News sheet 20 Winter 2015

The
Trojan Museum
Trust
Patron Tim Schenken
News Sheet No. 20
Winter 2015
Dear Friends,
I must start this winter news sheet with the sad news of the death of Edna
Calder. Edna started working for Lambretta Concessionaires in the
1950's as secretary to Peter Agg, but she quickly rose within the
company. Lambretta Concessionaires bought Trojan in 1959 and by 1961
Edna was a director of the Lambretta Trojan Group. I have heard from
many people that Peter Agg came up with the ideas but it was Edna who
put them into action. This created a very successful team which ran
Trojan through it's many changing rolls from an engineers and vehicle
maker to a property owner and developer. She was also with Peter as a
director of Suzuki GB again proving to be a great success. Edna was a
real trailblazer standing out as a lone women director in a business world
almost completely dominated by men, and she had worked her way to
that position purely by her own skills and talents. On a personal level
Edna was a great help in answering the many questions I had about all
aspects of Trojan's history and I very much appreciated the support she
gave to the Trust. She will be fondly remembered by many former Trojan
workers and all who knew her.
______________________
The year seems to have flashed by for the Trust with quite a number of
donations of Trojan items. Early in the year I travelled up to Chesterfield
to collect two Post War Trojan two stroke engines and various other van
spares which will be very helpful in the restorations of some of the Trust's
vehicles. Then a great condition Hounsfield camp bed was donated,
which has seen active service in Egypt during the Second World War. It's
lovely to know the history of such items, it lifts them from something
ordinary to something very special. A curious Trojan Van arrived by post,
see the picture below. It measures about 6 six inches in length and the
body is cast in three parts in lead, and so is very heavy. The wheels do
turn but the model is almost certainly not a toy, it is made by D.H. Todd
and Sons of Burnley and it is felt that it was probably an advertising item
for Brooke Bond Tea dating from the 1930's, possibly to sit on the shop
counter.
An number of interesting photos were kindly donated including one
showing Trojan workers apparently assembling Bundy 500 outboard
motors. These engines were manufactured in Italy and imported by
Trojan in the early 60's, so whether this picture shows us that they came
into the country in a dismantled state or whether it simply shows that all
the motors were stripped down and checked prior to sale. If any Trojan
workers can shed any light on this we would be very grateful.
The Trust, with the financial backing of a very generous friend of the
Trust, was involved in bidding in an auction to try and buy a Trojan RE
Saloon to add to the Trust's collection. Sadly the car was withdrawn from
sale during the actual bidding, though we have placed an offer with the
owner in case he should think favourably towards the Trust preserving
this very rare vehicle. It would certainly be great to be able to complete
the Trust's RE collection by adding a saloon to the Blackdown Tourer
and Exmoor Tourer the Trust already owns.
!
I was contacted by an Agricultural Research establishment in
Hertfordshire who had found an unusual Trojan made instrument in their
archives. The instrument resembles a telescope and is mounted on a
Tripod.
They said that it was not a theodolite or a range finding device, and their
only theory was that it was a sighting device which was used at their
institute to help in the laying out of agricultural test fields for seed trials.
However they don't believe that it was necessarily designed for that
purpose. It is felt that is is probably some sort of field gun sighting device
but we have absolutely no records of it in our archives and we don't even
know whether it dates from the First or Second World War.
If it was made during the wars then it almost certainly would not be a
Trojan designed item but simply an item which the War Department
asked Trojan to make and presented them with the plans and
specifications. If it does date from the First World War then it would be
the first item to have turned up from this period and so would be a very
exciting find. We have already tried the various artillery and army
engineering museums without any success in identifying it, so please if
any of you have any ideas about this instrument then do please get in
touch.
