First Visit

We have had a very welcome visit by Frances and the kids. This was fairly easily organised in the spirit of social distancing. It did however contravene the letter of government instructions until modified yesterday. We did this in the spirit of “doing a Dominic”. They entered via our side gate to our patio where we had set up two benches 2m apart with a parasol shaded table between. We had washing bowls towels  etc. set up by our outside tap and the toilet is just inside the back door. Thus equipped we felt very confident that we kept the spirit of restrictions.

Frances is working from home although for this half term period she was planning leave including the day she visited. Alice and Ben are reacting rather variously to lockdown. Alice at 10 is quite self reliant and with her own computer following school worksheets and BBC Bitesize. She is very keen on drawing and had a pad and pencil in hand when she arrived. Her subjects are mainly cartoon figures and her present ambition is to be a cartoon animator when she grows up. In contrast Ben at 8 is rather at a loss. He is not wonderful at following the various online sources on his own and is looking for a lot of support. He is used to playing with Alice when at home but she has reached the stage of wanting some time to herself.

Annette is trying to encourage everyone ( children and grandchildren ) to write about their experiences in the pandemic. She sees this as a valuable family archive. Trying to get Ben to write something wasn’t a success. He managed a sentence and even bribery offers didn’t get more. Alice by contrast readily wrote a bit although she soon got bored. Apparently writing is not yet something Ben is comfortable with.

As it happened they came on a very hot day. While the recent glorious weather has been a nice bonus the day of the visit was perhaps a bit too much of a good thing. We hoped the kids would enjoy the garden but they seemed reluctant to stray too far from us

Like us Frances is part of the Kings College survey program. This was Alison’s idea that we should all enrol. Attempting home exercises Frances has developed a stiff back. Noting this in her daily report she was asked to take a Covid test. As she expected this was negative.

While the kids have been away from school I’ve been supplementing their tuition with quiz’s I’ve complied. It has been Frances and family who have been most positive about these. They apparently tackle them as a family in their evening family hour. This isn’t quite what I originally intended as I was trying to pitch it for the grandchildren themselves. I am very pleased that they have found them interesting and entertaining.

It seems that Frances and family are finding lockdown acceptable. Normally Frances does her grocery shopping online but in the present circumstances she is making weekly supermarket journeys. Led by Alison we have had Zoom chats both as a family and one to one. As might be expected Martin who has been working from his home office for several years has an excellent set up. His camera is far superior being both extra wide angle without apparent distortion and automatically following his face.

We have had interest and amusement following Martin’s hens. In anticipation of his planned house move his friend had passed on a dozen hens and a cockerel. As the house move has been delayed by lockdown they have only managed to accommodate the hens with difficulty. Not only is their present garden quite small it is divided up around their house. Ellen and Alex seem to have adopted the hens as pets to a degree. Ellen has been thrilled to be rearing a chick which was brooded from the flock. What we realise and she doesn’t if the chick is a cockerel then that is likely to cause long term problems. Sexing chicks is difficult and they won’t know for some time.

Frances’ husband Matt works in IT normally in the Department of Justice in Birmingham but has no difficulty working from home which he often does anyway as part of his normal working practice. He is leading a group trying to automate probate records.

Frances works for the library service at Birmingham University. There is anxiety at the University about their future with a reduction expected in the number of overseas students.

After the visit we are very comfortable that we can manage future visits without breaking our shielding while also seeing Frances’s family. She has the advantage she is less than an hour away while Alison and Martin are much further making day trips impossible. It was very nice to have the visit.

Co-op dairy

Between about 13 and 17 I did a paper round. I didn’t earn much but it kept me just solvent. Then we moved house and I had to give up my round. This left me desperate for money but I managed to get a job with the Co-op Dairy in my summer holiday. The intention was that I should relieve the secretary while she took annual leave However I was also relief for the warehouse staff as well and in the event I spent more time in the warehouse than the office.

I say it was a dairy but more precisely it was a warehouse and distribution site for bottled milk; bottles brought in by truck several times a day from Fole nr Uttoxeter. The bottles were handled in stacks of five crates with each crate containing 20 bottles. These stacks weighed well over 100 kilo’s and I viewed them with some trepidation. I wasn’t particularly strong although nearly full grown. However it all proved very easy once I had the knack. The stacks were moved by something like a tall sack truck which had two prongs at the front which slid into the top of the bottom crate. Lever up and it was fairly easy to move around.

Stacks on the incoming trucks were dragged to the edge of the truck platform, picked up from the loading bay and wheeled either to a big cool room for pasteurised milk or into the body of the warehouse for sterilised. At that time milk was normally delivered to the home daily and about 20 milk rounds left about 6am to deliver returning from about 11am onwards to be unloaded. The town deliveries were from hand controlled electric trucks with deliveries further afield ranging up to large vans.

