back there were some attempts to introduce a servo in rod brake systems using the torque effect when the brakes were applied and the axle twisted under the load but they were never very successful.
I have a story about that.... I once saw a wagon that had rod brakes and was fitted with a trailing axle to convert it to a six-wheeler. These trailing axles often incorporated a radius rod which acted as a stay to prevent the axle rolling and locking the brakes on a light application. This rod had broken and when the driver applied the brakes the trailing axle locked and ripped the axle out from underneath the wagon converting it to a normal four wheeler with a long overhang! The funny thing was that the driver had driven quite a long way with very light steering! This was reported at the time in Motor Transport.

[Stanley]

What happened to dried egg and dried apple rings from Canada which were valuable additions to our diet sixty years ago. Dried egg was good stuff as long as you didn't try to make scrambled egg out of it! Lovely additive for cakes. Can anyone remember Snoek and whale meat?

[Whyperion]

I have used powdered egg in some cake recipes, (and I have made omelettes ok from it - I added a drop of milk to the mix ). On an industrial scale I used to have to buy in
boxes of powdered egg white ( for making a marshmallow base ) , 10 * 25KG boxes ( inner poly liner ) of it , and powdered eqq yolk for wafer biscuits 20 * 25kg boxes ( we made more wafers than marshmallow base ) .

[Stanley]

Can you remember those plastic birds that dipped their beaks in a glass of water? How long is it since anyone saw one?

[Nolic]

There used to be one in the window of the sweet shop/tobacconists on Albert Road just opposite the junction with Ellis Street. Was that Nobletts? Nolic

[Stanley]

At one time I doubt if there was a bar in England that hadn't got one on the back shelf with the optics. Then there was the Lava Lamp....