fuel

[Bill Bentley]

Typical, the North / South divide even stretches to fuel consumption. I recall, as a kid, the parents used to still talk about rationing and how they used to swap soap coupons for 'other coupons' with the Londoners, who had 'hard water' and so needed more soap than we northerners, who had 'soft water', so nothing has changed.
I used to enjoy the taste of our northern water, almost sweet.

John,
nowt wrong with the UK mate, I shall always be a proud Lancastrian. My travels in the Army showed me foreign parts, thereafter work and pay drew me abroad and women enticed me to live in Europe. As Bob says: you can take a lad out of the North, but you can't take the North out of the lad.
I am still a British Passport holder, but through marriage and children I have a 'right of abode' in Germany and therefore EU status still applies, on that basis I am a resident of Spain.

That said I no longer suffer the cold north well and at 20 degrees Celsius I start to wrap up. So I guess it's temperature, tax and tarts that keep me in Spain .

Mick,
what do you have a Rayburn an AGA or something else. Back in Germany we had an Italian wood burner with a back boiler, gravity feeding large storage tanks up in the loft. The hot water was then pumped through the under-floor-pipes giving very comfortable living conditions. From Spring through Autumn our Solar (hot water) provided all the warmth we needed and more to boot. The excess we let off into the Hot-Tub. Within a year of installing the system it became 'forbidden' to use this type of system 'for environmental reasons'. Burning raw wood apparently produces too much smoke, burning pellets, which have been processed and transported half way around the world on the other hand is highly recommended.
One sometimes has to wonder who makes the rules and why .

How can it be environmentally viable to import New Zealand Lamb instead of enjoying Taffy's tasty Lamb ?
Or eating Argentinian Beef instead of Scottish Angus ?
Or American Chicken instead of English Fowl ?
It's the same with machinery and clothes, in fact with every thing.
It's little wonder the environmental boat is sinking.

I suspect that the present 'fuel crisis' is an American plot to prevent the German Northern Gas Pipeline (through the Baltic) from going into service. It sure as hell is not Putin blackmailing anybody, he would be delighted to sell us cheap gas. It's the Yanks who have been against it from day one !
You should always look to see who aims to win from your problems ?!? The Yanks actually have a massive surplus of gas and want to sell it to Europe, but it would have to be liquidised and shipped at great cost. THEY are currently hyping the cost of fuel to make their price more viable. Russian gas will always be cheaper for us, you and me, think about it !

The Yanks will only achieve their usual result: millions of people will suffer financially and from the cold and hunger, then they will be defeated, on par with their track record .

Thinking about it: When did the USA have its last successful 'International Intervention' ?

[Michael Burgess]

Hi Bill
Sadly we had o move to Bungalow in 2017 due to Marion's mobility & health issues also I can no longer drive losing sight It was lovely cottage with an oil fired AGA and back boiler really snug and cosy. Well we now have 2 multi fuel boilers which I will light next week and wont let them out till the spring. during the year I have been collecting wood and fallen branches from the nearby woods. Chain sawed them into lengths that fit the stoves. Plus have stocked up with smokeless coal nuggets stored them in the man shed nearly have enough for the next 6 months. Now on the look out for some wax candles for emergency lighting in case of power cuts.
You will laugh at this remembering the end of WW2 we had an outside loo the toilet paper was old news papers Dad used to make me cut them up and use a nail and string t5o hang it one up one down one to polish Good old days and we survived.
Take care both of you have Great Halloween

[john kerwin]

Mick, what about the delux tin bath hung on the back gate.

[Michael Burgess]

How the hell did you know and the bar of carbolic soap and the wooden washing board and dolly before boiling the dirty whites.
Have a good week keep safe

[john kerwin]

We went one better Mick, an Anderson air-raid shelter in the back yard, great place to hide. when I did something wrong (often).
We moved to a council house, when I was 7. What a change, hot water, inside toilet and a real bath. . The only down side, nowhere to hide .
How things changed, and changed again. Things seemed a lot better then. but I would not like to go back to those long off days.