I soon found there was a trick to unloading the incoming trucks. The driver would break a bottle spreading the milk as lubricant .over his truck bed which was one metal sheet. The stacks were then slid using a hooked tool at the bottom while holding the top for stability. This was harder than moving a stack by truck but still something I could manage.

The warehouse staff were two older men and one young in his twenties. The younger man was continually bemoaning his lot as he had a young family to support and he found money very tight. This contrasted with some of the roundsmen ( in charge of money collecting ) who seemed rather well off. Smart new motorcycles seemed to be their expenditure with an element of competition between them. The older warehousemen were more phlegmatic taking every opportunity to have a rest between truckloads. One would settle down always saying RIP.( rest in peace )

This was my first experience of the world of work. I generally started later than the others so I only arrived at start time a couple of times. I only went on rounds a time or two.. The roundsmen knew their rounds precisely and would issue instructions at every stop. These also included stops for tea at friendly households. Deliveries included two types of pasteurised milk ( Channel Islands from Jersey/Guernsey cattle and ordinary ), sterilised which had a slightly different shaped bottle and orange juice.  I recall being quite shocked by the poverty of some of the mining villages. I knew my family were relatively poor but some were absolutely impoverished.

My first day as replacement secretary was awful, almost a disaster. I discovered I wasn’t properly prepared. I had virtually never used a telephone before ( they were  uncommon in working class houses ) and I couldn’t get used to its continual interruptions. The final insult came at the end of the morning. It was a Sunday and the custom was everybody went home early as soon as the essentials were done. I was struggling to add up the returns by calculator amid continual interruptions. The warehouse deputy manager lost patience with me, seized the information and added it quickly in his head. I checked later and he was right.

When I returned in 1961 my money needs were greater than ever as I was courting Annette. She took a summer job with  another nearby part of the Co-op. Sometimes she came to the dairy to get milk for tea breaks. I had to endure some joshing along the lines that she couldn’t last the day without seeing me. Incidentally the previous year I had turned up to ask her out on our first date wearing scruffy clothes after working in the warehouse. What her mother thought of me I shudder to think. However the important part was that Annette said yes.

The most humiliating incident came on my second stint. We supplied a milk bar only a few hundred yards away. I was sent to deliver a stack of crates. By this time I was fairly adept, even overconfident. In order to reach the customer I had to cross a road which was on a slight slope. I found a portion without a kerb so I was at right angles to the slope. The stack tipped sideways. It was far too heavy to hold upright and the bottles fell with many breaking and milk flowing down the gutter. I had to return hangdog and confess my mistake.

Tony Hancock & VE day 75th

The comedian Tony Hancock is almost forgotten these days. His radio career started with “Educating Archie” when he tried act as tutor to Archie, a mischievous boy. Although played as a character Archie was in fact the dummy of ventriloquist Peter Brough.  He bloomed in the mid fifties, first with the radio show Hancock’s Half Hour ( with heavy breathing on the H ) and then on TV in Hancock. The TV show expanded some of his successful radio sketches. The radio show also featured Sid James plus Bill Kerr with also others from time to time..

Hancock played a struggling comedian who lived at 23 Railway Cuttings East Cheam. His character was of an opinionated, passionate but ignorant and frustrated man. He aspired to the affluent professional classes but lacked the necessary ability and was continually frustrated. His scripts were written by the comedy writing duo of Galton and Simpson.

My mother was a big fan of the radio series ( we had no TV ). My father was working afternoon shifts and consequently didn’t come home until well after 10pm. The programmes were broadcast before my bedtime so I could listen also. My mother found the long evenings tedious in our isolated house away from the nearest village. The radio was a major solace.

Some of the TV sketches have become classics. The Blood Donor is often shown in the clip where Hancock mistaking the thumb prick test for the real thing expostulates when told he should donate a pint. “ A pint !, why that’s a whole armful.”

In “Twelve Angry Men” he becomes the one juror at odds with the total jury embroidering his argument by declaring” Remember Magna Carta. Did she die in vain?”

Although a successful albeit ordinary comedian Hancock aspired to be better and unable to achieve his aim committed suicide. His comedy persona in fact mirrored the man.


VE day 75

We had a social distancing street party!. Well about a dozen did. We convened at 2 o’clock on a beautiful spring day. Our village had a street party for the 50^th anniversary which was talked about for years afterwards. Unfortunately I missed it to my lasting regret.  As far as I can see the war was 6 grim years followed by a one day party and that followed by a very slow recovery over the rest of the forties. Society changed hugely with the Welfare State and the National Health service founded. Pretty much all the other domestic changes proved disastrous and were unwound subsequently. Even so it must be seen as the most radical administration in British history.

