No 228. That Old Petrol Pump.
“That old petrol pump, she
just keeps pumping, she just keeps pumping along!!”
Not so many around these days. Yet many a crofter might put
one in at the end of his barn to augment his living on hard ground. Sufficient
for small townships and villages, and small towns too, but town ones were
replaced by better pumps as time moved along, leaving the old hand-worked
petrol pump to soldier on in many a remote township. The reservoir tank below
ground was filled from heavy galvanised iron 50 gallon barrels, taken by horse
and cart from the pier in the case of the Stronsay of my youth, or just rolled
up the pier to Davie Chalmers store and his two pumps beside his coal yard. The
pumps were painted green, but you could have whatever colour you wished. Red
was good for obvious reasons.
There was no electricity to power them so petrol was
dispensed by a hand pump that worked with a seesaw backwards and forwards
movement. At the top of the pump assembly were two glass cylinders that contained
the petrol once it had been drawn up by the pump from the underground tank.
Sometimes, depending on the efficiency of the pump, it took
quite a few minutes to prime the cylinders. Then, showing that they were full,
the hose pipe could be turned on by a
top lever and filling the car, or the can as chance would have it, could
begin. The petrol flowed into the car by gravity. The operator had to keep his
or her arm going to keep the flow going, back and fore, back and fore, endless
in the case of a big car, or what we called a big car in these bygone days!!. .
There were no metering devices other than the glass
cylinders which were filled and emptied just so many times to give the required
gallons. Payment of course was by cash,
no credit cards then!!
Towards the end of the War, or rather soon after, we got
five gallon jerricans, near enough 25 litres, weighing about 60 lbs when full.
It is probably illegal to lift such a weight now under Health and Safety rules
and regulations!!! .
Their origin is
interesting. The Africa Corps Germans at El Alamein and other places had them,
and filled their armoured tanks with fuel many times faster than the
traditional British red two gallon square cans. Hence “jerricans”
These original
jerricans had a small tube inside the top which let in air so the flow was not
interrupted by gurgling snatches of air trying to replace the petrol as it was
poured out. Very efficient indeed, they worked very well and the flow was
rapid. They also did not have a screw-on top but a latched lid that snapped
open in one movement when needed. The modern ones still do but with our present
version without the inset tube as far as I have seen, they pour that much less
quickly. Hence the name of “jerrican” comes down to us. They were very
efficient, and I have an old one somewhere still in use for the sit-on
lawnmower.
The other petrol can
was the two gallon can, always red to my memory. There was a green Pratt
can, a red Shell can, a BP can, and no doubt many others . Standard size was two gallons. They had a
flexible steel wound hose pipe which screwed onto the top for pouring, capable
of being bent to whatever angle you wanted. There was always a few of these
cans in the garage.
At the Water Reservoir half way down to Whitehall Village
the engine which pumped the water uphill to our Whitehall Farm House had a
couple of two gallon cans in the wee shed.
Our father would take one down to the Village for re-filling as he
passed by and drop it off at the shed on his return to the farm, stopping the
engine as well. He also had a self timer when needed in only putting a measured
amount of petrol in the engine, having a can for that purpose.
We had other cans for petrol over the years. An empty five
gallon oil can could be used.
When petrol was either rationed or in short supply I had an
old 1927 Austin12 car that ran well on a mixture of half petrol, half tractor
paraffin. It did need to warm up to get the best results, but once warmed up on
petrol alone it would do 60 mph flat out on a level road, on the mixture it did
63.!!
There was a time when to clean an oily greasy tractor we
took about half a bucket of petrol and washed the machine. No smoking!!
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