MOSELEY MEMORIES Is horsepower for you abstract or
real? When James Watt invented the measurement “horsepower” in the 1780s on the other side of Birmingham, it was as a sales device. He wanted to show reluctant owners of coal mines that instead of employing a pair of tired nags walking in a circle round a windlass, a Boulton & Watt 4-horsepower steam engine could pump up more water from their pits, from greater depths and for as much as 24 hours at a time, while using fuel they actually produced into the bargain! And now? We measure all forms of power in watts (more usually kilowatts, because a watt is so small) and young people today have no idea about the horsepower of a car’s engine. Sad, but it is an abstract concept (by the way, 1 hp = 745.7W).The postwar world was different. For us, horse power was all too real, in all its varied forms. Daily, we had two regular rounds, when fresh milk and bread were delivered door-todoor from horses and carts. One great advantage they had was that horses are intelligent power plants, in a way that modern ideas of artificial intelligence could never match. The milkman would arrive at the bottom of Farquhar Road and take the number of bottles he needed off the cart and put them on the doorsteps. As he walked to the next stopping point, his horse would take the cart along and stop at the appropriate house. Between its ears was an information processor which learnt which houses they delivered to and which they passed. Apart from
Horse-drawn carts and vans were
so. Leighton Road is on the top of the
an occasional companionly word or
normal to us then. For bigger loads,
Moseley ridge and the sewers did not
“cluck, cluck,” the milkman gave
vehicles would have a pair of horses,
drain well, so they had to be flushed
no instructions, picked up no reins,
with
companionship
out on a regular basis. The main
and walked all the way round until
between them. Best of all for us kids,
manhole was just by our house, outside
reaching the bottom of Tudor Road,
though, was the real joy when the
Warren Avenue. A large tanker cart
accompanied by his organic automatic
water cart arrived every six months or
would come, drawn by two enormous
an
obvious
vehicle.
COMMUNITY
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