Driving

 

 

It is fashionable to decry the influence of the motor car as inefficient, polluting and time wasting in traffic jams. It is easy to forget not just the flexibility but also the sheer pleasure of driving. Once one is a fluent driver then the joy of driving on an open road gives a sensual joy with all that power at finger tip control. On the crowded UK roads it is easy to lose sight of the pleasure within the everyday frustrations and limitations that heavy traffic incurs. Some may take this as sentimental nonsense but the evidence is plain to see. Despite all the problems people are choosing to drive more and more.

I came to driving cars from two wheels. I became the proud owner of a Lambretta Li150 motor scooter when I was 21. For me this was a practical choice as I wanted cheap flexible transport while wearing fairly normal clothes and with the ability to carry a passenger. This had two benefits in that I learned the “law of the road” and I also learned the vital importance of tyre grip. This latter lesson was at the cost of several minor accidents when the that grip was exceeded and I skidded.

At almost the same time my future father-in-law realised his daughter wanted to drive and he also felt that two wheels were not safe. His sons had gone straight to cars and that was something he wanted to continue for Annette. Simultaneously he was becoming rich enough to be able to graduate from his 1936 Morris 10-4 to something more modern. Accordingly since its destination was the scrap heap he donated it as a training car.

Annette lived by an extremely quiet country cul de sac. Since we couldn’t afford to tax and insure the car this became our training ground. No .other traffic and leading simply to a closed colliery this was ideal for first training in clutch control and manoeuvring. The problem was the car was clapped out but it certainly whetted my appetite.

My next step was to note in the local press that some cheap old cars were being advertised. On approaching one garage I was talked into a test drive with the car brought to my home. After reluctantly deciding I couldn’t afford it to my surprise my father offered to pay half with the intention of learning himself. Although he had been riding motorcycles for years and having a full licence granted because of this before WW11, he had reached his sixties unable to drive. However with his full licence he could accompany me on a provisional licence.

The vehicle we thus acquired was a Morris 1000 van of 1957 vintage. It had led a fairly hard life having a BMC “goldseal” replacement engine although only 75000 were on the clock. Incidentally this is technically an odometer although I have never heard it described as such. Father soon realised he was too old and inflexible to learn but I was keen.

I was just starting my industrial year ( of a four year sandwich course it was the third year ) at Bostik in Leicester. I had wangled Leicester because Annette was at Art college there. Where I worked there were two girls who had recently learned to drive and they had no hesitation in recommending David O’Brien. I later realised it was because he was so “dishy”. Dishy he may have been but he was a rather eccentric instructor. He was given while we were driving along to commenting on cars and girls that he saw. For all that he was a good instructor although I very nearly came unstuck at my second driving test having failed the first.

The driving school car was a Ford Anglia with the then common gearbox of 4 gears with synchromesh on the top three. However just before my test this was replaced by a SuperAnglia with synchromesh on all 4 gears. Adding to my problems the test was in Hinckley a place I didn’t know at all. Before bottom gear was just used for starting from rest and the top 3 for all driving while moving. However with synchromesh a on bottom gear I decided ( mistakenly ) that I must use it. I passed but the tester commented that my driving was very “jerky”.

I didn’t drive much until the spring of 1965. It seems utterly bizarre now when I recollect I celebrated the end of finals by driving with Annette to Watford Gap services where we had a cup of tea. With the services not long open there was still a certain glamour attached to motorway services. I went on several longish trips that spring and summer including London several times and the north-west for a job interview. Driving on the motorway wasn’t much fun as the low geared car required care in view of its age.

Ironically the longest trip to the Lake District wasn’t in my car at all. It was in a Cortina 1500 Mk1 driven by my future sister-in-law Pat as she, Annette’s brother Ray , Annette and myself went on a camping trip as we had all finished studies that year. I still remember marvelling at Forton services with its huge octagonal tower. I have never seen the tower open and I wonder what the architects intention was. We ended up as the only campers at a site on the edge of Wastwater.

I don’t drive much these days. I went through a short phase of driving from Wilmslow to Brownhills every day. At this time my annual mileage was huge but I found it rather boring and monotonous particularly on the M6 on a busy Friday evening.

