Earlier in this little narrative I mentioned that at one period I had a lathe in the kitchen. This particular lathe was a magnificient machine of German manufacture and very accurate. It was about 5 inch centre height and was treadle-driven. It did have a counter-shaft for power driving and I think my father had visions of using a gas-engine to drive it. I feel that having a gas- engine as well as a lathe in the kitchen would have taxed the tolerance of the ladies of the house to the extreme — so treadle-driven it remained. The treadle mechanism was well balanced and, once going, was surprisingly easy to maintain speed – at least for an adult.
Unfortunately I was a young boy, and had to stand on a low box to operate cross-slides etc. However, standing on the box largely prevented me from reaching the treadle, so I had to fasten a big wooden block to the treadle in order to keep the thing going.
In this way I contrived to make several models including my first coal-fired locomotive, a 2½ inch gauge L.N.E.R J39 class engine. I must have been bloomin’ dedicated to treadle that lathe for countless hours, machining cast-iron wheels at slow speed. It was better than any track training for the legs, and may have even helped to give me a bit of speed when I eventually played on the wing at Rugby football.
What a good thing for me that Mamma was such an understanding person. Just picture her, trying to make meals for a large family in the kitchen, while a young model-maker was treadling away like mad on a noisy machine and making loads of swarf and chippings in the process. Ultimately even I felt constrained to box the lathe in, partly to keep the swarf from flying all over the place and partly to prevent curious hands from twiddling the lathe handles whenever they ventured near. Brother Sonny advised me to make the box out of 3/4 inch thick tonged and grooved boards. I believe he thought it would be easier for me, rather than making frames and covering them with plywood.
Maybe it was simpler but, my gosh, it weighed a ton. The top could fold back and the divided front panel folded round to lie against the end panels. There was also a little shelf that held a candle when working, because the centre gas-light of the kitchen tended to cast one’s own shadow on the lathe. After much hard work and many a cut finger, I did produce a tolerably practical box which, while no work of art, did the job it was intended to do and certainly taught me the value of making reasonably accurate drawings to work from.
Lathe work on a treadle-driven machine required that the tools and drills had to be kept really sharp, and I became quite adept at grinding them on our hand-driven grindstone. It was wonderful training and I still find it most useful after all these years.
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So we come to the close of this small vignette of some aspects of our family life during the period of my first twelve years or so.
I could go on about trips to the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum, visits to Gamage’s, Bassett- Lowke’s, Bond’s, Kennion’s and all the other suppliers of models and model-making gear, visits that were considered mandatory for small boys living in London. Many, many things and events were vastly different from today and although wonderful improvements have been made in lots of directions, I certainly don’t feel that everything is better, and family life is probably not the close-knit affair that it once was. Whether that is to the detriment of the folks involved is not for me to say, but undoubtedly my own early years were very happy and memorable, and the family were definitely responsible for that.