[Bill Bentley]

There sure was something 'realistic' about those days. I was born in a Victorian mid-terrase, in Gorton, which was knocked down in the early 60's. An outside loo, and air-raid-shelter in the yard and just enough room for the dolly-tub in between. 1 gas lamp in each of the two downstairs rooms, 1 cold water tap and a stone sink in the back room. When it was cold the toilet froze up and the proverbial piss-pot was all we had for days on end. That and the nappy-bucket gave those old houses a certain flavour, yes you could taste it in the air. These days a sensor knows how cold it is outside and regulates the inside temperature accordingly. Then you get hit hard when you go out and it's minus 20.
But you are right 'the good old days' were good to look back on rather than to live through, but as kids you know no different.
And it made men of us all, those that survived that is, I lost 2 siblings and mother had several miscarriages as well, now there are only 8 of us left. It's no bloody wonder that there's a world food shortage .
The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for .

In Glasgow at the world climate conference they are still too scared to tackle the key issue: 'over population'. They blame Climate Change on burning fossil fuels, but with less people there would be less demand for houses, heating, fridges and cars etc. etc..
Only a massive reduction in the human population can ease the burden on Mother Nature.
As it is THEY are flogging a dead horse !

[Michael Burgess]

As always Bill you make some relevant points I must admit I did not realise you were a war baby thought you were much younger. But as you say even then couples had large families, and learnt to live within their means without handouts. I dont know whether you can get it but on Channel 5 TV there is a programme called Our Yorkshire Farm it depicts a family with 11 children working and living on their farm up on the Dales, worth a peek.
Temp changed here in Dorset sharp frosts in the morning but at least its dry.
Take care keep safe about to take max out must find his flashing colour so I can see him in the dark when he chases the deer or hares.
Mick/Marion max woof

[Bill Bentley]

Mick,
I am much younger, honestly ! It was almost 10 years after the war before I saw the light of day .

Nevertheless up North, and I recall seeing them in London in the '70's, the old Victorian terraced houses, I believe, are still lived in to this day. Some years ago I went to find houses like the one that I was born in, in Gorton. My car was longer than the house front, even a 'Smart' could not have parked there, the houses were so small.

2 up, & 2 down, The front door opening inwards directly from the pavement. The front room about 3x3 yards, next to the front door was a window, under the window, a bank of sorts on which me and most of my siblings were born. A small coal-fire-place the only heating and a gas lamp on the opposite wall !!! Stone flags on the floor covered with a bit of linoleum on which we would squat to eat in front of the fire. That was our 'living-room'.

The back room 3x2 yards including the staircase, heading up to two bedrooms up stairs. This back room was the 'wet room' in which was washed and cooked. A stone sink with a cold water tap under a small window on the back wall. A gas cooker wedged in the corner and all of our worldly possessions were stored on shelves on the 'inside wall'.

Up-stairs our parents had the larger bedroom, always shared with the youngest baby. We older kids, 5 at the time, girls and boys all slept together in one bed, or was it just a mattress on the floor .

Out in the back yard, again only about 3x3, the flushing toilet squeezed in between the house and the air-raid-shelter, which was about 2x2 and which we used as a coal bunker. Through the back gate, which was more of a door, 6' high, out into 'the entry', a long narrow corridor separating the rows of houses which were situated 'back to back'. At the end of our entry was what we called 'the croft'. This was a large free area of wasteland where other houses had already been demolished. That and other empty 'condemned houses' was our playground. People dumped their rubbish there and rats and cats were everywhere.

Because my parents 'owned' their own house, we were not entitled to any form of social security and we never got free school meals nor uniforms. Mum knitted our school pullovers and on birthdays and at xmas, socks, scarfs and gloves were given as gifts from relatives. With no TV, not even a radio as I recall, we kids would listen to our parents and their friends talking gratefully about rationing being over and how 'good life was' and how everyone was 'free' now that Hitler and his cronies were gone. And they would sing 'roll out the barrel', 'my old man said follow the van' and there'l be blue skies over the white cliffs of Dover.

Ah the joys of childhood.

Don't ask if I have any sympathy for the 'so called poor' of today, or the rich immigrants who can afford to pay smugglers to get them illegally to our shores from the EU and then demand that we support them, because the answer is NO l do not