Talk to the animals

 

 

I was brought up short by an item in the Christmas edition of New Scientist. In an item entitled “talk to the animals” it suggests a way in which this might be done. Essentially the proposal ( not yet implemented ) is that by feeding artificial intelligence computers with lots of human language. without any  knowledge of how language works it is possible to create what are called “clouds” of words in a mathematical multi dimensional space. Then if the same thing is done with animal language  and comparing to the human “cloud” it might be possible to see where overlaps occur and then be able to translate.

Wow

My first thought was that this may be a hoax. I’m fairly sure it isn’t because New Scientist corrals its jokes into a separate section and otherwise keeps reports straight. Now I think I’m a fairly savvy chap. I have a decent scientific background and I keep up with science and technology as it evolves but this was completely out of left field.

I can start to see that reality as a concept could be slightly fuzzy. This article on talking to animals wasn’t asserting a new reality but rather giving a method by which that new reality could be attained. The reality would be when something like whale clicks could be understood and some kind of two way communication established with a whale.

I suggest that reality is that phenomenon for which strong evidence exists. By strong evidence I mean that the phenomenon can be studied, that it fits with all known physical laws, and the evidence can be replicated by many observers.

For example many super natural phenomena cannot be studied. I always find it amusing that all the TV ghost hunting programmes never actually find a ghost. Telepathy can be studied, and has been, most famously by Rhine at Duke University in the US. Essentially this used patterned cards with the telepath communicating the pattern to a remote receiver. No change from chance was observed in experiments conducted over many years. Rhine did at times think that an effect was seen only to find it disappeared when experimental conditions were tightened.

Stage magic can be very impressive. The late “Amazing Randi” undertook to expose charlatans relying on stage magic to impress observers. Interestingly Randi was rather contemptuous of scientists who he thought were rather easily hoodwinked. His proud boast was that he could explain all “supernatural” tricks.

In the case of (prospective ) talking to the animals credibility is added because the way in which it could conceivably be done is briefly described. I may not understand the method in more than outline but the outline does carry some conviction.

Some beliefs can be tracked to some sort of source. For example the belief that the Apollo moon landings were a hoax  probably derives from the film “Capricorn One” a 1978 thriller based on that premise. The anti vax belief probably stems from some debunked scientific work. The suggestion that MMR vaccine was linked to autism has been comprehensively disproven

Some more blatant theories such as belief in a flat earth are more difficult to understand. There may be some story that was the original derivation; if so I don’t know what it was. It seems to me that more likely it is derived from a need to have faith in something. As belief in conventional religion has waned it is no co-incidence that faith has switched to a belief in other evidence free zones. It has been said by psychologists that there seems to be a human need to have faith in something. Put another way it looks as if there is a god shaped hole in mankind’s psyche.

It was Arthur C Clarke who said any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I’m sure my grandparents would think a smartphone magical but because we have seen it evolve from the walky-talky, via the mobile phone and microelectronics we see it as a useful personal tool ( as well as being great technology )

Train spotting

 

 

No,  I’m not referring to the film about drug users but rather the innocent hobby of collecting train numbers. As a boy I was a fanatic for a couple of years then faded rather quickly. I was fortunate in that steam power was the overwhelmingly dominant form of locomotive power at the time. I still thrill to the sight of a big steam loco but nowadays on Heritage railways.

I was introduced by a school friend, Anthony, not long after starting secondary school. It was a very common interest and I reckon a dozen of our class of 36 were enthusiasts. The general idea was extremely simple. Every BR loco had a unique number in large characters on the side of the cab. For historic reasons the loco world was subdivided into regions. The Midlands with the West Coast mainline passing through Tamworth was in the London, Midland and Scottish ( LMS ) region. All LMS locos had a five digit number with leading digit always 4. So the spotter just noted the last 4 digits.

The spotters indispensable book was by Ian Allen publications. This listed every loco by its class with some brief details about the class. The layout of the engine was described in shorthand form with the number of leading, driving and trailing wheels. Thus the largest ( also known a Pacific types ) had the 4-6-2 layout. Different designers and different applications demanded different layouts thus the 0-4-0 was the smallest possible but the smallest in common use was 0-6-0. Many of the larger locos used 4-6-0.

