Topic: Yester-year

[kenkew]

Memories are made of this.
 A good olde song, but one with a lot of meaning. Old songs bring back old memories, as do smells, places and faces.
 Quite recently I got a whiff of coke smoke. That certainly hit me with a memory of taking a 3 wheeled old pram down to the gas works to nick handfulls of coke from the side of the boiler house to take home. By heck, coke burns hot for ages. Well worth the odd clip round the ear'ole when we got caught pinching it!.... :D

[flossy]

   Wow Kenkew, have just posted about coke - is it coal with the gas taken out ?

   When the coal cart came, horse drawn I add - my brother and I had to count the bags that
   he poured down the shoot, you know the coal hole in the front step !!

   It's funny about smells, think they evoke memories more than most things, except music of
   course. 

   I came a cropper on a set of pram wheels once,  still got the scar on my knee where my mum had
to remove some '  road '   --  didn't we take some chances !!

   floss x

   

[kenkew]

Loved the smell of the Tar Wagon as it trundled up the cobbles. Men pouring tar in-between the sets from gallon jugs. We used to wait 'till it rounded the corner and go round picking it out to make blackies (marbles) out of. It made a good chewing-gum too!

[Emagggie]

Every year it's the same, the first blackberry eaten from the hedgerow and I'm transported back a hundred years (!) to walking the 3 miles home from school eating as many as I could.

[ninnyscrops]

The coal lorry always reminded be of cooked bacon, and they were in trouble if they spilled any on the newly Cardinal Redded front porch!

[GrannieAnnie]

A whiff of seckel pears = my grandmother's root cellar where she kept pears and potatoes. When you climbed down the stairs you'd be hit by the smells of fruit and damp earth.

[hopalong]

   Wow Kenkew, have just posted about coke - is it coal with the gas taken out ?

   When the coal cart came, horse drawn I add - my brother and I had to count the bags that
   he poured down the shoot, you know the coal hole in the front step !!

   It's funny about smells, think they evoke memories more than most things, except music of
   course. 


   floss x

   

The smell of rotten eggs reminds me of the coke works near our house in Norwich in the 1950s. The smell was worse than that if anything when they siphoned off the gas, but the multi-coloured flames from a chimney on the coke works lit up the night sky beautifully - blue and green as well as red and yellow, and colours in between. Not quite the aurora borealis, but impressive.

[kenkew]

Sometime around 1948 I used to spend time on my dad's allotment. It backed onto the railway lines at a place the goods trains had to stop to wait their turn into the marshalling yard.
 Me and my 2 brothers would climb onto the shed roof and chuck stones and with pea-shooters would blast the driver and fireman with eldeberrys. To get their own back they would hurl lumps of coal at us from the tender.
 We had girt lumps of coal and free heat at home for nowt!

[flossy]

  

   Wish I'd seen that hopalong,  must have  have been awesome !

   Begining to see the process then, on how they made coke......,   so, they burnt
   the coal to release the gasses to provide the fuel called coke.

   Was this in response to the need for smokeless fuels ?   Coke did burn longer and gave a good
   heat ,  but --  couldn't the gasses given off been ' captured ' and used for something else !

   I suppose that being in the age of recycling - and thank goodness we're getting there, you question
   any wasteful activities.

   Found a piece of coal on a Devon beach , that had had a coal works nearby  --   I saved it for my
   grandchildren as I reckond the only time they would see a piece of coal would be in a museum.
    Thats OK , time goes by and we all become fascinated by the past and it's history --  we have a duty
    and the pleasure of passing it on.     So be it.

     Any one feel a book comeing on ?  where would you start ?

     floss x

    
  

[flossy]

   kenkew, cant get to grips with you chewing tar rolled blackies !!   :o

   What did it taste like ?   Loved  the smell of tar,  but never felt the need to
   get down and lick the road !!  bless   :P

   You are so ... what !!!   Wished I knew you when my bruv and I were let loose all summer
    with the door key round our neck, we could have met up and at the The Tunnels near
    Bounds Green [ N 22 ]  , sat on the tunnel wall and waited to be suffacated by steam
    and fumes   ---   just for the fun of it,  wonder how I survived !!!

     Didnt the eldyberrys get squished ? on impact I suppose !  brilliant    ;D

     floss x


     
   

[kenkew]

Also used to put 6" nails on the rail tracks. Trains make great arrow heads out of nails!
 (Still got all my fingers....just!)

[hopalong]

 

   Wish I'd seen that hopalong,  must have  have been awesome !

