Briggate, 1943

[BLAKEY]

somme1916 wrote: I can well believe that Blakey.....the devil's teeth to sort them out no doubt,under such conditions.Bit like the side winkers on my grandads moggy thou.......when the kids would try and grab them at standing traffic lights ! pesky urchins.......... Yes indeed, and quite apart from the antics of the urchins those semaphore signals were always troublesome. Often they became sprained for one reason or another, and would then either refuse to emerge from their slots, or once out would stay out - although in the latter circumstance the little internal light would go out once the switch in the car was centralised. Happy days indeed, and at least they were better than "window down and hand signal" I suppose.

[electricaldave]

I shall relate a tale that happened to a friend trying to get those roller canopies to operate.The person in question used to work at the butchers that was at the side of Kirkgate market just next to all the bus stops.It was a hot sunny summer Saturday afternoon, tarmac was softening in the sun.The boss told our hero to lower the canopies as the sun was shining in on the meat display in the windows.So, he does as he is told - he picked up the pole with the hook thing on the end, steps outside and locates the hook into the eyebolt and tried to pull down the canopy.Did I say it was hot? Oh yes it was and it was also crowded - as always, with people waiting at the bus stops - it was much too hot to be doing any work, but just about hot enough to watch some other poor sucker working.Our hero gave the pole a good pull and suddenly nothing happened, having done this a couple of times, this seemed to have drawn a lot of half disinterested eyes in his direction. A couple of almost full buses had arrived and added to the number of idle observers.Having felt all this attention focused on him, our hero gave the pole one really good yank. The screw holding the hook end snapped, sending him staggering backwards, he lost his footing at the kerb edge and landed on his backside in the middle of the road in front of the stationary buses still holding the pole vertical and looking like a giant skewered party nibble.He dropped the pole and ran inside with a face redder than the contents of the window display, I don't think he's lived it down yet, and that was over 30 years ago.

[somme1916]

electricaldave wrote: I shall relate a tale that happened to a friend trying to get those roller canopies to operate.The person in question used to work at the butchers that was at the side of Kirkgate market just next to all the bus stops.It was a hot sunny summer Saturday afternoon, tarmac was softening in the sun.The boss told our hero to lower the canopies as the sun was shining in on the meat display in the windows.So, he does as he is told - he picked up the pole with the hook thing on the end, steps outside and locates the hook into the eyebolt and tried to pull down the canopy.Did I say it was hot? Oh yes it was and it was also crowded - as always, with people waiting at the bus stops - it was much too hot to be doing any work, but just about hot enough to watch some other poor sucker working.Our hero gave the pole a good pull and suddenly nothing happened, having done this a couple of times, this seemed to have drawn a lot of half disinterested eyes in his direction. A couple of almost full buses had arrived and added to the number of idle observers.Having felt all this attention focused on him, our hero gave the pole one really good yank. The screw holding the hook end snapped, sending him staggering backwards, he lost his footing at the kerb edge and landed on his backside in the middle of the road in front of the stationary buses still holding the pole vertical and looking like a giant skewered party nibble.He dropped the pole and ran inside with a face redder than the contents of the window display, I don't think he's lived it down yet, and that was over 30 years ago. Ha Ha....how embarassing ! Modern ones of course,can be operated electrically,like roller/shutter doors hopefully avoiding such unfortunate mechanical malaise....

[Johnny39]

I seem to remember one like a very long starting handle which you twisted very rapidly to bring down or send back the blind.