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Once I came home from work just as they leaving and in conversation Mr. Wakeling informed me that my coal stocks were running low. He said that he had ordered a ton of coke and a ton of coal for us. I thought that was generous and thanked him politely. A week later I realised it was not a gift at all. |
| When we received the large bill this nearly broke us. At this time I was earning nine pounds a week, which after deductions meanly I took home little less than seven pounds. Out of this there was the rent for the flat / garage which was two pounds, the fares and petrol, my lunch at work left little for housekeeping and what we needed to live on. You can imagine what a large fuel bill like this took out of our income. It took a long time to recover from this financially. | |
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During these early months I used to cycle from Pinner to my work in Acton, a round journey of twenty-eight miles. This became rather tiring especially in bad weather. So we decided to save up for a small, two-stroke petrol engine which could be mounted behind the saddle to drive against the rear tyre, easing the load on my legs yet costing very little to run on fuel. Petrol at that time was less than two shillings (10p) a gallon. Despite the large number of miles I travelled, neither the motor nor the bike let me down very often occasionally there were punctures which I was able to |
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| repair myself on route. If I drove the motor full throttle for too long the engine sometimes failed with the spark plug failing. I carried a spare but if it happened twice on one trip I could clear the points with a small file I carried. The worst Engine failure was at the points for this became a large |