   Begining to see the process then, on how they made coke......,   so, they burnt
   the coal to release the gasses to provide the fuel called coke.

   Was this in response to the need for smokeless fuels ?   Coke did burn longer and gave a good
   heat ,  but --  couldn't the gasses given off been ' captured ' and used for something else !

   I suppose that being in the age of recycling - and thank goodness we're getting there, you question
   any wasteful activities.

   Found a piece of coal on a Devon beach , that had had a coal works nearby  --   I saved it for my
   grandchildren as I reckond the only time they would see a piece of coal would be in a museum.
    Thats OK , time goes by and we all become fascinated by the past and it's history --  we have a duty
    and the pleasure of passing it on.     So be it.

     Any one feel a book comeing on ?  where would you start ?

     floss x

    
  

A lot of coal is washed up on the beaches in Northumberland too, floss. People still collect it for their fires.  The franciscan friars at Alnmouth Friary use a lot of it.

Coke is produced by burning bituminous coal (coking coal) at very high temperatures. Coal-gas, tar and water are extracted in the process. Coke is light and smokeless. It produces a high heat and burns for a long time, which is why it is or was used to fire furnaces - including blast furnaces and steam engines - and kitchen stoves. We used it in our Aga cooker. More recently NASA have used it as an ingredient to shield space ships because it has such powerful heat shielding properties.  Here endeth the lesson.

[GrannieAnnie]

Sometime around 1948 I used to spend time on my dad's allotment. It backed onto the railway lines at a place the goods trains had to stop to wait their turn into the marshalling yard.
 Me and my 2 brothers would climb onto the shed roof and chuck stones and with pea-shooters would blast the driver and fireman with eldeberrys. To get their own back they would hurl lumps of coal at us from the tender.
 We had girt lumps of coal and free heat at home for nowt!

do you think the driver and fireman knew why you were pelting them?
That's a great story.

[ACE]

 

    --  couldn't the gasses given off been ' captured ' and used for something else !

  

    
  

Before north sea gas, those big green gasometers  held the gas that was produced by heating coal, coke was the by-product.

[ninnyscrops]

Is that why the one down at The Oval cricket ground always looks nearly empty now?

[hopalong]

 

    --  couldn't the gasses given off been ' captured ' and used for something else !
      
  

Before north sea gas, those big green gasometers  held the gas that was produced by heating coal, coke was the by-product.

There are several by-products from coke, apart from gas - e.g. ammonium sulphate used in fertilisers, light oil (benzene) used as an additive to petrol, coal tar used in pitch and creosote and coke breeze used in steel production. Trouble is, there's a lot of hazardous waste and carbon emissions too.

[pippy]

Coke smoke and coal dust always remind me of time with a previous partner who ran a replica steam launch.  I specially remember taking it to Holland and running out of coal in Amsterdam!!

We eventually got hold of some raw sulphurous coal off a tug boat at the ship museum.  It was awful!  You opened up the firebox, chucked it on and banged the lid shut as it burst into flames.  Two seconds later yellow smoke poured out of the chimney!!  It's one way to get noticed on the canals :D

I looked a bit like something out of the black and White minstrel show that day ! ;D ;D

[flossy]

 
  Sorry, have been AWOL,

  Has been fantastic reading all your posts, thank you,   :-*

  pippy, you sure lived dangerously !   :o   Have you got any pics of the launch and your trip ?
  That must have been some crossing !

   Should have known about Gasometers doh !  So are none of them used at all now  Ace ?

   kenkew you is frightening !  what did you do with your 6" arrows dare I ask    ::)

   Grannie Anne, have meant to ask you what ' seckel pears ' are ?

   floss x

 

[GrannieAnnie]

 
  Sorry, have been AWOL,

  Has been fantastic reading all your posts, thank you,   :-*

  pippy, you sure lived dangerously !   :o   Have you got any pics of the launch and your trip ?
  That must have been some crossing !

   Should have known about Gasometers doh !  So are none of them used at all now  Ace ?

   kenkew you is frightening !  what did you do with your 6" arrows dare I ask    ::)

   Grannie Anne, have meant to ask you what ' seckel pears ' are ?

   floss x
Flossy, Seckel pears are tiny, perhaps 3 inches or less long, brown when ripe and very sweet but not super juicy like Bartlett pears.
 

[flossy]

  Hi GrannieAnnie,

  They sound great, bet you get  loads to a kilo.  Will say that I have not heard of them before,
  so wondering if they are an English pear ?
  Maybe good for jam too ?

  floss x