National Rally - Scootacars?

[marcus]

Beautiful!

[AndrewG]

Your grandfather was Laurent Giles?  A hero.

His slide rule was about 5 ft long with a pop-up magnifier on the sliding index (forgot its proper name).

This sounds an ideal toy for an enthusiastic amateur....  When I first started in a shipyard, they still had one 'drum calculator' - this was a cylindrical slide rule that, by using spiral rather than straight slides, could work happily at four significant places and was the equivalent of a straight slide rule about 30ft long.  It lived in a velvet-lined box, looked a bit like a scroll Torah and apprentices like me had to be treat it with even more reverence.  Ah, I've found a picture of one:

[Bob Purton]

Ah! Thats a Fullers pattern slide rule, they come in a box that has a brass rod which drops into a bracket on the end of the box and the hole in the end of the handle drops over the rod thus holding it up at an angle for use. As many of you know I deal in scientific instruments for a living, scores of these have passed through my hands over the years. Find a good unscuffed one with a wooden carcus [some are bakalite] with box and support rod and you are looking at three to five hundred pounds. Most of them were produced by Stanley's.

[Big Al]

I think he did two. He came to a Burford when it was nigh on newly done. I think he also attended Tony Marshall's special which saw those who respected the 'Governer' make the effort to be there for the event. A happy occasion near Wolverton. No doubt someone will have pics of the car which is a thing of beauty.

[Chris Thomas]

Dear Bob

When I was a boy I lived just up the road from the Stanleys factory and one summer I worked there for a month. Very interesting and very old fashined instrument makers. My first full time job was working for a firm of consulting engineers in Victoria Street London and used a lot of the equipment that stanleys made. But I was never allowed to use one of the cylindrical slide rules. I think I still have my plastic slide rule and my abacus.

Chris Thomas

[richard]

friend woods car appeared at an NMCR post Burford. i missed Burford Rallys by a year or two i think . i have a feeling it might have been a weston park rally .dont think i have ever heard reference to Tony's " specials "

fascinating where some threads end up . i would be very proud to have ancestors who are respected by others so much. i don't THINK i do , in this way anyway 

[Stuart Cyphus]

http://www.national-microcar-rally.co.uk/can_i_come,_too.htm

 Be this the car? If so an early RCN had this as the featured car. 

[Bob Purton]

Chris, all those old firms are gone now, theodalites gave way to laser, sextants replaced by sat nav. Engineering? Isnt that something they do in other countries?

[Big Al]

http://www.national-microcar-rally.co.uk/can_i_come,_too.htm

 Be this the car? If so an early RCN had this as the featured car. 

Memory one, old age nil. There it is at Tony's event.

[Barry]

Stanley may have closed down UK, gone to France, closed down France and then moved to China but others have not.
If you buy a tape measure, buy a Fisco tape measure.  Still Made in England in Rayleigh Essex.

http://www.fisco.co.uk/default.php

Now owned by our great friends in Sweden but manufacturing in England.

[Big Al]

Automated measurement and calculation maybe great but it does not get round the problem of it being used by people who do not understand the problem they are attempting to resolve. To use a sextant or sliderule you needed to know what you were asking and therefore had also already calculated the approximate answer. How often do you hear someone use modern technology to get the wrong answer? There is no substitute for intelligence and time served skills. A bit of paper after short cuts does not mean you can compete with one of these 'traditional engineers' who were time served. A huge mistake made by accountants who run (ran) our businesses. It is the same as being a botanist without learning latin.

[marcus]

Your grandfather was Laurent Giles?  A hero.

His slide rule was about 5 ft long with a pop-up magnifier on the sliding index (forgot its proper name).

This sounds an ideal toy for an enthusiastic amateur....  When I first started in a shipyard, they still had one 'drum calculator' - this was a cylindrical slide rule that, by using spiral rather than straight slides, could work happily at four significant places and was the equivalent of a straight slide rule about 30ft long.  It lived in a velvet-lined box, looked a bit like a scroll Torah and apprentices like me had to be treat it with even more reverence.  Ah, I've found a picture of one:

Yup, that's the one! Although he died over 40 years ago he is still respected in nautical circles which is nice to know.
He had all sorts of drawing equipment but cannot recall ever seeing a Fuller's Pattern slide rule, but I reckon he probably had one but kept it safe from us young 'uns.

[marcus]

friend woods car appeared at an NMCR post Burford. i missed Burford Rallys by a year or two i think . i have a feeling it might have been a weston park rally .dont think i have ever heard reference to Tony's " specials "

fascinating where some threads end up . i would be very proud to have ancestors who are respected by others so much. i don't THINK i do , in this way anyway  

It's nice, but one of his, and thus mine, Elizabeth Fry was on the back of the old £5 note, before they banished engineers, reformers, writers and other USEFUL people from banknotes and replaced them with bankers and bean counters!

[Big Al]

Is that the same Fry's as S.F. Fry and Stephen Fry?

I am related to the first person to use the gormless expression as a Homo Sapien. I claim my prize of a working polystyrene steam compound engine.

[Rob Dobie]

Cor! All the Rumcar people with the same ancesters. Oh, we are, came from monkeys didn't we?