On 7 August we went to Manchester on the tram from Milnrow. Never been on the Rochdale via Oldham to Manny tram so it was a treat at least for me if rather dull for Ez and relatively very expensive as none of our concession cards were valid on it. The other reason for using that tram route was that it goes very near to the MMSI. Ez did actually say she'd like to see it, but I'm not entirely sure if she knew what it might be like.
This is the very first railway station in the world in the sense that we still understand what a railway station or 'train station' is supposed to be like.
Despite the appearance in these photos the whole place was in fact hotching with visitors, mainly recalcitrant howling brats.
To me it's rather exciting and memory jogging. My father will have wound stator coils for dynamos like this one above. He said his right thumb was permanently bent from holding down '2s' wire such as that above, whilst the winding machine was operating. It could be that his firm J P Halls of Oldham made the above dynamo for Cromptons.
Here is a diesel to electric generator converter unit made by Metropolitan Vickers, where my mother worked. Metro Vick's huge works were in Trafford Park. Mum's last job there before D-Day was to help build the electrical parts for PLUTO which pumped fuel oil to the Normandy beaches. There rather clumsy motto was 'It must work first time and all the time". Apparently it did.
Obviously I could not leave out a plate for the
Hathershaw Iron Works. It's near where I used to live as a boy.
Below is a working mule spinning frame of the kind my grandmother learnt on as in girl of about 12 in the early 1890s. She was one of the last 'half timers' at school. In the last years of school they did have the week in the mill. Her stories of the experience were all about being very frightened as the mules moved together with you, the operative, between them. I've heard it said the technology was obsolete before it was installed. But they also say it spun damn fine yarn.
No comments:
Post a Comment