The loco spotters rules were simple. To count you actually had to see the engine. It was OK for someone else to note its number. This only happened at busy stations where many may be in view. You noted the number in a notebook then at leisure  you underlined its number in your Ian Allen guide. Once seen it was a “cop” and subsequent sightings were disregarded. The ( distant ) goal was to see every loco in your region. In practice this never happened as some loco’s only travelled short distances from their home base which meant they never visited your area.

Some larger engines were named. The name plate would be curved above the central driving wheel. For a loco speeding along the main line you had to rely on your Ian Allen guide to tell you the name of the engine. Names were usually in groups appropriate to the class . Thus the Patriot class of 4-6-0 had names after regiments in the army. Some loco’s were rarely seen thus Patriot class “Green Howards” caused great excitement when I saw one on its rare appearances in Tamworth. In contrast “Gurkha Rifles” which frequently appeared would result in groans.

I said I was a fanatical spotter for a time. I would dash from school straight down the road past my school bus stop to just above the cutting where the West Coast mainline passed. Keeping one eye open for my bus arriving I would hope to see a train pass through. I had just enough time to run back to my bus stop where others slow boarding would just give me time to catch it.

I lived about 5 miles from the West Coast mainline. In a summer evening I would cycle to a suitable viewing point and see a few trains past. One of my regular viewing points was just opposite where Annette lived although I had no idea at the time.

Most of my weekend expeditions was with Anthony. His parents were very indulgent and took us to both Rugby and Crewe, both very busy stations. Tamworth was actually a good spotting place as the Derby to Birmingham line crosses the West Coast mainline so it was quite busy.

Spotting was based on the honour system and some of my form mates were less than honourable. Thus Twink ( I only remember his nickname) claimed to have seen every noteworthy loco in the book. He was scandalised when Anthony and I had a ride on the footplate and I’m sure he thought this was an invention. One Sunday morning Anthony and I went to quiet branch line in Leicestershire at Sweptstone. There was an 0–6-0 ( always called a Duck-six ) doing some shunting. The bored driver seeing us watching asked if we would like a ride. This was a couple of stations down the line and return. We were fascinated particularly at the exchange of tokens on a single track portion.. I’m sure this wouldn’t meet health and safety criteria nowadays; indeed a driver inviting two small boys aboard was probably contrary to regulations then..

We were late back for lunch flushed with excitement. The following day we were anxious to tell other friends about the experience. We briefly basked in glory. Twink of course didn’t believe us.

Anthony was more venturesome than I was and often took the lead in our expeditions. Once we had seen that the Birmingham to Dudley service was by diesel rail car, very unusual at that time, and the only one in the LMS region. We went to Birmingham, changed stations and travelled on the rail car to Dudley.

When he was a boy Martin became interested and I passed my spotting book to him. Since moving to North Yorkshire he and all the family have become volunteers on the North York Moors Railway. This a 20 mile stretch from Pickering across the moors which has special permission to run into Whitby several times a day during the tourist season. The final few miles from Grosmont is on national track. Their special claim to fame is the streamlined “Sir Nigel Gresley” originally built for the East Coast mainline and a sister engine to speed record holder “Mallard”. “Sir Nigel Gresley” is presently undergoing heavy maintenance at York Railway museum.

My grandson, Alex, takes his volunteer work very seriously. He has been promoted to work in the motive power ( engine ) department  and it was impressive to meet him in his overalls and boots after a day’s work looking every inch a railwayman.. He has been allowed to drive an engine, cautiously and under supervision.

Water treatment

 

 

This was a subject about which I knew very little but when I first joined Castrol it became my responsibility. It was the largest part of the companies marine chemicals business. Fortunately when Castrol bought the business they also hired Mark who was relatively experienced in the business. I was able to rely on him for a great deal of the day-to-day support.

