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Thank you. While I understand the feasibility of a swaged water tube, where the steam pressure would tend to expand the swaged joints to effect a tightening of the seal, a swaged locomotive type boiler tube would seem to suggest the opposite unless the high temperature of the gases passing...

Thanks for this. So it seems that I was thinking back to front, and the gain came from water tube boilers permitting higher advantage to be taken from the energy in the combustion. It would be interesting to know more of the techniques of building such a design in 1870, did they have any form of...

It’s interesting to see the size of the boilers classified by horsepower, presumably there was some sort of expectation of a standard of performance for the turbines of the day. Really, another world presents itself, 150 years is a long time!

Would the late Fred Dibnah have approved? It all looks a bit of a contraption to me, but certainly seems to support the “workshop of the world” image that Birmingham earned during this period. I do wonder, though, if a Lancashire boiler could have done the job more efficiently.

Although the Hollerith machines were used internationally the ones in U.K. seemed to have been built in Letchworth Herts. The Powers-Samas works was in Croydon I think. British Tabulating Machine Co (I.e. Hollerith), and Powers merged (early 60s?) to form ICT, which then formed ICL upon merging...

Not only 80 column, but 21, and 40 column, and maybe more. (36? 65?) The smaller cards were used in Powers-Samas equipment and the 80 column as previously mentioned in IBM and Hollerith kit. 21 column was used by Co-op Societies to keep tally of the “divi”, the first 4 or 5 columns being the...

It is very pleasing to hear the comment about standards of safety, and I shall take comfort from that next time I am sitting in a Mk3 doing 85mph down the WCML behind a type 40!

These locomotives are now 80+ years old, and, millionaire philanthropists apart, it seems beyond the bounds of sensibility that any of the survivors could be expected to continue indefinitely earning their living on main lines. I think we should appreciate what we’ve got, and the efforts of...

I suggest that you keep clear of the Clyno, the factory closed in August 1929, so spares may be a little scarce. The Ariel, Bean and Swift may pose similar problems. Given the choice I think the Vauxhall Princeton is the one to go for. If it’s too dear, an Austin Heavy Twelve is almost...

Four shillings and nine pence is four and nine. I was there at the time, two bob a week pocket money! I capitalised GALLONS to emphasise that they were not litres.

Shell petrol at 4shillings and 9pence (less than £0.24) per GALLON from one of those pumps with a pipe across the footpath. A Ford 100E, most likely an Anglia, facing away from the camera, and a couple of pints of “stera” (sterilised milk) on the step. My mum used to say it made better rice pud...

I’ve been sailing racing dinghies since 1960, and I still am not Ben Ainslee, or even Uffa Fox. Have I been wasting my time?

I have investigated the cost of converting my Bentley to electric power and have been given a budgetary figure of about £60,000. Needless to say, I view this as a non starter, and have decided to await developments in terms of kits to convert classic cars gaining more market coverage. People are...

Perhaps things were a little easier for my family, in that there were only we twins, and both parents worked. There was always a car in the drive, even if some of the cars had been in quite a few other drives before Dad bought them! Because of my brother’s disability we made regular trips to...

I am another who took the 11+ while still ten and, born in May, started at the Grammar School in September of that year aged 10yrs 4mths. I have often wondered if it worked to my advantage or in the opposite way, but no doubt I shall never know. Perhaps I found sport hard due to being younger...

The early Rover P4 is quite easy to identify, but that little 1930s saloon is a real facer, it is certainly not an Austin Seven, shapes are all wrong. Morris Minor? No doubt it would have been swept away in the old car carnage caused by the “ten year test” introduced in 1960.

A 1937 Morris Eight Series 1 for £25! What are you waiting for!

No-one has mentioned Pratt’s, I wonder why? https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/pratts-petrol-pump-globe-replica-269603569

A way of getting you to pay for Super Shell instead of Shell-Mex!

1960 - 62 Ashley Sportiva seems to fit the shapes. http://ashleysportiva.weebly.com/ashley-bodyshell-models.html