Gibbo2286 wrote:One long forgotten Avery Hardol petrol pump in my village.
I like a bit of a challenge...eventually found it!
Came across an interesting tale of entrepreneurship and taking a risk along the way, linking with this little snippet from the
SunGreen website-Old Photos, Memories, and Family History of the Forest Of Dean
Across the road again to Watt’s the Ironmongers shop with a petrol pump outside, you have to wind the handle to get the petrol to flow and young lads can earn their pocket money here, on Friday evenings when school was over and all day Saturday the pay was 2s/6d . (1929-30 Memories-Geoff Wildin)
Ironmongery and fuel supply in the early days of motoring went hand in hand, but Watts, exploited opportunities and took risks to expand into other areas. This is a litttle extract from the Watts story from here
http://www.wattstvc.co.uk/about
Arthur Watts, who masterminded much of the growth of the Watts Group, was one of the country's great diesel pioneers. By 1912, the Company were agents for Triumph motorcycles and Ford vehicles. Watts first major involvement in commercial vehicles was in 1922 when Arthur borrowed £20,000 from the National Provincial after Lloyds Bank in Lydney turned him down. He used this money to purchase 200 chain driven Albions, that were surplus to requirement after the Great World War. These vehicles were located in Salonika, a Greek island. It must have been a major logistics exercise in those days to drive and tow these vehicles to the port of Piraeus, ship them to Newport docks and then bring them back to Lydney.
(maybe just a touch inaccurate to describe Salonika as an island though.....)
If this
inflation calculator is vaguely accurate Mr Watts for his speculative venture would be trooping into his bank today asking for nearly £800,000!
Regards Neil
You've spelled it the way many people pronounce it, I can't understand why they have such difficulty, it's nuclear pronounced New Cle-Ar.
It could take a longcase clock movement a perfect treat 