In charge of marine chemicals sales was Tom. He was a man of vast experience nearing the end of his career. He was very matter of fact in his approach albeit slightly old fashioned. One issue which arose was wooden cabinets to house test kits on board ship. Tom was adamant that a neat contained cabinet was necessary on board ship so that the various reagents and instruments were kept neatly in one place and not strewn about and lost. Sourcing such a cabinet was left up to me. Because of the fairly specialist nature of the job it had to be a custom made cabinet. I eventually found an outfit that retrained disabled workers who took on the job. We had to buy a largish number to make it worthwhile and I caught a lot of flak from my boss because we had to pay for, and store, the cabinets until they were called for.

Tom was quite impressed that I sourced the cabinets and we became friendly. The marine business became a source of many unusual requests. Tom became convinced I could arrange most things so he decided that the marine chemicals national conference should be near my base at Hyde and that I should select the venue. Having no idea I consulted my boss who soon said marine chemical reps – I know what they will like. His suggestion was a sort of restaurant with night club attached. What I didn’t realise that it was notorious as the place where unattached ladies went to meet men. Some were indeed single ladies but some were at least semi professional. I was soon disabused on our opening night.

Firstly we met in the bar. I had a drink but the reps were drinking three or four to my one .I commented that they were drinking heavily to Tom only for him to reply that they went a bit mad when the company was paying. Then towards the end of the meal the owner was busily making introductions. Tom said this was where we retire and we did. What surprised me was that after what I presume was a very heavy night they were all bright eyed at the conference first session the morning after.

Lunching one day with Tom conversation turned to the war. Tom was in the merchant navy during Atlantic convoys. In his matter-of-fact way he disclosed he had three ships sunk under him.

 He had good contacts with the Royal Navy. We attempted sale of tank cleaning chemicals. In connection with this I went aboard a cruiser being decommissioned. This meant entering the fuel oil storage tanks which were in a claustrophobic space at the bottom of the ship. The tanks were 3 or 4 feet high but with curved sides and criss-crossed by support struts. I was relieved to leave.

For water treatment which included desalination I relied on Mark. He had a rather strange sense of humour. We had a lot of contact with central technical support in the form of Bill Dedman. We also had foisted on us the UK supposed technical support in the form of Ted Dodd. I have never encountered such an utterly useless individual who was in the habit of phoning us for the most trivial detail which he should have known. Mark entered him on our telephone list as Dead Dog saying we already had a Dead Man..

The company market for desalination was small evaporators used on ships. However there are a few arid places which practice on shore desalination on a large scale. One such is Malta. It was the company practice to join tenders for supply but probably without much expectation of winning. However one year we won the Malta contract. It was my job to source chemical, which we normally bought in small quantities, on a large scale. One component needed twenty tons of raw material. I gave the verbal order on a Friday afternoon. I subsequently found that the supplier who equally wasn’t used to such large orders ran their factory all weekend and were able to supply a tanker load of product the following week. For ever after they would contact me hoping for a repeat. We never won the tender again and my reputation slowly subsided.

One reason why Mark appreciated me as his boss was that I defended him against my boss who was a very opinionated straight laced long server. He regarded Mark who affected rather hippieish dress and lifestyle with grave suspicion. For example Mark wore trainers at a time before they were fashionable. My boss Peter would end his moans about Mark by saying “ and get him to wear some proper shoes”.  Fortunately Mark was also an excellent worker and I hope I had earned my bosses respect for standing up for him..

We were working at the Hyde, Manchester lab and factory. Most were long time employees so Mark and I were both relative newcomers. When I came to leave Mark helped make arrangements. We chose a pub just outside Handforth on the main road south. I was slightly taken aback on our recce visit to find it was solely occupied by mainly youngish men as it was clearly gay singles night. In the event my leaving evening went very well. It was a lovely summer evening and most of the time we were outside.

There was a corollary as some time later I arranged to go for a meal with Mark and our ladies. I vaguely knew that Mark had been talking to one of the ladies in the lab who was going through a divorce. I was used to seeing her in a lab coat in a work environment so when she turned up as Mark’s partner I didn’t recognise her for a moment in her going out finery.

