‘When I was a lad’ is a phrase that many younguns dread to hear. They would probably expect a lecture telling them what they’re doing is all wrong and of course what life was like way back when it was more ‘properer’.
With gas currently in short supply and pounds and pence not worth much, my mind turned back to the first appearance in our lives of North Sea gas and decimal currency. Another shortage that we regularly experience now – water – was already having an impact in my younger days.
North Sea gas
North Sea gas was odourless, so a smell had to be introduced so we could tell if there was a leak. It was not poisonous like coal gas but under the right circumstances it could still go BANG.
One example was a neighbour of my parents in Linthwaite. They were enjoying their new-built bungalow when one morning it exploded, and I don’t mean just windows and doors – the whole building, down to the foundations, was scattered into the neighbouring gardens and fields.
Miraculously, both occupants survived with little more than cuts and bruises. Their survival could have been due to it being a new-built bungalow, which would have been constructed from lightweight insulated materials that luckily were thrown away from the blast area. That, and the fact that the occupants were soundly snuggling under their double-adult continental quilt stuffed with carbon fibre re-enforced lisle stockings.
North Sea gas was first discovered in significant quantities under the Groningen area off the coast of The Netherlands in 1959. BP (British Petroleum) then discovered gas in the West Sole field, off the coast of East Anglia, with their drilling rig Sea Gem in late 1965. The dangers of North Sea drilling were soon realised when just after Christmas of the same year Sea Gem capsized with the tragic loss of thirteen lives.
Very quickly this gas from under the sea was pumped into our houses. All the burner jets from the cookers, fires and boilers had to be changed throughout the land and, as our cooker was obsolete, we had to buy a new one. It was cheap and naff and introduced under a scheme to help people who like us had no money to spare – we were in our early 20s, had a mortgage and a young child. This cooker was so naff it lasted less than five years. Like decimalisation there were several opportunities for upsetting a Yorkshire man with a con or rip-off.
Decimalisation
Decimalisation complicated many people’s lives when it arrived in February 1971. Some have never got over it, and still describe pounds, shillings and pence as ‘proper money’.
I remember being stood with my dad outside the Huddersfield Examiner office in town, where there was always a chap selling the daily Examiner on the corner. It was fascinating on that day watching many people turning up expectantly with their pennies in hand needing their local daily update only to be told, presumably for the first time, that their pennies were no good, obsolete, no longer valid currency.
Imagine the confusion and shock of that moment – all the money they thought they had was now useless. It wouldn’t even buy a newspaper. For any self-respecting and proud Yorkshire person, the realisation that all their money had apparently disappeared overnight was understandably devastating.
1982 water shortages
Even in a country where it rains a lot, during late summers we have to endure this endless moaning from the water companies that we are using too much water, and they threaten us with standpipes and hosepipe bans.
In 1982 standpipes were erected in Huddersfield, one immediately outside our house in Milnsbridge. They were never actually used but were placed there as a warning. One evening Moi and I were sat in our lounge when we heard this almighty bang, I quickly looked out of the window to see a Mini weaving down the road with its exhaust and car body parts scattered behind it, the driver had driven over the standpipe.
The encounter proved to be a knockout win in the first round for the car – the standpipe was flattened beyond repair – but the driver was able to precariously continue their journey, probably inventing a story to tell their spouse about a pipe throwing itself under their family Mini.
As I was trying to excite my memory on our local water shortages, I came across this explanation on what the differences are between a hydrant and a standpipe:
“A hydrant is connected to either a public or private water supply and is used to supply water to mobile pumping apparatus (fire engine or engine company) or for testing the water supply. It is located outside of a building. Hydrants are generally governed by NFPA 24.
“A standpipe is a combination of horizontal or vertical pipes and valves installed inside of a building to facilitate the connection of fire fighting hoses for manual firefighting efforts. Standpipe systems are regulated by NFPA 14.”
I think they do it deliberately to create confusion; it confused me anyway.
1995: 600 tankers ferrying water
The summer of 1995 was apparently a particularly dry summer.The rain that did fall had fallen in the wrong place: the east had lots of water and we in the west had none. The powers that be, in their infinite wisdom, came up with a scheme to tanker water from the east and north-east to Huddersfield, Halifax and Leeds.
Near 600 tankers were used to ferry water from Selby and Teesside every day from November 1995 to February 1996. Several Tarmac parking areas and new roads were constructed to enable them to drain their tanks down the hillside and into the empty reservoirs. The astute reader may ask, “Does that not allow the water to evaporate away and leak into the barren hillside?”.The answer is of course “Yes”.
Many of the tankers had to be obtained from the continent. I went to Scammonden dam to see for myself how it was working and, as the photos show, there were dozens of tankers waiting to be unloaded, in order to go back and do it all over again.
The M62 motorway runs along the top of Scamonden dam and from my vantage point I could time how often a water tanker travelled over the dam. I counted one every minute and this must have gone on 24 hours a day for over four months. It must have cost a fortune. The tanker and haulage companies had a monopoly and as a result could, and did, charge whatever they wanted (and good luck to them).
As a result of this debacle, many of the leaks that had been ignored for years were repaired and, equally as surprising as the fact that it hadn’t happened before, many of the water supplies, dams and treatment plants were connected together so water could be pumped from one area to another.
This conspiracy within the gas, water and financial sectors must have had a long lasting, detrimental impression on the delicate citizens of God’s Country, we had only just got over the effect of rickets, diphtheria and ringworm. Why can’t they just leave us alone?
Modern innovations? Well, now when I think of it – suspiciously odourless gas, ‘foreign’ water and the deliberate spreading of financial confusion – sounds more like some sort of fiendish enemy plot.
