Talk about the past (A 12" by The Wake, on Factory Records)
Quite a long time ago, when we lived in the big old house that has since been on the telly because someone who was on the telly rents it, Pa kept an ornate cabinet against the wall on one side of his office. It was opposite a big metal-enamelled thing that was called 'The Potez' and which emitted warmth and a pong of burning oil.
The Potez had followed us from Holt Farm, where it had warmed the big back room with the parquet floor where the Christmas tree was kept. I suspect that there'd been some late sixties/early seventies DIY business with knocking walls through and installing a big steel beam to hold the house up, because I think I remember that flooring being installed. Anyway, since the internet is shit at things that pre-date it, the only picture I can find of a Potez oil heater is from the October 1963 issue of 'The Irish Plumber and Heating Contractor' on page 16, 17 or 18, depending on which PDF page-count you like best. It was a sturdy communism-brown thing with a thick glass porthole for viewing The Reaction Chamber, louvres for Venting of Waste Gas and several large Levers and Knobs for fine control of The Combustion Process. Looking at the picture now, it's no surprise that things like the AN/FSQ-7, WOPR and Interocitors felt so familiar.
Anyway, opposite The Potez in the ornate cabinet was a shelf of Red(ish) Cassells 'amateur mechanic and work handbooks' which covered the range of things that a sensible sort would need to know about. Pump maintenance, elementary clock repair, welding and brazing, taxidermy, poultry houses and appliances and knotting and splicing ropes and cordage. At least those are the ones I can remember/find pictures thereof. There was a wall of the things.
Obviously long since lost in one house-move or another.
If I were in that sort of mood, I would begin scouring the ebay or the s/h book-pedling sites in order to replace a part of my youth that I thought I was missing.
However, not. Well, not unless I see the pump-maintenance one for a fiver.
The Potez had followed us from Holt Farm, where it had warmed the big back room with the parquet floor where the Christmas tree was kept. I suspect that there'd been some late sixties/early seventies DIY business with knocking walls through and installing a big steel beam to hold the house up, because I think I remember that flooring being installed. Anyway, since the internet is shit at things that pre-date it, the only picture I can find of a Potez oil heater is from the October 1963 issue of 'The Irish Plumber and Heating Contractor' on page 16, 17 or 18, depending on which PDF page-count you like best. It was a sturdy communism-brown thing with a thick glass porthole for viewing The Reaction Chamber, louvres for Venting of Waste Gas and several large Levers and Knobs for fine control of The Combustion Process. Looking at the picture now, it's no surprise that things like the AN/FSQ-7, WOPR and Interocitors felt so familiar.
Anyway, opposite The Potez in the ornate cabinet was a shelf of Red(ish) Cassells 'amateur mechanic and work handbooks' which covered the range of things that a sensible sort would need to know about. Pump maintenance, elementary clock repair, welding and brazing, taxidermy, poultry houses and appliances and knotting and splicing ropes and cordage. At least those are the ones I can remember/find pictures thereof. There was a wall of the things.
Obviously long since lost in one house-move or another.
If I were in that sort of mood, I would begin scouring the ebay or the s/h book-pedling sites in order to replace a part of my youth that I thought I was missing.
However, not. Well, not unless I see the pump-maintenance one for a fiver.