I am somewhat ambivalent on the education changes applauding the introduction of universal secondary education but deploring the 11plus exam and its divisiveness. I was fortunate in attending a grammar school but the supposed three tiers of modern, technical and grammar never really worked. I am depressed that some politicians don’t see that retaining grammar schools means an invidious selection.

We very nearly missed our street party but our next door neighbour who is an enthusiast for the commemoration discussed it with us in the morning. He was very organised with large union jack on display and even a power line from his house to his coffee maker by the pavement.

I nearly offended one lady who I approached by being within what she regarded as her exclusion zone. I had been asked by Annette who spoke to her earlier to talk about a school friend who she also knew. This boy was the outstanding scholar of his year although I’m not sure he fulfilled all his early promise although he did achieve a Cambridge doctorate. It turned out the lady in question knew his sister well.

 I’m glad we marked the occasion. The British performance in WW11 was outstanding and the  celebration amply justified.  I’m always uncertain whether I remember the original ( I was nearly 3 ) or whether my memory was of another later celebration.  I recall watching fireworks at a local park but I suspect it might have been for a town carnival which was held in later years.
I asked an elderly relative for her memories but she dismissed it as altogether too minor to be noteworthy. I found this surprising

Rust

Rust kills cars. That was true 40 years ago but much less so nowadays. As I’m interested in automotive technology I was an involved outsider before I became professionally involved in the 80’ and 90’s. I bought my first new car in 1971 and I was concerned to retard corrosion. I managed to get it Tectyl protected by Valvoline which was based on Merseyside.

This kind of aftermarket treatment was fairly common back then with Ziebart probably the best known brand name. This was far more than undersealing as it involved spraying rust preventive fluid into the semi closed sections of the body such as the sills. Manufacturers were not paying the attention they should and after the switch to monocoque bodies there were some particularly notorious examples. The early Vauxhall Victors were bad and the Lancia Beta had to be withdrawn it was so poor.

Prior to this time in the early fifties cars were built on chassis and body panels were relatively easily replaced. The chassis was usually very thick steel and corrosion wasn’t a big problem. With a monocoque body where almost the whole of the body was structural and was all made from fairly thin steel sheets spot welded together corrosion became a big  problem. A new monocoque body was very strong but was easily weakened by corrosion.

I started my professional interest in corrosion protection in the early 80’s. By that time manufacturing had improved such that aftermarket protection was dying. Castrol was abandoning the market and my main attention was protection during production. As far as body panels were concerned they were pressed and assembled fairly quickly. One product I was quite proud of was a washing product post pressing which protected in the factory for up to week. The panels had to be washed to remove the press fluid before welding and I thought it was rather neat to be able to provide protection as well as cleaning.

Pressing was for body panels. The standard procedure for thicker parts such as suspension and engine components was to machine from a forged part, wash to remove swarf and cutting fluid and then apply a temporary corrosion protective. Then at assembly wash to remove the corrosion protective and assemble.

There were some neat tricks such as corrosion protective which also dewatered after washing which eliminated a drying stage.

However all of this was during production and it was the assembled car in the customers hands which was the earlier issue. By the time I became involved the aftermarket had almost disappeared. The products for which I was responsible such as underseal were selling much reduced volumes. I wasn’t really called upon to provide improved products in performance terms. A series of improvements to design had much reduced the rusting problem. It is more often obsolescence now that marks the end of a car’s life. The improvements have included -design of bodies to reduce trapped moisture by proper drains, and guards to reduce mud build up in the wheel arches, improved steel with fewer impurities. The widespread use of galvanised steel where for example the whole lower body is made of galvanised metal. Better paint protection which includes all the surface preparation prior to painting.

The end result is that in 2020 you buy a new car and virtually forget about rusting.

My work wasn’t really to improve performance but rather to improve health and safety standards. It had been usual to formulate using solvent based products but this was changing to water based.. In a sense this went back to the very early days when a water  emulsified oil had been an early corrosion preventive. Using this technology the first water based corrosion preventives were developed.

 I always thought our German colleagues had a nice promotional idea. This was to provide throat sweets which said that if the new water based products were used they wouldn’t be necessary. I had the pleasant experience of visiting the Opel factory at Bochum where I was congratulated. It was rather unusual and very special to be thanked by a customer. This did come back to bite me because their specifications were very strict and we had difficulty maintaining consistent quality. As they knew my name I was expected to sort it out. The difficulty was the Opel specification was written right at the boundary of the product performance. I did manage to cobble together an answer but it was never totally satisfactory and periodically batches would fail the Opel test. The real problem was the specification had been written around hand made laboratory samples and production just couldn’t match that standard.

Further development of water based corrosion protectives gave slow progress rewarding massive efforts. This tended to be mainly products to carry rust protective packages in water based carriers. These were emulsions or dispersions. Purely soluble products found a niche such as the press lube wash mentioned above.