Not long after I left Mark left also firstly to a supplier I knew, and then to work abroad where I lost track

When I re-joined Castrol at the Pangbourne Technology centre water treatment was no longer my responsibility which I was rather pleased about.

Sixties

 

 

I was fascinated on reading Andrew Marr’s book on the “History of Modern Britain” to find he sees the end of the sixties signalled by the Angry Brigade bombing of the Biba store in London. Biba was closely associated with cheap throwaway fashion exploiting the new emancipation of women particularly young women. Marr sees this as symbolic conflict between the anarchic stream of political thinking with an emerging consumer economy.

Others would see the end as the massive free Rolling Stones concert at Altamont in the US. Billed as a wonderful event like Woodstock but stewarded by Hell’s Angels this turned very ugly with audience members killed.

My own personal ending was when the Beatles split up. Their music had been the sound of the sixties for me and although the split was obviously coming it was still a signal that an era had ended..

Strange to start discussing an era by thinking about its ending. The sixties has exerted a great fascination in British history. Although its iconic nature is fading a little it is still, fifty years later, of magnetic interest. And yet; as Marr makes clear, the events people recall involved very few and in a very specific place.. For most people they were just a well publicised backdrop to a country which evolved slowly. Even so those new attitudes did influence life in the wider country.

For myself the decade divides down the middle, in the first half a student, in the second trying to make my way at work. In the middle I married so my whole domestic life changed. More of an evolution than revolution as I had courted Annette all through the first life and for the latter two years we had enjoyed some measure of independent living. By this I mean I had a bedsiiter and Annette visited as she wished, and cooked for us both. In contrast I couldn’t visit her.

The things associated with the sixties such as the “hippies” might have been associated with students or more generally young people. As far as I was concerned the immediate practical effect was that clothing became more informal. As a student I started with collar, tie and tweed jacket and ended with polo necked jumper and casual trousers. Interestingly I worked at Bostik in my industrial year alongside someone who was an early jeans fanatic at a time when they were virtually unknown in the UK. I thought he was quite mad to be buying his in the USA by mail order.

The sixties have become famous as the time of sexual freedom. As Larkin said, in a famous poem, sexual intercourse began in 1963. Ample jokes were made about this. David Frost later remarked if all the girls in London were laid end to end he wouldn’t be at all surprised. This was really only applicable to a tiny metropolitan minority. Outside these the traditional beliefs remained. Annette’s mother would have been utterly scandalised if we had lived together before marriage. When we went on holiday together we had to have separate rooms. Many landladies would not have accepted an unmarried couple sharing a room and would have been very suspicious if any effort at subterfuge was made.

Clothing for girls was becoming more overtly sexual. The mini skirt became ubiquitous. This was a fashion which was enabled by tights being a replacement for stockings. Fashion generally became much more important with rapid changes. I recall a time when long coats ( maxicoats ) became a fad in the latter part of the decade. We visited London at a time when they were seen everywhere; Annette bought one, wore it during our visit and probably never wore it again.

The effect on men’s fashion was slower to evolve. When I started work white shirts were virtually compulsory. As the decade wore one some brave souls ventured into lightly coloured or decorated shirts. It was however quite shocking when one particularly self confident guy wore a pink shirt.

I was not sympathetic to hippy/yippy culture with its leftish pretensions. After the poverty of student life ( actually not that poor in retrospect ) I was pleased to be working and earning. When Annette also had finished teacher training and embarked on her career we were briefly quite will off until children arrived.. Certainly well enough to study house style magazines and buy upmarket furniture only available in London. This was almost hand made in the workshop of Christian Sell. We also patronised Habitat even going 50 miles to buy things not available locally.

The decade sound was pop music by groups like the Beatles and the Stones. This was a great change from the pop music of the fifties with crooners like Perry Como regularly being best sellers. From 1964 onwards it seemed that groups were springing up everywhere. Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas, Gerry N Marston and the Pacemakers, the Animals …..the list went on and on. I was an ardent Beatles fan and spent ( too many ) tea breaks at Bostik arguing their virtues. From being seen as rebellious at the start of the decade the rock’n’roll style came to dominate. Starting with covers of American hits it became normal for groups to write at least some of their own material.