I received the following letter and photograph from John Kennedy who
inspired by the Trojan Silage Cutter featured in the last issue wrote to fill
in some of the background behind this product. Thank you John it's great
to fit the Cutter into it's part of agricultural history
“Prior to my retirement, I was involved in Agricultural Education and
worked on farms after leaving school. I am writing because Silage
Making as opposed to hay making was really just getting going. This was
in the late 1940's and early 1950's. The long grass was cut with a
reciprocating knife blade and we used a then new Ferguson (grey in
colour) tractor with a mower to cut the grass, which then lay in swathes
across the field, ideally for twenty four hours or more to get rid of some
of the moisture! In our case we then used the same tractor with a buck
rake (a set of metal curved shaped prongs) to reverse along the lines of
mown grass and to pick up perhaps 5 to 10 hundredweight before lifting
it and transporting the material to a pit located near to the farm buildings.
Eddie Long Farm Manager
Northwood Farm, Chorley
1952.
Chain Harrowing a field
prior to sowing.
The silage had to be spread by using a two or four pronged fork to try and
get rid of any pockets of air in the clamp. It was hard, almost back
breaking work. An alternative was to drive a low loader machine along
swaths of cut grass, when it was often delivered on to a four wheeled flat
bed trailer. When this arrived at the site of the clamp this heavy and still
rather wet grass had to be thrown off the trailer on to the pit or clamp
(very hard work) hence the development of the tractor mounted buck
rake described earlier. Sometimes, but not always, to ensure good
fermentation and subsequently good silage, a watering can of molasses
(sugar) was poured on to the grass going in to the pit, or clamp. The
clamp was rolled by the same tractor to get rid of any pockets of air as it
was being made. Finally the clamp was covered up with black plastic
sheeting and when straw bales became available a layer or layers of these
were put on the sheet. Pockets of air were bad news because then the
fermentation was wrong and your neighbours soon knew because the
smell from a badly fermenting pit carried for several miles!
I never used a Trojan Silage cutter but did use a long single bladed knife
to cut out blocks of up to about half a tonne at a time of the final silage
material for feeding to the cattle in the autumn and winter. The power
driven silage cutters certainly made the job easier, but I don't believe
many were sold, because farmers quickly learnt that self feeding cattle at
the silage face behind an electrified wire was much easier. Herd size of
dairy cows was probably no more than 10 to 20 cows at the time, but now
much larger. Silage is still an integral part of the cows daily in take of
bulk food.
I am writing this because I thought that Trojan News sheet readers might
like to know why the Trojan Silage Cutter and similar machines had such
a short life”
____________________
I'm pleased to announce that the latest Trust book is now in print 'The
GPO's Trojan Vans' by Paul Wood, ISBN 9780956222152 This little
book goes through the story of the various Trojan vans owned and used
by the GPO's Royal Mail and Telephone Engineers. It gives the back
ground leading up to the decision to trial the vans as well as first hand
memories from the authors father, who was one of the first postman
drivers of Trojan vehicles. A great book packed with detailed
information. Copies are available from myself for £3.50 plus £1.20
postage, cheques made payable to the Trojan Museum Trust. All profits
from this book will be used to restore the Trust post war Post Office Van.
This strange invention by Leslie Hounsfield dates from 1909 before he
started Trojan Ltd. It did not prove very successful.
You will probably remember from past news sheets that the Trust is keen
to track down any information on cable car systems which used the
Trojan made gondolas. Recently we have discovered that there was a
second major system built in Canada. We knew about the Expo 67 system
built in Montreal in 1967 but not about the Alpine Way system built in
Toronto in 1966. I have seen some evidence that at least one gondola was
rescued when this system was dismantled in the mid 90's but it would be
great to trace a surviving gondola. We have a one off opportunity, coming
up in the spring, to get a gondola across the Atlantic for free, so if any of
our Canadian friends might know how to track one down I would love to
hear from you.
I hope that you have found this news sheet interesting and do please get
in touch if you can help in any of our queries or if the Trust can help you.
I wish you and your family a very merry and blessed Christmas.
David Hambleton
5 St Johns Close, Fyfield. Oxon OX13 5LP.
O1865 390124 after 8.30pm. [email protected]
www.trojanmuseumtrust.org